Dick's Sporting Goods 2012 Annual Report Download - page 28

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have generated higher same store sales and sales per transaction than our full-service model. The
Company had 174 and 131 shared service footwear models at the end of fiscal 2012 and 2011,
respectively.
Brand Partnerships. We carry a wide variety of well-known brands, including adidas, Callaway Golf,
Columbia, Nike, Remington, TaylorMade-adidas Golf, The North Face, Under Armour and Wilson. In
addition to the cost efficiencies of shared investments with our brand partners, we seek to leverage our
partnerships to offer authenticity and credibility to our customers, while differentiating us from our
competitors. We partner with our brands on important marketing initiatives and product launches, in
addition to leveraging athletes that the brands bring to us for our marketing campaigns. Our brand
partnerships also provide us with access to exclusive products and allow us to collaboratively develop
enhancements that differentiate our customers’ shopping experience, such as our brand shops, which
provide our customers with a wider and deeper selection of products from our key brands, or
co-branded microsites to enhance our customers’ online experience.
The following table represents the Company’s brand shops for the periods presented:
Fiscal Year
Brand Shops 2012 2011
Nike 171 105
Under Armour 107 48
The North Face 91 83
Omni-channel Development. We are upgrading site functionality, expanding content, investing in new
capabilities and beginning to leverage our store network to provide customers with an enhanced
shopping experience that enables our customers to buy and receive products where, when and how they
want. We believe that leveraging all of our sales channels to deliver a consistent, seamless and
high-quality customer experience across our stores, on the web and via mobile technology will
differentiate us from our online-only competitors.
Private Brands. We also offer a wide variety of private brands such as adidas baseball, DBX, Epic,
Field & Stream, Fitness Gear, K¨ oppen, Maxfli, Nickent, Nishiki, Quest, Reebok (performance apparel),
Slazenger (golf and racquets), Top-Flite, Umbro (performance equipment, footwear and apparel) and
Walter Hagen. Our private brands and other exclusive products offer our customers products that they
cannot find anywhere else. Our private brands also offer exceptional value and quality to our customers
at each price point and obtain higher gross margins than we obtain on sales of comparable branded
products. Our private brands are designed and developed to offer our customers differentiated
assortments from our competitors. We have invested in a development and procurement staff that
continually sources products targeted specifically to our customers’ needs.
Retail Concept Development. In fiscal 2012, we accelerated our research efforts by opening two True
Runner stores, a specialized footwear concept. In fiscal 2013, we plan to open additional True Runner
locations and to introduce a dedicated Field & Stream store, a specialized outdoor concept. These
highly specialized concept stores enable us to connect with dedicated athletes in their own element,
giving us valuable insight into key merchandise categories that we can apply across our entire network.
We also opened an enhanced Golf Galaxy store in fiscal 2012 that delivers an innovative and highly
interactive shopping experience. We plan to open one new and one relocated prototype in fiscal 2013,
giving us a new growth path for our Golf Galaxy brand.
Strategic Marketing. Our historical marketing strategy was designed to promote our selection of brand
name products at competitive prices and consisted largely of newspaper advertising supplemented by
direct mail and seasonal use of local and national television and radio. While we continue to market
our merchandise assortment through traditional channels, we have reduced our newspaper advertising