Kohl’s Corporation (NYSE:KSS) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jill Timm: Well, Lauren, we did call out — I think we have called out has been a successful brand for us and is really resonating with our customer. I personally am a Lauren Conrad shopper, as everyone knows, and who doesn’t love a great pair of legging. So I think it’s just really indicative of the success of — her leggings are doing well, but really just of the brand in general. And we talked about women, the core women’s business was flat on the quarter. So, when you take out juniors, which we’ve talked about, we’re working through some of the issues we have there. So, we feel really happy with how women’s is performing. And overall, Lauren is just a great brand. We’re happy with the partnership. And I’m really happy that you actually know about the Lauren Conrad leggings. So apparently, our special marketing is broad reaching.

Bob Drbul: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Gaby Carbone with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Gaby Carbone: So on inventory, last quarter, you mentioned it would likely be at maybe high-teens at the end of the year, which kind of brings you back in line with 2019 levels. Curious if that’s kind of how you’re still thinking about it. I understand you aren’t providing guidance. And then just on the promotional front. Just curious of your activity and kind of how you’re thinking about the holiday maybe is still going to be better than what you saw in 2019.

Jill Timm: Sure. In terms of inventory, I think inventory is actually right where we expect it to be. I think we talked we knew we weren’t going — we were going to make improvement, but it wouldn’t be a large amount of improvement because we wanted to protect holiday. We wanted to make sure we were flowing those fresh receipts, which we did. So, a lot of that benefit would come to us after we flowed the holiday receipts. We’re still very focused on inventory. I know just talking with Tom, it’s a key focus of his as well. So you will see that we are positioning ourselves with the flexibility to make sure that we enter 2023 clean and ready to be successful in that year. So, I would say we’re going to continue to focus and bring that down.

I’m happy with the fact that we’re flat to €˜19 from an inventory perspective, even with the investments we’re making into beauty. So, the progress is right where we expected it to be. In terms of the holiday period, I mean, holiday is always unique. And we know there’s a lot of business still in front of us for holiday. We know it’s going to be promotional. When Peter started this call, he talked about the core values of Kohl’s and value, convenience and brands. And so, we’re going to really lean into that. We have the iconic Kohl’s Cash. We have our Kohl’s Rewards program. We’re going to use our Kohl’s credit value offering as well to really drive that business through the holiday season and make sure that we’re competitive. And I think that’s another portion of what the actions we took.

This is really going to give us the flexibility to compete and make sure we’re getting that market share.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Oliver Chen with Cowen. Please go ahead.

Oliver Chen: Hi Peter and Jill, nice to talk to you, and nice job on Lauren Conrad as well. As we look ahead in this uncertain environment, which categories do you think might have more promotional intensity? And would love your general views on what’s happening with the consumer with these cross currents because there’s still as low unemployment and some savings, but the consumer is just becoming much more price conscious.