Q2 2021 Kohls Corp Earnings Call

<unk> delivered record Q2 earnings of $2.48 per diluted share at both sales and margins materially exceeded our expectations.

Sales increased 31% to last year, surpassing Q2 2019.

And through significant gross margin expansion and disciplined expense management, we achieved an operating margin of 12, 8%, which is a 10 year high.

Equally important we further strengthened our financial position and accelerated the return of capital to shareholders.

We repurchased more than $250 million of shares in the quarter and now expect to repurchase $500 million to $700 million for the year.

This underscores our confidence in the future and commitment to creating shareholder value.

And we still ended in a very strong cash position of $2.6 billion.

As pleased as we are with our ongoing strategic progress much of our opportunity is still ahead of us.

We are on the eve of launching several transformational partnerships that will drive sustainable growth for years to come and further establish calls as the leading destination for the active and casual lifestyle.

Since launching our strategy last October.

Our organization is executing a clear plan to build sales momentum with an intense focus on improving our profitability.

We have transformed our business to be more relevant to our customers.

And more efficient in how we operate.

As evident in our results we are already seeing the benefits of our strategic efforts, which have positioned us to achieve many of our 2023 goals. This year well ahead of plan.

As we will discuss later in the call based on our strong second quarter results, we are raising our full year 2021 guidance.

For today's call I'll provide a high level overview of our second quarter performance.

Share some initial thoughts on the back to school season.

And then talk about the progress we are making against our strategy and our confidence in driving sustainable and profitable long term growth.

Joe will then discuss our Q2 results in more detail and updated 2021 financial outlook.

Let me start by touching on our Q2 results.

Our record Q2 earnings were driven by strong sales growth significant gross margin expansion and disciplined expense management.

Exceeded our expectations.

Our strategy is working and the favorable industry environment has only amplified our performance.

Sales increased 31% to last year, and we're up to the same period in 2019.

From a channel perspective in Q2 improvement in our store sales drove the majority of the total sales upside in the quarter.

We've spoken a lot about the importance and our continued commitment to our stores.

Both in terms of the customer shopping experience and the foundational role they play in our omni channel model.

We continue to be encouraged by the traffic we are seeing in customers returning to stores.

And again this quarter stores fulfilled nearly 40% of digital sales through ship from store and customer pickup.

Digital sales remained strong and increased 35% compared to the same period in 2019.

And as expected were down to last year's heightened level that benefited from store closures.

As a percentage of total sales digital was 26% down from last year's 41%, but up from 20% in 2019.

From a category perspective, we saw the greatest growth in men's accessories and women's relative to last year.

And men's home and footwear were the strongest on a two year basis.

Active continues to be the strongest area of customer demand with growth across both apparel and footwear.

From a profitability perspective, we achieved the highest operating margin in a decade as we maintained our intense focus on inventory management further optimize our pricing and promotional strategies and manage expenses with discipline.

So in summary, we had a great second quarter, we grew the business versus 2019 levels delivered record Q2 earnings and further strengthened our balance sheet.

We also accelerated our return of capital to shareholders underscoring the confidence we have in the future of our business.

Now, let me share some initial thoughts on the back to school season.

Back to school is an important season in a time when customers look to calls for their outfitting needs.

Whether it be the latest in active denim sneakers or backpacks.

Our differentiated offering of the most relevant national brands like Nike, Levi's, and vans and highly valued private brands like Sonoma, So in jumping beans uniquely positions us as a key destination for back to school.

And our leading omni channel platform provides an easy and seamless shopping experience for our customers.

Several areas of our business benefit from kids, returning to school and students going back to college, and it's especially important to our children's business, which has been one of our leading categories over the past year.

We are optimistic about this year's season, given that last year was severely impacted by the pandemic. We're seeing initial strength in key back to school areas like active denim and backpacks and expect demand to continue to build as we approached labor day.

I will now transition to our long term strategy and provide an update on the progress we are making against it.

We debuted our strategy last October in the midst of the pandemic rack.

Recognizing a significant opportunity to transform the business and drive more sustainable and profitable growth well into the future.

We made an even greater pivot towards the active and casual lifestyle to drive topline growth and implemented meaningful margin enhancing and expense saving initiatives to support overall operating margin expansion.

With a 2023 goal of achieving 7% to 8%.

Everything that we envisioned with this new strategy is playing out as planned and in many cases sooner than we expected.

We are now at an important milestone in our strategic journey.

Our customer base is growing to record levels, and we have significantly strengthened our brand portfolio.

We are investing in our stores enhancing our loyalty program and have rolled out new omni and digital capabilities to further our best in class positioning.

In the coming weeks, we will launch several transformational brand partnerships that will drive sustainable growth for years to come and further establish calls as the leading active and casual destination.

Let me share an update with you on several of these key initiatives that underlie our strategy starting first with our focus on driving top line growth.

In summary, we are making significant progress across all fronts.

We have a goal to expand active and outdoor to 30% of our business.

We continue to drive strong active sales growth and in Q2. It represented 24% of our sales up from 20% in 2019.

I'll come back and talk more about this in a moment.

We're focused on reigniting growth in womens we are evolving our women's business through a series of bold moves, including a major portfolio consolidation.

We are pleased with the progress we are seeing in our go forward brands, which are showing strong growth and we remain optimistic in the outlook for the category.

That said, we have experienced a disproportionate share of inventory receipt delays in our women's business that we are aggressively working to address.

We are building a sizeable beauty business, we just launched our game changing partnership with Sephora that will transform calls into a leading beauty destination.

I'll come back and talk more about this exciting initiative.

We're driving category productivity and inventory turn.

Productivity is improving and inventory turn is approaching our goal of four times or greater sooner than we planned.

Our men's business is a great example, in Q2 men sales increased 60% and nicely exceeded 2019 levels.

And this was achieved despite significantly less in store dedicated square footage.

We're targeting market share gains from the retail industry disruption.

We continue to see major market share gain opportunities across many casual categories.

In addition to beauty, we see iconic casual brands like Levis, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein and our value oriented private brands like Sonoma and so as key unlocks for us in capturing share.

We continue to heighten our leadership with loyalty and value.

We are pleased with the customer response and engagement, we are seeing with our evolved Kohl's rewards loyalty program as evidenced by higher enrollment and redemption rates.

And our ongoing efforts to simplify our pricing and promotion equation is working as seen in both customer response, and our gross margin performance.

And lastly, we are deeply committed to maintaining our differentiated omnichannel experience.

We have stepped up our investment in stores continued to grow our digital business and have enhanced our omnichannel capabilities.

And this fall, we will pilot self returns and self pickup in select stores.

So as you can see we are making great progress against our new strategy.

And the benefits are clear based on our year to date performance.

As pleased as we are with our current momentum we know much of our long term opportunity remains in front of us.

As we continue to execute against our key initiatives such as active and beauty, we believe our momentum will further accelerate.

Let me add some color to these two important growth initiatives.

Starting first with active.

Active has quickly become one of our largest areas of the business and has clearly benefited from our increased investments.

Active sales increased more than 40% to last year in Q2 and grew over 20% compared to the same period in 2019.

We are seeing broad based growth in apparel and footwear across mens womens and childrens.

Customer demand and sales remain high for our key national active brands Nike under armour Adidas and champion.

We are also encouraged by the traction we are gaining in the outdoor category. We expanded our Columbia assortment to include more sportswear are exceeding our sales plan with lands' end and we'll be introducing Eddie Bauer This fall.

All of these moves will further position us as a clear outdoor destination.

Now, let me provide an update on sephora at Kohls.

Since announcing our game changing partnership with Sephora last December we have collaborated to execute an aggressive store rollout plan as well as a comprehensive launch of Sephora at Kohls online.

I am pleased to share that we had a very successful launch of the sephora at Kohls digital experience earlier this month.

The customer response has been overwhelmingly positive and we are gaining great insight into how customers are shopping and what they're purchasing.

We're now in the process of opening the first of our 200 stores planned for 2021.

We opened a few earlier this month and have major waves of openings that start tomorrow and continue through October.

We will then open 400 next year and reach at least 850 by 2023.

Both organizations are very proud of the launch and I encourage you to visit one of these sephora stores. They are absolutely beautiful and truly showcase the power of the coals transformation.

I want to thank both our team and the Sephora team for their relentless efforts over the past eight months. We believe that this collaboration will quickly become one of the industry's most differentiated and largest partnerships.

Before wrapping up in addition to our commitment to growth I want to reiterate our confidence in sustaining improved profitability.

As you've heard today, our new strategy is completely transforming our business model from the categories and brands. We offer how we are merchandising stores, how we are pricing in promoting <unk>.

And how we are investing in our business and people.

I also want to underscore the focus we have on making this business more profitable.

As demonstrated with the progressive improvement in our operating margin this quarter being the strongest we've seen in a decade. This is a fundamental restructure of our business.

We are intensely focused on both growth and driving more efficiency in everything we do.

We look forward to showcasing our ability to sustain this improved performance for years to come.

We will drive these results leveraging our committed and collaborative culture and our focus on ESG.

The strength of our workforce was validated once again this year with industry, leading associate engagement scores.

In addition, we published a very comprehensive ESG report earlier this year and have continued to make progress.

We also recently appointed a new chief diversity, and inclusion officer to our executive team a newly created leadership role to further our dedication to improving our overall diversity and inclusion efforts.

Before I hand, it off to Joe Let me summarize my comments today.

Q2 was a great quarter for the company.

We raised our outlook for the year in the second half and we accelerated our share repurchases supporting the confidence we have in the future of our business.

Our business is building momentum and we are now at a key milestone in our strategic journey on the eve of several transformational brand partnerships.

We are confident that through our strategic efforts, we will drive sustainable future growth for years to come and further establish calls as the leading retailer for the active and casual lifestyle.

In closing I want to thank each and every one of our associates for your contributions to this record quarter. Your hard work passion and commitment to driving KOL success was instrumental to our performance.

With that I'll now turn the call over to Joe who will provide more details on our financial results and updated guidance.

Thank you Michelle and good morning, everyone I want to start by echoing Michel's comments, we had a great quarter and the results are truly reflective of our strategy working.

Driving topline growth and expanding our operating margin.

This puts us in an incredibly strong financial position, which enables increased investment in future growth. While also accelerating return of capital to shareholders.

Importantly, we believe this is sustainable and is supported by several transformational brand partnerships that we will launch in the upcoming weeks.

For today's call I'm going to review, our second quarter results discuss our capital allocation actions and then provide details on our updated 2021 guidance outlook.

For the second quarter net sales increased 31% to last year driven entirely by higher sales in our stores.

As expected digital sales declined 14% due to last year's heightened level that benefited from store closures.

However, increased 35% compared to the same period in 2019.

Other revenue, which is primarily credit revenue increased 15% over last year.

Turning to gross margin.

Q2 gross margin was 42, 5% up materially from last year's Covid impacted 33, 1% and up 373 basis points from the second quarter of 2019.

Our efforts to drive margin expansion continue to benefit from tightly managing inventory with a focus on term and further scaling our pricing and promotion optimization strategies.

In addition, our performance was amplified by the favorable industry backdrop were reduced promotional activity supported a greater percentage of full price selling.

And executing against our strategy, we have structurally improved our margin efficiency and are confident in our ability to sustain the recent improvement.

That said, we are monitoring industry wide supply chain, uncertainties and cost inflation.

As it relates to the supply chain. It is a fluid and evolving situation, while we have experienced inventory receipt delays in many areas of the business due to temporary factory closures and port congestion our women's business has a disproportionate exposure given its high penetration of private brands.

We are managing the situation aggressively leveraging our diversified global supply chain to ship production, when and where appropriate and to prioritize and expedite orders. While also maintaining a high frequency of pickups at the port and deliveries to our stores.

Given the fluidity of the situation, we will remain agile and responsive with a focus on minimizing the disruption.

Now, let me discuss SG&A in.

In Q2, SG&A expenses increased 18, 2% to $1.2 billion driven by significant top line growth.

As a percentage of revenue SG&A expenses leveraged against both 4039 as we continued to deliver against our efforts to drive marketing and technology efficiency and improved store labor productivity.

As we look ahead wage inflation is expected to remain a headwind the employment market remains very tight.

To strengthen our position heading into the important holiday season, we recently announced a retention incentive for associates in our stores and distribution centers.

We will continue to monitor our positioning in the market to ensure that we remain competitive we will look to mitigate the higher costs through increased store productivity and efficiency across all other areas of the business.

Our strong margin and SG&A performance translated into a 12, 8% operating margin for the quarter. This was a 10 year high and represented an increase of more than 400 basis points to the same period in 2019.

Last let me touch on some additional financial items.

Depreciation was $9 million lower than last year due to reduced capital spend in 2020.

Interest expense was $16 million lower than last year due to lower average debt outstanding during the quarter.

Net income for the quarter was $382 million and earnings per diluted share was a Q2 record of $2.48.

Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $2.6 billion of cash and cash equivalents.

Inventory at quarter end was 1% higher than the prior year and down 25% to the same period in 2019, marking another 10 year high in turnover.

Inventory ended the quarter lower than we expected driven by strong sales during the period and the industry wide supply chain challenges I just discussed.

Turning to cash flow we.

We generated positive operating cash flow of $1.4 billion and free cash flow of $1 billion to $5 billion in the second quarter.

<unk> funding from our strong results and a tax refund related to last year's net loss and the carryback provision under the cares Act.

Capital expenditures were approximately $130 million in the second quarter, given our strong financial position and outlook, we are increasing our investment planned in 2021.

We now expect to spend $600 million to $650 million, which includes store investments driven by our sephora partnership refresh activity and other customer experience and sales driving enhancements such as an increase in the number of mannequins.

In addition, we opened a new E Commerce fulfillment center earlier this year.

Now, let me discuss our capital allocation actions during the quarter.

During the second quarter, we accelerated our share repurchase activity repurchasing more than four 7 million shares for $255 million.

This is a direct reflection of the confidence we have in our business and our future.

Based on year to date share repurchases of $300 million, we now plan to repurchase $500 million to $700 million of shares in 2021.

And as announced last week, our board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of <unk> 25 per common share the.

The dividend is payable on September 20 to shareholders of record at the close of business on September 8th.

Turning to our guidance outlook for 2021 based on our strong second quarter performance, we are raising our full year outlook, we continue to be thoughtful and prudent in setting our financial outlook for the balance of the year, considering the uncertainty around consumer spending given the delta variant situation as well as the supply chain challenges and <unk>.

Age headwinds I discussed.

Based on this we are guiding the year as follows net.

Net sales to increase in the low 20% range up from our prior expectation of a mid to high teens increase.

Operating margin to be in the range of seven four to seven 6% up from our prior expectation of five 7% to six 1%.

This positions us to achieve our 2023 operating margin goal of 7% to 8% this year.

And EPS to be in the range of $5.80 to $6.10, excluding nonrecurring charges.

From our prior guidance of $3.80 to $4.20.

This guidance represents an all time high EPS for our company.

In summary, we are really pleased with our second quarter results and the progress we are making with our strategy. Our efforts are gaining traction and we enter the back half of the year with key transformational partnerships that will drive sustainable growth for years to come.

We are happy to take your questions at this time.

At this time, if you'd like to ask a question simply press star one on your telephone keypad.

Our first question comes from the line of Bob <unk> with Guggenheim Securities.

Hi, good morning congratulations.

Good morning, Bob.

Morning.

Question for you.

First one is.

As you guys embark on the Sephora partnership can you just talk about the game plan in terms of the limited customer overlap like how you're approaching.

Getting to their customers, how they're talking about coming into your customers and I don't know if that is the loyalty programs, but I'd love to just hear exactly how youre starting that as the partnership unfolds and then the second question for Jill on the on the share buyback program, how should we think about that.

A new updated targeted buyback for this year.

The next few quarters. Thanks.

Alright, well thanks, Bob for the question Michelle here I'll kick it off on the Sephora partnership first let me say that we are really really pleased with how this partnership has launched as you know we're in the early days.

We just have a few stores opened as we sit here today, but by Tomorrow, we'll have more than 70 stores open which is exciting and then by this fall we will have 200 and on our way to $8.50, as you know over the next couple of years and then we did launch our online Sephora shop on August 1st I'd say across both online and our early store.

Again, just a couple of them were pleased with what we're seeing.

Customers are coming in they're engaging.

What's been interesting is their shopping across the entire store. So they're shopping makeup their shopping skin.

Her main and as we look at the types of brands that they are buying they are hitting all price points. So everything from Sephora collection, but we have sophisticated shoppers theyre buying Charlotte Tilbury they.

They are buying <unk> and the hair area. So so the early indications are very very encouraging and I'd say, both sephora and calls are really pleased at the launch and I think as everything we've seen to date launching this complex of an initiative standing up 200 stores launched.

Launching a completely new online experience, it's about as flawless as we could get so couldn't be more pleased on that front and then to your question around the customer overlap or as we think about the incremental <unk> opportunity. We're really optimistic there as you made note the overlap as it relates to both stores and customers is pretty minimal.

So that says there's a great opportunity on customer acquisition for kohls and and for Sephora I mean, they get to tap into our 65 million customer base and we get to tap into younger customers, who today don't have the convenience of getting it to a sephora given the limited overlap so so.

That's core to our strategy and in terms of going to get these customers as you would imagine we are fueling this launch with lots of marketing on a local level of course, when we open a store.

We're doing a lot of digital and social marketing as we introduce customers to our website. So it's really across the board taking advantage of all our marketing levers and one of the aspects I think which also makes this partnership unique is how we're thinking about the loyalty programs to your point as we bring in a customer how are we going to keep them and a customer.

Buying sephora at Kohls has the opportunity to get both their beauty insider points and Kohl's rewards and as we're bringing customers and we're actually seeing very nice adoption of beauty insider. So that is something that our associates are doing there of course sephora trained but they are doing a great job signing up beauty insider.

And Kohl's rewards so it's great value of the customer.

And in terms of us having them engage in both programs provides a lot of great data in terms of understanding them and how we can leverage that and driving halo purchases and of course, the email files are very powerful from a marketing standpoint, so anyway to sum it up early days very pleased and more to come.

And then I'll hand, it over to Joe Good morning, Bob So from a cash position, obviously, we feel great with where we ended the quarter at $2.6 billion and our ability to generate the cash flow our priorities have always been first to invest back in the business. So we are increasing our capex spend we had originally guided $5.50 to 600, we've increased that to 600 to $600.

And the majority of that Youre going to see is going to be throughout the store really elevating that level of experience and discovery, but then we always want to return it back to our shareholders and that's why we did increase the share repurchase activity. We are able to take advantage of the cash flow and obviously, we thought there was an opportunity to buy into the stock and we were able to buy up to the high end of our original.

No guide at that $300 million. So as we look for the balance of the year, we will continue to leverage that additional cash flow and return it back into shareholders. So as we look to the $5 million to $700 million, obviously that will be dependent on what we see from a store.

Stock perspective, but don't want to Miss the fact that we think there is a long term value opportunity in our stock and that's really what that confidence and increase in share repurchase shows.

Great. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from the line of Steph Wissink.

Thank you good morning, everyone, Hey, Morningstar, a follow up on the operating margin success in the quarter, which was quite mind boggling frankly to see that 12, 5% plus maybe help us think through the back half of the year, what's embedded in your guidance and then also if we think about that upper end and kind of your long term goal.

What would bring the number down from what you are achieving now what do you see as transitory versus whats reinforcing your strategy is more permanent.

Sure Steph Thanks for the question Michelle here I'll start and then I'll have Joe jump in to provide more color and details I mean first off we are.

We're very very proud and pleased with the number we just posted a 12, 8% exceeding our own expectations.

And certainly as we guide now of the year, we are squarely in the goal that we set for 2023. So we're going to have that hit us this year and.

And we have a lot of things in our strategy that are working things.

Things that we communicated back in our October strategic plan. So from a pricing promotion standpoint, we are optimizing the equation between how we price and how we promote and surgically and some cases pulling back offers reinvesting part in price and reinvesting into the bottom line our inventory management.

Our efforts are working we're at a 10 year high as it relates to inventory turns so the team will continue to tightly manage that and then I would say front half of the year, it's been a favorable environment and that has helped to amplify our results, but I think it's important for you and others to understand that it's really the strategies, leading and then we leaned in to take <unk>.

Vantage of the environment and this is critical for us going forward we have.

Very very strong confidence.

You saw us guidance back end of the year and for the full year.

That this is sustainable for us I mean, these are long term strategies. So can't say enough that this is a fundamental restructuring of our business to enhance profitability and set us up for sustained growth and then I think Joe can add a little bit more color as it relates to the details on how we think about it yes, I think it's stuff we did take advantage.

<unk>, a great market, but I think the big thing is our strategies are working and we're really excited with the strong start to the year, but we wanted to approach it prudently as Michel highlighted and we did in our comments is there's a heightened level of uncertainty as we look to the back half of the year with Delta variant what is that going to do for consumer confidence you have a lot of supply chain disruption.

<unk> cost inflation in labor and freight as well. So we just really wanted to make sure that we were set up to take advantage, we feel incredibly confident in the outlook and I think as we look over the long term potential we're really going to assess that over the balance of the year and then come back to you at a later date of really what we expect this to be able to do from a long term perspective.

But I just want to leave you with the fact that we're incredibly confident and we do expect to sustain our recent margin performance and build on it.

Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from the line of Lorraine Hutchinson.

Thanks, Good morning, I wanted to follow up on your comments around the sourcing environment could you talk about.

Just frame for us how much pressure you expect on second half gross margin and then are you looking at this as simply a cost issue or.

Do you anticipate any loss sales from canceled orders in the back half.

Yes, I definitely think it's both to be honest Lorraine. We are managing this very aggressively as we mentioned we are shifting production, where we can to navigate the temporary factory closures. We've prioritized P. O is to make sure we're bringing the seasonal items are event driven items.

On time, we are increasing the frequency of store deliveries. We've added carrier. So everything we can do to ensure that we're flowing goods is what we're doing but I would definitely say you know inventory was a little bit lighter than we expected at the end of the second quarter, we didn't make the progress back that we would have expected and that definitely is going to weigh a little bit from a sales perspective. So.

We're aggressively going after that into the back half of the year, but we do want to make sure that we have and instill discipline and we're turning that inventory as well. So I would say, we're going to expect to build back into inventory. So some of the cash that you see on the balance sheet will go back into investing in inventory, but I do think there will be some costs associated with moving through the supply chain getting those.

Capacity needs, because it's going to cost a little bit more money that is all baked into the back half guidance that we gave to you as well as any concerns that we would have for flowing goods, which were working really hard at but I think Michelle called out in our comments women's is disproportionately hit by that given the high proprietary brand penetration. So we're really focus.

Staying on that given the transition that that has been in we feel great with the performance we've seen out of women's especially in those go forward brands, but we now need to continue to flow those goods.

Yeah, the only thing I would add the range that is.

Categories, where we really leaned in like active we're in a great inventory position there and as we shared business was up 40% last year up 20% on a two year basis. So the good news here is the customers responding to what we're putting in front of them like Joe said, we have some more acute.

Hopefully temporary issues in categories like women that the team is all over and being really creative so we can accelerate those goods.

And then maybe if I could just ask a follow up on Sephora. Many of your peers have beauty penetration in the low double digits is there anything structural that would prohibit you from reaching that over time.

No I don't think theres anything structural to that.

You know again, we're just in the early days here, but as you've heard us talk about since we announced the partnership we're really bullish we think we're going to create a very big beauty business for the company and we're also going to get the Halo impact by all of these new and younger customers coming in so yeah again early days encouraged.

With the first few weeks here.

But very optimistic.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Gaby Carbone with Deutsche Bank.

Hi, good morning, congratulations on the nice quarter. So I wanted to ask about Amazon you know it's been a very innovative partnership no. Maybe what have you learned from this initiative and does it continue to drive improvement in conversion and then kind of going back to Sephora. How can you apply your learnings from Amazon to the Sephora partnership.

And do you think before it can be more impactful when it comes to converting shoppers into kohl's customers versus what you've seen at Amazon.

Yeah. Thanks for the question Gabby, So first on Amazon they've been great partners kind of goes back to the original start of the relationship where we saw the complementary strengths of we are very strong operationally, we do returns really well and we provide a seamless experience for their customers and what we get in return.

Churn is new customers traffic and one of the things we have actually seen is that our conversion year on year is improving so as customers get to know calls more and then we have the teams always play with different offers et cetera, but we're really pleased and it is contributing to top line, gaining new customers and financially.

Accretive as well.

I think as we were just saying I think with Sephora, we will see.

Halo effect as well.

As I mentioned earlier, we have this joint loyalty program, so beauty insiders, coupled with Kohl's rewards and also it's worth mentioning that it's not only sephora. If you think about in our stores and we're deeply committed to our stores.

We run store as well and I think as we said in our remarks as well they were the key driver to our sequential improvement this quarter.

But where we're rethinking the entire store, we're making investments to refresh the store, we're re flowing our categories to reflect our new strategy of really pivoting harder into active and casual. So as an example, as these 200 stores get built out we're moving our active business right to the.

Our front of the store so as a customer walks in what they experience is not only looking in front of them, saying this beautiful sephora shop, but they are seeing Nike and under armour and Adidas and champion.

And then we're just making other shifts around the store so it's more seamless and more logical so to me it's that entire equation and so we're fully expecting that as customers come in yes, they'll shop in Sephora, but then they'll see these amazing brands in the cold experience around them and I think the same will go through as it relates to the digital.

Variance, if theyre coming online and buying Sephora online.

We'll be able to see within their basket, we have strong digital marketing capabilities and very strong personalization capabilities and again as they enroll in our loyalty programs, we get their emails and that's been a very effective and efficient ways for us to reach our customers and we're north of 40 million E mails.

Email accounts that we have to reach customers. So we've continued to grow that as well.

Great. Thank you for that color if I can just sneak in one more question. Your gross margin performance was really great in the quarter.

Is there any way to quantify maybe how much are you benefiting from your own scaled and pricing promotion optimization burst just kind of the general tight inventory kind of favorable backtrack backdrop, we're seeing now.

So Gary I think the fact that we actually were able to leverage our core capabilities around pricing and promotion actually and taking advantage of the environment is a huge positive so to actually separate how much is the environment versus how much is called I think it actually all has to do with the capability that we have we're able to lean in more from a pricing really able to eliminate.

Some of the offers that we saw last productively, because the environment afforded us too and also to be honest with you our customers told us that they were willing to do that we were confusing in some instances, we're driving a lot of new customers into our stores. So these key initiatives and we really need to simplify that pricing. So I think really we took advantage of the market, but we're able to really lean into our core capabilities.

<unk> to be able to do that and as we approach the back half of the year will always be really agile as we move through that we do think.

Simplified pricing more pricing events is definitely the way to the future, but we're also going to react to how the customer is reacting to us as we approach the back half of the year and quite honestly into the future by leveraging this core capability.

Thank you so much best of luck.

Your next question comes from the line of Oliver Chen with Cowen and company.

Hi, Thank you the sephora as are quite impressive as we look forward.

What are your thoughts on the comp lift to the overall kohls relative to all the testing you've done in your experience with beauty in the past.

Would also love your thoughts on holiday relative to back to school and what Youre seeing for back to school.

The differences or similarities.

You may execute upon as we approach our unique holiday season as well. Thank you.

Sure Oliver I'll start on the beauty question I'll, let Michele talk to you about back to school and holiday, but I think you know you've been with US a long time, we've definitely gone through our phases of beauty and when we've done this in the past when we've actually.

<unk> beauty department and brought in kind of those mid tier prestige brands, we actually did see a 2% comp lift just from the incremental traffic. So this is really a strong traffic driving replenishable items that customers came to the store for so with doing that without a key top partner like Sephora, we would expect to be able to drive.

North of that 2% once we get the scaled to the store. So we're excited about what it can bring one does the new customer growth that Michele mentioned two it is a key traffic driver we've seen that in the past and three of the Halo effect that it has the rest of the store. We did take this opportunity not just to put sephora and but as Michelle mentioned, we really re.

Florida store, we refresh the store so those customers coming in are going to see a new kohls to really attract them across the pad whether it be to active to womens behind the Sephora shop as you saw when you toured it we now have Calvin Klein, but we also have the space that will be more capsule collections. So it's going to be an element of discovery as we continue to change out.

What is in that space to really engage with the customer. So we are taking advantage of sephora and the traffic it's going to drive in a much bigger way than we have in the past as well great and then relative to back to school holiday back half of the year.

I'd say right now we are happy with how back to school is playing out we're seeing strength in key categories that we've really invested in like active so kids are continuing to buy a lot of active wear to go back to school, whether that's apparel certainly the sneaker category. Both in terms of active and athleisure brands across the brands I was speaking to earlier.

Nike Adidas under armour champion, but also brands like converse and vans.

We're a destination for those brands, we really separate and differentiate ourselves on denim feel great about our denim offering that's really resonating with our customers as you know, we're a leading retailer of Levi's.

Strong private brands like Sonoma, even brands like Lauren Conrad, so and even backpacks that really didn't have much of a business last year, we're seeing nice growth in backpacks. So so we're optimistic as kids return back to school and I also think as even adults are back in store shopping as people refresh their wardrobe as they get out and about weather.

It's a return to office or just going to dinner or maybe traveling so I think we're set up really well as Joe said earlier, we're doing everything we can where we have some pockets here and there of inventory issues to make sure that we can expedite and get back in stock in areas like women's but broadly we're confident as.

As we head into the back half and then I'd say as we move into holiday a couple of things. One is those same categories like active casual apparel, we expect to continue.

As customers refresh their order, but I think really importantly, and what's different for cold. This year is the newness, we are bringing in and these transformational brand partnership. So we mentioned kind of early days with sephora, but by that by the end of October we're going to have 200 stores open and as you've seen all.

Or these are 2500 square foot shops. They are beautiful the products are amazing and so we think that's going to be a draw for customers and new customers and even existing customers and then get that Halo effect, and then that will start being material when you've got 200 stores, coupled with a great omnichannel and digital experience. So that's <unk>.

One and then secondly, as it relates to our casual apparel strategies Super excited about the brands coming in so Calvin Klein is just launching as we speak on the intimates in basics and loungewear optimistic about that Tommy Hilfiger that we'll be launching soon I mean that is.

It's a premier brand, we're super excited to bring that into our business in the men's business.

Recently launched cole Haan on the footwear side, and then Eddie Bauer.

Yes, I mentioned in my remarks, when we think about active we think about the entire spectrum of active athleisure and the outdoor lifestyle and whether that's literally to go mountaineer you can buy things from kohls or if it's just you know you want to wear more apparel that outdoor oriented we're going to have those offerings and Eddie Bauer is a fantastic brand.

<unk> to join lands and in Colombia, which we already have and then last but not least is our recently introduced flex brand that is off to an amazing start and we're expanding that to more doors. This fall so.

If you take a step back and you think about where we are in our journey. I mean, we are really now on the cusp of the curtains up moment for a new more modernized kohl's still keeping and retaining our core customers with the great brands that we have only strengthened like Sonoma and Croft <unk> Barrow, but then complementing them with these exciting.

Brands like Sephora like Tommy like Eddie Bauer that are going to resonate with our core customers as well as new customers. So yes.

Couldn't be more excited about what it means for the back half and I think importantly for the long term sustainable growth on the business.

Your next question comes from the line of Mark <unk> with Baird.

Great. Good morning, Thanks for taking my question.

Was hoping you could provide a bit more color on the progress.

Womens assortment I guess it sounds like there is some noise on supply chain right now.

Cutting through that.

How do you think you're tracking with improvement.

And could you confirm it supply.

Hi chain delay related to your private brands or is that impacting the timing of the rollout of some of the new brand partnerships. Thank you.

Great Mark Michelle here I'll take the question first to answer your specific question just at the end.

The supply chain disruption is largely around our private brands. So so yeah, that's where we're seeing it in again can't say enough that the teams all over it in terms of womens or actually where we expected to be in the transformation. As you know we made a huge move starting last year to fundamentally transform this business.

We added it out 10 brands that's about deepening.

Our position with these brands, giving them more space like a Sonoma Lauren Conrad.

<unk> that type of thing removing any kind of redundancy that we might have seen with the brands things like nine west and apartment nine having that all benign west and also the pivot that we're making broadly for the company on really showing up in kind of owning that casual apparel space. So we're seeing great results in denim.

And in kind of basics like teas and that type of thing.

And of course, there's a place for fashion and we feel great about what's on deck for that as well.

Early indications are really positive as we look at our private brands in womens brands like Sonoma, So Lauren Conrad and more are positively comping as we go back to 2019, so on a two year basis. If you set that as a baseline so that gives us the real the.

A real indication of the customer responding our sell throughs and our inventory turn on womens really strong.

We're also investing as we talk about the investment in our stores, we're investing in the shopping experience. So just as we've removed inventory and de densify, we're investing in things like mannequins and storytelling and what have you and again the customers responding there. So so I feel really good about how we're <unk>.

<unk> I think much of our opportunity is still ahead of us as we address these short term inventory challenges as we bring in new brands.

It is important to note even as we sit here today, we've seen some significant sequential improvement from where we were six nine months ago. So you look at the sequential improvement you look at the positive two year comps in some of those key brands that we're doubling down on and then we look ahead to the new brands coming.

I think we are really really set up well.

That's very helpful and then Jill.

Touch on credit quickly I know the growth there is expected to lag the sales recovery.

Any more detail you can provide on your expectations in the context of the.

Higher revenue guidance.

And just related to that bigger picture interested in your thoughts on credit penetration.

Forward, especially as you try to attract a younger customer to the brands do you think youre going to see similar levels of credit penetration as you have historically thank you.

Sure. So I think when we started the year, we and we started with the very low accounts receivable balance that we had mentioned to you and you've seen that reflected in our Q1 results. We had mentioned that we do expect credit to grow throughout the year, but it will still be flat versus last year as we build that back up in addition to that we have a really healthy consumer so our payment.

<unk> are very elevated so people are paying off their balances so youre not seeing them revolve generating that incremental credit revenue. So and then last our credit losses are actually really low. So it is a healthy customer, but we're starting from a low place just because of the 2020 pandemic impact to that portfolio. It will build the rest of the year, but will still be <unk>.

Relative to 2020, what I would say is we're delivering this operating margin. Despite that so in the past I think we had gotten a lot of benefit out of our credit portfolio and this year with it being down we're actually able to deliver this strong operating margin without having to credit revenue flow through I will say we are.

We're seeing a lot of new customers, we have a huge opportunity to convert them through that loyalty ladder, bringing them into the rewards program and ultimately getting them to their credit card, but I would expect with the new customers that we're bringing in through all of the initiatives that Michelle outlined the four are the new brands that we will see our credit penetration.

<unk> down year on year before we bring them into that credit card portfolio, but the strength of the core of what we've done from our foundational changes or structural changes is going to sell a forest to drive profitability and then that will just be benefits in years to come as we move them through to the credit card.

Thanks again.

Your next question comes from the line of Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett.

Hey, great quarter.

Some of your peers are choosing to raise retails just curious if you could speak to your AUR trends and I guess your expectations going forward on that front and then.

For you Joe as a follow up in order to get through.

20%.

<unk> got for 2021, and then it seems to imply that sales per store.

More in the back half than they were in the front half, which given the sephora launch and given some of the new brands just doesn't really seem to make sense I'm. Just wondering if you could just speak to that.

Patient.

Sure. So I think first you know Chuck if you look over time, we've actually been raising our AUR. It's just really based on product models of what we've been able to bring in and we've seen the customer respond to that so I think we have shown a history of bringing that through I don't know that we are going to be seeing ticket changes, but we are seeing AUR changes based on the promotional activity really leaning more.

Into pricing, having less of that coupon. So that's really how we balance and been able to take advantage I think of the consumer market in the full price selling that we indicated in the front half of the year. We will continue to take advantage of that as the market affords us, but really we'll make investments back out of promotions potentially into pricing to really have that simplified equation Stan.

And out, especially as we bring a lot of these new customers and so they can quickly get to the key value that kohls provides so I wouldn't say, we're making any overt changes to ticket, but you will see that through the promotional calendar that we have learnt to and then Additionally, you will see AUR as changes relative to the product that we're bringing in all the brands that Michelle.

Indicated have a much higher AUR benefit whether that'd be sephora, Calvin and Tommy and we've done this over time and really seen it resonate with our customers. So they are willing to open up their wallet to buy those brands because they see the value not only in price, but in the quality of the product that we're bringing in and then in terms of the back half of the year.

Definitely you know you can do the math it does look like it would be a slowdown to see what we have seen in spring I think when we approached our guidance. We would definitely wanted to be thoughtful but also give you a prudent guidance given the heightened uncertainty you have delta variant happening you have the supply chain disruption that we've mentioned you have a late tight labor.

A market, where we're going to have to pay more for wages as we bring people and so really taking into account all of those unknowns. We brought our guidance I think in from a thoughtful and prudent perspective, but it does show a slowdown in the back half of the year I don't want that to leave you with the fact that we don't have confidence in our outlook, we definitely believe.

Our strategies are working we believe much of the opportunity is still ahead of us and you know the fundamental restructure of the business. We think will definitely help us drive growth and profitable growth, but we also want to make sure that that's done over the long term and really efficient model and obviously, we will go after as much.

Growth as we can in the back half of the year, but given the uncertainty just wanted to leave you with guidance that seem more prudent at this time I'll just echo what Joe said, 100%.

But to also amplify that we're going to go after all the opportunities in front of us and Youre right. Chuck I mean were stacked as we look at the back half of the year.

These are not only exciting initiatives. They are proven right. I mean, these are known iconic brands in Sephora, Eddie Bauer, Tommy Calvin Klein its an incredible lineup and we enter the back half of the year as Jill said, we're really thoughtful in our guidance, but I think it's also important to reiterate that we also guided our EP.

<unk> at an all time record high so.

We feel good about that and yes carry on.

That's great and then just as a quick follow up just if you look at the gross margin.

At this point I presume.

Permian, but any handholding you can.

In the fourth quarter relative to 19 would be it would be helpful. Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, we don't give the quarterly guidance what I would say is we were able to take advantage of a great market I think some of the things that will persist as we're going to have inventory management, we're going to continue to turn we mentioned we were light on inventory, we are going to make an investment in inventory we are going after as fast as we can into those inventory areas that relate.

Trying to help women, bringing more.

Probably like Michelle mentioned with active having over performs so we are definitely going to go into investing in that but we will.

And pricing and promotion, we're going to take advantage of the market, but we're also going to play so as we move into a heightened promotional activity.

I mean, what is this holiday look like relative.

So it'll be on they're ready to make sure that we're adjusting.

Our good offers through.

Better pricing and so we will make sure we're making those moves as well as we look in the back half of the year and then there are the elevated freight costs that you've heard from everyone that we will take into consideration and then as we talked about solutions for the.

Apply chain, we're expediting some orders to bring them in we're adding carrier pickups to ensure that we're flowing goods more timely there are definitely going to be costs associated with how we can pull that inventory all of which is.

Considered in the guide and as Michel mentioned, I, just want to underline, which still get us to an all time high from an EPS perspective.

Great. Thanks, and good luck thank.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Polish Wang with Citigroup.

Thanks Scott.

Joe I'm curious if the merchandize margin improvement that you're seeing versus buying team has been consistent across carrier.

Biggest opportunity from here.

Then.

So on Amazon.

Yeah.

Sure you seemed happy with the partnership curious.

Do you think that they are.

I'm curious if there are any changes to terms or if they've expressed an interest.

Prior to alter the arrangement anywhere anything you could add on that front. Thanks.

So Paul I would say collectively we have seen our merch margin improve across all of our lines of business everyone has improved turn we're focused on making.

Everything we are investing in much more productive so we're giving more space to active it's one of our most productive areas. So I think as we've looked across the space. We've moved out of category offers for one item is how we've reduced some of our promotions and that has been across all of our categories. So nothing has been outsized to one degree or not.

We're taking advantage of the markets, where it drove additional margin and drove improved turns and we've looked across and simplify the pricing and promotion.

Since it equally across all of our lines of business, which has resonated from that perspective. So.

Well I would say, we expect that to continue as we move forward, obviously were outsized and certain areas such as the active that is most productive for US and then I think from a women's perspective, that's where we have the opportunity to bring in more inventory, but on those go forward brands. It's really in the newness that we're putting in front of the customer is very much Ross.

<unk>, so we expect that red cell price selling to continue in those areas as well.

Yes to your question Paul on Amazon Echo, what I said earlier, we're both really pleased with the partnership it's delivering against what we expected it's accretive to sales and they're very pleased in terms of how we support them in their returns process and both companies kind of share the obsession on.

Putting the customer first and exceeding customer.

Plan to continue forward like I said, it's doing what it's supposed to do and as I mentioned earlier. We're also seeing some nice upticks in conversion as we bring in these new customers.

We're looking forward to the partner.

Continuing.

Great. Thank you good luck.

Thank you.

Your last question will come from the line of Dana Telsey with Telsey Advisor group.

Your line is open.

Your line maybe on mute.

Yeah.

Okay, well I think we'll wrap it up thank you everyone for listening to the call today, we look forward to speaking with you in November.

Thank you that concludes this conference call you may now disconnect.

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