As Larger Retailers Downsize Square Footage, Dick's Sporting Goods Expands
By Hannah Ash, contributing writer
New Dick’s Stores Add Value, Add Channels To Large Showrooms
Dick’s Sporting Goods is expanding, with plans to nearly double its current store count to 800 by the end of 2017. As many big-box retailers are starting to shrink away from occupying large amounts of showroom square footage, Dick’s Sporting Goods is holding strong to its roots. Instead of following in its competitor’s footsteps and offering limited, highly customized selections in smaller, more convenient locations, Dick’s Sporting Goods is moving toward offering more, in one centralized location. The omni-channel retailer’s newest store opening on April18th at McCandless Crossing in Pittsburgh, PA is indicative of the new, larger format store that the leading sporting goods retailers seems focused on now.
With over 50,000 square foot of retail space, this newest showroom does not appear to be downsizing anything. Added customer-centric features include: a running studio with event center, expanded brand shops, more lacrosse and soccer offerings as well an expanded checkout system. Even as Dick’s Sporting Goods continues to score high marks for omni-channel retailing, the sports retailer doesn’t seem willing to break away from its winning “store-within-a-store” format. According to an SEC filing in 2013, “We believe our ‘store-within-a-store’ concept creates a unique shopping environment by combining the convenience, broad assortment and competitive prices of large format stores with the brand names, deep product selection, and customer service of a specialty store.”
As Dick’s Sporting Goods takes a firm stance on its future plans to keep square footage steady, unsurprisingly, it also looks to capitalize on all that retail space and make it even more profitable for shareholders. Since 2012, Dick’s has been shipping items to customers directly from stores (instead of from a centralized warehouse), has enabled online purchasing to in-store pick-up and is working on a plan to enable ship-to-store for customers (breaking down barriers for customers wanting to purchase larger ticket items such as treadmills that come with large shipping fees). “Our goal is to solve the ultimate retail challenge: the right product in the right size and color at the lowest cost, priced by channel and region, available at exactly the right time in exactly the right quantity and, of course, located right where the customer wants it,” previously commented Matthew Lynch, CIO and SVP for Dick’s Sporting Goods. In offering its customers several different stores within a single store, Dick’s is ahead of the pack when it comes to creating the ultimate experience in fluidity for customers right at the brick-and-mortar — no need to shop around elsewhere or even browse online (unless they, of course, would prefer to take it online).