Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ:LULU) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Alex Straton: That’s super great color. Maybe one just final one for me. I wanted to touch on inventory. Similarly, juxtaposing you guys against some of the peers, we’ve seen many be able to work inventory levels down on a year-over-year basis. Can you just talk about why Lulu’s are more similar to the last quarter? And then also I think you may have taken the fourth quarter outlook up a little bit on inventory, maybe from 60% to 55% from 55% to 60%. So I think a little bit higher than last time. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you guys can just talk about that dynamic for us.

Meghan Frank: Yes, absolutely. So end of Q4 inventory was in line with our expectations. We were under inventory last year. So as Calvin mentioned, we strategically positioned inventory to be able to capture guest demand this year. We’ve really been focused on that three-year unit CAGR, which is 38% at the end of the quarter with three points driven by in transit. We are continuing to experience supply chain environment improving and vendor readiness improving. So the team is adjusting to that new reality. That is reflected in the 60% color that we gave for year-end. So as we said, a little bit higher than the 55% to 60%, we gave at the end of last quarter for end of year inventory driven by that improving supply chain environment and vendor readiness.

Operator: The next question is from Brook Roach with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Brooke Roach: Good afternoon and thank you so much for taking our question. Calvin, the innovation pipeline at Lululemon has been particularly strong this year. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that into next year? And where you think the product resonance can really improve as you think about managing consistent growth across your business and particularly in North America. Maybe within that, you could reflect on the glide path between the very strong one- and three-year CAGRs that you’re performing now versus the longer-term target of 15% and how you think about that growth may be normalizing over the course of the next few years to that long-term target?

Calvin McDonald: Great. Thanks, Brooke. So in terms of the product pipeline, this year was definitely an exciting year across both our own categories and activities, our play activities, launch of footwear, Q3 like the first half of this year saw a number of new innovations, both in new fabrics, fabrications into our proven franchises like the Align. And Q4, equally, we have some exciting innovation that has hit and will continue to, and the guest is responding very well. That’s a proven formula for us. And when I look forward to 2023, we continue to and will continue to drop innovation across the core activities that we’ve identified of run, train, yoga of the play tennis, golf and hike, and it’s both new franchise or here items as well as extensions of some of our proven very successful franchises.

A great example of that is the Align franchise, one of our strongest with the Lulu fabrication and there’s Lulu Ribbed that dropped at the end of Q3, available now in Q4 and the guests are responding incredibly well to that. So, we have a number of innovative opportunities across creating completely new items and category extensions through franchise as well as building on the ones. And ’23 is another very strong year of innovative launches, which I’m excited about continuing to bring to market. And as you mentioned, we are after the first three quarters of this year, trending above the guidance of the Power of Three x2 growth plan, which we’re excited to see how the brand is responding and the guests are reacting to the newness in our new guest acquisition.

We haven’t changed our outlook and the commitment on the Power of Three x2, but obviously, very pleased with our performance to date and as we look forward into next year.