I mean, transactions was our problem during back-to-school. We saw increased AUR and actually units when the consumer was shopping, which I think was another good turn that we saw in the back-to-school season. So that gives us some confidence heading in. And then obviously, as we think about just the compares and how we move into the fourth quarter, Q4 of 2022 was our softest compared to really historical kind of pre-pandemic results. And so, we do believe that some of the bigger drags on the business that have been more challenged around footwear and hard goods, they just soften as we get into the fourth quarter. So, I think that gives us some comfort that we could see a good incremental step up in the fourth quarter. Obviously, not giving guidance at this time, but we’ll give more — honed in on that here when we report at the end of November.
Mitch Kummetz : All right. That’s a helpful color. I appreciate that. And then lastly, just on the SG&A, especially thinking about it from a dollar standpoint. So, SG&A dollars were up $2 million in 2Q versus last year. That follows, I think, four consecutive quarters where the dollar SG&A was actually down year-over-year. So how are you thinking about that in 3Q like from a dollar standpoint? And is there sort of a run rate to kind of think about SG&A dollars going forward? Like I know you’re not giving 4Q guidance, so you probably don’t want to talk about next year, but — like should we be thinking about SG&A dollars higher next year than this year? Or is there a chance that you can actually take that down just from like a cost-cutting standpoint? So, I guess a couple of questions there.
Chris Work: Yes. there’s quite a bit there. So, what I’ll try to do is kind of talk high level about how we think about SG&A and then obviously, how it pertains to where we’re at today. So, as I think about SG&A, we have a highly fixed business. Fixed costs, both within the store system as well as our corporate overhead and web and things like that. So, this has created some challenges, in 2022 and 2023 of just with the sales coming down, the deleverage in the business also is part of the reason we were able to leverage so well in 2021 when we saw increased sales. I think as we look at 2022 SG&A, and I do think sometimes it’s important to step back and look at full-year SG&A, it was up 1.8% compared to 2021 — I’m sorry, down 1.8% compared to 2021.
And it was up 4.6% compared to 2019, which as we look back and we looked at inflation and where the cost structures have gone over that time period, I think we saw that as being fairly positive. As we looked at the first six months of this year, SG&A was up about 0.6%. So, I think, again, we’re feeling pretty good. The Q3 guide includes a little higher run rate, which is really around some timing of spend things, and we are continuing to invest in the business. I think that’s an important distinction for where we’re at. Obviously, our results are tougher, but we do continue to believe there’s good value long-term in investing through these cycles. We’ve built a really strong balance sheet. I think we’re in a good financial position. That being said, we’re being very prudent about how we think about it, too.
To your point, managing fixed costs everywhere, it’s possible. I think we’re really rethinking our store payroll model and where we have hours there to try to pull back as much as possible. And in certain departments and areas of the business, leaving open positions open. I think those are all things that we’ve looked at, while trying not to cut things that are long-term for the business. I think as we look forward, what you should expect from us is we’ve got to grow sales at a much greater growth factor than SG&A. And because we have not done tons of substantial cuts to SG&A, I think we still feel like we’ve got the right balance to be able to drive sales going forward. So that’s really our focus. That will be our drive as we move into 2024.
