The Container Store Group, Inc. (NYSE:TCS) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Satish Malhotra: Yes. Hi, Kate. Thank you. It’s a great question. Definitely, we’re seeing as I stated some resistance as it relates to our ability to win on premium spaces. We are able to contend with the customer and excite them. They are committed to those purchases, and we do well there. Non-premium spaces are seeing a softness in particular with Elfa. Although I would say the last few days, we’ve actually seen elements of it starting to improve, but still too early to tell. I think largely as we look at our consumers, they are very much distracted, either with travel that’s going on right now or with interest rates, and are obviously continuing with a level of uncertainty right now. And the things — those start to normalize. We do expect a return back. And that’s what we are getting geared up for and excited about, given all the newness that we are introducing for the back half.

Kate McShane: Okay. Thank you. And then our follow-up question was just on inventory. I know Jeff noted what it was down in the quarter in the 10% range. We wondered if you could parse out what it was down on a unit basis or by store basis and where you’re guiding where inventory should be by the end of the year?

Jeff Miller: Kate, this is Jeff. Thanks for the question on inventory. Inventory is down as I stated in the call a little over 10%. And that’s really been driven by freight. From a unit basis perspective, it’s relatively flat. So as we continue to move through the year, we expect freight costs to continue to average down. But right now, our current inventory projections are to be down just on a year-over-year basis as a result of the freight cost savings that we’re seeing.

Kate McShane: Okay. Thank you. If I could sneak just one more question in, Satish. I don’t think you mentioned too much about the loyalty program in your prepared comments. And we just wondered if maybe linked into that this quarter at all with some of the data or anything else to help you with your sales in line with expectations for Q1?

Satish Malhotra: Sure. Hi, Kate. Yes, we do not mention anything in our prepared remarks. But I will tell you that our loyalty program still continues to do well relative to how we have talked about it historically. We see our loyalty baskets still be incredibly higher than our non-loyalty baskets, they’re up almost 50%. And we see our experts still spending 4x more than our entry level enthusiasts. So again, as we’ve stated on prior calls, it’s a great level of data that we’re able to get out of our loyalty program. We are then able to mine that data and to really understand how best to bring customers along in the journey to get them from one category, for example, kitchen into another category which could be storage, and then the third category which could be into custom spaces. So all of that great work is commencing here at The Container Store and still very proud of how our loyalty program is performing.

Kate McShane: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. As there are no further questions, this concludes today’s teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

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