Dick's Sporting Goods is rolling out new deep-discount stores as retailers start to wade through their massive piles of unsold goods

• Dick's Sporting Goods is opening two new kinds of stores, and they both focus on discounts.
• Overtime stores are outlets that sell sports apparel and equipment at up to 75% off, while Dick's Sporting Goods Warehouses are temporary stores with even deeper discounts.
• The emphasis on discounts comes at a time when retailers are figuring out what to do with inventory that went unsold while stores were closed in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Dick's Sporting Goods is doubling down on discounts in the time of coronavirus.

It announced this week that it would begin operating two new concept stores: Overtime, which are outlet stores that sell sports apparel and equipment at up to 75% off, and Dick's Sporting Goods Warehouse, which are temporary locations offering deeper discounts.

The first Overtime locations opened Wednesday in Plainville, Connecticut, and Hagerstown, Maryland, with a location in Philadelphia to come on June 24.

A webpage for Overtime describes it as having the "deepest discounts on the top brands in sports," with products from Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, and Patagonia, among others.

Warehouse locations opened on Monday in Avon, Indiana; St. Peters, Missouri; North Olmstead, Ohio; South Hills, Pennsylvania; and Brookfield, Wisconsin. The stores, which are slated to be open for six months, will similarly offer big discounts on top brands, up to 90% off.

Dick's is growing its discount store fleet at an opportune time. Many retailers are facing a glut of inventory after being forced to temporarily close stores in response to the spread of the coronavirus. While some, like Gap Inc., are packing away clothing to bring it back to stores at the same time next year, others are discounting heavily in order to move merchandise as quickly as possible.

Some analysts say Dick's model helps it to avoid the need to discount.

"The outlets and warehouse stores remove the need for Dick's Sporting Goods stores or the Dick's website to aggressively discount product," Susquehanna analysts said in a note this week, according to Retail Dive. "The outlets and warehouses also provide brand partners such as [Nike] an alternative to off-price channel boxes such as TJX and [Ross Stores]. We expect these concepts to further strengthen [Dick's] relationship with key brands and continue to grow."

Dick's Sporting Goods now has 11 outlet and clearance stores in nine states, having opened clearance centers in Utica, Michigan; Spartanburg, South Carolina; and Racine, Wisconsin; in 2019.