We always do. We know that’s very important for particularly in the flipper business. We know that, that’s significant. So we pay attention. Our merchants do a good job of always updating our opening price points. I wouldn’t say we’ve added to our opening price points. I’d say it’s pretty much consistent to what we’ve historically done.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Justin Kleber with Baird. Please proceed with your questions.
Justin Kleber: Can you guys just talk about what’s driving the deceleration in comps quarter-to-date. Is it transactions taking a step back? Or is it related to ticket? And then kind of part of that question on the sequential improvement you’ve seen in in transactions here 2Q. Did you comment on Pro specifically, I’m curious how that trended relative to 1Q?
Trevor Lang: Justin, I’ll take the first part of it, and maybe Trevor can jump in on the pro side. So the minimal thing that led to the deceleration is around transactions. It’s all tied to the existing home sales step down that we’re kind of seeing. So if you remember, existing home sales in January were $4 million, they stepped up $4.6 million in Feb $4.4 million in March and then started to decline back down $4.3 million in May and down to $4.2 million in June. That’s really around transactions that are leading to that negative four more so. The average ticket is actually in line with our expectations.
Trevor Lang: And on the Pro side, it has decelerated as well, but it’s still outperforming the homeowner or the DIY business.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Keith Hughes with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your questions.
Keith Hughes: Yeah, this is building on the last question. So in the guidance in the second half, is ticket and add subtraction? What kind of numbers are we looking at? And are you expecting?
Bryan Langley: So ticket in the back half will actually be negative. And so it’s been sequentially declining as we expected kind of throughout the year. And so you have that inflect your crossover point. Transactions will get better, but really, they’re less worse. So they’ll stay down as well, but ticket will cross over and cut into negative for the back half of the year.
Operator: Our final question will come from the line of Greg Melich with Evercore. Please proceed with your question.
Greg Melich: I’d love to follow up and if you already answered this, please just tell me, I dropped off there in the middle. But on category mix, just because it’s changed so much over the years. I’d love to get an update on how the mix is really driven between categories. I think you said you’re still seeing trade up, but I’d love to know what it’s doing, laminates versus wood and what that does to your gross margins.
Trevor Lang: Yes. So we do see the, what I’m going to call the man-made products continue to outperform the natural products. So on the wood look side of the business, laminate and rigid core vinyl are taking share from wood. And on the, call it, the tile side of the business, mostly porcelain tile, but force ceramic tile versus the natural stone businesses are continuing to perform better than the stone businesses. So the answer is the manmade products are better in almost all regards. Same thing is going on in Deco. And the margin profile for those categories and the man-made products are better than the natural products, the ticket is lower, but the margin profile in the genre is higher for the natural products. I’m sorry, for the manmade products.
Bryan Langley: This is Bryan. Before the call end, I just want to jump in and kind of help you guys a little bit with the modeling. You couldn’t find an natural way to make it transition in. Just — I know if that’s the question that was asked, but the original guide had store and selling or selling store operating expenses at 27% of sales. We now feel like that’s going to be 27.5% to 28% for the year. General and administrative was 5% of sales on the original guide. That’s going to be closer to 5.6% to 5.7% for the year. Pro opening expenses will still be maintaining around that 1%. And so I just wanted you guys to have that as well as just to kind of help with the modeling.
Tom Taylor: So that concludes our question-and-answer portion of the call. I appreciate everyone’s interest in our second quarter earnings and our outlook for the year. We appreciate everything that everyone is doing. This is — we feel like we’re doing everything we can to balance our profitability, while at the same time, taking market share and ready for the other side of a down cycle. So we look forward to updating you on the next call.
Operator: Thank you. This does conclude today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and enjoy the rest of evening.
