Michael Broderick: Yeah. Brian, let me — this is Mike. Let me — I don’t want to give weekly cadence. I would say that the entire business we’ve talked about in the past, we were looking for a weather event. I wish we had it in the third quarter. We’d sure have made a different result. But when it did come, it changed dramatically. So, just like what we’ve talked about in the past, weather did contribute to a significant tire change. I would look at the consumer and what we’re still seeing are customers that used to buy four tires that are trading down to two tires and doing one tire now. So, we are still seeing that deferral cycle. And until I see anything differently, I would probably say the consumer is in a rough patch. I should be able to see a consumer that is replacing two tires minimum. They should not be just replacing one tire. And I’m just using that as an example to say, hey, there’s something there with the consumer for these high ticket tires.
Brian Nagel: Okay. I appreciate it. Thanks Mike.
Michael Broderick: Thank you, Brian.
Operator: Our next question is from Daniel Imbro at Stephens Inc. Please go ahead.
Joe Enderlin: Hey, guys. This is Joe Enderlin. I’m for Daniel. Thanks for taking the question.
Michael Broderick: Morning, Joe.
Joe Enderlin: Morning. Commentary in the release says you maintain share in those higher margin tiers. Still seems like some movement in the opening price point. Have you seen the pace of that share movement slow?
Michael Broderick: Well, just to be clear, the decisions we made last January, we knew we were going to lose market share and we were going to give up units in opening price point. That was a decision not just with price, but with assortment. The one thing that we did not factor on, and we didn’t see that in the prior two years that I was here, is tier one through three declining. That is something that, as an industry, we would never have factored in or forecasted. When I look at the customer behavior right now, without question, the customer definitely moved into tier four. But overall, tire units in the industry were down mid single digits. So, there’s a very tough environment around the tire business right now, and I’m looking forward to that actually coming back. Once again, going back to the consumer environment right now, I would say it’s shared by all.
Joe Enderlin: Got it. That’s helpful. Just as a follow-up, could you provide some more color on how those 300 underperforming stores did versus your expectations for the quarter?
Michael Broderick: Versus expectations? They missed expectations. They actually were very consistent with the rest of my chain. There was a lot of variability in the performance in those 300 stores. I would say one-third were extremely successful, one-third met expectations, and one-third fell short of my expectations. And we continue to focus on driving profitable sales through those boxes. I have talked about in prior quarters that having one or two transactions — additional transactions with tires could significantly change the comp on some of these low volume stores. Just to kind of illustrate how variable some of these stores’ P&L and sales performance really is.
Joe Enderlin: That’s helpful. Thank you, guys.
Michael Broderick: Thank you, Joe.
Operator: Our next question is a follow-up from Bret Jordan at Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Bret Jordan: Hey, guys. I think you not too long ago made an announcement about a parts supply deal you did with a group. Could you talk about that? Does it have any impact or material impact on margin, or is it just an incremental parts supply deal in addition to the ones you already had with some of the big two-step guys?
Michael Broderick: There is — we did make a deal. I would say it’s incremental, but there’s nothing in this quarter to talk about. And there’s no margin that I would say would be something I would call out. It just gives our team another option in case they’re trying to look for parts, so they can better serve their customers.
Bret Jordan: Okay. And then I guess a little bit more detail on the labor cost reduction comment. I think you said it was something in the 40 basis points benefit. Is it just reduction in labor hours or an absolute reduction in headcount? Sort of what are the big levers you can pull on the labor cost side of things?
Michael Broderick: Yeah. We did a little bit of both, but ultimately what we did is we reduced hours so that we could — and we just really managed hours very tightly, considering that we had a tight sales environment. And the way we did that is through less people, but more importantly, we just really restricted the hours so that we were really flexible when the customers did come into our stores. We just managed the schedule. Going back a couple of years ago, I would say from a Monro perspective, we invested in tools, scheduling tools, to allow us to better manage our people, and the team is adapting to it. And they’re doing a great job managing our biggest cost, which is our technicians.
