Bath & Body Works, Inc. (NYSE:BBWI) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jonna Kim: Hi, thank you for taking my question. And congrats on the quarter. Just wanted to get a little bit more color around your new categories, it seems like the men’s category is doing well and you launched MOXY which is focused on skin care and hair care. Curious on your strategies going forward and just would love more your thoughts around some marketing initiatives you have around the holiday season around these categories? Thank you.

Wendy Arlin: Great. We will go to Julie.

Julie Rosen: Yes. So as far as the men’s business goes, I know we have said before on these calls that we believe that we can more than double our Men’s business. Based on our market data, we continue to increase market share at an accelerated rate, and we are absolutely thrilled with those results. Men’s continues to significantly outpace our shop. We launched leather and brandy, and coffee and whiskey this quarter. They absolutely exceeded our expectations. The men’s business also continues to be our fastest growing category in the total body care. And we continue to test new forms and merchandising ideas to fuel the business. So for instance, as we mentioned, we have been testing antiperspirant deodorant in about 650 stores and we are thrilled to be rolling this out to all stores in spring.

Just as on aside, antiperspirant deodorant is the number one form in the men’s market. And we know in order to double this business to grow market share, we’re going to have to own this form. So we’ve also been doing a lot of tests in men’s. We have some expanded shop-in-shop tests. We have some tests that are just marketing tests. So we are testing not only in products but merchandising and placement. And the goal of these tests is to raise awareness with our current customers as well as to gain new customers. So we are very bullish and excited about this business and think it’s a great opportunity. As far as MOXY goes, I would say that the assortment is still flowing on site. And again, as we mentioned, it’s only in 11 stores. So we are right now at a just learning and listening, so more to come on that.

Wendy Arlin: She asked us about marketing initiatives holiday, anything on holiday approach.

Julie Rosen: Yes, you will see marketing initiatives around men’s. It’s incredibly important business for us, particularly in the fourth quarter because we sell a lot of gifts. We sell gifts at multiple price points. We will have gift sets in men’s. And we also launched for the first time this Q4, our first single fragrance launch in men’s After Dark. So we’re very, very excited about that. You will see some MOXY marketing, but this is our most important quarter of the year, and we are really buckling down and focusing first and foremost on delivering our core business and learning and listening from MOXY?

Wendy Arlin: Yes. And Jonna, the only other thing I would add as we go into Q4 is we are really excited about our gifting rent. So we know gifting is a huge part of Q4, and we have really been thoughtful about our price points on gifting and showing a guess everybody at every price point. So we think we’re well positioned to win in the gifting time of the year.