Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Chris Horvers: Got it. And then in terms of the promotional environment, you mentioned certain categories being more promotional than expected. Is that home theater, and computing or another category? And then as you think about what you are seeing in the market right now, some of the big retailers, other retailers have started their Black Friday promotions or any most have already. So, how are you seeing sort of the inventory in the market and what categories in particular, are you elevating your promotional expectations in the fourth quarter?

Corie Barry: I think the Black Friday promotions started the day after Halloween. And for everyone, there is definitely a lot out there. I think if you rewind the clock for a second here, I actually was rummaging back through last year, and we actually said last year heading into Q4, we expected CE to be more promotional. And coming out of it, we said there were actually some categories last year that were as promotional as pre-pandemic. And as we headed into this year that we are in now, we said we expected the environment to get back to those pre-pandemic levels. I think it happened a little earlier than we thought. But in general, this is kind of how we expected that the year would play that by now we would be back to those pre-pandemic levels.

And obviously, with some of the demand softening and customers targeting value, I think that’s happening at even a more exacerbated rate. I think €“ and so there is that. We are even seeing some of this promotional intensity in the secondary channels as well because it’s been well reported, there is a great deal of inventory out there in the channel. So, it’s broad-based promotionality, which is a little bit different than a historical holiday where we really, really targeted against some of the certain product drive times. To your specific question about what areas we are seeing it in, we are seeing it across the board, honestly, but really mainly seeing it in some of the iconic traffic driving products, think about like headphones and wearables.

And then you can imagine anywhere where the supply is really ample, we are also seeing some of that promotional activity in those spaces. And I think back to the question on like the Q4 guide and how we are thinking about it, I think that’s part of what we see in the background and part of what we are trying to take into account as we look at a competitive environment going forward.

Chris Horvers: Got it. Thanks so much for the great holiday.

Corie Barry: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. We will now move on to our next question from Liz Suzuki at Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Liz Suzuki: Thank you. Just on your last comment kind of talking about how some of the retailers have had this excess inventory. You have been fairly nimble in managing your inventory level as well. A lot of your peers kind of caught off product that this changes demand landscape. So, I guess just given that this quarter sales came in a little better than what you expected, and I know there is some timing in terms of when holiday is really expected to kind of peak. But €“ and do you expect to restock in particular categories? And what are you looking to have more of at this point?