Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jeff Davis: Yes, sure. We are doing that market-by-market. And what we are looking at is not only the hourly wages, which is where the bulk of the investment is. We are also looking at coverage to ensure we have the proper amount of coverage. And then we are also looking at what I would call the field team, the store manager and the district manager. We do know, and it’s proven that when we have the right wage structure, we increased our retention and our turnover has been pretty astronomical and we are seeing that slowdown. We know we get better shrink. We know we get better store standards and we get better morale and that all leads to better execution, which the customer sees on the shelf when they are in the store. So, it’s a broad-based approach.

Anthony Chukumba: Got it. Look forward to seeing you in June.

Jeff Davis: Thank you, sir.

Operator: Thank you. We will now move to our next question from Michael Lasser from UBS. Please go ahead.

Michael Lasser: Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. So Rick, the message today and what it’s been for the last few quarters is, look, we are going to burden the cost structure with a lot of investments to get this business to where it needs to be, and we are going to frame and quantify what the return on these investments is going to be at some later date. So, could you give at least a framework on what you expect the return on these investments to how you expect them to flow in terms of timing and the nature of how the return on investment is going to look, if it’s just sales leverage, on the fixed cost, it may take quite a bit of time for the enterprise to get back to the operating margin level that it achieved historically.

And as part of that, for the $400 million that you are investing this year, how does that breakdown between those wage investments that are more structural in nature and the maintenance and repairs that are perceived to be more one-time in nature? Thank you very much.

Jeff Davis: Thank you, Michael. This is Jeff. As we think about the returns, and Rick had indicated earlier, there are a number of interdependencies that are related to these investments. So, as you can imagine, we are €“ a lot of these investments are complementary to what we are doing with our merchandising and our other store initiatives. Those interdependencies are dependent upon us being able to execute against this against all 16,000 stores, and it will take time through the course of 2023 to accomplish that. We have seen early on at the back half of 2022, some early returns and some tests that we have done. So, we are confident that we will have an improvement in returns in future years. But between the interdependency as well as, quite honestly, trying to execute this and what we are all seeing as a somewhat uncertain macroeconomic environment.

The combination of these two things, we believe that the impacts of this year will be minimal. We are saying it as minimal because it is not any relevant level for us to actually speak any specifics to it at this point in time.

Operator: Thank you. We will now move to our next question from John Heinbockel from Guggenheim Securities. Please go ahead.

Rick Dreiling: Hey John.

John Heinbockel: How are you?

Rick Dreiling: Good, sir.