Dive Brief:
- Dick’s Sporting Goods is quietly scaling back its outdoors business, with just three stores listed on Public Lands’ website, down from eight that it was still running in November. The remaining locations are in Framingham, Massachusetts; Woodbury, Minnesota; and Cranberry Twp., Pennsylvania.
- Moosejaw, which Dick’s acquired in 2023 from Walmart, appears to have shuttered its remaining three stores as well, which were located in Salt Lake City; Bentonville, Arkansas; and Birmingham, Michigan. A trip to that retailer’s website now leads to Public Lands.
- Dick’s integrated the teams for Moosejaw and Public Lands in 2023, but at the time said it would continue to run separate stores and e-commerce sites for both retailers. Dick’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the moves.
Dive Insight:
In a challenging time for the outdoors industry, Dick’s Sporting Goods is scaling back its outdoors business, including all but eliminating the Moosejaw name.
Shoppers redirected from Moosejaw’s former website now see a message on Public Lands saying it has “joined forces with Moosejaw to bring you gear from all the best brands, the same sweet loyalty program, the hottest deals and a 1% giveback that goes towards protecting our public lands for all.”
While Dick’s did not immediately respond to questions about the date of Moosejaw’s last three store closures, in its 10-Q filing for the quarter ending Aug. 3 the company said it closed the brand’s remaining locations during the 2024 fiscal year.
Dick’s has had an interesting history with its outdoors business, limiting gun sales in its former subsidiary Field & Stream in 2018, selling off or shuttering that banner’s remaining locations a few years later and in 2024 divesting the entire business to two country music artists. Around the same time, Dick’s was pulling back on the hunt assortment in its own stores.
Public Lands, which opened in 2021, is one of Dick’s more recent efforts to engage with the outdoors shopper, with an emphasis less on hunting and more on camping and other active pursuits. The banner was in expansion mode in previous years and just last year Dick’s CFO Navdeep Gupta said the company was “really excited about the outdoor category.”
Nevertheless, it’s been a tough couple of years for outdoors retailers, with layoffs hitting many of the most well-known names in the space, including REI, Patagonia and L.L. Bean. Specialized outdoors retailer Orvis in the fall also laid off 8% of its workforce amid plans to close stores and shutter its well-known catalog. The recent downturn comes after outdoors retailers boomed during the pandemic.