How can we expand them to new categories of business? These are the things we’ll be working with, again, not all of them, but select brand partners to try to drive even more sales results. And I just think these are, again, we’re new in a lot of these. We’re going to — these are just — these are brands that are just to continue to gain share. And again, we intend to launch a lot more new brands throughout 2024. That’s always our goal every year. So I just want to be clear, there’s a direct correlation between what we’re seeing in the improving trend results and new brands and the efforts we put into private label. So they’re directly correlated and they’re driving the better results. And I think we can expand it to other categories, absolutely, and potentially we will be able to lever some of that benefit for other departments within the business, too.
Chris Work: Yes. And I’d just add a couple of quantification points to men’s before I answer your question around store count that. Men’s as a percentage of our total sales grew from 43% to 47%, which I think is a strong metric for our business, and it ties into some of the thoughts we gave annually as far as the belief that we think we can grow sales for the year. What I think is really good about the men’s business is it turned positive in back to school. While it wasn’t positive for all of Q3, it was positive during that 6-week period. And then again, turned positive in November and December during the peak and now has remained positive in January and February. I bring that up because as we look back on the business and we look at other periods that have been a little more challenging from a financial perspective for us, the last one being 15 and 16, men’s really was and specifically, men’s T-shirts, was really was the driver for us coming out in growth of 17, 18, 19.
So again, I give our buying teams a lot of credit here. This is about finding newness and brands that will stick and men’s really is the driving category. So I think it’s a good call out from you to ask. From a store count perspective, I guess, what we plan to do right now, what we said in the script is that we would probably open 10 stores and close 20 to 25 stores. But in answering that question, I do want to step back because we also noted that we closed 21 stores in 2023. As you think about that on a 2-year combined closure, it is a pretty significant closure cycle for us and really not a territory we’ve been in before. So I want to be careful in giving closure numbers because of the 20 to 24 closures in 2024. I mean this could increase or decrease as we move through the year depending on how our results go and our ability to work both with our landlord partners as well as internally on some of the things that we control.
And when it comes to closures, it’s not a process we really take lightly either. I mean we have a pretty detailed process to look at closures, we try to factor in thing, obviously, the sales and profitability levels of the specific location in question. But we also look at what does that store mean to its trade area. And as we think about serving that customer, what other opportunities do we have around that store to impact that customer. We look at the condition of the center and how the landlords plans for the center are playing into the location in regards to vacancies and the ability to bring newness to a location and then we look at peak performance and working through some of the decline we see in our business right now are permanent or temporary based on the current state of the market.
I think that’s a really important thing that we do and then what else we can do about the store economics. So we go through a pretty diligent process, I think, after factoring in all of those things, if we make the determination if a store to close, it probably means that it’s in a location or a mall that is one of the declining centers that we have in our country and something that will close. So for 2023, the majority of our closures were in North America. In 2024, we anticipate that will hold true, although we do expect some closures in Europe as well. It does have an impact on overall sales, although, again, I mean, despite this, which we estimate to be about $10 million and the 53rd week, we still think we can grow sales in excess of those amounts.
Operator: Our next question comes from Mitch Kummetz with Seaport.
Mitch Kummetz: I’ve got maybe a few housekeeping and then maybe a couple of little more strategic. Because I think you may be partly answer my first question. Just on 53rd week, what was the sales and earnings impact in ’23? Was that the $10 million in sales that you just referenced? Maybe I didn’t hear that correctly.
Chris Work: No. The $10 million in sales is referencing the closures. The amount that the 21 stores we closed are worth in sales. The 53rd week is going to be worth about $12 million.
Mitch Kummetz : And what about the earnings?
Chris Work: It’s about $1.8 million of operating profit.
Mitch Kummetz: Okay. That’s helpful. And then on the 1Q guide, you gave us a sales range. Is there sort of a comp assumption that’s embedded in that range?
Chris Work: Yes. The comp assumption in this year will have a little bit of a negative spread, obviously, because of how the closures impact it. But it won’t be that significantly different than the range we gave.
Mitch Kummetz: Okay. And then on the full year, again, you expect sales growth and I want to say that that’s inclusive of the 53rd week in ’23. So maybe just to confirm that. But then also given the net store closures that you’re anticipating, I assume that you’re expecting comp growth for the year. Can you just confirm that?
Chris Work: Correct. Yes. When we talked about, we didn’t give specific guidance for the year or number, obviously, just given kind of the uncertainty and what’s ahead. But we are planning the business with sales growth factoring in both the 53rd week challenge that we’ll have as well as the $10 million in store closures.
