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

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Dana Telsey: Hi. Good morning everyone. As you think about the merchandise margin, which I believe was down around 300 basis points, how are you thinking about that going forward and especially the cadence as we move through the year? And on the data science journey, which seems to be very effective, how far along are you on that data science journey? Is there more to capture? And then just lastly, what are you seeing in shrink? How is that impact and how you are planning? Thank you.

Adrian Mitchell: Terrific. So, with regards to merchandise margin, we feel good coming into the year. So, much of our merchandise margin is dependent on our inventory position, not just the level of inventory, but the composition and where we tend to win is having fresh inventory where we can get full-price sell-through and our multi-category flexibility helps us quite a bit as well. As you can imagine, over the last year, we pivoted into occasion base and away from casual and that has served us well. But when the customer comes back, we will be able to respond well. I think the disciplines around the open to buy to really respond to demand signals in local markets is going to serve us quite well. So, we feel very good about that.

We are in the, I would say, mid to late innings on data funds. The reality is, given what we are learning, it seems like the journey is not done. We continue to find more and more opportunities to expand margin profile through our data science. So, it’s really fascinating to see the insights that are coming through the learnings we saw in 2022, but we will definitely take the opportunity to lean into the beta at a much more granular level to make sure that we are finding even more margin opportunity. So, there is more upside for us, and we will be very clear about that as we continued to progress. As we think about our shrink levels, I will have Jeff speak to that briefly.

Jeff Gennette: Hi Dana, so shortage was worse than anticipated. And I think as you are hearing from other posts, it’s an industry-wide trend. We definitely had an uptick since last year. Two factors, one is the shift €“ the channel shift that you have going from digital back to stores. So obviously, you have more porous forgers in your stores than you do in your warehouses that are fulfilling most of your digital orders, so that was anticipated. And then you do have heightened fact in particular pockets of the country and we are working aggressively with our teams and local officials on how we can better protect our assets in the future.

Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Paul Lejuez of Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Tracy Kogan: Hey. Thanks. It’s Tracy Kogan filling in for Paul. I just wanted to ask a quick follow-up on the last question on shrink. I was just wondering how much it pressured your margins this quarter? And then separately, you guys talked about changing the way you incentivize buyers. And I am wondering if you have had enough time, I am not sure if you put that in place just in 4Q or a little bit earlier, but if you had enough time to see if it’s actually changing behaviors. Thanks.

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