Hibbett, Inc. (NASDAQ:HIBB) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Ben Knighten: Yeah, Mike. Appreciate it, John. It’s Ben Knighten. There’s a little bit rare in retail when you are able to kind of gain both efficiency while increasing your effectiveness, and to your point, not cutting into that muscle. Our big move here to the mobile platform is kind of enabled us to do both, putting those tools in our associates hands has made them even more productive and enable them to do their job better with the customer. It’s kind of elevated that customer experience and the associated experience, I might add to Mike’s point that combined with our sales culture out there has led to really results improved SG&A for Q3 specifically. Just really proud kind of state that of all the hard work done from our associates and being able to do that and really elevating that customer experience in-store and online.

John Lawrence: Yeah. Thanks. And last one for me is, just taking that thought going forward, you get back to more normal weather patterns, et cetera. The Apparel business and there’s no reason with a reasonable positive comp that you can leverage that even further?

Mike Longo: Yeah. We think so. And so to answer your first question, we think we are in the mid-innings. Just know that we are not going to take all that to the bottomline. We are again, we will reiterate, reinvesting much of those savings into the business model, so that we can continue into the future, having that positive consumer experience online and at retail. So thanks for the question.

John Lawrence: Great. Thanks guys. Happy holidays.

Mike Longo: Thank you.

Jared Briskin: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Mitch Kummetz with Seaport Research. Please proceed with your question.

Mitch Kummetz: Yeah. I just had a quick follow-up. On the women’s business, I just want to have a better understanding there, because that was up in the quarter. I think you said it Footwear was up mid-teens. Can you say how much of your business is women’s, can you elaborate on the strength of that business, particularly in Footwear, like how much of it is that, maybe there’s just a better underlying product trend in women’s or that you are better positioned to take market share there. And like what do you see the runway for your women’s going forward, like do you think there is continued opportunity for outperformance of that side of the business?

Jared Briskin: Yeah. Hey, Mitch. Good morning again. Jared. Yeah. I think, look, if we really go back and look at our history and the history of this industry, women’s really hasn’t been focused on. We took a significant approach in 2020 when we went through our merchandising reorganization that put a focus on each gender. We felt like women’s have the broadest opportunity followed by kids, since that point, we have more than tripled the women’s business. So feel great about what we are doing in women’s. Our — we have a hyper focused team specifically on women’s that we have added resources to and we are getting great focus from our brand partners on the women’s business. The women’s business very, very fast and trying to forward for us and our team has done an exceptional job on following those trends and getting the right levels of inventory and getting support from the vendors and we still see it as a big growth vehicle for us.

Mitch Kummetz: All right. Thanks again.

Mike Longo: Thank you.

Jared Briskin: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our final question is coming from the line of Sam Poser with Williams Trading. Please proceed with your question.

Sam Poser: Since I am the last one. I got a handful. The inventory cleanup that you are doing that you talked about, Jared, to get the quality better. Is this something where you are sort of being more aggressive during the holiday sort of to take care of it, well, the ducks are flying kind of situation?

Jared Briskin: Yeah. I think it’s really the approach is to remain targeted with regard to promotions. I mean we don’t — we are not in a position where we need to do this mass fire sale with regard to inventory, we are targeting the promotions in the right places and we will do our best to move through as much as we can here in the fourth quarter, put us in the best position as we go forward, but there certainly will be a balance around, how much we want to do versus how much will hold over into next year and then how much of the support we can get from our partners with regard to relief fund inventory. So multi-pronged approach. Again, I feel like the team is executing really well against that and we have made major strides.

Sam Poser: Thanks. And then, secondly, you called out Nike as doing quite well on the Footwear side. Can — do you — is there any positive call out on the Apparel side of the business. You would say, this category brand whatever that is doing well in a very difficult situation?

Mike Longo: Yeah. I’d say, right now our biggest driving category Apparel side is denim, denim has been a significant focus for us for a number of years. We continue to expand our presence in denim along with adding additional cat — additional products within the woven categories, both of those have been exceptional, continue to be a focus for us and we believe continue to be a differentiator in our business.

Sam Poser: Thanks. And then, Bob, on the share count. The currently — the fourth quarter share count, what number should we be using and then I just wanted to know about where you — where everybody sort of the loyalty program as well as far as new members and percent of business. I might have missed that earlier?