We think we can do even more, by making sure we have the right buying team as I can get market coverage. And by the way, again, I mentioned it earlier on the call, our planning teams are essential. When we explore a category in a department, they’re the ones that help the store, and the stores get it all set up appropriately. They are the ones that really help the stores and the buyers get the goods to the stores in the right manner, to actually drive those sales. So, we have — two or three categories at a high level, I’m thinking of that are going to be huge impact for us for next year. Again, ones we’re already doing, but nearly not up to the degree we can drive. So, big opportunities.
Operator: Next, we’ll go to the line of Simeon from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Simeon Siegel: I just wanted to clarify a prior point, if I could. The HomeGoods e-com costs that you called out, were those costs to close the business in more onetime or were they an impact from losing the volume? I think you had suggested it was the former, but I wanted to confirm that. Because if so, excluding those costs, wasn’t HomeGoods margins already up pretty nicely, weren’t they above pre-pandemic? So I just wanted to check on that. And if that is the case, any reason the HomeGoods margin shouldn’t maintain this underlying expansion? Thank you.
Ernie Herrman: Yes. So the costs associated with that were mainly cost to shut the business down. And moving forward, we would expect next year that this would be slightly accretive. I mean, don’t forget, the homegoods.com was not a big portion of our overall business, so. But yes, the pace that it is, it would be accretive.
Simeon Siegel: And then, Ernie, any color on where the customer traffic is coming from, any general views on — again, it’s hard to do, but segmenting the traffic growth between new and returning customers?
Ernie Herrman: Yes, very broad. In fact, we talk about those. So one of the things that we’re very bullish about is how broadly and diversified our traffic is from income and age groups, and it’s very balanced where it’s been. Obviously, we’ve had a greater percent of younger customers growing over the last, I don’t know, three to five years, I guess, you’d say. But of recent, we’re very happy with how broad the customer traffic draw has been.
John Klinger: Yes. We believe we’re attracting newer customers to our business, just generally speaking.
Ernie Herrman: Yes, which I think you were just asking about as well. So very — also a great barometer that we’re reflecting the younger demos, but in balance, it’s grown, but it’s all very balanced by group and income demographics.
Operator: And for the final question today, we’ll go to the line of Ed from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Ed Yruma: It seems like you guys have been expanding square footage in category like beauty. It seems like that’s getting some traction. I would love to just kind of think broadly about the opportunity there, if you’ve been kind of making some of those explosions, as you’ve called them within the category. And kind of what the relationship has been like with those vendors, given that that hasn’t historically been an area of focus for off-price? Thanks.
Ernie Herrman: Ed, you guys are full with good merchant questions and observations today. This is very good. Yes. That’s a good example. You can visibly see it, obviously, right? And what happens in a situation like that is we do show — it’s not typical off-price. But as you know, if you walk that area, we’re showing very strong values and an eclectic mix and one that’s changing its classic treasure hunt. And we have a few of those type of businesses around the store. That’s one that you’ve probably walked in and seen some new fixturing, et cetera. And so, you are touching on the type of business where we really go after it. Those vendor relationships are great. We have buying teams in the beauty area that have really worked well with the market.
And they’re always looking for new items and/or SKUs and/or categories within that whole family of business, to continue to do more. I won’t talk about the couple of others because we have others within the store that we can explode as well and go after very aggressively. So, I hope that answers your question, though. We have a lot. This is how we look where there’s demand and where we can really take market share and offer tremendous value in brands, and that is one of them.
Operator: And that was our final question for today.
Ernie Herrman: Okay. Ivy, thank you. Thank you all for joining us today. And we look forward to updating you again on our fourth quarter earnings call in February. Everybody, take care. Bye.
John Klinger: Thank you.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes your conference call for today. You may all disconnect, and thank you all for participating.
