Rob Helm: And I would say from a wage investment perspective, we’ve come a long way over the last couple of years. This year was a mid-single-digit wage increase across our store population. For next year, in terms of the outlook, in terms of operating margin and what John referenced, we would consider a mid-single-digit increase for next year. Obviously, we’re not giving guidance at the time, but we would think mid-single-digit for next year, but potentially inching back towards the lower single-digit range.
Mark Carden: Great, thanks so much. Good luck, guys.
Eric van der Valk: Thank you, Mark.
Operator: And one moment for our next question. Our next question will come from Paul Lejuez at Citi. Your line is open.
Brandon Cheatham: Hey everyone, this is Brandon Cheatham on for Paul. I was wondering, could you kind of break out what you changed for your four quarter outlook, and then just spend a little time on, particularly the comp, 3% comp is a decent step down from 3Q. I understand we have a lot of time left for holiday to go. Just trying to gauge how much of that is conservative or what you might be seeing quarter to date. Did you see any changes in consumer behavior in mid-October like some other retailers called out?
Rob Helm: I’ll speak to the Q4 guide and the financial information and I’ll let John speak to the demands in October. From a guidance perspective, we no longer give quarterly guidance. We suspended doing that earlier this year. We updated our annual outlook, which considers a 3% comp for the fourth quarter. We tightened our gross margin range based on the strength of the Q3 performance. In terms of the Q4 sales guidance, we’re going to continue to take a measured approach to guiding and setting expectations. But there’s a saying we have around here that we’re not going to shut the registers off, so stick with us and we’ll look to do better if we can.
John Swygert: Yeah, Brandon, with regards to the consumer demand that some others might have spoke about in October, October was pretty much in line with our expectations. As you may recall, we shifted out an ad from October to November, so we expected a little bit of slowdown in that month. But nothing was really alarming to us at the end of Q3. Obviously, you’ve been following us for a long time. For us to raise our guidance in a quarter that we’re in today is, means a lot to, should mean a lot to the street that we’re actually doing better than expected. And we’re excited from where we’re at. But there’s a lot of business to go here for the next 12 days and we’ll see where everything lands.
Brandon Cheatham: Yeah, I appreciate that. Just on supply chain costs in the third quarter, sounds like that may have been a bigger benefit than you initially expected. So just wondering, is that the case? Is that kind of back to, ‘normal levels’, whether they’re expected to like 2019 or however you gauge that? And then, if there are potential, if these trends continue, like, would that be a potential benefit into next year?
Rob Helm: This is Rob. So supply chain was pretty much in line with our expectations. We have some good visibility going out a quarter of the way that the accounting for the model works in terms of the capitalization of the costs. In terms of the composition of the supply chain cost, we’re getting great ocean freight rates. They’re below pre-pandemic levels. We still do have an incremental wage investment that’s in there from kind of pre-pandemic algo levels, but it’s relatively minor. We would — in terms of trend, we would expect some favorability on the domestic transportation front over the next month months into years but we wouldn’t plan for any further improvement on ocean freight given where it is versus pre-pandemic.
Brandon Cheatham: Got it. Thanks very much and good luck guys.
John Swygert: Thanks, Brian.
Rob Helm: Thank you.
Operator: I would now like to turn the conference back to John for closing remarks.
John Swygert: I would like to thank everyone for their time and interest in Ollie’s. We look forward to updating you on our continued progress on our next earnings call and everyone have a great holiday season.
Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
