![]() With the retail market and the industry as a whole in decline, the accelerated release model has very quickly been proven unsustainable. Once upon a time retailers could Net Down and still turn a profit. Good news…all those near-zero profit drivers, they still count in the market share reports (Dick’s doesn’t provide info to Golf Datatech, but most other retail outlets do). So while selling a few R1s might clear some shelf space, it doesn’t actually make Dick’s any real money. Having a huge selection of gear, particularly at discount prices isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the consumer, but it’s a huge problem for Dick’s right now.īecause of the way most major manufacturers handle price cuts (a process known as Net Down), Dick’s (and everyone else) only makes much in the way of an actual profit when it sells the very latest and greatest.įor the rest of it (the 6+ month old stuff)…the cost of those discounts was already applied to the purchase of the new gear. That number includes an assortment of standard models (R1, RBZ, RBZ 2, SLDR, SLDR S, JetSpeed), Pro & TP, black and white, and for good measure, a few Dick’s exclusive’s like the Gloire and RBZ SL. Net Down to Zero ProfitsĪt any given Dick’s you’re likely to find upwards of 10 different TaylorMade drivers still on shelves. Couple that surplus with another estimate that puts Dick’s TaylorMade sales down by upwards of 40% from last year, and well, it’s pretty easy to pinpoint the source of the congestion. I spoke with two senior level industry experts yesterday who estimate that a full 60% of Dick’s golf inventory is tied up in TaylorMade. They did, and they got stuck holding the bag for a metric shit-ton of TaylorMade gear. For a company the size of Dick’s Sporting Goods TaylorMade is their Costco, they save when they buy in bulk. ![]() The thing is, a business like Dick’s doesn’t buy as they go. You can absorb a bad quarter or two, but you can really only blame the weather for so long. The decision to drop the next big thing ahead of schedule is made for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the need to make the balance sheet look palatable for investors. Nobody consciously set out to destroy the golf equipment industry. In golf, just like everything else, sometimes shit just happens. In fairness, nobody…not TaylorMade, not Callaway or anybody else plans on a six-month-release cycle. Golfers don’t need to buy new equipment, and so for now, they’re not. We have no faith that what we can buy today won’t be cheaper tomorrow.Īs one industry contact recently said to me, “golf equipment isn’t like toilet paper. It’s half the reason golfers have stopped buying equipment. When lifecycles drop to six months and the discounting starts after only 3 or 4 months, it’s a huge problem. It’s not killing anybody to slash prices and clear out a literal handful of PING and Titleist drivers after a one-and-a-half to two-year lifecycle. Selling off a little bit of inventory at a discount price isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Years of accelerated product cycles and equally accelerated consumer discounts have finally caught up with golf’s biggest retailer (Dick’s + the Dick’s-owned Golf Galaxy), and just as quickly it’s catching up with the industry’s two largest manufacturers…and everyone else too. Those who are being kind simply blame the equipment companies. ![]() The fingers that aren’t being pointed at Dick’s are trained squarely on TaylorMade, and to a lesser extent, Callaway. Either way, it’s a bad situation.Īs is usually the case when bad things happen, there is plenty of finger pointing right now. My sources put the number at roughly 550. ![]() That is, unfortunately, an undisputed fact.ĮSPN’s Darren Rovell reported the number of people who lost their job at over 500. That’s an opinion, but it’s an opinion shared by every last person I know in this industry.Īs if we needed more evidence that the system is in need of recalibration, Dick’s Sporting Goods, the #1 sporting goods retailer in the USA, very recently fired 100% of the PGA Professionals on staff. ![]() The golf equipment industry’s retail model is broken. ![]()
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