And then as I mentioned, now going into the next realm of technology solutions that are trying to protect the customer experience and make it still seamless for the customer to get everything they want, and at the same time, create the safest possible environment.
Brad Thomas: Very helpful. Thank you, Corie.
Operator: And your final question comes from the line of Brian Nagel from Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
Brian Nagel: Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions.
Corie Barry: Good morning.
Brian Nagel: My first question. I think it’s a bit of a follow-up to Keith’s question just with respect to memberships. So Corie, you spent a lot of time on the call today. Just talking about the ongoing enhancements of membership and you’ve given some of the nearer-term financial targets, but I guess the question I want to ask is, as we step-back and clearly the big focus for Best Buy. In your minds, what do we play what I don’t want to say necessarily say dream the dream, but intermediate longer-term opportunity with membership either providing a financial standpoint more quantifiable or just from an overall consumer engagement standpoint.
Corie Barry: Yes. I’m going to talk from a consumer engagement lens. The thesis of membership has been consistent since the beginning is to drive customer engagement and increase share of wallet in consumer electronics, that is the end game that we’re trying to accomplish, all the more important in an environment where we have plenty of data that says consumers are a little less brand loyal than they’ve ever been, and so it becomes even more important for us to both create and then maintain this deep relationship with our customers. What we’ve learned across and I said it before, but ahead again across acquisition, retention, and engagement, what we’ve learned is different customers value and different cohorts of customers value different qualities in our membership program.
And so that’s why the tiers of Free, Plus and Total they will appeal to either in the free case, someone who just really wants the convenience of free shipping on everything. On the Total – or on the Plus aspect, excuse me, that’s someone who loves convenience and a great value, right, they’re going to get the promotions. They’re going to get early access and we get 60-day return windows. And then on the total. I want all of that plus. I really value the support aspect of what we deal and the most important output of all of those at the end-of-the-day is that we can see customers who both stay engaged with us and we can see that repeat business, and we can see that increase in share of wallet meeting every time they think about making a purchase in consumer electronics, they just come to us because it’s so easy why do you go anywhere else.
So that structurally, is what you’re trying to build to. Over time, you both want the program itself to be efficient, you wanted to be a reasonable cost of acquisition, but over time, you also want a customer who is shopping with more frequency and ultimately spending more with Best Buy.
Brian Nagel: No, that’s very helpful. I appreciate that. And then my follow-up question different topic. We talked about the sale, the expected sales trajectory through the balance of the fiscal year with the expectation that sales will continue to solidify improved maybe work towards that flatline. But you also did call out. I think it was in the prepared comments. The risk of it – if you will is the challenge of this resumption of student loan payments. So, it’s obvious topic is starting to get air time. The question. I have is I mean, to what extent you look closely at this. How are you sizing and if you are sizing that potential risk to your sales trajectory here in the near-term.
Matt Bilunas: Yes, thank you. I think it’s clearly something we’re trying to assess and what we effectively believe we’ve tried to size that in our guide for the back-half of the year. So it’s clearly there are a number of different factors influencing the consumer right now shift to spend the services, their increasing use of credit card, but they’re still spending money. So I think it’s certainly an impact for us. I think if you look at our demographics, we potentially could be more slightly exposed, but at the same time, we have a demographic that actually has a higher income, who can more afford, increase in the number of student debt payments. So it’s something we certainly tried to factor into the back-half for sure, but it’s not the only factor that’s happening.
Corie Barry: You bet. Thank you, Brian. We appreciate the questions and overarchingly thank you to everyone who took the time to be with us today. And before we close the call. I want to make sure we acknowledge the wildfires in Maui, but also the wildfires, we’ve seen in Canada. And those bracing for a hurricane in Florida. Our hearts genuinely go out to those impacted and we are doing all we can to support our employees in all of those impacted areas. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Operator: That concludes today’s Best Buy’s second quarter fiscal 2024 earnings conference call. Thank you all for joining, and I hope everyone has a great day.
