Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ:LULU) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Brooke Roach: And if I could just squeeze one more in for Meghan. Meghan, can you help us with the approximate sizing of the airfreight FX and supply chain investment that is going into the gross margin in 4Q? And remind us how much of those pressures will be persisting into 2023.

Meghan Frank: Yes. So as we look at Q4, we do expect that overall operating margin will have similar pressure as we did in Q3 in terms of FX. So we had a net pressure of 40 basis points in Q3. We’re expecting something similar for Q4. When we look overall at our operating margin for Q4, we see it expanding year-over-year in the 40 to 70 basis point range with our guidance versus last year in gross margin. We gave color of 10 to 20 basis points. We’re seeing a benefit on product margin driven by lower air freight, which will be partially offset by normalized markdowns in line with our 2019 levels and then also mix of business. We also had that negative impact from FX. And then we’ll also have some pressure in gross margin related to fixed costs, particularly the timing of our DC investments, which are really positioned to enable our scale of the business over the next five years.

And then on the SG&A side, we’re expecting 30 to 50 basis points of leverage, which would be driven by higher sales as well as a little bit of a benefit on the FX side within SG&A.

Operator: The next question is from Matthew Boss with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Matthew Boss: Great. Congrats on another nice quarter. So Calvin, on the material market share gains that you cited, where do you see the largest share opportunities remaining maybe across categories? And then just to elaborate on the start of the fourth quarter, could you just provide any color on the cadence of shopping that you’re seeing, maybe stores versus digital? And then just given the comments on the encouraging start of 4Q, is it fair to say you’ve embedded moderation in the growth CAGR for the remaining 2/3 of the quarter relative to your start?

Calvin McDonald: Thanks, Matt. So on the last piece in terms of the start of the quarter and what we’re seeing, traffic was very strong for us across both our online channel as well as stores in Q3, and we’re pleased with the continuation of strong traffic numbers into this quarter. And there’s still a lot of the quarter ahead. So as we shared, we had a very strong Thanksgiving shopping weekend and saw good results of our regular priced merchandise and there are some critical weeks ahead. So the teams just remain focused in managing accordingly as we get ready for the holiday season. So that’s our approach and how we’re monitoring and managing through. And the first part of the question, oh, right, market share, got it. When I look forward in terms of our continual opportunity to grow market share, it’s a combination of both in men’s and women’s categories and our key activities that we’ve identified across run, train, yoga, tennis, golf and hike.

We shared at our Analyst Day our opportunity in unaided brand awareness with him. We have seen an improvement in that, but it’s well below what the potential is and other brands in our category space. So we know as we continue to drive awareness behind the brand in consideration, it’s having an impact on our men’s business, pleased with the growth in the quarter of 28% but really just getting started in terms of the potential of more being aware of and considering Lululemon in addition to, as we continue to build out some of the assortment and unmet needs that we have around those core activities that we focused on. And for her, although we have a better unaided brand awareness, we are still below, again, others in our category space. So we still have opportunity.