Carter’s, Inc. (NYSE:CRI) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Kendra Krugman: I would add to that, that our conversion remains very strong for those who do come to our website.

Michael Casey: Yes, conversion and average transaction. The average transaction wouldn’t be improving if they didn’t think we were competitive. But those who come, like what they see, conversion in the average transaction are higher than last year. But traffic is the challenge. So we’re focused on traffic, and we’ll see whether or not we can make progress in the balance of the year.

Tom Nikic: Understood. Thanks very much. Good color. And best of luck for the rest of the year.

Michael Casey: Tom, thanks very much.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question will come from Paul Lejuez of Citi. Your line is open. And Paul, your line is open.

Paul Lejuez: All right. Thanks guys. Just curious if you can talk about the March, April period that you mentioned. In the week period, I think you said down 11%. Can you talk about the sellout trends that you’re seeing in your wholesale partners? And specifically, what are you seeing at the Big 3, Target, Walmart, Amazon versus the rest of your partners in that wholesale channel in terms of sell-out, did they see the same sort of big deceleration in April? And then second, I’m curious if you could talk about new store productivity and the recent classes of stores, how that has worked. And what does comp performance look like on average in those recent classes of stores once they enter the comp base? Thanks.

Michael Casey: So I would say, I won’t comment on any retailers or wholesale customers specifically. Paul, what I would say is that what we saw in the early weeks of April, business generally was sluggish with Spring selling, whether it was direct-to-consumer or over-the-counter at many of our wholesale customers. Spring started out slow. But as more parts of the country are warm enough, trends are improving. The benefit we got in the first quarter is that the wholesale customers were saying, let’s get that product in early in anticipation of the warmer weather. You had a question in terms of the trends in terms of the new stores, their contribution, their performance once they start comping.

Kendra Krugman: Sure. We — in the last four years, including the Fall of 2024, we’ve opened about 130 new stores. The contribution of those stores annualizes around $130 million with a really nice EBITDA. So we are still seeing the benefit of opening new stores. Very specifically, our newer stores are our best comping stores quarter-to-date so — or in Q1. So we feel good about the comp performance. Our 2022 class achieved a 2.1 positive comp in Q1.

Paul Lejuez: Great, thanks guys. Good luck.

Michael Casey: Paul, thanks very much.

Operator: And I would now like to turn the call back to Mike Casey for closing remarks.

Michael Casey: Okay. Thanks very much. Thank you all for joining us this morning. We look forward to updating you on our progress in July. Goodbye.

Operator: And this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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