Ross Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROST) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Michael Hartshorn: Sure. You’ll see in our capital spend this year, we have about $810 million included in that and one of the biggest increases there are technology investments that we’re making. And some examples of that would be automation in our distribution centers. It would be looking at store level activities and providing technology to make those more efficient in all of our stores, for instance, how our associates mark down goods, how they receive in the back room and making sure we can continue to have associates focusing on customer facing activities. So those are a few of those examples. And we have – as we have over the years, have a road map of efficiencies that will continue to work on as an organization and drive into the P&L.

Operator: And the next question comes from the line of Ike Boruchow with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Jesse Sobelson: Hi, everyone. This is Jesse Sobelson on for Ike. I believe at the beginning of last year’s first quarter, the buying environment was just beginning to turn into a tailwind for you guys. So how does the environment look today versus this time last year and then versus maybe 6 months ago?

Barbara Rentler: Sure. The buying environment right now is very good. I mean there’s a lot of merchandise. It’s very broad-based. It’s across all different classifications and types of products. So the buying environment is probably as good as it gets right now. I would say that, that environment has been there, though for the last few months and started at the beginning of last year, just timed perhaps differently depending upon what type of product it was and when it came in, all going back to the carrier issue, right? So everyone was kind of – vendors were kind of late and receiving their goods, because people couldn’t really control the way the freight came in. So it’s been here for a while. I would think at this point in time, a lot of stores have promoting to get their inventories in line in-store, but the vendor community still has a lot of merchandise that they’d like to move through and take them forward to newness to the next year.

So I think it’s I think it’s very good now. I think it’s been good, and I think it will be good for a while as the vendors are trying to work through that and understand what that looks like. And then understand what kind of inventory position they want to take go forward as opposed to having a result coming from the carrier issues that everybody kind of felt at the same time, so.

Jesse Sobelson: Thank you.

Operator: And the next question comes from the line of Adrienne Yih with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Adrienne Yih: Great. Thank you very much. First, just a housekeeping. Is it fair to use $200 million to $250 million in sales for that 53rd week? And then Barbara, I think, maybe a business for you. What is the issue with sort of the packaway timing? And I know packaway ended up at 40% but that’s still below kind of run rate norm. And I’m just thinking if the environment is super conducive, would you not want to kind of have that short stay because, I know you guys do it more on a four month or less or whatever shorter duration. And then last one is for the shrink. I think you do it once a year, but what shrink as a percent of sales in a normal backdrop, where is it today? Thank you so much, sorry to interrupt.

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