Delta Apparel, Inc. (AMEX:DLA) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Simone Walsh: So, thank you, Jamie. So certainly, the same store sales have increased, and if you think about some of our flagship stores such as Destin and Estero, we’ve spoken before about they being over $1 million in sales. That has certainly increased as well, which is very pleasing to see. Florida as a whole as you know has been hit with some weather challenges. We have opened eight stores in the year, so where they are still in growth mode, but of the stores that have been opened, we have seen that growth continue.

Bob Humphreys: So Jamie, I would say you know, if you want to look for a disappointment in my mind, is our store in Texas has not yet met our goals, and there’s some road and work construction around that store that perhaps is part of it. I would say in general, you know we see stores start out strong and remain strong or do they start out week and they stay kind of weak. Now we’ve seen places like Daytona that have had steady, long-term, you know five, six year growth as the area around them has been built out. If people get there and shop, we do very well. Being just a destination to attract people is not our cup of tea, or retailers like that. The most encouraging one to me has been Rehoboth, Delaware that still exceeds every week you know our goal for the store. So that’s been nice to see, and we’re looking forward to seeing what happens further north in New Jersey.

James Wilen: Are you tweaking the model around now that you have a bunch of different geographic locations and some with an outlet, some free standing. As you move forward, how does the model change from how you’ve historically grown the store business?

Bob Humphreys: Yes. I think we like the model of about 2,000 square feet, and we want to remain a mix between outlet and what we consider more branding stores. From a profitability standpoint, right now the outlets are more profitable for us. We tend to get more revenue through those stores, but we’ll remain having a mix there.

James Wilen: And the online business, we were struggling with the ability to have inventory and the right merchandise there. Are we there now, and what type of growth are you seeing in that business, or do you expect to see now that you’ll have full merchandise within on the website?

Simone Walsh: So, thank you Jamie. So certainly, yes. If you recall, we, at the start of the year, were under inventory in our ability to fulfill on the e-commerce website as our wholesale sales came through much stronger than expected and were directing inventory to that wholesale business. We have now within the distribution centers identified a separate area in terms of e-commerce and have that available and we have rectified that. Very pleasingly, in Q4 we saw year-over-year growth in the e-commerce channel as well, as well as in retail and wholesale, and we’re very encouraged by the future of our e-commerce platform. We have refreshed the website and continue to see healthy traffic.

James Wilen: Fast forward to the end of this fiscal year, where would you like your inventory level to be?

Simone Walsh: So certainly, we have an anticipation of our inventory levels falling through the year. If you think about our inventory and the composition of our inventory, those Delta Direct unadorned T-shirts are a significant proportion of our inventories. About 75% of that inventory is Evergreen, and so we do expect to sell through that inventory over time and have those elevated inventory levels come down, as well as the Delta Direct Evergreen inventory, we also have more Salt Life inventory just by having more stores now. So that Salt Life inventory as we keep increasing the store footprint, we will see a small pace of our inventory increase in line there, but that Delta Direct blank Evergreen inventory, we do expect to fall over the course of the year.