Macy’s, Inc. (NYSE:M) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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So the strength of freshness and to be able to sell through the items that we put in front of the customer, that’s something that we’re pretty excited about and we have the flexibility in our open to buy reserve to respond to sales demand signals to be able to get and maintain the right composition throughout the season. The second thing is really more focused on compelling promotional events and reducing our broad-based promotions while levering up our personalized offers and communications so that we can have more regular priced sell-throughs. We have already tested with millions of customers, our personalized offered communications thus far this year. We are pleased with the results that we are seeing. And in combination with that, we are really committed to not chasing unprofitable sales.

That served us well in the fourth quarter, and that will also continue to be a principle as we get into the New Year. The third is really the mix of categories. We have been very disciplined operationally in terms of how we think about the pivot of the customer and where her or she is spending. And so we are going to continue to do that. But we feel that that freshness, fashion and newness is going to allow us to have more full-price sell-through, which is going to be able to help our gross margin. So, when you think about opportunities like dresses, and men’s tailored that’s not offered at scale and value retailers. We are just very well positioned for that kind of mix around the full-price sell-through to really enhance our gross margin throughout the year.

So, those are the things that we are excited about. We are continuing to look at things like freight and raw material costs and opportunities there. We feel good about the progress that we have made there. But fundamentally, we have just been very disciplined on all the levers around gross margin and already have the momentum and traction to bring that into 2023.

Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Matthew Boss of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Matthew Boss: Great. Thanks. So, maybe two-part question. Jeff, when you think beyond this year about the sustainable top line model moving forward, where do you see white space market share opportunity? And do you see expansion opportunity given the lateral store closures that appear to be picking back up? And then Adrian, is it high-30s for gross margin in terms of the profile multiyear? And can you leverage the expense base at low-single digit sales growth?

Jeff Gennette: Hey Matt. So, I think the white space question is related to how many categories or customers signaling interest in Macy’s. I think we are learning a lot from marketplace. And categories that when you think about video games, you think about electronics that were the most popular categories on marketplace during the fourth quarter. We are learning a lot about some of the apparel businesses and categories that we have added or brands that we have added. So, there is big opportunity with that. When you look at some of our lease opportunities and what we have been able to do, Pandora is a great example of that that has immediately energized our entire jewelry floor at big productivity level increases from what we had previously.

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