Citi Trends, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTRN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

David Makuen: I’m talking about gifts, and you’re absolutely right, a good memory. We saw an opportunity to get into the toys business earlier, like I mentioned in my comments, set it up earlier for the customer to consider and gravitate to. And we have a little thing called layaway, and layaway is a meaningful part of our sales during Q4. But what the customer does is they come in, in October [slash] even first couple of weeks November and they go, oh, that’s a pretty cool African American Barbie play set, as an example, or that’s a really cool remote control race car. I’m going to put that and a bunch of other stuff on layaway and come back and get it in December. And so we rely pretty importantly on that, I’ll call it, pre-consideration, I’m going to put it in layaway.

I’m going to put a little down payment on it, and I’m going to pay it off, pick it up in time to put it under the tree in December. So you’re absolutely right, rebuilding and getting those, I’ll call it, layaway friendly businesses out on the floor earlier is really germane, it’s a part of the intentional rebuilds that we’ve been doing. So we’re looking forward to a good toy selling season as a result.

Operator: Mr. Makuen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to you.

David Makuen: Thanks, Frank. Thanks, everybody, for joining us today. Have a great holiday. See you at the next one. Bye-bye.

Operator: That does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your line. Have a great day, everyone.