We’ve made tremendous progress in our e-commerce capabilities that have helped strengthen our lead and omnichannel against other off price retailers. In the last three years, we have enabled multiple same day and next day delivery options and ship from store capabilities. We’ve also expanded our extended aisle assortment in our shipping channels and greatly improved the customer experience. We’ve added new pay options such as Paypal, Apple Pay, reducing friction at checkout, and we’ve improved our inventory accuracy and have made it easier for customers to find available nearby store inventory. These efforts have enabled strong sales growth. Year-to-date e-commerce sales growth has been strong at 12% and it now represents 7% of our business, compared to 2% three years ago.
While we’re proud of our achievements, we still have more work to do in order to keep our lead. There remains friction in the customer shopping experience, and our value offerings haven’t been as easy to find as we’d like. Therefore, we are removing friction with improved site navigation, access to deals, streamline cart and checkout to improve our conversion rate. In October, we entered Phase 2 of a multi-year order management system for a single view of the inventory to improve the omnichannel experience. And fifth, we will drive productivity. We remain focused on growing margin, reducing expenses and making strong investment decisions. We’re navigating the current environment and creating opportunities to strengthen our business. For example, we’ll be sharper and more productive on pricing and promotions aided by new tools to improve our efficiency.
We have described regional pricing model in California, which will grow to other markets that allows us to flex pricing to improve competitive position and optimize margin profile. We also talked about our work in food and consumables, which indicates a $20 million annualized gross margin opportunity that we are already actioning expect to see continued benefits from in the fourth quarter and beyond. This work has been rolled to hard home with other divisions to follow. We’re going to be targeting higher sell throughs by more significantly editing our store — our assortment across stores. This will lead to inventory being placed in more productive stores and will also lower the amount of inventory built for display purposes. We’ve achieved significant structural SG&A reductions over the past several years, but continue to see more opportunities going forward.
To sum it up, we have made meaningful progress in the face of the challenging environment in the third quarter and we expect to continue to gain traction in the fourth quarter. We are determined to be the best destination for bargain and treasure hunters and in doing so greatly improve our operating results. I’ll now pass it over to Jonathan, and I’ll return in a few moments to make some closing comments before taking your questions.
Jonathan Ramsden: Thanks, Bruce, and good morning, everyone. I would also like to thank the entire Big Lots team for their unstinting efforts through these challenging times. I’m going to start this morning by going to more detail on our Q3 results, which I will discuss on an adjusted basis excluding store asset impairment charges and will then address our outlook for the fourth quarter. A summary of our financial results for the third quarter can be found on page nine of our quarterly results presentation. Q3 net sales were $1.204 billion, a 9.8% decrease, compared to $1.336 billion a year ago. The decline versus 2021 was driven by a comparable sales decrease of 11.7%, which was within our guidance range. As you will recall, our third quarter sales started off down in the low double-digit range in August and as expected that trend continued through the quarter.
High inflation in the macro uncertainty is continuing to cause consumers to delay or cut back on discretionary purchases, especially of high ticket items. Importantly, we continued to successfully drive inventory levels lower and we’re able to reduce promotional activity as the quarter progressed. Our third quarter adjusted net loss was $87 million, compared to a $4 million net loss in Q3 of 2021. The adjusted diluted loss per share for the quarter was $2.99 versus a diluted loss per share of $0.14 last year. Gross margin rate for the third quarter was 34%, down 490 basis points from last year’s rate and in line with our guidance. This included significant impacts from higher markdowns and freight, although as we will discuss in a moment, we expect to see both of these headwinds turn.
Turning to adjusted SG&A. Total expenses for the quarter including depreciation were $518.5 million below the $523.3 million last year and better than our guidance of up low single-digits year-over-year. Store payroll costs, general office and equity compensation were all below last year as we proactively cut costs. These cuts are offset in part by cost increases on some other lines, particularly in distribution and outbound transportation expense. As Bruce noted, as part of our ongoing productivity and efficiency initiatives, we expect to continue to drive structural savings. Adjusted operating margin for the quarter was negative 9.1%, compared to a loss of 0.3% in 2021. Interest expense for the quarter was $6.3 million, up from $2.3 million in the third quarter last year due to higher amounts drawn on our credit facility versus last year.
