Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE:JWN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Maher: Yes, Blake, it’s Michael. I’ll take a first shot at that. We believe that those targets are remain achievable in a normalized environment with sort of sustainable low single-digit top line growth we believe we can achieve better margins than we did on comparable revenue beforehand. We’re not quite in a normalized environment at this point. We talked about some of the macro headwinds we’re seeing right now on consumer spending and also the inflationary pressures. But we took a meaningful amount of our overhead costs out back in 2020, as you might recall. We continue to drive meaningful efficiencies in our supply chain, which is now the largest element of our SG&A. And we’ve been driving down our buying and occupancy as a percentage of our sales as well, which, as you know, is a component of gross profit for us.

So really, the last element in that equation for us is once we’re in sort of a normalized macro environment where we can generate and sustain low single-digit top line growth, we believe we’re positioned to achieve those long-term EBIT margin target.

Blake Anderson: Okay. And then just wanted to follow up on the RAC inventory. I mean you’ve talked about the excess inventory environment potentially being a benefit. Did you see that in Q4 at all? And then how much are you baking in for that this year as well? Thank you.

Pete Nordstrom: We started to see it in the fourth quarter, but we really weren’t in a great position to chase into it because we were still cleaning up our inventory level. So, I think it’s one of the things that gives us some level of confidence. I mean that switch doesn’t get flipped overnight, that all of a sudden, we completely transform our inventory. But again, I think it’s fair to say we’re open to buy going forward, and we’re in a position to start receiving the newness of the brands and the balance that’s going to be a good recipe for us in the Rack.

Blake Anderson: Okay. Thanks, so much.

Operator: Next is Ed Yruma with Piper Sandler.

Ed Yruma: Hi. Good afternoon guys. First, a housekeeping question. The 20 new Rack stores, I guess, how much does that contribute to sales growth in €˜23, and I guess just stepping back a little bit. I know that the store comp maybe was a little easier because of Omicron. — but even ex some of these special items, digital seems to be underperforming — how should we think about your digital business in ’23? Will it outperform the storage business or more in line? And kind of what initiatives do you have underway to kind of restore health there? Thank you.

Michael Maher: Ed, I’ll start with the Rack new store contribution. It is approximately 100 basis points to the year, and that’s going to be back half weighted. And then as far as digital, I could talk a little bit about the trends and then let Erik speak to just more generally the outlook for our digital business. So Yes, as you mentioned, we’re comping Omicron in the fourth quarter of last year when we saw store traffic fall off in a pretty meaningful way in the middle of the quarter and a lot of that shift to digital, and so we saw the reverse of that in terms of the year-over-year trends this year. I’d expect that to continue into the first half at least as we’re still — what we saw in the first half of last year, you’ll probably recall there was a strong pent-up demand for getting out again.