So we’re very pleased with that. Third, our new store growth is successful. As Patrick mentioned, we have grown from 21 to 28 stores and have line of sight to moving into the 30-plus range over the near term ahead. We’re very pleased with the performance we’re seeing overall from our station new store growth, and it’s contributing as we said, to double-digit overall growth in Q3. And as Patrick said, while we don’t delineate the comps, I would just share with you the health of the first 21 stores is very good and continues to improve each quarter. I don’t have a number that we can share with you to the analyst community that’s asked it, but I’d share Q1 the software of the company. But those 21 original stores continued to improve in Q2 and Q3, it was industry-leading share results for the banner of the comp stores, and it was industry-leading share results for the new stores as well as the dot-com.
So I’ve kind of track-backed it, it’s all working.
James Chartier: Great. And then you don’t give quarterly EPS guidance, but where did you expect third quarter EPS would have come in back in August?
Patrick Edwards: Hey, Jim, this is Patrick. We had expected our top line revenues to come in appreciably better than what they came in at. We saw continuing trends in Q1 and Q2, narrowing comp declines. We saw August comp declines narrowing even further. And our initial reactions with that was that we would continue to see that trend then through October into September and October. And our plan was at the time, about $0.90 per share. We missed it by 10 on top line sales.
James Chartier: Great. Thanks again.
Operator: And we will take follow-up questions from Mitch Kummetz with Seaport Research Partners. Your line is open.
Mitch Kummetz: Thank you. I’ve got another handful. Carl, getting back to the — what is that penetration typically in 4Q?
Carl Scibetta: It’s about 40%.
Mitch Kummetz: Okay. And how do you — so the comp guide on 4Q is down 9% to 12%. Are you expecting boots kind of be in line with that or are you expecting it to be worse kind of following the 1Q — or I’m sorry, the 3Q performance?
Mark Worden: Here’s the way I would answer that, Mitch. Our initial plan for boots going into the season was right at that number you mentioned. But we have the flexibility to manage that based on whether the weather turns cold and we have the ability to drive more sales or if the weather stays the way it is, we are positioned to be able to transfer that consumer out of boots into shoes or athletic product going forward. So the team has done a great job keeping us flexible as we can move through the balance of the fourth quarter.
Mitch Kummetz: Okay. And then, Patrick, on the guide for 4Q, you’ve given us sales and earnings, — comp sales and earnings. Can you say a little bit more about margin, — gross margin versus SG&A? I’m particularly interested in your thoughts around March margin in the fourth quarter. I assume that you expect it to be down — curious down how much?
Patrick Edwards: Hey, Mitch, thanks for the question. Overall, we’re sitting at like — I think year-to-date, we’re sitting at — in the high 35%, 35.8% on overall margin and our projection for the entire year is approximately 36%. So we can expect upper 38%, it’s just about 36% margin or in that range for Q4 is what we’re planning for. On the March margin side, we will be down versus the prior year, but it’s not going to be anything appreciable.
Mitch Kummetz: Okay. And then my last question, maybe for you, Mark. You guys have done a great job on the gross margin in particular, with March margin being up substantially versus 4 years ago. When I look at SG&A for this year, it kind of pencils out to be maybe 27.7%, 27.8%. Back in 2019, it was 24.9%. Now I recognize the business is different in terms of mix and also there is some deleverage on the sales given around the challenges there. But how do you think about SG&A rate longer term? And like are there any levers that are worth pulling here if there are any?
Mark Worden: Yes, I’d say we think it’s the right size, roughly dollar range to fuel our growth as we get back into an economic landscape where we start to get leverage that differently. We’ve built an organization to be ready to take on more M&A to get growth accelerated in ’24 or beyond when it’s available. And that organization is now built in the merchandising team, that organization is built now in the marketing team and all the other back-office functions. So we recognize that sales has taken a down cycle for us in the industry, that’s deleveraged, but we’ll be able to gain leverage on that as soon as things start turning around, and we make those next acquisitions. And longer term, Mitch, we remain committed to double-digit operating margin.
We absolutely see we’re at a lower portion of our delivery right now as we’re in that down cycle and we are investing aggressively in trying to capture the demand out there with advertising and marketing. We’re overinvesting for the revenues we are capturing right now to try to offset the soft consumer demand in that customer base right now. So to reiterate, double-digit operating margins is what we’re committed to getting back to as we come out of this downturn, it’s going to come from better leverage as we get the next top line driver through M&A as the organization is built for it and ready to go.
