Paul Lejuez: Curious if you can share what you’re seeing in terms of the Five Beyond prototype comp performance versus the rest of the chain? And any detail that you might be able to give in terms of the traffic or to get in those stores versus the non-Five Beyond stores?
Joel Anderson: Paul, it’s a great question. It kind of alludes a little bit to what Matt asked about improvements through the Q3 quarter. And at the same time, I’m not trying to dodge your answer. And while we are seeing improvements in both, it’s really early for us to kind of give you a definitive statements on that because the overwhelming majority of those happened in Q3, which is — again, it was an input into why sales improved throughout the quarter. And I think we really kind of need to watch how Q4 goes. But what I’ll tell you and remind everybody at our Investor Day, we expected the first full year post remodel to run in plus mid-single digits. And we haven’t seen any signs that it’s — they’re not going to perform at kind of that level.
But at the same time, we want to kind of more real data. We got a large subset of stores now, 250, and we’ll really watch those through the quarter. But I would stick with the mid-single digits, which is what we laid out at Investor Day.
Operator: And our next question will come from Edward Kelly with Wells Fargo.
Edward Kelly: So there’s been a lot of talk about heavy promotions this holiday period, especially in categories like toys, — can you just maybe talk about what your Q4 mix is in that category and how you think you’re set up to compete? And then just a follow up on one thing you talked about earlier on the closeout business. Just maybe a little color on what you’re seeing there in terms of the opportunity. Could you maybe size it and the impact that could have in Q4 as well?
Joel Anderson: Yes. Ed, the toy category for us, holiday is in kind of the high teens range. And I think it’s — look, I know the industry is talking a lot about heavy promotions, over buys. We — that really hasn’t impacted us. We also don’t tend to play in the traditional toy line-up that everybody is talking about. Squish model is in the — in our toy world. And that’s very different than the plastic toys that I think a lot of people are referencing. And I don’t expect us to deviate too much from the high teens in terms of the Q4 performance in toys. I don’t know, Ken, anything to add on that?
Ken Bull: No, I think you hit it. It’s always an important part of the holiday season. And as Joel mentioned, those are our expectations. That’s what we’ve seen historically from a penetration standpoint. And that’s what we’re expecting to see for this holiday also.
Operator: And our next question will come from Jason Haas with Bank of America.
Jason Haas: So Joel, you mentioned a few times, and I know you said on past calls that the business becomes more needs-based as we get into the holiday season. So I’m just curious as you’re starting to plan the business for next year, if you think we could see a similar cadence, just this sort of environment continues. I’m curious to get your thoughts there.
Joel Anderson: Let me clarify. You see a similar cadence of the needs base going into the holiday?
Jason Haas: Yes. I just wonder, as we get out of the holiday season, we entered the spring and summer, assuming that the consumer just broadly still under pressure if you’re kind of planning the business this run rate won’t continue if we’ll see some softening before that it picks up again as we get into the holidays.
Joel Anderson: Yes look, I wouldn’t expect us to see softening. I think it’s — it’s a very different time period than where the start of the year was. The consumer has clearly said value is important, and they figured out that we’re a piece of the value equation. I think what we saw in Q2 where we saw a big slowdown as did most retailers, and that was during the transitory time of massive inflation. Certainly, the war started, and we saw the consumer freeze. They’ve adjusted their pocketbooks. They’ve adjusted new lifestyle, and we’re part of that equation going forward. Will the first couple of quarters, be more focused on our needs-based categories like consumables and candy, absolutely. But as long as we continue to deliver value, I don’t see it going backwards.
Plus, look, you’re going to get the continued benefit of more conversions as we go into 2023, which is going to more than offset any potential slowdown you’re foreshadowing there. hopefully, that gets at what you’re asking, Jason?
Operator: And our next question will come from Jeremy Hamblin with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.
