J.Jill, Inc. (NYSE:JILL) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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So there’s a balance in the business model. There’s a great customer driving the business and then great balance in the assortment as well.

Jeff Lick: Fascinating. And just as a follow-up, your inventory is — as it relates to as a ratio of sales or cost of goods sold is lower than — it’s more efficient than pre-pandemic. I’m wondering, could you ever see a scenario where you might go back to having a little more inventory just to chase gross margin dollars versus gross margin percent? Or do you think that now you’re seeing the full price selling here is better than the chasing gross margin dollars?

Claire Spofford: Yes. We absolutely intend to continue with this business model that has really strong maintained margins, and, as Mark pointed out, very strong generation of cash. But we do believe that now that we have this strong foundation in place, we can begin to invest in inventory to drive that profitable growth, but not at the expense of the gross margin. We feel like we will be investing cautiously and prudently and earning our way into that investment as we go forward, but not at the expense of the margin profile that we’ve worked so hard to create.

Mark Webb: Jeff, just — at the risk of oversimplifying it, right? Inventory management and discipline, there are two main components. The first is the pre-season planning and the buy, and the second is the in-season management of the yield. And the teams in place really, learning through COVID and post-COVID, are really much more focused and disciplined in both of those sides of the equation. The inventory that we’re reporting, and it’s why I put a little bit more color into my remarks, the inventory is down 16% at the end of Q2. The buy side of that, we’re buying more in the flattish range. It’s the in-season yield management and then a little bit of that — well, a lot of that supply chain disruption impact on in-transits, et cetera, last year.

But as we — as Claire just mentioned, as we come through — return rates stabilizing should benefit direct. But as we come through and start to think about the go-forward profile of the business, we’re excited about some of these areas that Claire is mentioning that we will continue to lean into with a lot of discipline and the prudence we put to the business, but to start stepping in to drive some profitable growth.

Jeff Lick: Congrats on a very impressive operational quarter.

Claire Spofford: Thank you, Jeff.

Mark Webb: Thanks, Jeff.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. And with that, we thank you for joining today’s conference call. This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.

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