DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE:DKS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Navdeep Gupta: Yes. So, Warren, just a couple of comments before we get into the specifics. So, we are very confident about the House of Sport strategy. The three stores that we have opened, it’s a handful of stores. But the results, both on the top line and the bottom line that we are seeing are really, really right. And that’s what gives us the confidence that we have. In terms of the impact of these things, that will be recognized over time, as you can imagine. Over the next two years, we intend to open about 20, and like Lauren said in her prepared comments, over the next five years, it could be 75 to 100. So, the benefit will be seen over time. But we are very optimistic about the strategy and the differentiation as well as the ability it provides us to engage with the athlete in a very-differentiated way.

Operator: Our next question comes from Paul Lejuez with Citi.

Paul Lejuez: I’m curious if you can give an update on Going, Going, Gone!. How many did you end the year with? How many are pop-ups versus permanent? And anything you could share in terms of what that added to sales in F ’22? And what’s the plan for F ’23?

Navdeep Gupta: So Paul, in terms of the Going, Going, Gone! stores, like as we call them, permanent, there were 15 of them that we had at the end of the year. We had more warehouse plus those are kind of the 43 temporary locations as we call them, really, really enthusiastic about the strategy. Not only is it allowing us to engage with an athlete and a different profile of an athlete than DICK’S Sporting Goods athlete. So that’s one benefit. In addition, as we have talked about the benefit that this provides in terms of being able to liquidate our inventory and actually get a better recovery rate on that inventory is also a strong asset for us.

Lauren Hobart: I would just add one thing. I think the way we look at the Going, Going, Gone! chain is that it’s a flexible asset. So, we can expand, and we’ve done that with our temporary pop-up locations. We can take those down if we don’t need them or if they’re not working. So, by the time something becomes a Going, Going, Gone! concept, it’s been proven and tested, but the warehouse strategy is very flexible.

Paul Lejuez: Got it. And then, could you just maybe just give a little bit of a further breakdown of CapEx investments for ’23? Just how much of that is at the store level, both new and existing stores versus IT and corporate? Thanks.

Navdeep Gupta: Yes. Paul, the vast majority of the — or the capital investment will be going into stores as we called out, right? Our plan is to open nine new House of Sport locations as well as do the earlier capital investment into the 2024 House of Sport openings. In addition, as we indicated, we’ll be upgrading 100 of our stores to premium full-service footwear decks. There is definitely an investment on the backside in terms of the GameChanger technology, the investments that we are making in personalization as well as the other capability from data and analytics, all of that is also entered in the guidance. But the vast majority of the investment will continue to be store facing.

Operator: The next question comes from John Kernan with Cowen.

John Kernan: Congrats on a great year. So, how should we think about the new store productivity contribution from square footage growth? It looks like that the gap between comps and overall reported sales was close to 200 basis points this quarter, which would suggest any new store productivity has come online has been quite productive. So just curious as how should we model, one, new store productivity and overall square footage growth based on the number of stores you’re talking to and also the bigger size of some of them.