Hibbett - Q2 2024

Executive Summary

• Q2 FY2024 net sales were $374.9M, down 4.6% YoY, with comparable sales -7.3%; diluted EPS was $0.85 as Hibbett reiterated full‑year FY2024 guidance, citing resilient footwear demand and a challenging, promotional environment.
• Against public consensus context, EPS of $0.85 beat by $0.11 while revenue of $374.9M missed by $1.23M; S&P Global consensus was unavailable via our data tools (attempted retrieval).
• Gross margin contracted ~160 bps YoY to 32.8% on lower average product margins (~215 bps) and occupancy deleverage (~100 bps), partly offset by lower freight/logistics costs; SG&A deleveraged ~200 bps to 25.3% on lower sales and wage/incentive/medical/data costs.
• Management reiterated FY2024 guidance first lowered in Q1 (EPS $7.00–$7.75, GM% 33.9–34.0, Op margin 7.4–7.8), and highlighted back‑to‑school strength, premium footwear consistency, and market share gains as catalysts heading into 2H (52% of annual sales expected in 2H).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Strong start to back‑to‑school and positive response to new product launches; premium footwear remained consistent, supporting share gains in underserved markets (“we believe we continue to gain market share”).
• Guidance reaffirmed for FY2024 despite macro headwinds; management emphasized long‑term positioning and strong brand partnerships enabling compelling assortments.
• Transcript tone underscored execution in a challenging environment with focus on omni‑channel initiatives to drive customer acquisition and engagement in 2H.

What Went Wrong

• Comparable sales -7.3% YoY, with brick‑and‑mortar -7.7% and e‑commerce -5.2%; total net sales fell 4.6% YoY.
• Gross margin contracted ~160 bps YoY (lower average product margin ~215 bps from elevated promotions; occupancy deleverage ~100 bps), and SG&A deleveraged ~200 bps on lower volume and wage/incentive/medical/data costs, compressing operating margin to 4.3%.
• Inventory remained elevated YoY (+17.6%) though down slightly vs Q1; management expects continued promotions and more selective consumers at least through Q3 as inventory normalizes in 2H.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings, and welcome to Hibbett's second quarter fiscal 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Gavin Bell, Vice President, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Gavin Bell (VP of Investor Relations)

Good morning. Please note that we have prepared a slide deck that we will refer to during our prepared remarks. The slide deck is available on Hibbett.com via the Investor Relations link, found at the bottom of the homepage or at investors.Hibbett.com and under the News and Events section. These materials may help you follow along with our discussion this morning. Before I begin, I'd like to remind everyone that some of management's comments during this conference call are forward-looking statements. These statements, which reflect the company's current views with respect to future events and financial performance, are made in reliance on the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are subject to uncertainties and risks. It should be noted that the company's future results may differ materially from those anticipated and discussed in the forward-looking statements.

Some of the factors that could cause or contribute to such differences have been described in the news release issued this morning and are noted on Slide 2 of the earnings presentation and the company's annual report on Form 10-K and in other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We refer you to those sources for more information. Also, to the extent non-GAAP financial measures are discussed on this call, you may find a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures on our website. Lastly, I'd like to point out that management's remarks during this conference call are based on information and understandings believed accurate as of today's date, August 25th, 2023. Because of the time-sensitive nature of this information, it's the policy of Hibbett to limit the archived replay of this conference call webcast to a period of 30 days.

The participants on this call are Mike Longo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jared Briskin, Executive Vice President, Merchandising, Bob Volke, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Bill Quinn, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Digital, and Ben Knighten, Senior Vice President of Operations. I'll now turn the call over to Mike Longo.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Good morning, and welcome to the Hibbett, Inc. Q2 earnings call. For those of you following along on the slides, I'm on slide three, entitled Overview. We're pleased to report a solid performance for the second quarter. While the current environment remains challenging, we're proud of our ability to execute our strategy and reiterate our guidance for the year. Our consumers are still dealing with higher costs for essential items like food, utilities, and gas, and thus have reduced some of their discretionary spending. While our sales have been affected by this, we've continued to focus on the aspects of our business that we can control.

While we have a proven business model that has served us well through all economic cycles, and we remain focused on our competitive advantages, which I'll remind you, are a compelling product mix, a superior level of customer service, a best-in-class Omni-channel shopping experience, and our strategic positioning in underserved markets. Our footwear business remained consistent in this environment, and we're encouraged by our customers' response to our product line. Coupled with our kickoff to the back-to-school season in Q2, we landed sales in the range of our guidance for the quarter. With the support of our major brand partners, we remain focused on providing a compelling quality product assortment that appeals to our customers and meets current, more selective demand trends.

We believe in this environment is more important than ever to continue to invest in our business model, and those investments mostly focus on the consumer experience at retail and online, and the supporting infrastructure that helps deliver a consistent high level of customer service. Of course, one of the more important business model investments we make is in our store footprint. We're committed to our previously stated goal to add 40-50 net new stores in fiscal 2024. Above all, we will continue to build upon the strength of the Hibbett and the City Gear brands and further enhance our strong competitive position in our current and future markets. In short, we're investing in our business model for the long term and believe that we will continue to take market share.

Before turning the call over to Jared, I'd like to thank our 11,000 team members across the organization for their hard work and support to our customers. Whether working in one of our more than 1,100 stores in 36 states, our omni-channel platform, or the logistics facilities, or our Store Support Center, they are the face of Hibbett and provide consistent, superior service that is synonymous with our brand. And as I said to the team yesterday, this is my favorite team sport, and I wouldn't trade this team with anyone else's. Thank you. I'll turn the call over to Jared.

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Thank you, Mike. Good morning. Please turn to slide 4, entitled Merchandising. The second quarter concluded with a strong start to the back-to-school season. Footwear remained our strongest category during the quarter, but did decline low single digits versus the prior year. Results in footwear were challenged early in the quarter due to performance of secondary brands and franchises, as well as an unfavorable launch calendar. Results in the latter part of the quarter were much improved due to an improved launch cadence and the start of back-to-school. Footwear results continue to be driven by product launches as well as the basketball, lifestyle, and casual categories. In addition, we continue to see an improving trend in our running business. Apparel and team sports were both negative for the quarter, with apparel down in the high teens.

Apparel continues to be affected by promotional activity due to elevated inventory levels in the market. While apparel was a challenge overall, early results of seasonal product, as well as back-to-school accessories, such as socks and backpacks, were encouraging. Specific to footwear apparel, the men's and kids' business was down, while women's was positive. The challenges in the launch calendar and secondary franchises had a broader effect on the men's and kids' businesses. Men's and kids were both down high single digits. Women's was up mid single digits, driven by strong footwear results. Inventory levels declined slightly in the second quarter versus the first quarter, and we made some progress. Although we do expect a continued promotional environment and a much more selective consumer, at least through the third quarter, as we work to reduce our inventory.

These promotional efforts, as well as support from our key brand partners, will help us to achieve our goals for inventory reduction. While year-over-year inventory compares will continue to be volatile due to the challenges that affected the supply chain during fiscal 2023, our expectations remain the same for our inventory levels as we expect year-over-year declines in the second half of the year. I'll now hand it over to Bob to cover our financial results.

Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)

Thanks, Jared. Good morning. We are now moving on to Slide 5. As a reminder, all financial results are reported on a consolidated basis that includes both the Hibbett and City Gear brands. Total net sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2024 decreased 4.6% to $374.9 million from $392.8 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2023. Overall, comp sales decreased 7.3% versus the prior year's second quarter. Brick-and-mortar comp sales declined 7.7% compared to the prior year's second quarter, while e-commerce sales decreased 5.2% compared to the same period of the prior year. E-commerce sales accounted for 15.1% of net sales during the current quarter, compared to 15.2% in the second quarter of fiscal 2023.

Gross margin was 32.8% of net sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2024, compared with 34.4% in the second quarter of last year. This approximate 160 basis points decline was driven primarily by lower average product margin, which is approximately 215 basis points below the same period last year. This unfavorable product margin performance is attributed to higher promotional activity across both footwear and apparel categories. Higher store occupancy costs, mainly due to deleverage from the lower sales volume, accounted for approximately 100 basis points of decline in gross margin versus the prior year period. Partially offsetting the unfavorable product margin and occupancy expense impacts was an improvement in freight, shipping, and logistics costs as a % of sales.

SG&A expenses were 25.3% of net sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2024, compared with 23.3% of net sales for the second quarter of last year. This approximate 200 basis point increase is primarily the result of deleverage from the year-over-year sales decline. We continue to experience headwinds related to wage inflation and have also incurred higher costs of percent of sales and incentive compensation, medical expenses, and data processing versus the prior year's second quarter. Depreciation and amortization in the second quarter of fiscal 2024 increased approximately $1.1 million in comparison to the same period last year, reflecting increased capital investments on store development, technology initiatives, and various infrastructure projects over the last couple of years.

We generated $16 million of operating income, or 4.3% of net sales in the second quarter this year, compared to $32.8 million or 8.4% of net sales in the prior year's second quarter. Diluted earnings per share were $0.85 for this year's second quarter, compared to $1.86 per share in the second quarter of fiscal 2023. We ended the second quarter of fiscal 2024 with $33.1 million of available cash and cash equivalents on our unaudited, condensed consolidated balance sheet and $106.9 million of debt outstanding on our $160 million unsecured line of credit.

Net inventory at the end of the second quarter was $430.8 million, a 17.6% increase from the prior year's second quarter and up 2.4% from the beginning of the fiscal year. Please note that most of the increase in inventory versus a year ago is due to product cost inflation and mix as footwear inventory, which carries a higher average unit cost, is a bigger component of the overall inventory balance than it was in the comparable period. Capital expenditures during the second quarter were $11.4 million, with approximately 60% attributed to store development projects, including new stores, remodels, relocations, and new signage. We opened 5 net new stores in the quarter, bringing the store base to 1,148 in 36 states.

We repurchased nearly 300,000 shares under our share repurchase plan in the second quarter at a total cost of approximately $11 million. We also paid a recurring quarterly dividend in the first quarter, in the, in the second quarter, excuse me, in the amount of $0.25 per eligible common share, for a total outflow of approximately $3.2 million. Now we're moving to slide 6, year-to-date results. Total net sales for the first six months of fiscal 2024 increased 1.7% to $830.4 million, while year-to-date comparable sales have decreased 1.4% versus the same period last year. Brick-and-mortar comp sales declined 1.2%, and e-commerce comp sales declined 2.2%.

Gross margin was 33.3% of net sales on a year-to-date basis versus 35.7% of net sales last year. This approximately 240 basis point decline was due to lower average product margin, approximately 300 basis points, and higher store occupancy costs of approximately 45 basis points. This was partially offset by a year-over-year improvement in freight, shipping, and logistics costs as a % of sales. SG&A expenses were 23% of net sales for the first six months, compared to 22.9% in the same period last year. The approximate increase of 10 basis points is primarily the result of higher medical expenses and an increase in data processing costs, partially offset by lower advertising and professional fees....

We have generated $61.9 million of operating income, or 7.5% of net sales through the second quarter of fiscal 2024, compared to $83.5 million, or 10.2% of net sales in the prior year's first six months. Net income for the first six months of this year was $46.8 million, or $3.61 per diluted share, compared with $64.1 million, or $4.77 per diluted share in the prior year comparable period. Capital expenditures for the first six months of the fiscal year were $25.7 million, predominantly related to store initiatives, including new store openings, relocations, expansions, remodels, and technology upgrades. I'll now turn the call over to Bill to discuss consumer insights.

Bill Quinn (SVP of Marketing and Digital)

Thank you, Bob. Our consumer research and analysis of loyalty data gives us insight into the mindset and changing shopping patterns of our customers. To start, most customers still have elevated concerns of the general impacts of inflation. Concerns over gas, grocery, and utility costs remain high. There is also an added concern around resuming student loan payments later this year. Looking at our loyalty purchase data, we saw a sales difference between new members and existing members. Sales from new members were down, driving the sales comp decline in Q2. Our concerns around new customer sales were mitigated in the latter part of the quarter, where new customer sales grew significantly due to energy from back to school and launch. For the entire quarter, our existing customers, which are the vast majority of our program, continued to spend more than prior year.

This was consistent with what we experienced in Q1. Strength in existing customer sales is a validation of our focus on a compelling product mix, superior customer service, a best-in-class Omni-channel shopping experience, and our strategic positioning in underserved markets. Turning to our E-commerce business. In Q2, E-commerce sales were down 5.2% year-over-year. The primary headwinds included customer economic concerns, a highly promotional environment, and an unfavorable launch calendar. These factors led to a decrease in traffic and conversion, which were partially offset by a higher average purchase. Digital sales in the latter part of the quarter were much improved due to a favorable launch cadence, a strong start to back to school. As always, we remain focused on the long term and providing the best possible customer experience for online and Omni-channel shopping.

To that end, we have many planned initiatives for the remainder of this year to drive acquisition, engage customers, and further provide a world-class retail experience. Now I'll turn the call back to Bob to discuss our guidance.

Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)

The business outlook for the remainder of fiscal 2024 remains challenging and difficult to predict. Inflation has continued to have a broad impact, not only on consumer sentiment and spending patterns, but has also contributed to increases in our operating costs in the form of higher wages and prices we pay for various goods and services. Higher interest rates have driven up the cost of borrowing for us and may also be affecting discretionary purchase decisions, those consumers with variable rate loans or credit card debt. We also expect the heavier promotional environment to continue for the near term. In summary, economic uncertainty, coupled with a more cautious and selective consumer, has resulted in this uncertain retail environment. As you remember, these factors resulted in us lowering, lowering our fiscal 2024 outlook at the end of the first quarter.

As we move beyond the second quarter, embark on the third quarter, we feel our projected fiscal 2024 financial performance continues to be aligned with the expectations we set in May. Therefore, we are reiterating our overall guidance for fiscal 2024. Slide 8 summarizes our updated fiscal 2024 guidance. In summary, net sales for the full year, including the impact of the 53rd week, are anticipated to be flat to up approximately 2% compared to our fiscal 2023 results. The 53rd week is expected to be approximately 1% of full-year sales. Approximately 52% of our total sales will be recognized in the second half of the fiscal year. Comparable sales are expected to decline in the low single-digit range for the full year.

Full-year brick-and-mortar comparable sales and full-year e-commerce revenue are also anticipated to be in the negative low single-digit range. The net new store growth expectation is to open between 40 and 50 units. We anticipate the aggressive promotional environment to continue in the near term. Projected full-year gross margin range is approximately 33.9%-34.0% of net sales. SG&A as a percent of net sales is expected to be in the range of approximately 23.3%-23.5% of net sales. Operating margin for the year is expected to be in the range of 7.4%-7.8% net sales. Operating profit as a percent of net sales in the fourth quarter benefits from higher sales volume, although the fifty-third week is considered near breakeven due to the low sales volume in that extra week.

We still expect to carry debt throughout the year. We project borrowings to moderate in the second half of the year as inventory levels decline after the back-to-school season. Diluted earnings per share anticipated to be in the range of $7-$7.75, using an estimated full-year tax rate of approximately 23.5%-23.7%, and an estimated year-end weighted average diluted share count of approximately 12.8 million. We project capital expenditures in the range of $60 million-$70 million, with the largest allocation focused on new store growth, remodels, relocations, new store signage, and improving the consumer experience. Our capital allocation strategy continues to include share repurchases and recurring quarterly dividends in addition to the capital expenditures noted above. That concludes our prepared remarks. Rob, please open the line for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue.... For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Mitch Kummetz with Seaport Research. Please proceed with your question.

Mitch Kummetz (Senior Consumer Analyst)

I guess I've got a few. Maybe start, can you address the impact that YEEZY had on the quarter, and can you say how much longer you're gonna have YEEZY product going forward?

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Yep. Hey, Mitch. Good morning, it's Jared. YEEZY product actually launched during the third quarter, so there was no impact during the second quarter. And, you know, further past the third quarter, we don't have any additional visibility at this point.

Mitch Kummetz (Senior Consumer Analyst)

Okay. And then, Jared, on the running business, you talked about improvements there. Is that a change in trend, or is that more a reflection of some change in your assortment that you've kind of cycled through? You know, maybe what was bad in that segment, now you've got better product there. Can you just maybe elaborate on that?

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Yeah, it's twofold. I think certainly some changes in the assortment, some new iterations of product that, you know, delivered in preparation for back to school performed well. We certainly have enhanced our focus on the performance running category, and then have evolved our lifestyle running category into some new iterations. So we feel good about the running business. You know, as you said, historically, it's a smaller portion of our overall business, but the business is trending and performing well.

Mitch Kummetz (Senior Consumer Analyst)

Okay, and then maybe one last one. Just on the product margin. So, 2Q was not down as much as 1Q. It sounds like you expect, you know, promotion to continue at least through the third quarter. Can you just kinda walk us through how you think about product margin over the next couple of quarters?

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Yeah. So we still expect, you know, some pressure from a promotional environment. Obviously, you know, Stephanie and the team are doing a lot of work on right sizing the position and ensuring that the quality of our inventory gets to an exceptional level. Those are our expectations. So we still think there'll be some pressure. Some of the early reads, you know, on product from our fall assortment that started at back to school, give us some confidence, but we still have some secondary brand pressure. We still have secondary franchise pressure, and we know there's still some pressure from a consumer standpoint, but we like where we're headed, you know, with our plans and our guidance for the back half.

Mitch Kummetz (Senior Consumer Analyst)

All right. Thank you.

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Justin Kleber with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Justin Kleber (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. First, just to follow up there on Mitch's question on product margins, how much of the pressure, and Bob, you cited about 300 basis points lower over the first half. How much of that do you think is somewhat temporal, just given the excess inventory across the sector and the promotional activity associated with that?

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Yeah, I think it's a great question, Justin. I think there's a lot of factors at play here. I mean, you have certainly, you know, we're working to reduce our inventory overall. We're working to enhance the quality of our inventory overall. There's a lot of product in the marketplace, particularly downstream, you know, that we believe will still have significant promotional activity. Plus, we have, you know, some of the concerns for the consumer that Bill mentioned. So, you know, putting all those things together, you know, from an outlook perspective, tends to be a little bit difficult. You know, as far as what we have in the pipeline, you know, we're very, very confident. You know, the questions remain just how fast we can get an optimal level and quality of inventory.

Justin Kleber (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Okay. Makes sense, Jared. Bob, question for you on the freight shipping and logistics cost favorability. How much of that is just the external environment versus you know, maybe some internal initiatives or actions on your guys' part?

Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)

I think it's probably a combination of both, obviously. You know, we obviously cycled through some higher freight costs, you know, in previous periods and some of the comparable periods, and we've obviously flowed some of that through the P&L over previous quarters. We continue to always look at ways to make the process more efficient, getting closer to the consumer in terms of, you know, delivery costs, obviously running things through our distribution center more quickly and more efficiently. So, you know, I'd say it's probably a little bit, you know, kind of mixed of this of both, about 50/50, if I had to guess. And I think we're continuing to, you know, look at how receipt flow impacts that number through the back half of the year.

We, again, think that we're moving in the right direction in terms of overall freight shipping, logistics costs.

Justin Kleber (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Good to hear. Last one for me, guys, just on, you know, I guess, the cadence of comp throughout the quarter. Clearly, July, it sounds like, was the strongest month, given back to school. Any comment on if the back to school strength late in the quarter has just kind of carried over here into the first part of 3Q?

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Yeah, Justin, it's Jared. Obviously, as we said, we were, you know, pleased with the start of back to school and what occurred in the second quarter. You know, happy with a lot of the product that we delivered. Certainly, as we mentioned, the seasonal aspect of apparel gave us some confidence. Some of the back-to-school categories performed very well. You know, at this point, it's really still early to comment on back to school in its totality. I think we feel pretty comfortable that we've captured our forecast for back to school within our guidance.

Justin Kleber (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

... Great. All right, thanks everyone.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Sam Poser with Williams Trading. Please proceed with your question.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

Thank you. Thanks for taking my question. Good morning. Just to make this simple, could you tell us what the comps were by month, by chance?

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Hi, Sam, Mike. Good to hear from you. You know, it's our custom not to comment on inter-quarter trends. And so as a result-

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

I'm looking backwards.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Yeah, I got it. But we, I think we followed the most of the trends of the industry. We had a good July, I think would be the best way to say it.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

Were you positive in July? How about that question?

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Yes, we were.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

And then, Jared, you talked about... You all talked about the consumer being more particular, and how well you did with some of the big launch products. So my question is, as you look ahead, is there gonna be enough product that to put for those particular customers? And were those particular customers, those customers that, let's say, bought the launch product, was there any demographic similarity between them? Or if the product was right, did they just show up? And, and-

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Yeah.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

Then you had other product that they just didn't like as much, and they didn't.

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Yeah, I think, Sam, I mean, if the product is right and the consumer, you know, perceives value in the product, you know, and that, that value creation could come from launch and scarcity, could come from materials, could come from a story, could come from franchise management. There, you know, a lot of things can drive that value and that demand. And again, as I said, you know, we're pretty confident in the pipeline of product, as far as what's coming in from a new perspective. I think, you know, Stephanie and team continue to refine our assortments and make them as dynamic as we can for our consumer. At the same time, there's, you know, challenges with the consumer. We want to balance our inventory correctly, so there are some other offsets as well. But we feel good about the pipeline.

You know, our partnerships with our, our brands remain fantastic. We have lots of focus on our business. You know, we're focused on because of the, our underserved markets that, that we cater to, and largely we're complementary and incremental to the market. So it's creating a, a lot of opportunity and, and focus with our brand partners.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

Just one... I mean, just a quick follow-up on that. When the supply chain issues were going on some time ago, you made some decisions to bring in some apparel and other things to... I, my impression was sort of to fill up the stores. So looking back on what happened then, and for the sake of argument, 70% of the product is compelling stuff that's gonna attract a particular customer. Do you-- are you just not gonna buy the other 30, even if, and sort of make the stores look full with the good stuff instead of trying to fill it in?

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Yeah, well, I mean, I would say we never just try to buy bad stuff. Obviously, we always try to buy just the good stuff. But I think as the consumer now has become, you know, a little bit more careful around some of their choices, we have to continue to refine that in what we do. You know, we're following, you know, what we see from a pattern standpoint to consumers, and we believe we have access to the things that they're interested in. And those are things we're making investments in, and we're pulling back in places that we don't believe are either on trend or the consumer doesn't have interest in. But, you know, we never try to just buy things that we don't think are gonna resonate with our consumer.

But that funnel was a lot wider, when there was a lot of cash in the market. And today the funnel is much more narrow, and we're narrowing down our focus around what we put in the assortments.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

Sorry, one last thing. Does that narrow funnel, I mean, is the consumer more cautious or more particular? And that narrow funnel, that's a word one of somebody else I know uses, is a situation where, you know, when you have exactly what that consumer wants, they buy it, and when you, they... And if somebody else knows exactly what they want or another category or entertainment or something, they'll buy it from them. Is that a sign of a weak consumer or just a much more particular consumer?

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

I think it's some of both, to be frank, and I think Bill's got some information on this that he can talk through.

Bill Quinn (SVP of Marketing and Digital)

Yeah, Sam. Hi, Sam. It's Bill. So you know, we're looking at two different lenses. First of all, the existing customers we have, which is the bulk of our customers, are doing well. So we actually saw them have a positive comp here in Q2, but it's really the new customers that we're seeing that impact. And, you know, it's just less of them coming in, but when they come in, they're buying the same amount, actually a little bit more. Some of that is economic, where in the good times we saw a lot of new customers, and obviously we're seeing the reverse of that. And some of that is timing, where we saw new customers.

We saw a nice increase in July and the start of back to school with those customers because of back to school as well as launch.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

Thank you very much. Continued success.

Bill Quinn (SVP of Marketing and Digital)

Thank you.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Thank you, Sam.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Cristina Fernandez with Telsey Advisory Group. Please proceed with your question.

Cristina Fernández (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning. I wanted to see if you can comment more about the composition of the inventory. Particularly interested in, I guess, how much age or clearance inventory is still left versus the end of the first quarter. The excess inventory, where is it more concentrated? Is it still primarily apparel, or there's foot- is there footwear as well? Any color that would be helpful.

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

... Yeah. Hi, Cristina, it's Jared. Yeah, I think, you know, we continue to strive to get to a, not just an optimal level of inventory, but, you know, optimal health of inventory. You know, the team has been working incredibly hard, you know, at this. You know, initially, some of the challenges were centered around apparel, and that was a significant focus of ours to get that business cleaner and healthier. And we're largely at that point now. We still have some challenges around secondary brands and franchises within the footwear business. That will continue to take a little bit of time to work through. Again, as we've said, we feel like we can work those things down during the back half of the year, and really get to an optimal level.

Continue to get great support from our vendor partners to help balance that inventory, where obviously have been more promotional to try and drive through some of that aged inventory, but it's taking a little bit longer than we'd like, but we are making strides and feel very confident in what we can achieve in the back half based on what the team is getting accomplished.

Cristina Fernández (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

And then my second question is on the outlook for the third versus the fourth quarter. The sales outlook implies the fourth quarter being a lot better. You know, based on my math, comp, you know, down low single digits versus down mid to high the past two quarters. So what gives you confidence that the fourth quarter will be better? Is it just the comparisons, or are you seeing a better product launch calendar?

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

As we said, we're pretty confident, you know, in our assortments as a whole and certainly in the calendar as a whole. I think our expectations are that as we get to a cleaner position on inventory and a more healthy level of inventory, we'll have more that excites consumers the further we get into the back half of the year.

Cristina Fernández (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Just one last clarification. Wanted to understand the outperformance in women's relative to men and kids. Is it because the launch calendar was better for women, or it's just less dependent on the new launches?

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Yeah. The women's business is a little less dependent on the launch calendar, so there was an outsized impact to the men's and kids business negatively as a result of the launch calendar. But, you know, as a reminder, we've had a heavy, heavy focus, you know, on the women's business for a number of years now, you know, including, you know, reorganization of our, of our merchant teams to get more focused around, the women's business and the kids business. So we're, we're pretty proud of what's been accomplished in women's and, feel like we have a nice opportunity ahead.

Cristina Fernández (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from John Lawrence with Benchmark Company. Please proceed with your question.

John Lawrence (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning, guys.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Morning.

John Lawrence (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

First of all, could you talk a little bit about new stores, Mike? The ones you've opened in the last couple of years, how are they coming out of the ground and recent openings in this environment, how do they get your?

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Thank you. We've been very pleased with our new store performance. As we've repeated a couple of times, we've got a goal that we've talked about, 40-50 net new stores a year. That includes a handful of closures every year because every retailer does that. I think we disclosed last year that Las Vegas was our new market, and by Las Vegas, we do not mean on the Strip where the tourists go, we mean where the people live. And those stores are doing really, really well. Very pleased with that, and of course, we're positioning them for the big event of the Super Bowl in February. Our newest market that the news has broken on is Milwaukee. We like Milwaukee. We've been in past, retailers have been in Milwaukee quite a bit.

It's a great market for us, and we'll be, we'll be breaking that market relatively soon. And then, most importantly... So those are new markets. Most importantly, we've got fill-in markets, which are always more profitable because you've built brand equity in those markets, you know, say, Southeastern Georgia or the Panhandle of Florida or Arizona or parts of California. When we go fill those markets in, in between two stores, we can, further our culture, our operational culture, where we can bring in seasoned veteran players, to run the stores. We can take an assistant store manager from one store and make them the store manager of the new store, and they bring select members of the crew. So that always works better operationally. And then the logistics of the hub-and-spoke network that we run, we can leverage that as well.

And so all those obvious operational efficiencies are important, but the most important part is the consumer knows us, they trust us, and we hire from the neighborhoods that we're in. We run that neighborhood store, and we get rewarded for that in those new stores.

John Lawrence (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great, thanks. Follow-up. Bob, what kind of level some of the costs we saw, the medical costs, et cetera, what do you need to see to start leveraging some of that or being able to, what kind of comp increase would it take to stop some of that deleverage on that cost line?

Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)

Yeah, I don't know if it's so much like a specific spend category. One of the things we've continued to do is invest in not only, you know, the consumer experience and the physical and omni-channel store or revenue streams, is also kind of putting some more infrastructure within the back office. So as you know, we've done a lot of upgrades, as we've mentioned over the last couple of years on-

... providing more tools within, say, the Store Support Center and the distribution facility to become more efficient. So, you know, we don't really get into trying to manage to a specific comp number. It's more about trying to run the business as efficiently and effectively as possible. And again, I think we've made some structural changes in our organization over the last 12-18 months. We continue to find ways to leverage these investments that we've made in the back-office operations to become more efficient. And I think what's gonna happen is you'll see that, you know, again, we'll continue to try to strive to keep that SG&A level, you know, at or, you know, at similar levels or declining, obviously, in the future. But, not really necessarily tied to a specific comp sale.

It's more about just going after, you know, more efficiency and effectiveness.

John Lawrence (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks, guys. Good luck.

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Anna Glaessgen with B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Anna Glaessgen (Consumer Analyst)

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I'd like to turn back to guidance. In the prepared remarks, you mentioned that you expect the promotional environment to continue at least through the third quarter. Should we be expecting some improvement in the fourth quarter? Any context around that and what's in guidance would be great.

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Yeah, I think the comment, certainly, we expect an environment to be promotional in the back half of the year. I think we feel more confident in how we'll be positioned as we head into the fourth quarter. That's where some of the conversation turns to, you know, specifically into the third quarter, but we feel like we'll be largely past the big challenges with regard some of our composition of our inventory issues by the time we get into the fourth quarter.

Anna Glaessgen (Consumer Analyst)

Got it. And we've heard other retailers talk about shrink a lot. Is that something you're seeing as well?

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

This is Mike. Thanks for the question. So, you know, while we experience a minimal amount of shrink in our Omni-channel experience, it's mostly situated in the brick-and-mortar, and so I'll let Ben take that question.

Ben Knighten (SVP of Operations)

Yeah, and I appreciate the question. You know, similar to most retailers, we've seen some elevated shrink levels really over the last couple of years. You know, organized crime is real, and it does impact us. That said, kind of comparing to last year, shrink really hasn't had a material impact to our gross margin percentage. I'll also point out that's included in our guidance for the back half of the year. We really focus on, you know, customer service and know that that's really, you know, our biggest deterrent from a shrink perspective and do that each and every day.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Yeah, let me follow up on a couple of points. Certainly, topical, you know, it's an issue that's come up, a considerable amount this week in particular. And just to remind everybody, the biggest component of shrink is theft. And, you know, not to bury the lead, it's clear and obvious that it's theft. It's a cost to our companies, and it's a tax on the consumer. It's something like every cost, whether it's a tax levied by the government or it's a problem with operations, all those get passed on to the consumer. I thought Walmart did a very good job this week in their conference call. The CFO said, "You know, shrink has increased a bit this year and increased last year, and it was uneven across the country." That rhymes very well with what we're seeing.

As well, the CEO, Doug McMillon, said, and I quote, "There needs to be action taken to help protect people from crime, including theft." I thought that was on the money and appreciated them saying it. Then I'd further add that the CEO of the National Retail Federation, Matt Shay, did a very nice job on CNBC Wednesday morning on Squawk Box. And he discussed the issues to include the resale market and marketplaces as being a particular problem, and I thought that resonated with us. So if you have a chance to rewatch that, I would encourage it.

Anna Glaessgen (Consumer Analyst)

Thanks for that. Just one clarification on the accounting around shrink. Some other retailers have mentioned that they do one annual physical count. Can you remind us, your policies around that?

Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)

So we take two physical counts currently in all of our stores. We also use RFID technology to take basically weekly snapshots of some percentage of our inventory. We don't have 100% of our product tagged with RFID, but we are keeping pretty close to shrink, you know, levels pretty much on a weekly basis with that RFID, and again, kind of locking everything in twice a year with most of our stores. Also do a cycle counting and some physical counting within our distribution center. So we feel our shrink accounting is pretty current and on point at this point.

Anna Glaessgen (Consumer Analyst)

Great. Thanks so much.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Alex Perry with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Alex Perry (Director of Equity Research)

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Just first, Jared, maybe could you help us? It seems like the launch calendar was a key driver in the quarter. Can you just talk about how the launch calendar looks for the balance of the year and in 3Q? Does it sort of look similar to how it did in July, in the back half of the quarter, which really drove a nice acceleration for you guys? And then maybe just remind us the quantity of the launch product that you're getting sort of year over year. Is that, is that better given sort of the downsizing we've seen from other retailers in the network? Thanks.

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Hey, Alex, good morning. It's Jared. I would say it this way, obviously, the launch calendar always has been somewhat volatile. It'll remain volatile. It's been volatile. I'll reiterate what I said earlier, I think we're very confident in what we have in the pipeline, both from a launch perspective and from a non-launch perspective. So I think that there could be movement in the calendar. There historically always has been, so we'll see what occurs. But our confidence level is high, you know, with regard to the assortment. Our partnerships with the brands continue to be excellent. We continue to get more and more focus because of the incremental nature of our business. So again, we feel pretty good about where we stand with regard to the quality of our order book.

Alex Perry (Director of Equity Research)

Perfect. And then I just wanted to ask, in terms of the lapping of some of the delayed apparel receipts from last year, how are you guys sort of thinking about that and just, you know, the composition of the inventory versus, you know, sort of what you saw last year? And just remind us, you know, how much that affected the business last year and, how, you know, when you really started to promote that product.

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

Yeah. So the big challenges last year, and really was from last year and the prior year, was just product delivering in the incorrect season, right? So you had, you know, spring product delivery in the fall, fall product delivery in the spring, as examples. And, you know, those challenges are somewhat difficult to overcome because apparel is very seasonal in nature. That obviously, now that the supply chain has improved significantly, you know, we're in a better... we're more consistent with what we've seen historically with regard to spring and summer liquidations, what we have from a timing perspective coming in around fall and seasonal. We're getting back to some more historical norms around delivery cadence, and seeing some success from it.

So we're a little bit more confident that we won't have some of those seasonal challenges that really affected the promotions.

Alex Perry (Director of Equity Research)

Great. And then just two quick ones. I guess, one, just, can you give us a little more color on how you're thinking about your exposure to the student loan repayments coming back on? I think you layered in commentary about that being an additional headwind. Do you think you have an outsized impact there, or, you know, how are you sort of thinking about that?

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Bill, you want to take that one?

Bill Quinn (SVP of Marketing and Digital)

Yeah. Hi, Alex. Good morning. So we do a quarterly survey with our customers, and that was one of the questions this quarter that we asked. Definitely a concern overall. When we dug further into it, a small portion of customers are highly concerned. So that's something, you know, that we need to watch. There's definitely headlines out there. There could be some mitigation of what's gonna happen in October, but that's definitely something that we're gonna continue to monitor and get more information from in terms of our customers.

Alex Perry (Director of Equity Research)

Perfect. And then just my last one, maybe, Bob, on the margins, any help on sort of 3Q versus 4Q gross margin cadence? Is it fair, I think you said inventory, you know, getting better by 4Q. So is it fair to say, you know, 3Q gross margins down year-over-year and then, you know, some improvement on a year-over-year basis in 4Q, or, you know, how should we be thinking about that?

Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)

You know, again, I think we're not gonna get into specific, you know, Q3, Q4 relationships. Obviously, Q4 is a higher volume sales quarter, so you do get a little additional leverage on things like your store occupancy. Again, like Jared said earlier, you know, launch calendars can kind of move a little bit between quarters, between periods. At this point in time, again, I think we're obviously going to hopefully move through some of that, you know, older inventory more efficiently and as we get in through Q3, maybe a little bit less of that in Q4.

I'll let you kind of predict how that plays out in your own model, but again, I think we see that we'll see a little bit more, you know, better back half in terms of comparison than we saw in the first half of the year.

Alex Perry (Director of Equity Research)

Perfect. Best of luck going forward.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our final question is from Sam Poser with Williams Trading. Please proceed with your question.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

Just two quick ones. Thank you. In the new market like Las Vegas, what kind of subsequent e-commerce lift are you seeing with that? And can you give us some idea of what you're seeing, of how that all works, what the relationship is as you go into new markets?

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Yeah, this is Mike. So in layman's terms, we see e-commerce sales go up as we increase the store count in the community. It's also, though, a component of why we open a store in a particular geography, because we examine the direct-to-consumer sales in those zip codes, and we make it part of our algorithm and part of the proof of should we open a store. And so then, when we actually open the store, we get an outsized portion of the sales in that zip code, and that allows us to continue to go down the path of being incremental and complementary to our major brand partners.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

Thanks. Then, Jared, to follow up on one of the other questions just directly, with the launch product, are your allocations up year-over-year?

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Even he chuckled.

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

You did, you did chuckle. I'll answer it the same way I've answered, Sam. We're very confident in our order book and very confident in the support that we're getting from all of our key brands.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Agree.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

Right, I understand that. Are they up year-over-year?

Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)

I will let you infer that based on our commentary.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

...So if we wrote, yes, your inventory is up, your allocations are up year-over-year, that would be correct, based on your commentary?

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

We're getting very much more focus from our brand partners. Yes.

Sam Poser (Equity Analyst)

Okay, well, that was easy. You could have just said that to begin with. Thank you, and continued success.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Thank you. We appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from John Lawrence with Benchmark Company. Please proceed with your question.

John Lawrence (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Yeah, thanks for tagging it at the end here. Mike, when you look at, you know, in the history of Hibbett, college football has been important. How as we start that, and especially in the SEC, a lot of teams are expected to do very well. How important is that season for the company at this point?

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

It's all sports are important to us. It's part of the DNA of the company. It's part of the culture of sport. That is part of our major brand partners' ethos, as well as ours. I'm surprised you didn't lead with Army, but we'll go with the SEC for just a moment.

John Lawrence (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Yeah, it's important and all the other conferences as well. So college football, it's interesting because it's more of an event. It's less about the game, and it's more about a gathering of people celebrating the things that they have in common, whether it's a team or it's a sport or it's their family, or it's just an opportunity to get together. And every time people gather, they think about their personal appearance, and they think about how they want to occur to their peers, their families, and to each other, and the self-pride that goes with it. And that's one of the things that's just a really interesting business model, because it really is an expression of your lifestyle and what you wear, and it starts with the toe and it works upwards. And that's why we say toe to head so often.

So football and any other thing that causes people to gather, drive sales.

John Lawrence (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Good luck.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mike Longo for closing comments.

Mike Longo (President and CEO)

Thank you so much. We appreciate everyone coming on today and taking your time to... and spending it with us. We look forward to reporting Q3. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.