Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ:LULU) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Binetti : I will add my congrats on a nice quarter and a nice update since ICR, Meghan. I guess on China, you built a lot of stores there since pre-COVID. And I think you’ve done — I think you haven’t had much time over there over the past three years, those stores operating in any kind of normal capacity. So if China was 8% of sales but it’s 15% of your global store count, I’m just curious if China was operating at normal productivity, would revenues be closer to that 15% store mix? Or do you think those stores — any reason to think they should trend above or below global averages on sales per store or sales per flow. Just have you think any way for us to think about the opportunity there with the assets you already have? And then Calvin, on thoughts on pricing in 2023. I know this hasn’t been the most urgent lever for you to pull in recent quarters. You talked about that. Any change to that for 2023?

Meghan Frank : Yes. In terms of China stores, definitely, we were impacted by COVID as we move throughout 2023. So I would expect that percentage to be higher. I would say our stores are highly productive there. They tend to be smaller than the balance of our fleet, particularly in North America, and we view that as an opportunity over time. We continue to have a long pipeline of store openings there. We also are very early in terms of store expansion strategy, which we’ve employed in North America to capitalize on where we see very strong and healthy sales per square foot and opportunities to expand the market.

Calvin McDonald : And Michael, on pricing, I’ll start with what we shared last year, which is going to be similar to our approach this year. And I’ll start with — I’m proud of the approach that the team took, and that is knowing we’re a full-price business. We only increased prices on a small percentage of our assortment so that we continue to lean in on full pricing and not rely on and have to pull the promo lever. What we saw in the industry was many other players price up and then heavily discount that back down. But it allowed us to manage margins, manage full price selling throughout with selective pricing. And heading into ’23, it’s a similar approach. We’re not planning any drastic significant moves in pricing and continue to focus on full price with markdowns as a means to exiting seasonal product only.

Operator: The next question comes from Omar Saad from Evercore.

Omar Saad : Just a couple of quick follow-ups. Calvin, maybe you could touch on the strategy to use paid media? And how that’s going for you guys, the efficacy? Is that something you’re using in other markets like China as well? And maybe a quick update on some of the new categories, footwear, hike, golf, et cetera, would be helpful.

Calvin McDonald : Thanks, Omar. In terms of our approach to media, we’ll always and continue to use a balance between paid and earned. And I think we’ve really made gains in the last few years in leveraging both of those with earned media playing very, very heavily for us, which is great, on the back of innovation and some compelling story. So we’re going to continue to leverage both of those, leading in when we do paid into digital and more direct and specific. And I think you’ll see a lot of that expressed and executed through the — Align campaign. And Nikki and the team are also doing a wonderful job working with the regions in getting expression right through to the digital campaign through to stores and in and around in local markets and amplifying that.

So it just really fits and feels like a very omni expression and execution for the guests out of the store, in-store and across digital applications. So excited for you to see for that campaign expressed. And your second part of the question was…