Torrid Holdings Inc. (NYSE:CURV) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Lisa Harper: Well, we overbought everything last year. Well certainly, we’re not left out when inventory was split around. The approach to basics was we just didn’t — we weren’t as aggressive because of the longer shelf life of that product. And so, we have a bit more time this year to work through the basics, and we just made sure that we were as plain as possible in any prior season clothes and that we’ve started the year as fresh as possible and we did. Our fall holiday inventory is down substantially. The increase in inventory, the OP is really related to spring, early receipts – are on-time receipts because of supply chain challenges in the past. So happy – I am happy with what we’re – how we were able to get through the excess inventory last year without – taking the liability into this year.

Dylan Carden: Right, thank you very much.

Lisa Harper: Okay thanks.

Operator: Our next question is from Brooke Roach with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

Brooke Roach: Good afternoon and thank you so much for taking our question. My question is on the marketing outlook for the year. Can you talk to any further changes that you see on the horizon to improve the customer engagement? And do you need to reinvest some of the promotional recapture into additional marketing spend to continue to fuel the business’ growth?

Lisa Harper: Sure, hey Brooke, thank you for your question. What I would tell you is that we’ve engaged two new digital marketing agencies. One is a more traditional approach where we have a strategy. We deploy the funds within that strategy. They optimize it and make the investments. As we move through with the new agency that is much more focused on retail in general than our previous agency was, we will invest as we start to see productivity in that. We are also testing with a different agency things like connected TV, very small, very minimal, but again, giving us the visibility to how we should invest, and we will continue to invest as we move forward. I think on a multiyear basis, as we start accelerating store openings, we will also supplement that customer acquisition with more investment in marketing as we move through and not just marketing for top of the funnel, but marketing to actually also drive customers to the stores, so that they can convert at a higher level there and become omni.

So I think I’m very happy with – I’m very pleased with the marketing team that we have in place and their strategic approach to the business, and we’re seeing nice progress there. So to year-end, once we see productivity, we will continue to invest in to that productivity. And on a longer-term basis, we are anticipating a higher level of investment, particularly to support the customer acquisition through both stores and digital.

Brooke Roach: Thank you. And if I could just ask one more for Tim, can you speak to your priorities for cash use, including the debt level and any plans for potential repayment this year? Thank you very much.

Tim Martin: No, our plan to – any excess cash we have right now is going to be focused on growing the business and that store growth that we talked about. It seems to be the best source of generation, both of new customers and return on investment. So that’s the number one focus as of today. And we’ll see as the business evolves through the course of the year, where we are, but we’re very comfortable from a liquidity perspective. We’re very comfortable with cash flow generation. And we feel like, we’ve got enough to manage what we need to do to grow this business. And then beyond that, we’ll come back with the highest and best use after we’ve focused on that growth.

Brooke Roach: Thank you. I will pass it on.

Lisa Harper: Thank you.

Tim Martin: Thanks.

Operator: Our next question is from Alex Straton with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.