Q4 2020 Destination XL Group Inc Earnings Call
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Okay.
Ladies and gentlemen, todays conference is scheduled to begin shortly please continue to standby and thank you for your patience.
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Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Q4 2020 day destination XL Group, Inc Earnings Conference call at.
At this time all participants are in a listen only mode.
After the Speakers' presentation, there would be a question and answer session to.
To ask a question. During this session you will need to press Star then one on your telephone.
If you require any further assistance. Please press star then zero.
I would now like to hand, the conference over to your speaker for today Shelly you may begin.
Thank you Linda and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on destination XL group's fourth quarter fiscal 2020 earnings call on our call today is our president and Chief Executive Officer, Harvey Kanter, and our Chief Financial Officer, Peter Stratton.
During today's call, we'll discuss non-GAAP metrics to provide investors with useful information about our financial performance.
Our earnings release, which was filed this morning and is now available on our Investor Relations website at Investor day, the XL Dot com for an explanation and reconciliation of such measures. Today's discussion also contains certain forward looking statements concerning the company's outlook for fiscal 2021.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its business from fiscal 2021 expected leverage from reduced operating cost savings from the restructuring of its store leases expectations regarding store closures expectations regarding improved customer demand and gradual sales improvement the impact of direct sales and results in fiscal 2021 and marketing efforts.
Her shopping in store and online.
Forward looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those assumptions mentioned today due to a variety of factors that affect the company information regarding risks and uncertainties as detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission I would now like to turn the call over to our CEO Harvey Kanter Harvey.
Thank you Shelly and good morning, everyone.
It is my pleasure to speak with you today about day XL and the progress we are making in the business as we leave 2020 behind and look forward to a brighter future in 2021.
As I've shared with all of you on our quarterly calls this past year weighted.
Net thoughtful and decisive in our approach to managing through the challenges of 2020.
We are encouraged by some of the early signs we are seeing in the first seven weeks of 2021.
The decision is made and the positioning of the company for a longer term recovery and for our future growth.
Most importantly, and before I begin my remarks in regards to our business I want to again recognize our associates and their tremendous level of commitment and sacrifice to keep our business moving forward through what has been quite possibly the most difficult periods in our company's history.
It cannot be said enough if it were not for them, we might not be here.
To our associates and our guest engagement Center associates. Thank you for continuing to serve our guests and we're helping him book his best when he needed us.
Two our distribution associates. Thank you for keeping our product flowing underwrite uninterrupted. Despite all the logistical health and safety challenges this year.
Two our corporate associates. Thank you. Thank you for continuing to evolve and innovate our business. While we are adapting to a new network a new work from home dynamic.
I am so proud of what our team has accomplished this year and the critical to all of you who have answered the call day in day out to serve and support our big and tall guys now.
For todays agenda I want to update you on three different topics first I want to share what we are seeing in our business. Today, we are only seven weeks into the new year and we've had some exciting developments that I want to talk about.
Second I want to update you on specific strategies, we are pursuing across the business and how we expect those strategies will position the company from a longer term recovery and for our future growth.
Finally, Peter is going to take you through our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year before we open it up to questions. So let's get started with an update on where we are today with our business.
One of our greatest challenges this past year has been store traffic.
Talk to our customers this year and the common theme. We kept hearing was I love your store, but I really don't have anywhere to go and I am staying home.
Need anything from you right now.
That many of our customers, we're just not going out like last year and they have in the past he was not attending large gatherings, such as sporting events and family get Togethers. He hasn't been traveling we're taking vacations or visiting bars and restaurants in other words. His lifestyle has been affected you agree that his need or really lack.
Thereof for day close has been impacted and is buying behavior in 2020, more or less had been erased.
Because so many of our guests haven't shopped much. This past year. Our belief is that there is a level of pent up demand for apparel that was created in 2020, and which we think will be relieved in 2021.
We believe that we are starting to see some of that pent up demand satisfied now in the months of November December and January our comparable store sales were down minus 41, minus 36, and minus 34, respectively.
In February our comparable store sales were down 33 percentage of fiscal 19 and for the first two weeks of March our comparable store sales have improved to minus 16%.
Over the last 60 days, we've been nearly flat to 2019.
This puts us at a comparable store sales decline of minus 27 per cent for the first six weeks of the year.
Tell you all this not to create hype, but to give you a sense of our true optimism.
We believe we are starting to see a shift in consumer buying which we are attributing to a few different factors first we are starting to see some of our loyal customers returned from more than just underway.
And work from home apparel.
That's the only real thing they did need.
For the first time in a long time when they come in we have seen a greater level of fashion selling and from our older more affluent customer.
And spending level.
It appears to be coming back quickly, but time will tell.
We've heard stories from our associates of customers visiting the store, who are proudly announcing they've had their vaccine and they were eager to get out and shop. It.
That seems become more widely administered and restrictions on socializing gathering are eased, we think more and more of our customers will be shopping.
Geographically, we screen our strongest performance in the last six weeks from the South East South Central and Midwest parts of the country.
Our business.
Coast had trailed behind the middle of the country by approximately 500 basis points, even though our stores in areas like Texas that were hard hit by the snow and freezing temperatures only a few weeks ago have quickly once again recovered from what was a weather event.
Finally, it's worth noting particularly in the last two weeks that we've seen the warm weather across the country, which is often the catalyst for our customers to shop.
It is still very early in the year and we certainly have a long way to go but the early signals that we're seeing in 2021 are pointing towards a recovery in stores as the restrictions around gathering are eased at our customer feels more comfortable venturing out from his home.
We remain cautiously optimistic and we are monitoring to see if the pent up demand, where Wayne we're carrying just summer and even the fall and winter months ahead, we.
We do recognize that the savings rate of the U S consumers up measurably and another round of stimulus stimulus checks is beginning to hit banks now given this conversation the roaring twenties and celebratory times ahead may be very real.
You were excited about the prospects, but do not want to get ahead of ourselves and expectations.
Hotel and we will of course formally update you on our Q1 earnings call.
Another recent development that I wanted to talk about involves two separate and distinct transactions that we executed subsequent to fiscal year end 2020.
First I hope most of you saw that we initially registered direct offering of common stock on February nine.
Peter will cover specific details of the offering in his remarks, but I think that's worth while from me to note that this transaction generated $5 million of additional liquidity for our business before closing costs.
For the past three quarters Ive talked about how our focus on cash has been relentless.
Been living and breathing with incredible attention to the smallest details to ensure we are managing our cash and maintaining liquidity.
Each day, we are making decisions to drive the outcomes that will protect the long term viability of our company and this transaction represents another marker towards our ability to enhance liquidity.
Second and certainly more recently just a couple of days ago on March 16th we closed on a transaction to refinance our phyllo term loans.
Transaction was not a condition of the registered direct offering nor was it necessitated by our existing bank group. This was an opportunity for us to further enhance our liquidity based on the strength of our balance sheet and our outlook for continued recovery in 2021 day.
<unk> will generate between five and $10 million of incremental excess availability, depending on our inventory balance each month, which primarily secures the debt.
Again. This is another marker we believe will shift the conversation about the XL away from solvency risk and back towards our ability to execute our strategic plan for growth.
As we have all along or at least believes though we have taken every measure possible to ensure there is a future and with investor interest in credit opportunities. We looked at both of these as a measure of insurance. If you will in the event of a greater level of volatility.
<unk> was quite advantageous and the interest in the business from the outset investment with the registered direct offering speaks to upside others see.
And that really is what I love talking about most of the future and a brightening outlook for <unk> XL.
What we are doing to create a memorable experience for big and tall guys to look and feel their best we do that by offering the most extensive and uniquely curated assortment from value price essentials to luxury brands.
And exclusive designers both online and in store. So now let me shift into what we're doing across our functional areas to execute our strategic plan for greater growth.
Let's start with digital our direct business anchored by <unk> Dot com continue to grow through the fourth quarter and made up over 40% from total retail sales <unk>.
<unk> Dot com, specifically grew at nearly 929% and with their ability to create a superior UX and improved merchandising for our customers. This growth was partially driven by our conversion rate, which improved 23% year over year for Q4.
As we have discussed before our direct channel not only includes sales from <unk> Dot com, but also sales from online marketplaces and sales initiated in store, but fulfilled online via our universe technology lower traffic to the stores drove the universe well below prior year levels universe sales as you likely recall.
<unk> originated in store as our sales associates are trained to offer product extensions that may not.
Not be available in that particular store, but are available on the web.
Given the decline in store traffic units versus sales have been hit hard in contrast, our direct fulfillment by stores remained materially higher during the fourth quarter and.
In the fourth quarter, our store fulfilled $12 $9 million worth of E Commerce demand, which compares to only $10 million in the fourth quarter of last year or increase of 29%.
<unk> buy online pick up in curb and bolt is buy online pick up in store continues the momentum drivers with four times the level of orders being picked up be it bolt back in focus versus 2019.
This is an area, we'll continue to develop in terms of functionality and user experience today, we offer both back and focus on 304 store locations. We will look to optimize these omni channel experiences over the coming months, taking a test and learn approach.
Elevate the customer experience, while driving increased growth and shopper loyalty.
As I've said before EXL is well positioned to benefit from consumers who are shifting their buying behavior online.
We have a flexible off mall store base, a large and growing digital platform and a compelling and differentiated omnichannel capability, which we reach not only our existing customers, but new consumers as well.
As we have noted before our omni channel customers by far more productive than a digital only or store only customer. We also have the mobile app grew 212% in Q4, driven by tech improvement and our focus from 'twenty to 'twenty. One we will continue to be delivering a differentiated user experience.
<unk> from the web through such features as scanning personalization and simplified checkout.
Next let me share with you some thoughts on our marketing and digital strategies. The single biggest challenge facing the XL continues to be our ability to drive meaningful traffic into our stores, which for anyone in retail has been an uphill road equally important is our continuing need to drive the growth.
And traffic on our web site, while we continue to make progress due to file and reactivate customers successfully engaging our best.
Spending customers and most loyal guests across channels is a significant priority for 2021.
We have such a great appreciation for our top customer concerns and understanding of their shopping behaviors. We are reinforcing relevant personalized messaging for these loyalists Inc.
In junction with appropriate CRM, driven targeted media outreach the challenge remains significant and must be solved in order for us to make meaningful strides.
Our objective was to leverage customer behavior by leaning into the testing and learning results. We delivered in Q3 per spend allocation promotions and the other traffic driving mechanisms.
We continue to learn more in Q4, and now look to even greater leverage in spring of 2021.
We have developed a weekly reporting and actionable key performance indicators to better understand the databases filed health and customer sales trends. So we will be able to continue to act decisively.
We will also optimize our email infrastructure to support customer file growth and greater segmentation. Finally, we tested direct mail promotions with control groups to better understand causation vs correlation for greater holiday success in the omni channel gross margin impact, we tested and measure.
<unk> create incremental outcomes across campaigns learning and change marketing to support a more optimized targeting and promotional strategy for Q4 and into 2021.
Now, let me shift to a quick update on our merchandising strategies in Q4 casual sportswear and loungewear continued to drive the business, while tailored clothing remains extremely challenged comfort functionality and versatility of our essential features expected by our customer and our embedded.
And the key categories that will drive the spring sales growth.
So worthy of mentioning is that we have been seeing an uptick in recent weeks and tailored clothing, specifically sport coats and dress shirts.
May not yet be material, but an uptick at any level is encouraging that being said, we still believe that customers will continue to gravitate to category such as knits shorts activewear in denim.
There is a heightened focus on these categories and the key brands that will drive meaningful meaningfully drive the business.
We are also working on speed to market initiatives, such as exploring opportunities with vendor managed inventory or BMI as it's referred to and working with our factories to hold and dyed materials for production grayish fabric as it's referred to in key items that have given us a greater ability to react and respond to drive.
The business as well as creates elasticity in our inventory.
Now, let me briefly touch on topics of gross margin promotions and inventory.
Peter will provide additional detail, but I'm pleased to report that our fourth quarter gross margin, although below last year was the head of our revised internal expectations.
As we move through 2020 with more control over inventories, we became much more targeted with our promotions and saw a corresponding drop in our markdown rate.
We are increasingly oriented specific consumer behaviors and segments and as a result, we are driving unique promotions that positively impact gross margin dollars. We know there is a place for promotion, but we expect to return to levels approximating 2019 as moving forward in 2021.
Now moving to inventories, we have managed inventories conservatively and are down 17% from last year's fourth quarter.
We have been working very hard to maintain our supply chain and logistics capabilities.
One of the challenges that emerged in the third quarter and continues today, because the shortage of vessels available for delivery of overseas product.
Our spring receipts, which are landing now had been mostly on time, but the cost of freight has been escalating and we will continue to monitor for any greater disruption in the supply chain.
We are also seeing increased cost for certain raw materials, particularly cotton, which is exasperated by the human terrien crisis in the Xinjiang Province.
We continue to have a heightened awareness and concern regarding the force labor and ethical manufacturing with working with our world class sourcing team.
We are a member of Cedex and we are actively partnering with several other brands and retailers to continue to proactively create a transparency and ethical supply chain.
Another area, we have made tremendous progress in this year was the rightsize the company's occupancy costs.
We've been very active with our landlords to commute our challenges and strengthen our partnerships with the leasing community.
We are incredibly grateful that most of our landlords have been open to having dialogue about occupancy and have restructured leases with us in the first half from 2020, we negotiated approximately $10 million of rent abatement and deferrals.
In addition, we have restructured 91 individual store leases nearly one third of the chain, which are expected to deliver over $13 $5 million of savings over the life of the leases, including $5 $2 million of expected savings fiscal 2021.
We continue to push hard to reduce lease costs with those landlords, where our rents are out of line with our sales.
And finally, let me give you an update on our wholesale.
We continue to chase the wholesale business with our in stock position with Amazon Essentials at good threats and have experienced a slowdown in the market demand for bass.
In total our wholesale business, which is primarily with Amazon came in at $4 $5 million for the quarter, which was flat to last year.
There have been some challenges in projections and the ensuing receipt flow impacting in stock levels. The good news is we're selling nearly everything we can deliver and we believe there is even greater upside potential with Amazon.
We also continue to search for other opportunities to the overall wholesale business for the full year wholesale revenues increased $4 1 million to $16 six.
Now I would like to turn it over to Peter for an update on the financials Peter.
Thank you Harvey and good morning, everyone. There are a few topics I'm looking forward to sharing today I'll start with a summary of our fourth quarter and full year financial results. Then I'll cover some of the recent steps we've taken to strengthen our cash position and I'll close with our full year financial guidance and.
<unk> for 2021.
So let's begin with sales.
Total sales for the fourth quarter decreased 23, 7% to $100 1 million down from $131 2 million in the fourth quarter of last year.
On a comparable basis sales in the fourth quarter were down 23, 4% to last year.
Our stores, which were down 37, 3% from the prior year fourth quarter improved over the course of November December and January and have continued to accelerate in the new year.
Our direct business continued its strong performance throughout the fourth quarter led by <unk> XL Dot Com, which was up 28, 7% over last year.
Features like buy online pick up at curbside and buy online pick up in store continued to grow at a faster rate than the core website as our customers seek convenient and optionality in their shopping experience.
The sales penetration in our direct channel was 41, 4% up from 27, 4% a year ago.
Our wholesale business contributed $4 5 million in sales during the fourth quarter flat to last year.
Gross margin rate inclusive of occupancy costs was 39% as compared to a gross margin rate of 43% for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019.
400 basis point decrease in rate was comprised of a 230 basis point decrease in merchandise margin and a 170 basis point deleveraging in occupancy cost against the lower sales base.
Shipping cost increase year over year due to growth in online sales free shipping promotions and volume based shipping surcharges.
Although our gross margin rate was down compared to last year. It has improved as we've progressed through the pandemic.
Our promotions in the fourth quarter were more targeted to specific customers brands and channels, which allowed us to improve margin rates and keep our inventory fresh.
I'm very happy with our inventory position, which is down 17% to last year at $85 million as compared to $102 4 million a year ago.
Throughout this year, we have made a conscious effort to reduce receipts by slowing replenishment and narrowing our merchandise assortment to right size inventory levels with our projected sales volumes.
Our clearance inventory is actually down one 4 million from last year and comprises 10, 4% of our inventory mix in line with our targets.
We have also made great progress in our ongoing efforts to reduce store occupancy costs on a dollar basis occupancy costs for the fourth quarter were down 13, 8% versus a year ago.
As Harvey mentioned in the first half of the year, we secured $10 million in rental abatements and deferments related two months in which our stores were shut down due to the pandemic.
In the fourth quarter, we focused on restructuring leases on a go forward basis to rightsize, our occupancy costs as a percentage of store sales.
To date, we have negotiated 91 lease amendments, which will be worth over $13 5 million over the lease terms with $5 $2 million in savings in fiscal 2021.
Now, let's move on to selling general and administrative expenses.
For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, SG&A expenses were $38 3 million or 38, 3% of sales versus the prior year fourth quarter at $46 5 million or 335, 4% of sales.
This $8 $1 million year over year decrease is primarily the result of the steps we took earlier this year, including.
Adjusting store hours and staffing models to account for a new customer traffic patterns in total we eliminated 1078 store rolls or 54 per cent of.
Our head count.
Significantly, reducing our marketing costs, especially in traditional non digital channels.
Eliminating 101 corporate positions or 29% of our corporate head count.
And finally, reducing certain support services travel in any discretionary spending.
While these decisions were difficult the cost savings, which have resulted will continue to benefit us in fiscal 2021 and beyond.
The assessment of SG&A is an ongoing process, but we believe our cost structure is now set up for success and offers us the opportunity for significant operating leverage.
As we move forward, we will continue to manage variable expenses like advertising and store hours on a percentage of sales basis to maximize our opportunities as sales recover.
We continue to view SG&A expenses through two primary cost centers customer facing costs and corporate support costs.
Customer facing costs, which include store payroll marketing and other store operating costs represented 22 percentage of sales for fiscal 2020 as compared to 22 six percentage of sales last year.
Corporate support costs, which include the distribution center and corporate overhead costs represented 23% of sales in fiscal 2020 compared to 15, 5% of sales last year.
Adjusted EBITDA was $700000 per the quarter compared to $9 9 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019.
For the full year, our adjusted EBITDA was negative $24 2 million compared to a positive $23 5 million and reflects the significant impact that COVID-19 had on our operating results, especially during the period of time when our stores were temporarily closed.
Net loss for the fourth quarter was $5 1 million or <unk> 10 per diluted share as compared to net income for the fourth quarter last year of $2 4 million or five cents per diluted share.
For the full year, our net loss was $64 5 million or $1.26 per diluted share as compared to a net loss of $7 8 million or <unk> 16 per diluted share last year.
Included in the full year net loss amount is a noncash charge per store impairment as a result of COVID-19 of $14 8 million most of which was taken back in the fourth quarter.
On a non-GAAP basis, adjusted net loss for the fourth quarter was eight cents per diluted share as compared to adjusted net income of five cents per diluted share for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019.
And for the full year adjusted net loss was 72 cents per diluted share as compared to six months.
Now I'd like to move on to cash flow and liquidity, we have talked many times before about the significant steps we took in 2020 to preserve liquidity.
By reducing both capital and operating expenses adjusting inventory levels to match, our new sales trends and restructuring our store leases, we were able to limit our use of free cash flow in fiscal 2020 to just $5 5 million.
Considering our sales decreased over $150 million from the prior year. This is a result of which we are very proud.
We ended the year with $19 million in cash our total debt, which is comprised of our revolving credit facility and FILO term loan was $74 4 million. If we look at debt net of cash our balance was $55 4 million at the end of 2020 as compared to $49 8 million a year ago.
No.
We had $11 5 million of excess availability under our revolving credit facility. In addition to cash on hand.
As we move into 2021, we are continuing to monitor and enhance our liquidity and we will use free cash flow to retire debt.
The reductions in cost structure that we implemented in 2020 will remain in place as our revenues increase.
We are not planning to open any new stores or rebrand any of our existing casual male XL stores in fiscal 2021 and are instead limiting our capital expenditures to only those necessary to meet our current business objectives.
As Harvey mentioned last month, we completed a registered direct offering for 11 1 million shares of our common stock through which we raised $5 million before offering costs.
Also earlier this week, we entered into a new $17 $5 million FILO term loan, which replaced our existing $15 million FILO loans.
Our advance rates on inventory under the old silo, we're set to amortize down to 5% in may of 2021.
Our new fine low has an inventory advance rate of 15% and we will provide us with an additional borrowing capacity of $5 million to $10 million in fiscal 2021.
I also want to note that there was no prepayment penalty on retiring the existing silos.
We elected to refinance to follow because we saw an opportunity to improve our borrowing capacity by adding another lender to our banking group.
Both the registered direct offering and the new term loan provide increased stability and additional flexibility as we execute our strategic plans in fiscal 2021.
Lastly, well.
$125 million revolving credit facility, which is primarily supported by our inventory and adjust up and down throughout the year to support our seasonal inventory purchases remains in place until may of 2023.
I would like to close with our financial outlook for 2021.
Our financial plans include sales of 385 million to $402 million adjust.
Adjusted EBITDA of 11 million to $18 million and positive free cash flow.
We believe the demand for apparel will gradually improve throughout this year as the distribution of vaccines helps to create a level of comfort that gets our guys out of the house and socializing again.
Our financial projections assume that vaccines are widely available and administered by the end of the spring.
This sales range equates to a comparable sales decrease of 10, 8% to 14, 8% as compared to 2019 levels.
With comparable stores down 23, 8% to 27, 8% and our direct to consumer business up 26, 9% to 37%.
We expect the direct channel will comprise about 35% of our fiscal 2021 sales.
Although we expect total sales will still be below 2019 levels. The significant cost reductions. We took this past year are expected to benefit both our EBITDA and cash flow results in 2021.
The reductions in corporate and store head count services and discretionary spending will remain in place throughout this year and our store rent reduction efforts will also continue.
The additional liquidity provided by our recent debt and equity transactions gives us more flexibility to adjust and respond to any new opportunities that arise as our country and our customers emerge from the pandemic.
We are excited to see what 2021 has in store for DSL.
Look forward to sharing updates with you as we proceed throughout the year.
With that I would like to turn it back over to Harvey for some closing thoughts.
Thank you Peter as you heard or so we hope both from my remarks, and Peter's we remain quite optimistic we believe we have weathered the worst of the storm and challenges. We believe we have come through in a solid financial position and most of all we believe we have a strategy to leverage the recovery.
To engage consumers and what we do best creating memorable experiences for big and tall, guys to look and feel their best and drive growth back we do that by offering the most extensive and uniquely curated assortment from value price essentials to luxury brands and exclusive designers both online and in store given.
In an underserved consumer the be all end all place to shop and interact.
Interacting with their friends and our associates and that is something that cannot be bought it has to be earned.
And now we will take questions operator.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask a question you will need to press Star then one on your telephone.
To withdraw your question press the pound key.
Again, Thats star one to ask the question.
Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.
Our first question comes from the line of better SCC Research. Your line is open.
Good morning congratulations.
Good morning.
You guys as usual provide a lot of color here.
Could you talk a little bit I know it was mentioned about brands and how you're shifting around the brands how do we how should we think about that as we.
As that evolves throughout this year and how are you strategically looking at what brands to emphasize or deemphasize.
Eric It's a great question and as we've I think previously communicated we are materially reducing the brands in our mix and that is to more fine tune really the product that the customer wants. The other thing I think that is equally exciting maybe even more so as we do there.
We become more important to those brands that obviously stay in the mix and we're able to drive even greater levels of exclusivity either in spring or fall as those brands actually transitioned out of other retailers that are either in more stress or just not productive enough to continue to sell to the categories.
More than likely you would expect us to say would be those that are casual driven work from home driven but there is still an element certainly tailored clothing, and what what we'd call socializing clothing.
And in spite of maintaining a breadth of offer it is still being narrowed in both in the brand that are bought off market as well as the reduction in brands that are private label. We will we are reducing our private label brands from nine to five and I'd say at a high level over the last two years, we will.
We use our brands by about 50% in terms of those brands at a market and in both cases, then you can understand that we are really driving into those brands that are most productive and that the consumers really expect from us and in many cases, we're the only place they can buy it literally in the big and tall sizes.
It makes a lot of sense when you look at.
The online business, obviously, it has the incremental cost of having to be shipped.
How do you know whats the campaign to get people, who buy online pickup in store more. So you can save kind of can get kind of get the fruits of both and get a higher margin than you would get from just shipping directly.
Shipping just online.
Yeah. Another another really great question from the standpoint of the cost right. So we look at shipping is almost a version of occupancy, but obviously a greatly reduced version of occupancy but to the point you specifically asked we're doing several different things one we're making it simpler to buy online pick up in terms of buy online pick up in store.
Number two we have done some level of test and control to understand incrementally by offering incentives and while the incentives are at some level of discount they're very minimal to offer the customer the opportunity to come pick it up and they are basically offsetting the shipping costs. So it's somewhat neutral but we.
Do know that when a customer enters the store to buy online pickup in store specifically that in many cases. They are one of our best customers and they are interacting with our sales associates and we are seeing incrementally in ticket.
They came to the store and that that is obviously really important to us. In addition to offsetting the reality of shipping cost to the extent there is no incentive so we're pursuing a number of different things, but ultimately trying to incent the customer and make the experience simpler so that they can access goods quicker and in many cases you might imagine.
As from becomes more and more important.
The reality is they are going to go out they don't want to wait a day or two or three per shipments. They want it easy just come to the store and pick it up and go out.
Great and final question, you've given a lot of granularity on the sales the last few weeks I really appreciate that.
When you look at states like Florida, which is pretty much.
Opened up are you seeing improvements there even more than what youre seeing in terms of the general overall numbers.
Yeah, we talked about about a 500 basis point change in geography at a high level at a more micro level I would tell you we've seen as much at times of 20 points differential in those states that have been much more at ease with.
Hard to believe that you could say it east, but at ease with Covid versus those states either have been more challenged or less at ease with higher.
Stringency in terms of mass and what have you and so yes, we are seeing in select states and probably more of the southeastern anything but.
And directly in comparison to the coasts, California, specifically in New York in that area in the northeast where there.
There has been greater challenge, but yes, we are seeing distinctly different trends, but overall the macros that I referred to are really moving the customer it and it'll be issues to see how this evolves over the weeks and months ahead.
Hey, guys, Congrats and good luck as we get back to normal.
Eric Thanks, so much for your interest.
Thank you.
As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen.
Star one to ask the question.
Our next question comes from the line of Alex Silverman with AWS that's net.
Your line is open.
Yes.
Hey, good morning.
Good morning, Alex.
So a bunch of my questions were already asked but a couple of small follow ups.
So you gave the cadence of the last few months, even last few weeks or last few days.
I assume that that's.
Company wide.
Have you have you seen.
A comparable increase or improvement in foot traffic.
Not at the same level, but we definitely see a material change in foot traffic, but the reality is we're seeing conversion at pretty incredible levels and as you might imagine intuitively the customers that either getting stimulus checks or theres ease in mask wearing and what have you.
They are coming in with the purchase intent and so we're absolutely seeing an increase in conversion the other thing, although not as high and the conversion is double digit growth, but not as high as DPT, which is the average order value, we're seeing low single digit increases in the purchase value of the transaction so between.
A reduction in the decline of traffic and the increase in conversion and an increase in ticket. That's the composition of the transaction in store online. Similarly conversion is up.
Actually one of the things.
Lighting is page views is up by nearly 20%, which means they are looking at more product again, I think it implies purchase intent and we're seeing the ticket up slightly so that that in combination with heightened levels of traffic online and I would tell you meaningfully higher heightened levels of traffic online, which again goes back.
To just kind of an easing of expectations around the need to stay at home and potentially go out which again creates some of the optimism we spoke to today.
Got it that's very helpful.
Really last question from me is how do you think about inventory.
Do you think it's at the right level do you think you overshot in order to wring out.
You know to clean up inventory.
How should we think about that.
Yes, I think the reality is.
We are watching it literally daily and we as we've mentioned multiple times before are pretty actively engaged in making decisions quickly and trying to understand where we are and so I think the expectation is if business continues to ramp and we are obviously hopeful that that will be I think.
We will be quickly evolving our perspective and as I mentioned in my comments, the shipping and logistics challenges as well as the cost of shipping and logistics are going to push us pretty hard. So we will not wait we have been really good at managing inventory, both up and down and to the.
Stent that we see things happening, we will move pretty darn quickly.
Got it great.
Very helpful. Thank you very much.
Well listen thanks, so much for your interest.
Operator that looks like the end of the cold if there's nothing else. We can call. This a day and I want to just thank everyone for their support and ongoing interest in <unk> and the exciting opportunities hopefully yet ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation you may now disconnect.
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