Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript March 13, 2024

Dollar Tree, Inc. misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $2.55 EPS, expectations were $2.67. DLTR isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Hello, and welcome to the Dollar Tree Q4 2023 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I’d like to turn the call over to Bob LaFleur, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Bob LaFleur: Good morning, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Dollar Tree’s fourth quarter results. With me today are Dollar Tree’s Chairman and CEO, Rick Dreiling, and CFO, Jeff Davis. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that some of the remarks that we will make today about the company’s expectations, plans and future prospects are considered forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by our forward-looking statements. For information on the risks and uncertainties that could affect our actual results, please see the Risk Factors, Business and Management Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations section in our annual report on Form 10-K filed on March 10, 2023, our most recent press release and Form 8-K and other filings with the SEC.

We caution against reliance on any forward-looking statements made today, and we disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Also during this call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of those non-GAAP items to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in today’s earnings release available on the IR section of our website. These non-GAAP measures are not intended to be a substitute for GAAP results. Unless otherwise stated, we will refer to our financial results on a GAAP basis. Additionally, unless otherwise stated, all comparisons discussed today are for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, are against the same period a year ago. Please note that a supplemental slide deck outlining selected operating metrics is available on the IR section of our website.

Following our prepared remarks, Rick and Jeff will take your questions. Given the number of callers who would like to participate in today’s session, we ask that you limit yourself to one question. I’d now like to turn the call over to Rick.

Rick Dreiling: Thanks, Bob. Good morning, everyone. This past year, our organization made meaningful progress in the ongoing transformation of our core business, which includes building a foundation for sustainable growth. While I have been Chairman and CEO for a year now, we are still in the early stages of this transformation journey. We’re off to a good start and we remain focused and we are excited about the remaining transformation work that lies ahead of us. You’ve heard me say that sales per square foot, transactions and units are among the most important benchmarks in retail. I am pleased to report that we are seeing growth across all three and momentum is building across the business. We are making progress on the operational objectives of our transformation.

And in some areas, we are seeing positive results earlier than we expected. While the transformation process is dynamic, we remain focused on delivering against our core growth objectives, and as always, navigating through the challenges we encounter along the way. As I previewed on our last call, we are also taking decisive steps to strengthen the Family Dollar brand and better position it to achieve its full potential. We took a thoughtful and deliberate approach to address underperforming stores by considering each individual store’s performance, local operating environment and our broader need for scale and operating efficiencies across the portfolio. As part of the portfolio review process, we have identified approximately 600 Family Dollar stores that we will close in the first half of fiscal 2024.

Additionally, approximately 370 more Family Dollar and 30 Dollar Tree stores we’ll close at the end of each store’s current lease term. We believe rationalizing these unprofitable locations will help to unlock meaningful value at the enterprise level. Collectively, we estimate that net sales loss from the stores we intend to close this year is approximately $730 million on an annual run rate basis. On the other hand, given their historical underperformance, we would get back approximately $0.30 of annual run rate EPS, net of any stranded costs. Now, let me shift gears and discuss our fourth quarter results. On a consolidated basis, net sales increased 12% to $8.6 billion, including a $560 million benefit from this year’s 53rd week. Enterprise comp grew by 3%, with 4.6% higher traffic offsetting a 1.5% lower ticket.

Adjusted operating income increased by 21% to $749 million. Adjusted EPS grew 25% to $2.55. While our quarter four reported EPS on an adjusted basis was below our quarter four outlook, these results include $0.17 of net costs primarily related to actuarial insurance adjustments that were not contemplated in our outlook. Jeff will provide more detail on this in his remarks. But without these unanticipated costs, quarter four operating results exceeded our expectations. Looking at performance by banner. Dollar Tree segment comps were up 6.3% on 7.1% more traffic and a 0.7% decrease in ticket. Traffic and ticket both improved sequentially. This strong quarter four comp came on top of an 8.7% comp last year. Dollar Tree’s consumable comp was up 10.8% and its discretionary comp was up 3.1%, a 200 basis point sequential increase from quarter three and an impressive accomplishment given the general weakness in discretionary demand across retail.

The quarter’s consumable comp came on top of a 9% comp last year. As pleased as we are with Dollar Tree’s quarter four performance, it’s worth noting that we believe January’s winter storms negatively impacted comp by about 70 basis points. In quarter four, Dollar Tree continued to take unit market share in consumables. According to Nielsen, our unit volume grew 8% while the market declined 1.5%. These strong gains in traffic and market share are supported by Dollar Tree’s ability to attract new and higher income customers. Continuing recent trends, Dollar Tree added 3.4 million new customers in 2023 mostly from households earning over $125,000 a year. We attribute Dollar Tree’s exceptional performance to the range of initiatives we have been implementing.

One of the most important initiatives at Dollar Tree is our multi-price point strategy, which we’re calling More Choices. The underlying premise here is that we can present a more relevant assortment to our customers if we are free to offer items at a variety of price points. Here, we are making tremendous progress. We have substantially completed the rollout of $3, $4 and $5 frozen and refrigerated items, which are now available in more than 6,500 stores. Today, we typically offer multi-price frozen product in three coolers within our usual 10 cooler bank. Over time that will evolve eight out of 10 as we expand the assortment. By the end of 2023, we introduced $3 and $5 center-store merchandise to approximately 5,000 Dollar Tree stores and expect to add another 2,000 stores this year.

We are especially excited about the next phase of our multi-price expansion strategy. Dollar Tree’s Chief Merchandising Officer, Rick McNeely, and his team are continuously working on new ways to deliver value while expanding our assortment across a wider range of price points. This expanded assortment will offer Dollar Tree shoppers a wider range of choices across a variety of categories, including food and snacks, beverages, pet care, personal care, and more. This year, across 3,000 stores, we expect to expand our multi-price assortment by over 300 items at price points ranging from $1.50 to $7. But even as our multi-price assortment expands over time, the vast majority of the items sold in Dollar Tree stores will remain at our entry level fixed price point.

Over time, you will also see us fully integrate multi-price merchandise more into our stores so our shoppers will find $5 bags of dog food next to our traditional $1.25 pet treats and toys, and our $3 bags of candy will be found in the candy aisle. This is the next exciting chapter of the Dollar Tree value story; new items, more choices, and more savings. Now let’s turn to Family Dollar. Here, persistent inflation and reduced government benefits continued to pressure the lower-income consumers that comprise a sizable portion of Family Dollar’s customer base. Accordingly, Family Dollar’s quarter four comp declined 1.2% as a 0.7% traffic increase was more than offset by 2% ticket decline. Family Dollar’s consumables comp decelerated sequentially to 2.2% in quarter four from 6.2% in quarter three.

Discretionary comp was down a full 12%. As challenging as this was, it was a slight sequential improvement over quarter three. Categories like apparel, home decor, electronics, and general merchandise remain weak as lower-income consumers continue to be very deliberate about their spending. Family Dollar continued to take unit and dollar market share in consumables even as lower-income consumers struggle with reduced SNAP benefits and other macro pressures. In fact we estimate the reduced SNAP payments for total quarter four comps by about 5 points and when coupled with the weak discretionary demand, the comp impact was closer to 7 points. Looking forward, we expect reduced SNAP benefits will be a headwind through at least the first half of FY ’24 before comparisons ease.

While the operating environment remains difficult, I don’t believe the challenges we face are structural and I continue to believe that a well-run and well-located Family Dollar store is a powerful retail force. As I mentioned earlier, we are taking aggressive actions to address underperforming stores. Looking through the transient factors that weighed on comps throughout 2023, I am encouraged by the fact that in a more normalized operating environment, our comps would have been higher. We believe our ongoing market share gains are a strong validation of the many initiatives we have underway. We are gaining traction in the vast majority of stores where they’ve been implemented, and I continue to believe that the Family Dollar banner is well-positioned for long-term improvement as we continue to focus on operational excellence and financial performance.

Before I turn the call over to Jeff, I’d like to update you on some of the key milestones we have achieved so far in our transformation journey. In real estate, we opened 641 new stores last year, which was at the high end of our target of 600 to 650. Selling square footage increased 3.6%, which was ahead of target. We are placing a greater emphasis on Dollar Tree openings given the attractive returns and performance and we expect the vast majority of our new store openings in fiscal 2024 will be Dollar Tree’s. I’m excited about the overall quality of our project pipeline for both banners. In supply chain, our DC in Matthews, North Carolina is now providing rotacart deliveries to approximately 600 Family Dollar stores and we are also testing rotacart deliveries to Dollar Tree stores from our DC here in Chesapeake.

By the end of this year over 3,000 stores should be receiving rotacart deliveries from a total of six DCs, four for Dollar Tree and two for Family Dollar. As expected, we are already seeing a meaningful reduction in unloading times at stores using rotacarts, and we expect those efficiencies will continue to build. Expanding and modernizing our trailer fleet is an important part of the rotacart initiative. To this end, we added nearly 900 new trailers with liftgates to the fleet in 2023 and expect to add 2,000 more this coming year. By the end of 2023, nine of our DCs were temperature-controlled. By the end of this year, all 25 of our DCs should be either fully temperature-controlled or have dedicated temperature controlled facilities onsite.

Temperature-controlled DCs help reduce cross-docking costs and allow us to carry OTC and other temperature-sensitive products throughout our distribution network. They also increase productivity by providing associates with a safer and more comfortable working environment. And finally, we continue to make progress on our completely revamped Family Dollar DC in West Memphis, which should improve the overall efficiency of our distribution network. As you probably saw in the news last month, Family Dollar reached a resolution with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding its West Memphis DC, and we are pleased to have this situation behind us. As part of our ongoing transformation efforts, we continue to strengthen and enhance our food and product safety protocols and our compliance oversight.

In our IT modernization, our new warehouse management system is up and running at its first DC. Concurrent with this rollout, we are also deploying and integrating our new transportation management and labor management system. Overtime, we expect these enterprise-wide solutions to contribute to the optimization of our distribution network and labor efficiency. We have also installed new network infrastructure in over 3,800 stores, bringing improved Internet connectivity, security, and in-store WiFi access to better support store operations. Since our last report, we have also begun implementation work on both our new enterprise-wide POS solution and our new human capital and payroll management system. We have also launched new mobile apps for both Family Dollar and Dollar Tree.

The Family Dollar app allows us to offer more targeted promotions and a better customer experience. The Dollar Tree app gives shoppers the ability to see new products, view weekly ads, receive notifications about great deals, and do price checks. In private brands, we launched approximately 250 new SKUs and converted over 300 control brands to private brands. The private brand program is one of the most significant initiatives underway at Family Dollar, and I’m excited that we now have a highly competitive offering that expands our assortment across multiple categories and offers the Family Dollar consumer national brand equivalent products at compelling values. By the end of last year, our private brand penetration reached 15%, 100 basis points ahead of our target and a great head-start towards reaching our 20% goal by 2026.

On category resets, I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize Family Dollar’s Chief Merchandising Officer, Larry Gatta, and his team for their efforts to expand and improve our merchandising assortment. By the end of 2023, we successfully raised the merchandise height profile to 78 inches across the banner and optimized our assortment with the addition of approximately 900 net new SKUs. These efforts are already having a meaningful impact on our results, adding 130 basis points to our quarter four comp, which helped offset at least some of the impact from the softer macro environment and comparatively weaker discretionary demand. This reset was a major undertaking for Larry’s team and our new planograms will allow us to expand and improve our product assortment and help Family Dollar gain additional market share.

We are also moving forward with our goal of increasing the number of cooler doors in Family Dollar stores. We added over 17,000 cooler doors last year, which was 1,000 doors above our target, and brought our average across the Family Dollar segment to 26 coolers per store, which is approaching our goal of 30 coolers per store. In summary, we continue to execute well around factors that we can control. I’ve said before that our progress on this journey will include challenges with the belief that we will succeed more often than not in our efforts, but the direction and destination remain clear, which is the long-term health and success of our business for the benefit of our customers, associates, stakeholders, and partners. Our growth initiatives are central to this journey and we are focused on continually improving even in the face of a rapidly evolving macro landscape.

We have an outstanding team with a cultural foundation focused on service to the customer and improving our performance each and every day. We remain relentlessly focused on retail fundamentals and continue to take market share. While challenges and macroeconomic factors will always be part of any retail journey, we continue to face them head-on as they arise. We’re excited about where we are and optimistic about where we are headed. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Jeff.

Jeff Davis: Thank you, Rick, and good morning. I will first discuss our fourth quarter results, after which I’ll provide some details on the financial impact of the portfolio optimization, and close with our fiscal 2024 and Q1 outlook. As I discuss our fourth quarter results, where applicable, I will focus on our non-GAAP adjusted results. A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP is provided in our earnings release. Also, as a reminder, our Q4 and full year 2023 results include an extra week of operations, which gave us an incremental $560 million in revenue and $0.35 of EPS for the quarter and the year. In the fourth quarter, the Dollar Tree and Family Dollar segments increased traffic, unit volume, and market share despite persistent headwinds from an unfavorable sales mix and reduced SNAP benefits.

Looking at the business on a consolidated basis. Net sales increased 12% to $8.6 billion. Adjusted operating income was $749 million, a 21% increase from last year. Adjusted operating margin increased by 70 basis points, driven by a 220 basis point increase in adjusted gross margin and offset by a 150 basis point increase in adjusted SG&A rate. Adjusted gross profit increased 20% to $2.9 billion. Adjusted gross margin improvement was driven primarily by lower freight costs, occupancy cost leverage from the extra week, and higher vendor allowances, partially offset by product cost inflation, unfavorable sales mix, and elevated shrink. Adjusted SG&A expenses increased primarily from ongoing labor investments, higher incentive compensation, unfavorable general liability claim development, and depreciation, partially offset by leverage from additional sales from the extra week.

Our adjusted effective tax rate was 23.1% compared to 23.4%. Adjusted net income was $556 million, and adjusted EPS was $2.55, which includes the $0.17 per share negative impact primarily from unfavorable general liability insurance claims. Before I move on to segment level results, let me spend a moment to walk you through the non-GAAP adjustments in our Q4 results and shed some additional light on the $0.17 per share negative impact primarily from unfavorable general liability insurance claims. The first non-GAAP adjustment was related to the portfolio review process. Here, we incurred total non-cash charges of $594 million, including $86 million for inventory markdowns and $504 million for store asset impairments. We also incurred an additional $4 million of related fees.

The second non-GAAP adjustment was a non-cash impairment charge of $2 billion for Family Dollar, including $1.1 billion related to goodwill and $950 million related to the trade name. The third non-GAAP adjustment was a $27 million charge within SG&A related to the resolution we reached with the Department of Justice regarding our West Memphis distribution center. This was in addition to the $30 million West Memphis reserve we recorded in Q1. Outside of the non-GAAP adjustments, Q4 results included $0.17 of net EPS headwinds related to items that weren’t contemplated in our Q4 outlook. These items include negative adjustments to our general liability accruals, which were partially offset by favorable adjustments to workers’ compensation liabilities and the elimination of certain rent and depreciation expenses as part of our Family Dollar impairment process.

Adjustments to general liability accruals may sound familiar to many of you as we absorbed $0.07 of EPS impact from this issue in the second quarter of 2023. So, let me explain why we are revisiting this in Q4. In the process of accruing for potential general liability exposure, predicting the outcome of both existing and unreported claims is inherently complex. We rely on third-party actuarial analysis to estimate insurance reserves on an ongoing basis. As we discussed in our second quarter call, general liability claims have been more volatile in recent years. Since the pandemic, the development of claims has worsened. The charge taken this quarter intends to capture this new environment. To address this over the long term, we have upgraded our risk management capabilities and revised our processes to focus on claim closures among other areas.

As we continue to address all open claims with our new processes, our actuarial studies should reflect more normalized risk exposure over time. Now back to our business segment results. Dollar Tree’s net sales increased by 16% to $5 billion. Adjusted operating income increased 21% to $873 million. Adjusted operating margin increased 80 basis points driven by a 230 basis point increase in gross margin, partially offset by a 150 basis point increase in adjusted SG&A rate. Gross margin improved primarily from lower domestic and import freight costs and favorable occupancy cost leverage due to the 53rd week. These were partially offset by mix pressures from lower-margin consumables, cost inflation, higher distribution and merchandise cost, and elevated shrink.

Adjusted SG&A expenses expanded principally from the unfavorable general liability insurance claims and higher payroll expenses, depreciation, amortization, and repairs and maintenance. Family Dollar’s net sales increased by 7% to $3.7 billion. Adjusted operating income was $7.2 million compared to $1.4 million. And adjusted operating margin increased 20 basis points on 160 basis point increase in adjusted gross margin, offset by 140 basis point increase in adjusted SG&A rate. Adjusted gross margin increased primarily from lower freight, mark-on increases resulting from vendor allowances, lower occupancy and distribution costs, partially offset by higher shrink and sales mix. Adjusted SG&A expenses increased primarily from unfavorable general liability claims, store labor investments, repairs and maintenance, and depreciation.

Moving on to the balance sheet and free cash flow. Inventory decreased by 6.2%, reflecting a decrease of $337 million. Relative to last year, our sell-through of seasonal merchandise was strong. In addition, we had more capitalized freight costs and inventory last year. Fourth quarter capital expenditures were $784 million versus $328 million, reflecting the record 219 new stores we opened in the quarter, and elevated investments in other renovations, supply chain, and IT to support our growth initiatives. Free cash flow declined by $82 million versus the fourth quarter last year, reflecting higher levels of capital expenditures at year-end. For fiscal 2023, free cash flow improved by $217 million versus the same period last year, led largely by lower merchandise inventories and the timing of accounts payable, with a partial offset from lower net income adjusted for non-cash items and increased CapEx. This improvement for the full year comes despite a challenging macro environment and significantly higher levels of investments to support our multi-year growth strategy.

Given the portfolio review process, we did not repurchase any shares in the open market during Q4. For the year, we repurchased 3.9 million shares for $504 million, including applicable excise tax. At the end of fiscal 2023, we had $1.35 billion remaining under our share repurchase authorization. Cash and cash equivalents totaled $685 million compared to $643 million. At year-end, our leverage, as defined under our revolving credit agreement, stood at approximately 2.4 times. Before I move on to our fiscal ’24 and Q1 outlook, I’d like to take a moment to level set our 2023 performance to give you some deeper perspective on the foundation upon which our 2024 outlook is built. We think the best way to look at fiscal ’23 is to start with our non-GAAP adjusted full year EPS of $5.89.

As I mentioned earlier, this adds back all the costs associated with the portfolio review, the goodwill and trade name impairments, and the West Memphis resolution. On top of that, we got about $0.29 related to costs we called out in quarters two, three and four, including the insurance true-ups, the OTC recall, and other discrete items. Finally, the 53rd week this year added an extra $0.35 of EPS. Taking all that into consideration gets you to approximately $5.83 of EPS coming from the underlying operating performance of the business in 2023 on a 52-week basis. So, with this $5.83 as a 2023 starting point, I’d like to discuss a few items that we expect to affect the actual operating performance of the business in 2024. First, lower ground and ocean freight costs benefited our full year 2023 EPS by approximately $1.50, which was nicely ahead of our original expectations.

On the other side of the ledger, shrink and mix hurt EPS by approximately $1.15 on a full year basis, which is also more than we originally expected. Said another way, the 2023 shrink and mix headwinds offset about three-quarters of the benefit we received from lower freight costs last year. The good news is that based on current rates, we expect to realize additional freight savings in FY ’24. The bad news is that the base level of shrink and mix headwinds is meaningfully worse than we had previously expected. We anticipate these headwinds to be concentrated in the first half of 2024 and then moderate longer-term as the macroenvironment normalizes and our self-help initiatives start to yield results. In light of these factors and to address the immediate macroeconomic environment, in 2024, we will be optimizing our SG&A and capital expenditure investments to support our growth initiatives.

So with that, let’s move on to our full year and Q1 outlook. Consolidated net sales for fiscal 2024 are expected to be in the range of $31 billion to $32 billion. For the full year, we expect low- to mid-single digit comparable net sales growth for the enterprise, low-single digit growth for the Family Dollar segment, and mid-single digit growth for the Dollar Tree segment. Adjusting for the stores that are closing as part of the portfolio optimization, we expect fiscal year ’24 net sales for the Family Dollar segment to decline by 1% to 3% on a year-over-year basis. Diluted EPS for the full year is expected to be in the range of $6.70 to $7.30. For Q1, we expect net sales to be in the range of $7.6 billion to $7.9 billion, based on comparable net sales growth in the low- to mid-single digits for both the enterprise and Dollar Tree segment and approximately flat for the Family Dollar segment.

Diluted EPS for the first quarter is expected to be in the range of $1.33 to $1.48. Our outlook for Q1 and fiscal ’24 does not include any severance or other incremental costs related to the portfolio review process. Having given you our high-level expectations, let me share some of the key factors and assumptions that are incorporated in our fiscal ’24 outlook. We expect full year gross margin in the Dollar Tree segment will be in the range of 36% to 36.5%, reflecting our strong comp outlook for the year and reduced freight expenses. In the Family Dollar segment, we expect full year gross margin will be in the range of 24.5% to 25% as elevated shrink, unfavorable mix, and reduced SNAP benefits remain headwinds through at least the first half of the year.

We expect lower freight costs to provide approximately $0.80 to $0.90 of full year EPS benefit in fiscal ’24. This is a bit below the $1 benefit we’ve discussed previously and reflects the current conditions in the global shipping market, including lower water levels in the Panama Canal and the Red Sea situation. We expect approximately 60% of the freight savings to come in the first half of the year, with Q1 seeing the greatest benefit before it moderates in each subsequent quarter. Our fiscal ’24 outlook also assumes approximately $0.30 to $0.35 of EPS headwinds from unfavorable mix and elevated shrink. Nearly all of these headwinds will be absorbed in the first half of the year as we annualize our 2023 exit rate on these items, with approximately two-thirds of the impact coming in Q1 and the balance in Q2.

While we don’t expect to get meaningful relief from shrink and mixed pressures in the back half of the year, we expect the year-over-year impact to be more or less neutral in the back half. We expect full year SG&A expenses as a percent of total revenue will be approximately 25%. Our fiscal ’24 SG&A outlook for the Dollar Tree segment reflects the incremental one-time reconfiguration costs that we expect to absorb at each of the 3,000 stores we are scheduled for conversion into our expanded and fully integrated multi-price format this year. Within our overall SG&A expenses, we expect full year corporate, support and other expenses will be in the range of 1.8% to 1.9% of total revenue. The Family Dollar store closures are expected to be approximately $0.15 accretive to EPS, mostly in the second half of the year as we close these stores throughout the first half.

Adjusting for the timing impacts of all of these items, we believe approximately 38% of our full year EPS will be achieved in the first half of the year, with remaining 62% coming in the back half. From a seasonality perspective, fourth quarter is historically our strongest earnings quarter. And finally, here are a few other modeling items to consider. Full year depreciation should be approximately $1 billion, which is approximately $0.55 higher year-over-year on an EPS basis, reflecting the additional depreciation and amortization associated with the $2.1 billion of CapEx spent in fiscal ’23. We expect net interest expense of approximately $95 million for the year and $26 million for Q1. Our effective tax rate should be approximately 24% for both Q1 and the year.

We expect capital expenditures for the year to be in the range of $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion. Finally, our outlook assumes no share repurchases, but we do have $1.35 billion of capacity under our remaining authorization. And with that, I’ll turn the call back over to Rick.

Rick Dreiling: There was certainly a number of moving parts last quarter. As a result, our reported earnings included a few unexpected items. That said, if you peel away the layers, we produced some very good operating results in a very challenging macro environment. Considering what we accomplished while continuing to execute upon multiple strategic initiatives, we have much to be proud of. And as I discussed earlier, we are continuing to invest in our risk mitigation, food and product safety and compliance programs in order to keep building on the foundation of service that defines this company. Looking forward, the Dollar Tree segment, led by multi-price, is exceeding expectations and gaining momentum. In the Family Dollar segment, we are taking the steps, as I outlined earlier, to fortify our base, strengthen our brand and position Family Dollar to achieve its full potential.

I couldn’t be prouder of our organization and our 200,000 associates across Dollar Tree and Family Dollar for their continued contribution to our success. I am truly honored to lead and to be part of the best team in retail. Operator, with that, Jeff and I are ready to take questions.

See also 20 Most Food Insecure States in the US and 15 Money Mistakes to Avoid in Your 30s.

Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. Now we’ll be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question today is coming from Edward Kelly from Wells Fargo. Your line is now live.

Rick Dreiling: Hi there, Ed.

Edward Kelly: How are you, Rick?

Rick Dreiling: I’m good, sir. What’s up?

Edward Kelly: So, I wanted to start, maybe Rick just take a step back and talk about how the company or how you are thinking about the company’s outlook and the confidence in the strategy around the individual businesses are evolving? So, you take your core Dollar Tree segment, the rollout of multi-price point seems to be going very well. How is your view on the opportunity there changing? And then, Family Dollar, obviously, not where it needs to be. What does that say? I’m sure you’re not going to throw good money after that here. And then, as part of all of that is $10 still in play, maybe you just get there differently? Just thoughts on how things are evolving for you would be, I think, helpful. Thank you.

Rick Dreiling: Yeah, great question. And hey, I’d like to throw on the table, Jeff and I talked a little longer than normal. And for those of you that are interested, we’ll go past the 9 o’clock straight up and give you a little more time for questions. As I think about, Ed, there is a — this is a sum-of-the-parts story at the end of the day. And what’s important here is we’re very intently focused on creating shareholder value. The Dollar Tree multi-price point strategy is doing significantly better than we thought it would do. The customer acceptance has been off the chart to be frank. Our biggest problem right now is getting enough merchandise into the stores fast enough, so the consumer can respond. Family Dollar is a victim of the macro environment out there.

If you think about the increase in shrink, which I thought would have moderated if anything by now, but it is continuing to accelerate, and then, the pressure on the mix. But again, I come back to a well-run Family Dollar is a very, very powerful retail format. And I think what we’re doing is making the right decisions to fortify the base in Family Dollar and position it, so we can go forward in a more stronger position. Now in regards to the $10, we continue to believe in the $10 target that we announced, well, I guess about a year ago, and we are continuing to march toward that goal. However, the macro environment has gotten in our way. And we are dealing with high, high shrink numbers. We’re dealing with big mix shifts. So, it’s a little difficult for us to pinpoint that $10 target going forward.

We still believe in the target, but we believe the path is to get to $7 in 2024, and we’re intently focused on that. But again, we want a positive 2024, and then as we move through ’24 and ’25, we’ll give you more of a handle on the $10.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Simeon Gutman from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now live.

Rick Dreiling: Good morning.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, this is — good morning. This is [Zack] (ph) on for Simeon Gutman. Thanks for taking our questions. Can you provide any additional color on how you’re thinking about the comp outlook in ’24? Specifically, what are your assumptions for the progression of ticket and traffic throughout the year?

Rick Dreiling: Yeah. I mean, obviously, our guidance, we’re looking for a strong year particularly on the Dollar Tree side. And I think as we get into quarter four, that is our big time of the year in terms of discretionary in Dollar Tree. We believe the initiatives that we’re putting in place in Dollar Tree are definitely delivering very positive comp. Family Dollar, as Jeff called out, is going to be a little tougher. And it’s driven by the mix shift and it’s also driven by quite honestly the pressure on the low end consumer in terms of income and the SNAP benefits. We will cycle through the SNAP benefits as we move toward the end of the year, but we feel very comfortable with our comp outlook.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Matthew Boss from JPMorgan. Your line is now live.

Rick Dreiling: Good morning, Matt.

Matthew Boss: Great, thanks. Good morning, Rick. So, two questions. Maybe could you elaborate on the traffic trends and market share by demographic that you’re seeing at the Dollar Tree banner? And just any change in underlying momentum at Dollar Tree quarter-to-date? And then, in light of the portfolio optimization, just your confidence in the go-forward Family Dollar fleet, or maybe if you could share some performance across the curve in terms of the store base? And just lastly, potential opportunity to accelerate unit growth at Dollar Tree as you see it just given the performance?

Rick Dreiling: Yeah. Dollar Tree, the fastest-growing demographic is north of $125,000 a year in income, which brings a lot more firepower to the store to be honest with you. And I think quite honestly, I think that attraction is the multi-price point and the fact that we’ve been able to increase the variety of product in the store. And I think the interesting thing about Dollar Tree, the lift is pretty universal across all the operating markets. It’s not like the North — East is strong and the West is weak. It’s — well, that boat is lifting pretty even all the way up. When I look at the potential for Family Dollar and the optimization, again, it’s a sum-of-the-parts story. And there are many opportunities in Family Dollar to maximize shareholder value.