Columbia Sportswear Company (NASDAQ:COLM) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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So as we get in the latter part of this year, Alex, we’ll be comping against that is more a year comp, if you will, and some of that’s also reflected in our outlook. I think the other thing I would mention as well, we have been over the course of the past few years then making strategic digital-based investments. And so we’ve made enhancements to our membership program and our digital teams are working on efforts to better personalize their sites to the consumer and home market to the consumer. So I think increasingly, as we get in the back half of this year, we’re able to begin leveraging the same type of return on some of those investments.

Alex Perry: Perfect. That’s all incredibly helpful. Best of luck going forward.

Operator: The next question is from Mauricio Serna with UBS. Please proceed. Mauricio, your line is live.

Mauricio Serna: Hello. Sorry about that. I was in mute. Thank you. Thank you for taking my questions. I guess, the first question, maybe could you talk about the sell-through that you’ve seen in the US and European businesses. That will be super interesting to hear. And then on the sales guidance, just wanted to reconcile. I think you beat like the midpoint of the guidance for Q1 by about but then you’re keeping it pretty much stable. So I wanted to — just be sure to understand like what drove that outperformance? And like where is that being offset in the upcoming quarters? And then just lastly, I think like if you do the math on the SG&A — inside SG&A, productive to the previous guide, like it’s a decline of about $10 million or something like that. I just wanted to understand like what is like the changes in the SG&A versus the previous guide as you’re already — like you’re keeping the savings plan? Thank you.

Tim Boyle: Yeah. Mauricio, I can tell you that the — in the North America market our sell through is about an average where it is on an average year. So we’re pleased with that. It looks like the liquidation through our stores and our retail partner stores are about on average. In Europe, they’re slightly ahead of where they would typically be show it is how that’s performing, which looks like it’s going to be a positive for us. Jim, you want to?

Jim Swanson: Yeah, I can jump in on the other couple of questions. So first, as it relates to the Q1 revenue beat, that Mauricio by and large, earlier wholesale shipments, can be days or within a couple of weeks different. So that’s just a timing difference between first quarter and second quarter. And hence, you’re not seeing any changes to our full year outlook. So that came out of Q2. And then with regard to SG&A, there’s slight adjustments that we’re making in fine-tuning the SG&A forecast where we brought that down slightly. I think it’s going to be a reflection of the efficiency of what we’re capturing from a cost reduction standpoint and you just be able to manage the business with discipline. So nothing of specific note outside of that.

Mauricio Serna: Got it. And just a very quick follow-up on the temporary outlet stores, like essentially, you’re using this year to clear down a lot of — there are a lot of merchandise. But how is it going to be like the approach next year as you wind them down? Is it going to be like gradual or just like, I don’t know, like all out in Q1? I just wanted to understand because, I guess, like from a consumer standpoint, I don’t know if that would affect like how the consumers perceive the pricing of the company stores.

Tim Boyle: Yes. The temporary locations are really going to be timed as a function of how effective we are liquidating the inventory. So, month-to-month so I would expect that we’ll be gradually closing these stores over the next three years to the point where they’ll virtually all be gone or there may in fact be one or two and some small number that are converted to permanent stores that we like the performance. But basically, these are established to help us liquidate that cloud inventory that we had around 18 months ago.

Mauricio Serna: Got it. Very helpful. Thank you so much.

Operator: Okay. We have no further questions in queue. I’d like to turn the floor back to management for any closing remarks.

Tim Boyle: Well, thank you all for listening in. We’re excited about the potential for the business and the future looks very bright. We will talk to you next quarter.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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