Five Below, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIVE) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

David Bellinger: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I want to ask on the implied Q4 comp. Kristy, I think, you talked about being up plus 1%, even though that’s on your toughest comparison for the year. So just help us get through that change in demand. Is there anything that you see changing after you get through this tax refund impacted Q1? Is there some inflection baked into the guide? Or maybe just frame up, how are you thinking about the specific impact from that five less selling day period between Thanksgiving and Christmas? Is there any way to specifically focus on that?

Joel Anderson: Hi David. Let me take that. And Kristy, if I missed anything, jump in. Look, nothing has really changed from what we said. I’m talking about the top line here. What we’ve said to you at ICR in that our long-term algorithm is 2 to 4 comp and we expect 2024 to be on the low end of that, largely driven by the five less days at holiday. And David, if you recall, 2019 we misguided there and we really didn’t effectively account for the five less days, which is the sister year from when that happened. So, if you look at where Kristy guided, the 0%to 3%. It’s focused on the midpoint, it’s about 1.5%, just slightly below what we said at the 2%, and that’s almost entirely driven by what we’ve seen here in Q1 with tax refunds and have not seen any change in how we’re thinking about the outlook for the rest of the year, and we’ll move forward from there.

Kristy Chipman: I mean you got it.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question today comes from Jeremy Hamblin with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Jeremy Hamblin: Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to come back to the holiday period for a second. And just to ask in terms of, I thought the throughput question was an appropriate one. You do have that compressed five days less between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. So I wanted to get a sense for, a, what you thought the potential impact might be to comps on that? And then secondly, what the – if you’re not able to see meaningful progress on shrink mitigation efforts, what you think the particular impact might be from an SG&A perspective for staffing during that time?

Joel Anderson: Yes. Look, Jeremy, we’re not at the point of giving specific guidance on individual quarters at this point in time. But we have said in the past that the each day, incremental day or each day going backwards is somewhere between 20 and 50 basis points impact. So if you just take the midpoint of that, you’re talking about 150 basis point impact. And so, I think Q4 that’s in the 0% to 2%, 0% to 1% range is probably the right way to think about it. But let us get closer to the holiday. Too early to think about SG&A changes. We moved very fast since January in terms of really tightening up our self-checkout, in fact, converting it from self-checkout to associate checkout. And I would expect any SG&A gain – any SG&A increases to be offset by shrink impact. Kristy, anything different?

Kristy Chipman: Nope.

Joel Anderson: Good. Thanks, Jeremy.

Operator: And our next question today comes from Anthony Chukumba with Loop Capital. Please go ahead.

Anthony Chukumba: Thanks for taking my question. My question was actually on Five Beyond in terms of how did it perform during the fourth quarter relative to your expectations? And what was the comp lift from Five Beyond in the fourth quarter?

Joel Anderson: Thank you. Yes. Look, it’s – and when you say Five Beyond, we specifically all my comments here are in the Five Beyond format stores because I think that’s the better way to look at it. And what we saw consistent with the other three quarters is we’re seeing a mid-single-digit lift in stores that we convert and that continues throughout their first year. The fourth quarter was no different than that. Those stores that were converted were roughly in that mid-single-digit range. And then in year two, we expect them to comp right in line with the chain comp. And that also continued in Q4 as well. Thanks, Anthony.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question today comes from Paul Lejuez with Citi. Please go ahead.

Paul Lejuez: Hello. Hi, thanks, guys. Can you just be a little bit more specific on the shrink drag by quarter? I think you’ll still see a drag based on your comments about the exit rate from January. And then just what you’re expecting – when you expect that to turn to a tailwind. Obviously, you go up against the accrual in 4Q. So just if you could give a little bit more detail by quarter. And then second, could you talk about the average ticket in the Five Beyond stores versus the non-Five Beyond stores? And what do you assume for comps in F 2024 in both Five Beyond versus non-Five Beyond? Thanks.

Kristy Chipman: Yes. So let me – let me try it by focusing on gross margin for Q4 as we – for the next – this year as we move through the quarters. So I let you know that we – operating margin was going to delever in Q1 by about 80 bps. As you go into Q2 and Q3, you should start to see operating margin leverage, as I mentioned, in Q2, you obviously are – you do have some of the lapping of shrink from a headwind perspective, but you also have the ongoing freight benefits that Joel mentioned. And then as you get into Q3, specifically was, if you recall, the time when we took the large true-up related to shrink. So that will come back as a positive and improved gross margins and operating margin year-on-year. And then when you get into Q4, we’ll start to see the deleverage from the lower sales that exists on the overall op margin.