Hibbett - Q4 2024
March 15, 2024
Executive Summary
- Q4 2024 delivered net sales of $466.6M (+1.8% YoY) and diluted EPS of $2.55; EPS was modestly above consensus ($2.54) while revenue missed ($477.4M), with comps down 6.4% as brick-and-mortar softened and e-commerce grew.
- Gross margin contracted ~70 bps to 34.5% on lower product margin and higher occupancy; SG&A rose ~140 bps to 23.0% on wage inflation and continued cloud/back-office investments, compressing operating margin to 8.7%.
- FY2025 guidance calls for flat to ~2% sales, gross margin up 40–70 bps, SG&A up 90–120 bps, operating margin 7.0–7.4%, and diluted EPS of $8.00–$8.75, reflecting near-term deleverage from store growth and infrastructure investments.
- Adjusters in Q4: the 53rd week added ~$22.9M sales and ~$0.21–$0.23 EPS; a gift card breakage estimate change added $3.5M revenue and ~$0.23 EPS, important for modeling the quarter’s quality and the stock’s reaction drivers.
What Went Well and What Went Wrong
What Went Well
- CEO highlighted record FY sales of $1.73B and Q4 momentum driven by holiday season, new product launches, and strong footwear brand response; the integrated Hibbett Rewards X Nike Membership supported omni-channel growth and engagement.
- E-commerce grew 6.9% YoY in Q4 with mix rising to 18.9% of sales, evidencing healthy digital traction despite softer store traffic.
- Inventory fell 18.2% YoY to $344.3M, improving working capital and positioning for cleaner sell-through into FY2025.
What Went Wrong
- Q4 comps declined 6.4% (brick-and-mortar down 9.2%), reflecting a cautious consumer, selective spending, and residual promotional intensity in footwear/apparel.
- Gross margin decreased ~70 bps YoY on ~125 bps lower average product margins and ~55 bps higher occupancy; SG&A deleverage (~140 bps) from wages and data processing investments weighed on profitability.
- Versus consensus, revenue missed by ~$10.8M, suggesting demand softness vs models and/or timing effects from week-shift dynamics, despite the EPS meeting/beat.
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings. Welcome to Hibbett Fourth Quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in 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. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Gavin Bell, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
Gavin Bell (VP of Investor Relations)
Thank you and 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, 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 we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that some of the 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 the 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, March 15, 2024. Because of the time-sensitive nature of this information, it is the policy of Hibbett, Inc., to limit the archive 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 of 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 Fourth Quarter earnings call. For those of you following along the slides, I'm on Slide 3 entitled Overview. Hibbett delivered a solid financial and operating performance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, capping off another year of profitable growth. We're especially proud to reach $1.73 billion in annual sales for the year, surpassing fiscal 2023 sales and setting a new company record.
Throughout the year, our team did an outstanding job with consistent execution of our strategy as we continued to win market share. Notably, we've achieved these results in what has continued to be a challenging retail environment. Consumers are still facing inflationary pressures with higher prices on many essential items and are, therefore, being more selective in their discretionary spending. A distinct competitive advantage for Hibbett is the quality and variety of our product mix.
We've worked hard to offer a compelling range of trend-relevant brands and products that are in line with current spending patterns. Our results for the fourth quarter were boosted by holiday sales, which were in line with expectations. Additionally, our superior customer service, a best-in-class omnichannel shopping experience, strong vendor relationships, and strategic store placement in underserved markets are distinct competitive advantages that allowed us to continue to gain market share in fiscal 2024.
Footwear sales continue to be the key driver of our sales, especially for our premium brands. During the fourth quarter, we had a robust schedule of new product launches, which continue to generate excitement from our brand-loyal customers. This was also the first full quarter under our new connected partnership connecting Hibbett and Nike's loyalty programs. Our loyalty customers now benefit from an enhanced retail experience when they purchase Nike and Jordan products, whether in one of our stores or online.
Our loyalty programs have also been extremely popular with our customers, adding value to the overall shopping experience and driving more traffic to our stores and our omnichannel platform. Looking ahead to fiscal 2025, we expect to follow the same growth trajectory and continue to gain market share. Our sales guidance for the upcoming year reflects this confidence, a testament to our proven ability to execute our strategy. At the same time, we intend to make significant capital investments in our infrastructure, which will affect our short-term profitability. However, as always, we're investing for the long term, and we believe these investments will further enhance our strong value proposition and drive sustainable, profitable growth.
We'll also be intentional about adding new stores in underserved markets with the goal to add 45-50 stores in the year ahead. Our sophisticated omnichannel platform remains a key competitive advantage, and we will continue to focus on providing the latest technology and functionality to improve the overall customer experience.
Before turning the call over to Jared, I'd like to thank our approximately 12,000 team members across the organization for their dedication and hard work in a challenging environment. Whether across our nearly 1,200 stores, our omnichannel platform, our logistics facilities, or the store support center, they proudly represent Hibbett with an unwavering commitment to the integrity of our brand and outstanding support for our loyal customers. I'll now turn the call over to Jared.
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Thank you, Mike. Good morning. Please turn to Slide 5 entitled Merchandising. The fourth quarter opened with a strong start to the holiday season but faded at the end of December and in January. Footwear was our strongest category during the quarter, with comp sales down mid-single digits. Strong trends were seen in lifestyle, basketball, and running.
This was offset with some weakness in the performance of some launches in the latter part of the quarter. Apparel and team sports were both negative comps for the quarter, down high single digits and low thirties, respectively. Seasonal categories were weak due to the warm and dry weather patterns. Apparel also continues to be affected by promotional activity due to elevated levels of inventory in the market. While apparel was a challenge, overall, socks and accessories continue to be strong performers.
Specific to footwear and apparel, comp sales in the men's business were down mid-single digits, with kids' business down high single digits. Women's was our best performer, up low single digits. Men's was affected by high single digit declines in apparel, with footwear down mid-single digits. Kids was down low twenties in apparel, while footwear was down mid-single digits. Women's was up low single digits, driven by a high single digit increase in footwear, offset by a low twenties decrease in apparel results.
As expected, we ended fiscal year 2024 with a high teens decrease in inventory compared to the end of fiscal 2023. Inventory levels declined in the low teens from the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2024. Promotional efforts, as well as support from our key brand partners, aided in achieving our inventory reduction goals. I'll now hand it over to Bob to cover our financial results.
Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)
Thank you, Jared, and good morning. Please refer to Slide 6 for an overview of Q4 results. As a reminder, all financial results are reported on a consolidated basis that includes both the Hibbett and City Gear brands. I would also like to call out that the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 was a 14-week quarter, and fiscal 2024 was a 53-week year.
Comp sales figures for the current quarter and the year exclude this extra week. Total net sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 increased 1.8% to $466.6 million from $458.3 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. Overall comp sales decreased 6.4% versus the prior year's fourth quarter. Please note that we had a very strong fourth quarter performance last year, generating overall 15.5% comp.
Retail comp sales declined 9.2% compared to the prior year's fourth quarter, while e-commerce comp sales actually increased 6.9% compared to the same period in fiscal 2023. E-commerce sales accounted for 18.9% of total net sales during the current quarter, compared to 17.4% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. Gross margin was 34.5% of net sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, compared with 35.2% in the fourth quarter of last year.
This approximate 70 basis point decline was driven primarily by lower average product margin of approximately 125 basis points and an approximate 55 basis point increase in store occupancy. Freight, shipping, and logistics, excuse me, freight, shipping, logistics cost, and shrink have improved as a percent of sales on a year-over-year basis, partially offsetting the unfavorable average product margin and store occupancy performance.
Freight was favorable by approximately 60 basis points, logistics was favorable by approximately 30 basis points, and shrink was favorable by approximately 10 basis points. SG&A expenses were 23% of net sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, compared with 21.6% of net sales for the fourth quarter of last year. This approximate 140 basis point increase is primarily the result of higher store wages and the related benefit costs driven by inflation, a growing store base, and increased data processing costs associated with ongoing investment in cloud-based back-office systems and technology.
Depreciation and amortization in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 increased approximately $1.4 million in comparison to the same period last year, reflecting increased capital investment on store development, technology initiatives, and various infrastructure projects over the last three fiscal years.We generated $40.6 million of operating income, or 8.7% of net sales, in the fourth quarter this year, compared to $50.7 million, or 11.1%, of net sales in the prior year's fourth quarter. Net income for the 14 weeks ended February 3rd, 2024, was $30.9 million, or $2.55 per diluted share, compared to $38.4 million, or $2.91 per diluted share for 13 weeks ended January 28th, 2023.
We ended the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 with $21.2 million of available cash, cash equivalents on our unaudited condensed consolidated balance sheet, and $45.3 million of debt outstanding on our $160 million unsecured line of credit. Net inventory at the end of the fourth quarter was $344.3 million, an 18.2% decrease from the beginning of the year. Capital expenditures during the fourth quarter were $20.7 million, with approximately 73% attributed to store development projects, including new stores, remodels, relocations, and new signage.
We opened 11 net new stores in the fourth quarter, bringing the store base to 1,169 in 36 states. We paid a recurring quarterly dividend in the fourth quarter in the amount of $0.25 per eligible common share, for a total outflow of approximately $2.9 million. There were no repurchases of shares during the fourth quarter similar to the prior year's fourth quarter. Moving on to Slide 7 to discuss full year results.
Total net sales for the 53 weeks of fiscal 2024 increased 1.2% to $1.73 billion, while full year comparable sales decreased 3.1% versus the equivalent 52 weeks in fiscal 2023. Brick-and-mortar comp sales declined 4.4%, and e-commerce comp sales increased 4.1% compared to the prior year. Full year gross margin was 33.8% of net sales versus 35.2% of net sales last year. This is an approximate 140 basis point decline.
The decline in year-over-year gross margin was primarily due to lower average product margin of approximately 210 basis points and higher store occupancy costs of approximately 40 basis points. On the positive side, we experienced year-over-year improvement in freight, shipping, and logistics costs as a percent of net sales. Freight was favorable by approximately 70 basis points, logistics was favorable by approximately 30 basis points, and shrink was favorable by approximately 10 basis points.
SG&A expenses were 23% of net sales for the 53 weeks ended February 3rd, 2024, compared to 22.8% in the 52 weeks ended January 28th of 2023. The approximate increase of 20 basis points is primarily the result of increased store wages and data processing costs, partially offset by lower professional fees and advertising. We generated $137 million of operating income, or 7.9% of net sales, during fiscal 2024, compared to $168.4 million, or 9.9%, of net sales in fiscal 2023. Net income for the current year was $103.2 million, or $8.17, per diluted share, compared with $128.1 million, or $9.62, per diluted share in the prior year.
Capital expenditures in fiscal 2024 were $57.9 million, compared to $62.8 million in fiscal 2023. Current year capital expenditures were predominantly related to store initiatives, including new store openings, relocations, expansions, remodels, and technology upgrades. For the year, our store count increased by a net of 36 units, comprised of 44 new locations and eight closures. Our total store count stands at 1,169 at the end of fiscal 2024. On a full year basis, we repurchased approximately 1.16 million shares under our share repurchase plan at a total cost of $53.2 million.
We paid four recurring quarterly dividends throughout fiscal 2024 for a total outflow of $12.4 million. The 53rd week in fiscal 2024 resulted in net product sales of approximately $22.9 million. This incremental week contributed approximately 26 or sorry, $2.6 million-$2.8 million in net income to both the fourth quarter and the full year. From a diluted EPS standpoint, the 53rd week impacted the fourth quarter by approximately $0.21-$0.23 and impacted the full year by approximately $0.21-$0.22.
In addition, we'd recorded a $3.5 million increase to revenue in the fourth quarter due to a change in our estimate of gift card breakage. This change in estimate was supported by the historical redemption pattern of gift cards outstanding as applied prospectively. The impact to the fourth quarter EPS was approximately $0.23, and the full year impact was approximately $0.22. I'll now turn the call over to Bill Quinn to discuss consumer insights.
Bill Quinn (SVP of Marketing and Digital)
Thank you, Bob. In Q4, loyalty sales grew high single digits. This was driven by more member shoppers and average ticket growth. New member shoppers grew low double digits, and existing member shoppers grew high single digits. Higher average unit retails drove increases in average ticket. There was a lot of energy around our loyalty program in Q4.
This was the first full quarter under our new connected partnership, connecting Hibbett and Nike's loyalty programs. Customers have been receptive to the program, and we are pleased with the results we are seeing. We are seeing healthy signups as well as favorable purchase behavior. In FY 2025, the continuation of Connected Membership will advance the ways in which we engage and delight our members across all omnichannel touchpoints. During Q4, we also made investments in our digital channel to acquire more loyalty customers.
Those efforts helped fuel our overall loyalty program sales growth and drove online sales. In Q4, total online sales increased 10.5% versus last year. E-commerce represented approximately 19% of total sales for the quarter versus last year's 17%. Online traffic, conversion, and average ticket all increased in Q4, driven by key footwear styles, marketing investments, and customers utilizing more online services, including Buy Online, Pickup In Store, Buy Now, Pay Later.
Lastly, for the overall business, we are continuing to keep a pulse on how our customers are feeling. This quarter, customers continued to spend more on athletic footwear and apparel than last year. However, there has been some uncertainty from customers around the size and timing of their tax refunds. Also, customers continue to have elevated concerns around inflation. Based on our research, we expect a more cautious and selective consumer going into FY 2025. I will now hand the call back to Bob to discuss fiscal 2025 guidance.
Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)
We're now moving forward to Slide 9 to talk about the guidance. Please note that fiscal 2025 will end on February 1st, 2025, and will be comprised of 52 weeks versus the 53 weeks we just experienced in fiscal 2024. A number of business and economic challenges we faced in fiscal 2024 will continue to impact our business in fiscal 2025.
These challenges include the potential for inflation and interest rates to remain elevated, the continued use of selected promotional activity to drive traffic, ongoing wage pressures, a more cautious and selective consumer, and ongoing geopolitical conflicts. These factors contribute to the complexity and volatility in forecasting fiscal 2025 results. Our estimated full year guidance for fiscal 2025 is as follows. Total net sales in fiscal 2025 are anticipated to be flat to up approximately 2% compared to our full year fiscal 2024 results.
Due to the transition from a 53-week year in fiscal 2024 to a 52-week year in fiscal 2025, comparable sales for fiscal 2025 will be compared to weeks two through 53 in fiscal 2024. We anticipate the most material impact of this shift will be associated with the back-to-school selling season. We expect a larger portion of back-to-school sales will land in our second quarter this year.
On the flip side, the third quarter will have a smaller portion of back-to-school sales. The quarterly impact of the week shift on reported fiscal 2024 comp sales and net sales is highlighted in the table on the last page of this morning's press release. Total comparable sales are expected to be flat to negative low single digits for the year. Brick-and-mortar comparable sales are also expected to range from flat to negative low single digits.
Both total e-commerce revenue for the full year and comparable e-commerce revenue adjusted for the one-week shift is anticipated to be up in the mid- to high-single-digit range. Net new store growth is expected to be approximately 45-50 stores. The first quarter is projected to have the lowest growth, with net new units anticipated to be more evenly distributed across the remaining three quarters.
Gross margin expectations include a less impactful promotional environment and small leverage gains in freight and logistics, partially offset by headwinds in store occupancy. These factors are expected to drive approximately 40-70 basis points of improvement in the gross profit percentage in comparison to fiscal 2024 results. Expected full year gross margin is anticipated to be in the range of 34.2%-34.5% of net sales.
SG&A's percent of net sales is expected to increase by approximately 90-120 basis points in comparison to fiscal 2024 due to new store growth, wage inflation, and increased incentive compensation, transaction fees, and data processing costs. Data processing costs include the incremental investment in cloud-based technology solutions. The expected full year SG&A expense range is estimated to be 23.9%-24.2% of net sales.
Operating profit is expected to be in the range of 7%-7.4% of net sales, a net decline of approximately 50-90 basis points in comparison to fiscal 2024. It is anticipated there will be debt outstanding on our line of credit for much of the year, although we expect average daily borrowings to be lower than fiscal 2024. We believe peak borrowings will be tied closely to the timing of receipts leading up to our peak selling seasons.
Interest expense for the full year is projected to be approximately 10-20 basis points of net sales. Diluted earnings per share are anticipated to be in the range of $8-$8.75, using an estimated full year tax rate of between 22.9%-23.2%, and an estimated weighted average diluted share equivalent of 11.6 million-11.7 million.
Capital expenditures are anticipated to be in the range of $65 million-$75 million, with the largest share of this investment once again 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 previously. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the line for questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. If you would 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 would 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. Our first question is from Mitch Kummetz with Seaport Research. Please proceed.
Mitch Kummetz (Senior Analyst and Managing Director)
Yes. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe I missed it in the comments or the release, but could you give your fiscal 2025 sales outlook by quarter? I believe in the past, you've kind of given the breakout by percentage of the year. Do you have that?
Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)
Hey, Mitch. Bob, we kind of pulled that out this year. I think with the week shift, it gets a little bit more challenging. We don't think there's a huge amount of change within the quarters throughout the year, with the exception of what we mentioned on the prepared comments as far as back-to-school. But I'd still expect Q1 and Q4 to be relatively similar to what we saw last year. We do have that kind of right at the end of Q2, right at the beginning of Q3, there will be a shift in back-to-school effectively during those two quarters.
Mitch Kummetz (Senior Analyst and Managing Director)
Okay. And then on the footwear side, down mid-singles this quarter, I think last quarter was up low singles. How do you explain that sequential softening? I'm curious how much of that might have been seasonal versus anything else that you were seeing in the assortment between those two periods.
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Yeah. Hey, Mitch. It's Jared. Good morning. Yeah. So I think first and foremost, obviously, we were up against a very significant comp for the really strong footwear results first and foremost. Seasonal business was a challenge for sure, but our primary driver was weakness at the end of the quarter. We got to the last week of December, and it's January. And we saw the consumer really get even more selective than they have been.
That's certainly been something we've been seeing here for the last couple of quarters. But once we got out of holiday, it was pretty clear they were being super selective. And unfortunately, some of the parts of our assortment and some of the things in the launch calendar were somewhat repetitive, and it really just didn't cut through. That was the real driver of what happened in footwear, especially towards the end of the quarter.
Mitch Kummetz (Senior Analyst and Managing Director)
Then my last question, maybe just as a follow-on to that, the weakness that you saw at the end of the quarter, is there any way you can kind of if you parse maybe by month or maybe talk about how January performed versus November, December, and I'm curious if maybe some of that weakness at the end of the quarter is carried over into February?
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Yeah. I mean, obviously, we don't really comment on the interquarter, but certainly, the November and December time period, we felt pretty good about our business and particularly strong. Once we got out of holiday, things started to materially slow down for us again, end of December and into January.
Mitch Kummetz (Senior Analyst and Managing Director)
All right. Thanks, guys. Good luck.
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Thank you.
Mike Longo (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is from Justin Kleber with Baird. Please proceed.
Justin Kleber (Senior Research Analyst)
Hey. Good morning, everyone. It's Justin Kleber. Thanks for taking the questions. Bob, first, just the revenue related to the change in gift card redemptions, can you just walk through those numbers again you cited? I want to make sure I got those correct. And then just was that always in the guidance, or was that not in the guidance?
Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)
Yeah. So the absolute dollar amount that impacted revenue was $3.5 million. Go back and make sure I just quote my thing correctly here. So again, as I said earlier, not to get into too much accounting mumbo jumbo, but obviously, we looked at some historical patterns and felt that we were underrecognizing that gift card breakage. So the $3.5 million was recorded in Q4. It impacted the quarter by about $0.23, impacted the full year by about $0.22. And by the time we issued our third quarter results and guidance, we were already working on that. So we had a pretty solid estimate. We thought that would be going into the fourth quarter.
Justin Kleber (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Gotcha. And then the view that the promotional environment, I guess, in this upcoming year is going to moderate, obviously, the fourth quarter seems quite promotional. And I guess what gives you confidence that promotions will lessen this year? Is that just what you're seeing not only within your inventory but also inventories across the channel? Just any color there would be helpful.
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Hi, Justin. Good morning. It's Jared. Yeah. So two parts. I mean, look, first and foremost, our team worked incredibly hard throughout last year, and in particular, in the back half of the year, to get our inventory levels right-sized and to get us in position to have an incredible containing content of our inventory throughout fiscal 2025. So we feel great about that.
So while there's still some inventory that's elevated in the marketplace, then likely there'll be some promotions. Based on where our inventory is, the work that was done, how clean the inventory has become, the support we're getting from the vendor community, we feel like our ratio of full-price selling will be much higher, where we still might have some promotions from a competitive standpoint in the marketplace, but we'll have significantly less markdowns that we're dealing with as a result of old inventory.
Justin Kleber (Senior Research Analyst)
That's a great color. Thanks for that, Jared. The last question for me, guys, just on the maybe Mike or can you just expand on some of the investments you alluded to, specifically the customer-facing technologies? What changes are going to be visible to the consumer? Then you talked about these enhancing your profitability longer term. Just curious when you would expect these investments to start bending the curve on profitability.
Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)
Yeah. I think there's a couple different. This is Bob, by the way. There's a couple different aspects to this. One is certainly the stuff you see more at the front of house, which would be the digital experience and some of the technology that we've got in the stores. We continue to try to make our associates in the stores more efficient. Another big chunk of this is what we've done in the back office.
So we've added more sophisticated financial human resource systems, as well as now we're upgrading all of our merchandising systems. So the expectation is that we're still kind of in that investment mode. We're starting to get some benefits for some of the things we've invested in over, say, 12-18 months ago, but we're still in process putting some of those things in place. We expect that the real leverage will start to increase in fiscal 2026 forward.
Justin Kleber (Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. Thanks, guys. Best of luck.
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is from Alex Perry with Bank of America. Please proceed.
Alex Perry (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to follow up on the first question that was asked. Sort of within the confines of the flat to down low single-digit comp guide for the year, I just wanted to maybe clarify some of your comments, Bob. So you say that 1Q and 4Q, similar to last year, would that imply that you're sort of thinking about those as flat comps in those quarters while 2Q is a bit better given the pull forward and back-to-school spend and then maybe 3Q a bit worse as some of that spend shifts out of the quarter? Is that sort of how we get to the comp guide for the year?
Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)
I guess I was thinking more about the percent of sales that fall into each of the quarters. I wasn't really referring to comps specifically, but again, there's obviously some alignment with those numbers going forward as far as the comps. We're really just looking more at how the revenue is going to spread across the year. I just want to say that I believe that the percent of revenue you'll see in Q1 and Q4 is pretty similar to last year. I do have that shift that's right at the back end of Q2, really part of Q3.
Alex Perry (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Gotcha. That makes sense. And then I wanted to ask about the store opening plan a bit more. Maybe just talk about what you're seeing in terms of your new store performance. If you look at some of the stores you opened in 2023, for instance, are you seeing those sort of ramp in the same way as previous cohorts? Maybe talk a little bit about where the new stores are concentrated. Are these new markets for you guys or sort of mostly infills of existing markets? Thank you.
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Hey. Good morning, Alex. It's Jared. Yeah. Look, we're really pleased with our new stores. The performance has been exceptional. I mean, they're ramping up faster than we've seen historically. One of the challenges we've had is getting them open, frankly. Some delays within permitting, inspections, things of that nature has presented a little challenge. The team's working incredibly hard to redefine our timelines and processes to take this account better, to get to our 45-50 this year and then grow that number over the next few years.
Absolutely. When we start a market and infill, we tend to target one new market a year. Two years ago, it was the Las Vegas market, not on the Strip. Last year, it was Milwaukee. We'll wind up with one new market again this year as well. And then the rest is infill. As we've said before, we've got significant opportunity to grow the chain. We still feel that we can double the chain over time, but very, very pleased with our new stores and the way they're performing.
Alex Perry (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
That's incredibly helpful. Best of luck going forward.
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is from Cristina Fernández with the Telsey Group. Please proceed.
Cristina Fernández (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask about the product trends. You mentioned on the way back that some of the launches late in the quarter were repetitive and didn't really hit it with customers. So how do you feel about the level of newness coming in this year in access to products and brands that are more trend-wide or are doing better currently?
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Yeah. So I think too, I'll try and separate the question a little bit. It's Jared. Good morning. I think first and foremost, with regard to partnerships and vendors, our access points, our allocations, we feel great about where we are. Obviously, we've reduced the inventory significantly, 18%. We expect that we can maintain inventory about at this level but with a much higher concentration of the best product and the highest product.
So we feel great about that. Still feel, overall, from an innovation pipeline, things are going a little bit slower than we like. There are certainly some things that the team has invested in that we're seeing some nice results in. Whether some of those things are scalable or not is still things that we're trying to determine. And more and more, those will come in throughout the year.
So we're starting to feel some of the innovations start to kick in a little bit more. We have more things that we can make investments in. And our team's been really aggressive in trying to find some of those new things that we can get good tests on and then hopefully scale as we get into the latter part of this year and into next year. So things are starting to materialize. We'd like to see the innovation pipeline go a little bit faster. But again, feel good about where we're positioned and our partnerships with all the key vendors.
Cristina Fernández (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thanks. Then on the apparel side that's been soft for many quarters now, how do you feel about the level of inventory there, potential stabilization in that category?
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Yeah. I think overall, our inventory in apparel is in great shape. Teams worked incredibly hard at that. So we're very confident in the level of inventory and the content of the inventory. The marketplace still feels heavy. So we're still fighting some of that. But we're absolutely seeing some things starting to materialize, particularly in our streetwear business and in our denim businesses as examples that we feel can become significant drivers for us as we get into the second half of the year.
Cristina Fernández (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
And one more, if I can. I wanted to ask about the SG&A increases. Is there any way you can bucket sort of the categories? What's more within the 90-100 basis points increase? What are the biggest chunks? Just to understand if it's incentive comp or the investments in the stores, maybe can break it down for us a little more.
Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)
Yeah. Again, this is Bob, Cristina. So I think, again, when you look at kind of the biggest headwinds we're dealing with is still fighting a lot of wage inflation at the store level. So we came off a year where we're probably estimating somewhere in the neighborhood of 6% of wage increase. We think that number's going to be relatively close to that, maybe slightly lower than that as we move forward. So that is still something that we're obviously accounting for going forward.
The other thing is we are investing, like I said, in some of the back-office technologies. And those things are bringing in SG&A costs. Traditionally, those might have been things you invested capital dollars in and went through depreciation. But because they're cloud-based systems, the accounting rules require us to run that through our operating expense.
So that's why we refer to this data processing bucket. And that would be things like our ERP systems and our merchandising systems. And the last piece you did mention is we set ourselves some pretty aggressive targets for internal compensation purposes. We have obviously tried to live up to those expectations.
We have had a little bit of a shortfall the last couple of years. We're putting a full value back into that. And that's why we talk about incentive compensation. We've also restructured a lot of targets within the store operations group, again, to make this much more aligned with what our goals are. So we do feel that there's going to be some upside opportunity for the employees to have some additional incentive compensation.
Mike Longo (President and CEO)
This is Mike. So I had a couple of comments on the labor side. I'll be followed by Ben. It's the second largest expense on the P&L aside from cost of goods sold. So it does occupy a lot of our time. It's more than just cost. It's also the consumer experience. So Ben, you want to add some flavor to this?
Ben Knighten (SVP of Operations)
Yeah. And I'll tag on, Cristina. Yeah. This is Ben Knighten. To sum up what Bob and Mike said, we have seen that wage pressure kind of throughout the year. It continued in Q4 at about the same pace, really, as we saw in the first three quarters. But one of the ways we've blunted this is to continue investing in our mobile environment.
That has contributed to an increase in productivity, but it also improves the consumer experience. And that's where our real focus has been. We do think wage will soften a bit this year, but it'll be similar to last year. That mobile platform has really helped us in a couple of different ways and really has taken the form of moving work to the mobile devices that we have in our stores.
That includes the tasks that we have to do as sales associates on the floor, but it also includes additional tools to really help the customer. At the end of the day, our associates and customers are used to having access to their devices and their day-to-day life. We are simply kind of extending that to our store environment.
That allows us to do a couple of things. Number one, it allows us to hire, train, and retain the right associates in our stores while also improving the store experience for the consumer. That continues in the current year and will continue in the future. We do expect to see dividends even more so in the future, particularly around productivity and the customer experience.
Cristina Fernández (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
I appreciate the caller. Thank you.
Bob Volke (SVP and CFO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is from Sam Poser with Williams Trading. Please proceed.
Sam Poser (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Good morning, everybody. I have a handful, please. I'm just going to start with the easy stuff. Can you give us, Jared, just what were the comps by month in general?
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Yeah. Sam, we don't give the comps we don't give the comps by month. But again, as I said, November, December, we're pretty strong. We felt pretty good about it. And last week of December and January, really, really were very difficult in the primary driver.
Sam Poser (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Are we talking about low to mid-single-digit comps falling off to down doubles in that last six weeks?
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
I would say more flat-ish. Again, we're up against the +15. So it's certainly had a big hurdle to get over from a comp standpoint.
Sam Poser (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
So flat-ish, and then it went the wrong way.
Jared Briskin (EVP of Merchandising)
Correct.
Sam Poser (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Your e-commerce business is very good, but your store comps aren't as good. You're sort of guiding for that to continue. Is there more you can be doing using your digital omnichannel work to drive more people into the stores to help the store comps?
Mike Longo (President and CEO)
Short answer is yes. Bill, you want to give a little more detail than that?
Bill Quinn (SVP of Marketing and Digital)
Yeah. Absolutely. Hi, Sam. Good morning. This is Bill. So yeah, definitely omnichannel can drive a lot of traffic to the stores. I'll give you a few examples. Buy online, pickup in store, that definitely drives traffic in. We see a good attachment. We saw that increase, and that continues to increase. So that's one example. Our loyalty program is by far our largest omnichannel program.
That drives over 60% of our sales. We're making significant investments in that, so in terms of acquisition as well as retention. And that will drive store traffic as well. Another thing that we're making investment in this year is around mobile, in particular around our launch process and how to make that even better on day one and then the following day. So that's another investment that we're making to drive store traffic.
Mike Longo (President and CEO)
Ben, you might want to mention some of the innovation at Raffle without giving too much away.
Ben Knighten (SVP of Operations)
Yeah. Yeah. Certainly, there is, on day one, depending on the launch, a certain amount of unsold items. And so we're putting in new processes as well as, with our customers, new marketing that are going to increase sell-through on that day one and then the following day. So more to come on that, but we have a lot of exciting innovations around the launch process. There's still customer friction there. And that's something that's very important to our customers and something that we're going to invest in.
Sam Poser (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you. Then this is just not directly related to business, but there was a lot of moving around with your earnings dates. I mean, I wonder, are you working or involved in any M&A right now?
Mike Longo (President and CEO)
So we don't entertain those sorts of questions. But to your first part of the question, the moving of the earnings date was my decision. We were trying to collect additional data aside from what we normally get. Last year, we probably went a week too early, and this year, we backed it up. So that was the origin of it.
Sam Poser (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Well, I mean, we had originally heard that it was going to be on the 28th, and then it seemed to move towards the 15th. So I'm just trying to understand.
Mike Longo (President and CEO)
That's exactly what changed my mind.
Sam Poser (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
Mike Longo (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for closing comments.
Mike Longo (President and CEO)
Thank you very much for your time and attention today. We always appreciate the opportunity to talk about our business and to say thanks to our sales associates in the stores, the people who work so hard in our distribution center, and the people who work in the store support center. They're the reason we get in here every day and work as hard as we do so we can do a good job for our consumers. So thank you again. We look forward to seeing you in Q2.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.