Key Points:
- Dick’s Sporting Goods reported solid top-line results that matched Advan’s observed metrics.
- As we’ve seen across retail, traffic began to decelerate in April as we moved to the backside of tax refunds and as gas prices became viewed as “higher-for-longer.” Weather and a difficult comp also weighed.
- Advan+Claude observations fully support management’s statements that the House of Sport locations are contributing to comp growth and outperforming traditional Dick’s locations.
The Dick’s Sporting Goods brand reported a +6.0% comp-sales increase (inclusive of dot.com), which was +5.5% ticket and +0.5% transaction. Advan observed spend show’s dot.com sales up +9%, which would add +350bps to the comp, leaving the stores-only comp increase at around +2.5%. Less the Advan observed store ticket of +3.5%, puts store comp-transactions at -1.0% and in-line with observed traffic (-1.1%).
Per the start of FQ2, as we’ve seen across retail, traffic began to decelerate in April as we moved to the backside of tax refunds and as gas prices became viewed as “higher-for-longer.” Weather and a difficult comp also weighed. Dick’s has actively pulsed advertising around the World Cup, and May (for whatever reason) may be a shallow period ahead of the June 12th start of the games, with a knock-on effect of softer traffic currently.
We’ve read some sell-side notes stating that the House of Sport (HoS) is experiencing traffic declines and there was an inference to that on the call’s Q&A. On the HoS, CEO Lauren Hobart said, “From a financial standpoint, we're thrilled with the results, and we do see comp store growth in years-3 and years-4 even. So we've been able to confirm that. So they open fully and they continue to grow, and they're driving strong sales and profitability and ROI. So really, terrific financial results.”
Using Advan+Claude, the 2024 HoS locations are strongly outperforming the ’23 class in observed traffic. Early 2025 HoS stores are just entering the comp base now, and so, while down vs. 2024’s class, that’s just seasoning. FQ4 will be another good test as the 10 HoS locations opened in FQ3’25 enter the comp-base. That said, based upon our Advan + Claude analysis, and as shown in the three panels below, there is no evidence of traffic declines on an apples-to-apples basis, and Advan’s data fully supports Hobart’s statements.
