Q3 2023 Dollar General Corp Earnings Call
Good morning, My name is Robert and I'll be your conference operator today at this time I'd like to welcome everyone to the dollar generals third quarter 'twenty twenty-three earnings conference call. Today is Thursday December 7th 2023, all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.
This call is being recorded instructions for listening to the replay of the call are available in the company's earnings press release issued this morning.
Now I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Kevin Walker, Vice President of Investor Relations. Kevin You May now start your conference.
Thank you and good morning, everyone on the call with me today are Todd <unk>, our CEO and Kelly Dilts, our CFO our earnings release issued today can be found on our website at Investor dollar General Dot Com under news and events.
Let me caution you that today's comments include forward looking statements as defined in the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, such as statements about our financial guidance strategy initiatives plans goals priorities opportunities expectations or beliefs about future matters and other statements that are not limited to.
Oracle fact.
These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections.
These factors include but are not limited to those identified in our earnings release issued this morning under risk factors in our 2023 Form 10-K filed on March 24th 2023, and any later filed periodic report and in the comments that are made on this call.
You should not unduly rely on forward looking statements, which speak only as of today's date.
Dollar general disclaims any obligation to update or revise any information discussed in this call unless required by law.
At the end of our prepared remarks, we will open the call up for your questions to allow us to address as many questions as possible in the queue. Please limit yourself to one question now.
Now it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Todd.
Thank you, Kevin and welcome to everyone joining our call.
Let me start by saying how excited I am to be back at dollar General I have a deep passion for this company and for the customers we are privileged to serve.
I continue to believe in this model, our future growth prospects and our ability to deliver value and convenience for our customers.
A positive experience for our employees.
And long term value for our shareholders.
We take our mission of serving other seriously.
And know that our customer is facing financial constraints and communities are looking for strong partners and a tough macroeconomic environment.
Historically, we've met those challenges head on and deliver for our customer and we believe that we are well positioned to do so now.
In retail one of the best ways to diagnose the state of the business is by looking at it through the eyes of the customer.
And we know that our customers rely on dollar general to provide the products they need at great values inconvenient friendly.
And easy to shop stores.
We have spent the last several weeks taken a fresh look at all areas of our business as well as the challenges and opportunities in front of us.
We believe that we have a good understanding of what we need to do to address those challenges and opportunities and we're already taking action.
To be clear this is not about rebuilding the team or organization, but about refocusing efforts already underway.
This is where I wanted to spend the majority of our time today I won't share all the details this morning, but I want to provide an overview to highlight our focus on getting back to the basics in our stores and our supply chain and within our merchandising.
After that Kelly and I will review, our third quarter performance.
I wanted to start with our stores, where everything begins and ends for our customer.
As we drive improvement across our store footprint.
We're doing so through the lens of our customer.
As we have previously announced we are investing approximately $150 million in store labor hours this year.
After review we continue to believe this level of investment is appropriate but as we do with every dollar we invest we must ensure we are spending it to drive the greatest return, which means we are directly helping our store teams support our customers.
With that in mind, we have made the decision to redeploy labor hours, all way from smart teams and instead more directly to our store teams and.
And a greater emphasis on customer service and store level inventory management activities.
To that end I want to highlight two areas of focus we believe will drive the greatest improvement in our stores.
First we plan to increase the employee presence at the front end of our stores and in particular the checkout area.
Well Seth self checkout has contributed to the convenient proposition for our customers in certain stores. It does not reduce the importance of a friendly helpful employee who is there to greet customers and assist.
While the checkout process is happening.
We have already begun by allocating more labor to front end activities and clearly communicating our expectations around the visible presence of an associated at the front of our stores.
Second we are re emphasizing the role played by our store teams and our perpetual inventory management process, which we believe will positively impact our on shelf availability as well as our customers' convenience perception in our sales.
To do this we are reallocating some of our labor investments toward store level inventory management processes, including an even greater focus on getting product onto our shelves more quickly.
We are also reducing the span of control for our district managers, which will provide more opportunity for engagement with our store managers and their teams and more consistency in execution across the store base.
As we take these actions and focus on the basics in our stores. We believe we will see improved retention at the store manager level, where our turnover is currently higher than we'd like.
And we know from experience that.
When we stabilize the store manager position, the entire store and teen benefit, which ultimately drives a more positive experience for our customers as well as improved sales and shrink results.
Overall, we believe these actions will drive improvements in customer satisfaction, including customer service on shelf availability and convenience as well as sales while our focus on the front end should also reduce shrink these.
These efforts also should help us improve employee engagement and retention.
Next I want to talk about our supply chain.
We have made significant progress recovering from a distribution capacity constraints that we had discussed late last year. However through the lens of the customer we see additional opportunity for improvement, particularly when it comes to serving our stores.
As we focus on getting back to the basics the goal within our supply chain and as for our truck deliveries to be on time and in full or ots.
As we continue to drive our hotel rates higher we simplify the work for our store teams, which again results in a better overall experience for both our customers and associates as well as an expectation of higher sales.
I wanted to briefly highlight three areas of focus within our supply chain.
First we plan to better optimize the inventory within our distribution centers.
As I will discuss in a moment, we are taking steps to reduce inventory, including SKU rationalization, which will allow for more efficient movement of product for our distribution teams.
Second.
We are implementing productivity improvement initiatives within our distribution centers.
Productivity rates had been impacted by both internal and external factors, we are working to mitigate or eliminate productivity impediments for our teams and control the things we can control.
These efforts include standardizing system configurations, and optimizing the product layout in our facilities, while providing clear communication on performance standards and expectations.
And third.
Now that we're past the capacity constraints, we experienced last year, we are reducing the number of temporary outside warehouse facilities being used to store product as inventory flows more effectively.
And through our existing distribution centers.
By better leveraging these existing distribution centers and taken advantage of the new permanent facilities. We have opened over the last year and those we will open next year. We believe we can significantly reduce the amount of temporary warehouse space needed.
As we've done historically, we likely will continue to maintain a few of these temporary facilities. However, we expect to transition out of many of them in Q4 and into next year.
All of these actions within our supply chain should translate to lower distribution and transportation cost.
Oh tier for AIDS and better customer experience and all while improving sales results.
Finally, I want to speak to our focus on fundamentals and merchandising.
Once again, we reflected on our approach through the eyes of our customer.
For our merchants there is no greater priority than offering great value of the products, our customers want and need.
Our customers are offering living paycheck to paycheck and continually tell us that value is the most important factor in their shopping decisions.
I am pleased to note that we are in good shape when it comes to our everyday pricing and.
And we are right, where we want to be in our price gaps with our competitors and classes of trade.
With that said we are taking a hard look at what else. We can do to drive value for our customers in this challenging economic environment, including highlighting private brands and other opportunities for savings as well as maximizing the effectiveness of any promotional activity to drive traffic and share growth.
Beyond these opportunities for our customers. We have also challenged our merchants to consider how they can drive simplification for our stores and supply chain as well with meaningful SKU rationalization as one of the most immediate areas of focus.
To that end, we have identified several opportunities to eliminate certain skus that have become less productive first by moving them out of our Dcs and then ultimately to our stores to sell through.
As our store teams have fewer skus to manage we can lower our cost to serve while driving higher inventory turns and higher sales of products that are most important to our customers.
We believe these actions will help further reduce inventory and shrink while simplifying operations in both D CS and stores to drive greater efficiencies over the longer term.
We all know that driving traffic and market share are essential to long term retail success and while our results have been improving in these areas. We are still not satisfied with our current position.
We believe we have identified actions that will pay dividends over both the short and long term.
As we remain focused on driving profitable sales growth.
In summary, we are getting back to the basics here at dollar general across all levels of the organization.
Our desired results will not materialize overnight, but we believe we will see some early wins and continue to make progress towards executing on the fundamentals that have been foundational to our success over the past 85 years.
As a result, we believe we will significantly enhance the customer experience, while driving higher sales and increased profitability in our business.
Now before I turn the call over to Kelly I want to briefly discuss some of our topline results for Q3 as well as our 2024 real estate plans, which we announced earlier this morning.
Net sales in the third quarter increased two 4% to $9 $7 billion compared to net sales of $9 $5 billion last year's third quarter.
Within our net sales growth, we again grew market share in both dollars and units in highly consumable product sales as well as an overall non consumable product sales.
Same store sales decreased one 3% in Q3, which is which was in line with our expectations.
The decrease was driven by a decline in average transaction amount primarily driven by units.
And included declines in all four product categories.
From an overall monthly cadence perspective same store sales growth was very similar in all three months of the quarter. However, I'm pleased to note that customer traffic was positive in Q3 after.
After starting the quarter slightly negative traffic turned positive in the middle period and improve sequentially each periods of the quarter.
Notably customer traffic and same store sales continued to improve in November which although early in the quarter. We believe reflects early traction from our work on getting back to the basics here at dollar general.
Turning to a quick update on our customer during our most recent survey work our customer continues to tell us they are feeling significant pressure on their spending which is supported by what we see in their behavior.
Based on these trends and what we see in the macroeconomic environment. We anticipate customer spending may continued to be constrained as we head into 'twenty 'twenty four especially in discretionary categories.
This further reinforces the importance of the work we're doing today and we believe our unique value and convenient proposition is as relevant as ever in this marketplace.
To that end I wanted to discuss our plans for real estate growth next year as we look to extend our offering to many more communities.
Real estate continues to be one of our core competencies and we remain pleased with the performance of our real estate projects.
As a reminder, we monitor the following five metrics of our new store portfolio, including performance against pro forma sales expectations.
New store productivity compared to the mature store base.
Cannibalization, which overall has remained consistent and predictable.
Cash payback, which we continue to expect in two years or less and new store returns, which we expect to be approximately 18% on average in 2024.
I want to note that our expectations for new store returns, while still very strong are down modestly from our historical target of 20% plus.
This change is being driven partially by higher new store openings and occupancy cost.
Which I will discuss in more detail in a moment.
We also continued to see strong performance from our remodeled stores, which drive comp sales lifts between eight and 11% for our D. G. P. P. P format and average returns, which continue to be greater than what we see from our new stores.
With this consistently strong performance, we continue to see real estate projects as one of our best uses of capital.
In fiscal 2024, we plan to execute approximately 20 385 projects, including 800, new openings 1500, Remodels and 85 relocations. While this is a significant number of projects I want to acknowledge is a smaller number than we have opened in the recent years too.
Primarily to a couple of considerations first we wanted to ensure that our teams across the company are focused on getting back to the basics.
And the efforts I discussed a few moments ago.
And second the capital required to execute these projects has increased significantly for example, the initial opening of our 8500 square foot store has increased more than 30% since we began rolling out the larger format in 2022.
Additionally, nonresidential construction costs have increased significantly since pre COVID-19.
Our team has a number of efforts underway to reduce these costs, including engineering costs out of the projects and we believe over time, we will be able to mitigate some of the impact we have seen from inflation.
With that said our pipeline remains robust we continue to see more than 12000 opportunities for dollar general banner stores in the United States.
And as we said before for a variety of reasons, we will not capture each of these opportunities, but we are pleased that the overall number of opportunities remains high.
We continue to innovate on store formats as an important element of our real estate strategy and I wanted to take a moment to provide some additional color on our plans for 2024.
We are placing a heavier emphasis on rural stores in 'twenty 'twenty four with more than 80% of our new stores planned in rural communities, where we believe we can have the most significant and positive impact for our customers.
In addition, more than 90% of our new stores and relocations will be in one of our larger store formats, which continues to drive increased sales productivity per square foot as compared to our traditional 7300 square foot box.
These larger stores also provide additional opportunities to serve our customers, including the expanded cooler offerings to help them build meals to feed their families more health and beauty products and fresh produce in many stores.
Also included within our store plans are approximately 30, new Pops up locations as we continue to move at a measured pace with this concept in a softer discretionary sales environment.
Finally, we've been very pleased with our initial entry into Mexico, and our new store plans for 'twenty 'twenty. Four also include approximately 15, New me Super dollar General stores in Mexico.
Turning to Remodels nearly 70% are planned to be in our D. G. T. P format, which will provide the opportunity for significant increase in cooler count as well as the potential to add fresh produce in many of these stores.
We are excited about our real estate plans for 2024 as we continue to grow the number of communities. We are serving particularly in rural America.
In closing, we had tremendous growth opportunities in front of us, which we are uniquely well positioned to capture.
We are working diligently on getting back to the basics and we are laser focused on serving our customers, while providing meaningful opportunity for our employees and creating long term value for our shareholders.
With that I'll now I would like to turn the call over to Kelly. Thank you Todd and good morning, everyone. Now that Todd has taken you through a few highlights of the quarter. Let me take you through some of the important financial details.
Unless we specifically note otherwise all comparisons are year over year, all references to EPS refer to diluted earnings per share and all years netted referred to the corresponding fiscal year.
For third quarter gross profit as a percentage of sales was 29% a decrease of 147 basis points.
This decrease was primarily attributable to an increase in shrink lower inventory markups and increased markdowns.
These were partially offset by decreases in LIFO and transportation costs.
Turning to SG&A, which was 24, 5% of sales an increase of 183 basis points.
This increase was driven by retail labor, including approximately $29 million of our targeted labor investments as well as depreciation and amortization repairs and maintenance rent professional fees other services purchased including debit and credit card transaction fees.
These were partially offset by a decrease in incentive compensation.
Moving down the income statement operating profit for the third quarter decreased 41, 1% to $433.5 million.
As a percentage of sales operating profit was four 5% a decrease of 330 basis points.
Interest expense for the quarter increased to $82 million compared to 54 million in last year's third quarter, driven by higher average borrowings and higher interest rates.
Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 21, 3%.
And compares to 22, 8% in the third quarter of last year.
This lower rate is primarily due to increased benefits from federal employment tax credits and an increased benefit from rate impacting items caused by lower earnings before taxes for the third quarter. These benefits were partially offset by a higher state effective tax rate.
Finally, EPS for the quarter decreased 45, 9% to $1.26.
Turning now to our balance sheet and cash flow.
Merchandise inventories were $7 $4 billion at the end of the quarter, an increase of 3% compared to last year and a decrease of one 8% on a per store basis. In addition, total non consumable inventory decreased approximately 15% compared to last year and decrease.
19% on a per store basis.
Well the inventory growth rate has significantly moderated from its peak in the third quarter last year and the quality of our inventory remains good. We continue to believe there is opportunity to optimize and reduce our inventory levels.
We continue to review our markdown plans related to the previously announced $95 million investment, including associated cost to ensure we are maximizing the impact of these actions. We are focused on optimizing our overall inventory position to better support our customers.
Stores distribution centers and growth plans.
Year to date through Q3, the business generated cash flows from operations of $1 $4 billion, an increase of 15.5%.
Total capital expenditures through Q3 were $1.2 billion and included our planned investments in new stores Remodels and relocations.
Distribution and transportation projects and spending related to our strategic initiatives.
During the quarter, we paid a quarterly dividend of 59 cents per common share outstanding for a total payout of $129.5 million.
As planned we did not repurchase shares this quarter.
Now I want to take a moment to provide an update on our financial outlook.
We continue to expect the following for fiscal year 2023.
First net sales growth in the range of 1.5% to 2.5%.
Next same store sales in the range of a decline of approximately negative 1% to flat.
And EPS in the range of $7.10 to $7.60 or a decline of negative 34% to negative 29%.
Our EPS guidance continues to assume an effective tax rate of approximately 22.5% fine.
Finally, we expect capital spending in the range of 1.6 to $1 $7 billion and no share repurchase activity.
Let me now provide some additional context as it relates to our outlook for the rest of 2023.
While we continue to see a more constrained consumer and softer sales trends than we expected coming into the year those trends were anticipated when we provided our guidance update in October.
We have always been an all weather brand and aided by the actions that Todd outlined earlier, we are poised and ready to serve our customer and that's challenging economic environments in the near term. We expect continued overall pressure on the sales line, particularly in the non consumable categories.
Within gross margin. In addition to sales mixed pressure and our previously announced markdowns shrink has continued to be a sizable headwind and we expect this will remain with us into next year as any shrink improvement typically takes at least a year from our stores. Most recent count to show up in our financial results.
Partially offsetting these challenges we expect the benefits from greater distribution center capacity and performance lower carrier rates are private tractor fleet and other distribution and transportation efficiencies.
We also continue to expect realizing benefits from our initiatives, including DG fresh and the D. G Media network.
Turning to SG&A, we plan to make the remaining $50 million of our planned total labor investment of approximately $150 million in our stores during Q4.
Overall, the investments we have previously discussed and retail labor markdowns and other areas to better support our customers stores and distribution centers are expected to total up to $270 million in 2023, which is consistent with our previous expectations.
We are reviewing every aspect of these investments to ensure we maximize their impact for our customers in stores, while driving the greatest return moving forward.
Our capital allocation priorities continue to serve us well and guide US today, our first priority is investing in our business, including our existing store base as well as high return organic growth opportunities such as new store expansion and our strategic initiatives.
Next we return cash to shareholders through our quarterly dividend payment and finally overtime and when appropriate share repurchases.
Although our leverage ratio is currently above our target of approximately three times adjusted debt to adjusted EBITDAR. We are focused on improving our debt metrics in order to support our commitment to our current investment grade credit ratings, which as a reminder, our triple B and B double a too.
With all of that said cash generation is very important, particularly in this environment and we are focused on maintaining and improving strong cash flow as we head into 'twenty 'twenty four.
In summary, we remain committed to maintaining our discipline in how we manage expenses and capital as a low cost operator with the goal of delivering consistent strong financial performance, while strategically investing for the long term, we are confident in our business model and our ongoing long term final.
<unk> priorities to drive profitable same store sales growth healthy new store returns strong free cash flow and long term shareholder value with that I will turn the call back over to Todd.
Kelly.
As we wrap up let me just say again that we're laser focused on getting back to the basics.
As I mentioned in my earlier remarks.
Some of these actions will take a little bit more time to deliver the desired results, but we expect to demonstrate significant progress over the coming months and look forward to sharing more with you in the quarters ahead.
This team is energized and we are confident in the actions, we're taking to drive operational excellence for our customers and employees and long term value creation for our shareholders.
I wanted to thank our approximately 185000 employees for their commitment to doing the work necessary to serve our customers and communities every day I'm.
I'm proud of this team and look forward to serving our customers together as we move through this busy holiday season with that operator, we'd now like to open the lines for questions.
<unk>.
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Our first question comes from real passion per week with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning, and thanks for taking my question and also welcome backstop.
So I wanted to kick it off just with longer term operating margins do you feel like you can sustain a 6% plus operating margin level longer term and do you think you can get back to 8% plus where you have historically operated and then to get to that 8% plus now where do you see potentially the bigger buckets of opportunity going forward.
Yeah. Thanks for the question I'll I'll take I'll take the second part of that and then pass it over to Kelly you know, we we here at dollar general have gone back to the basics you heard that in my prepared remarks, and I have to say it has it has truly energized this company at all different levels.
Everything starts and stops at the store with the customer and what we've done is actually again nothing rocket scientists science here, we've actually gone in and looked at every element of our business that touches our consumer from the lens of the consumer.
Again, you would think that that that is always an ongoing piece, but sometimes it's good to remind yourself and remind your organization. So we've done that and we.
With that and I won't go through all of that because you saw a lot of it in my prepared remarks, but really getting back to the basics, making sure that the labor that we've already have deployed in our stores and yet to come in the fourth quarter. The $150 million of additional labor is spend in the proper way and again, that's that redeployment of.
Money from the smart teams directly into our store, where it touches our customer each and every day immediately is so important and that's exactly what we're going to do and you know as we do that and I think it's very important to point out. It also helps the front end of that store and it helps on the sales line because we got somebody to meet.
Great and bring up the customer. It also helps on the shrink line because you've got somebody at the front end of the store that is always there to monitor the front end of the store and also it helps on the convenience side because we we had relied in starch rely too much this year on self checkout in our stores, we we should be using self checkout as a secondary.
Checkout vehicle not a primary and so with all that it's really going to help and then when you focus in on our supply chain getting the right product at the right time to nurse or stores or Otis in full and on time I will tell you that that's going to make all the difference again being an old operator that I am there's nothing.
More disruptive in the store and not getting your truck on time and be able to get all the truck up onto the shelf when it comes in and by the way having the right items when a when you do put it on the shelf and then lastly, really honing in this merchandising piece, we've got probably one of the best merchant groups in all our consumable retailing.
But at times, you have to step back and look at what brought you to the party may not always be exactly what you need to do to go forward. Sometimes you got to step back to go forward and I would tell you. That's the case here on a couple of levels one being the number of Skus, we're carrying SKU rational.
SKU rationalization is always an ongoing piece of dollar general, but I believe that it's time to really step back and an energized that even more in the 'twenty 'twenty four and we've already actually have gone deep here turned off a lot of skus and theres going to be a lot more to come and the idea here is turning on.
Off or eliminating skus that are more in the secondary or tertiary type of line. So think about a man as an example, we may have five or six different variance of mayonnaise on the shelf today.
We can easily drop one or two of those the consumers not going to know the difference actually it's gonna make her life a little simpler when she goes to the shelf gotta make the stores life simpler to put product on the shelf.
And also what is going to do is help our warehouses actually eliminate a lot of holding slot. So so a lot of benefit to what we're gonna do an SKU rationalization and all of this which is fabulous and I'll pass it over to Kelly will actually start to move down to the bottom line, some faster than others, but again being.
Online retail it I am I know that these actions will fall to the bottom line and also help increase our top line as we go into 'twenty four Kelly and then thanks, Todd and just so everybody knows our goal is certainly to get back to the historic levels of operating margin and profit that that were used hail mm, while we're not going to give guidance.
Obviously for 24 today I do you want to give a little bit of color of 24, just around some near term headwinds that that we're seeing the first of those is around lapping really significantly reduced incentive compensation as well as stock based compensation and so that'll just be a near term headwind as we think about 'twenty 'twenty four the other thing.
That we're looking at right now is we're expecting a higher effective tax rate and that's really due to lower benefits around the stock based compensation piece as well as as we've seen historically just some higher state effective tax rates is as we have moved through the last few years. So those are near term headwinds certainly not anything long.
Term debt that we need to worry about the other thing is is around shrink and so as you know shrink has has been pretty significant for us for a while and and it's definitely going to carry into 2024 and as I talked about in the prepared remarks. It just takes a while to start showing up in your financial results and just to give you a little bit more.
And that's kind of where we are with shrink on a year to date basis shrink is actually 100 basis point headwind for us in and then as we moved into Q3, it's actually running just a little bit higher than that and so certainly a pressure near term for us and something that we're looking to to hopefully we're mitigating along the way and they'll show up in the finance.
Our results later in 2024, and then as we think about you know just are underserved customers. We're just making sure that we're watching her in and whether she gained stays gainfully employed and all the actions that Todd just noted and getting back to the basics is certainly going to set us up nicely to be able to serve her in and it doesn't matter what eco.
I'll make environment them, we've always been an all weather brand in and we certainly will continue to be so as we move forward.
So that's a little bit of color on 24, I'm going to give you a lot more color and March end and give you a little bit more holistic a view there, but what I'll say is overall the fundamentals of this business are absolutely unchanged and this model remains strong and on a longer term basis, we believe that we're going to get back to the historic levels that.
This model is accustomed to delivering.
Our next question is from Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning, and welcome back Todd.
Thank you rejoined.
When you rejoin you talked about you, having an opportunity to revisit the financial profile of the business and if there was a time to look back and reset invest deeper that you could take that opportunity.
As the business looks to be forming a bottom and margin.
And thinking about getting to 7% or plus in a reasonable timeframe.
Do you have any thoughts updated thoughts on that doesn't make sense to lean in so that when you start building back it builds back sustainably do you think that do you think the business needs a little more investment than you thought you know a month and a half ago.
Yeah no. Thank you for the question and Youre, 100% right. The first few weeks back on the deck here I did take a holistic view across.
Not only our operations, but as you heard our supply chain, our merchandising areas looked at everything Holistically and I'll just click off a few but first let me say before I kick. It off is that I believe that the are the investments that have been already talked about this year, our 100 and 150 in totality.
<unk> million dollars and labor investments or the exact right thing to do I don't believe at this point that I see a need that we need to make any other larger outside outsized investments as we move into 'twenty four I believe as I indicated that the right thing to do is make sure that the 100 and.
$50 million is being used appropriately and in the right areas that touches the consumer and helps our stores be able to better serve our consumer each and every day and that's exactly what we've done now over the last few weeks and that's why I believe taken the smart teams out of the equation.
Taking that a whole.
Bunch of labor that was dedicated to that putting it directly in our stores to cover the front end of our stores more effectively each and every day, a 100% of the time tethered to the front end for customer service and bringing up our customers and then also one.
One of the first for a dollar general quite frankly and that is.
Deploying some of that labor into into a work that ensures that we keep our perpetual inventory correct and ongoing Lee correct, each and every day.
Because once again, if the system doesn't realize you need product it won't send your product and unfortunately over the last year or so our perpetual inventory numbers have gotten further and further out of whack quite frankly, and we are now in the midst of bringing those back up we've seen a lot of great traction, but the redeployment of ours.
Of this $50 million coming out of the smart teams will will really benefit and again. This is a first for dollar general so it'll be great to see that as well and then as I looked into other areas of the company I feel fabulous about our pricing the great thing when I step back in our everyday pricing across all channels.
Those are trade, including our chief competitor looks very good and in great position matter of fact, our gaps are right, where we would like to see them compared to historical levels. So very good there are promotional activity a while.
I still believe I would call it semi rational across the the.
The spectrum, we have seen an uptick in recent weeks on promotional activity. We're watching that carefully is that because we're moving into the holidays are or is that something that will sustain as we move into 'twenty. Four so we're watching that carefully but you know us pretty well Simeon we're going to take whatever action is needed.
We're gonna take it quickly and and we'll make sure that our pricing stays exactly where it needs to be the service our customers, but at this point I don't see a need to reinvest any large amounts sums of money in margin to them to do anything there, but again, we always reserve the right to be able to do it if.
If that time arises so right now I think the investments we've already talked about it over this past year, our or in the system I believe they are appropriate theyre now being used I believe.
Very appropriately and in all areas and are deploying the proper way now it's time for execution and that's what we're doing we're already starting to see a little bit of benefit, especially as we moved into November on some of our top line results both in consumables and non consumables quite frankly, as we move through November so it.
Great to see but again caution that it's very early in the quarter and it's very early in this in this new look at how dollar general is going to go to market, but.
Rest assured as Kelly indicated we feel very good about the long term prospects of getting back to historical levels here at dollar general.
Our next question is from Matthew Boss with J P. Morgan. Please proceed with your question.
Great. Thanks, maybe Todd at higher level could you just help elaborate on on some of the recent changes in behavior that you're seeing from the low end consumer the traffic versus ticket trends that you cited I think are interesting, but maybe asked a different way traffic's improving what's.
Training the comp through.
Through the third quarter.
<unk> has actually turned positive in November tied to our to some of these initiatives and then just lastly on the new stores and the mindset shift to Ah maybe downshift a bed.
Could you just elaborate on some of those pieces that you walked through occupancy costs and some of the a and some of the other moving part and just what you're seeing on the new store return to a to a and maybe just take a pause here.
Okay sure Yeah, you know as as we look at our R.
Our our results as we move through the quarter as we indicated you know each of the periods, where we're very similar but we did see continued uptick in our traffic as we move through the quarter and then into November now I'm not going to give you a lot of color in November, but but to say that.
We did see a change in trajectory on our comp as well as we moved into November. So it was great to see and I would tell you that again it was both on the consumable and non consumable side of the equation.
Now one would say well well where is it in the comp well I would tell you the comp.
Actually was much better as we move through the end of October into November.
But we still have a lot of work to do math to to get back to some historical core.
Comp type rates here here at dollar General I believe the back to basic work that we're doing is going to help us get there faster as you move into the back half of Q4 and into Q1 of 'twenty four making sure our stores are stocked each and every day when the consumer walks in the store building.
Find what they need is going to be very very important so.
More to come we've already started to see that we actually have seen our in stock rates market Billy improve over the last few weeks, we check it and watch it each and every week and I believe that is added to some of that betterment in comp that I talked about in November so more to come I believe the macro is still has.
As an effect on us as well as others, but you know what we've always been in prided ourselves on control. What you can control here at dollar General and we're doing just that went back to basics and we believe that we can help overcome some of those shortcomings in in the macro environment with be able to control what.
And what the consumer feels and and sees when she's in the store so more to come we feel like we're on the right track here, but but we got a lot of work yet to do but I feel good about that as far as our new stores are as you noted we did take a little bit of a step back. This year again. This was one of the areas that I.
I cracked open as soon as I walked in the door again, we looked at there was no sacred cows. We looked at every single piece of this business one of the things that I I do I'm here with the team every line of that P&L is scrutinized every single line.
Including our investments in capital and as I looked at our new stores, while still wildly the best use of our capital across the board.
I felt it was prudent.
Decision to take a step back now some people would say boy still building 800 stores, that's not too big of a step back that's still a large commitment and it is Matt.
But you know it was a prudent decision for a couple of reasons. One we talked about the increased cost to build a store today you know the interest rates are up the cost to build a store is up.
I feel very good about the work the team has done they have mitigated some of those cost, but we still have a lot of work to do yet to mitigate even further some of these costs. So why not take a little bit of a step back in the new store development give our teams the opportunity to also get a lower cost to us to put these buildings.
And so we're doing that as we speak and I believe that it's it's exactly the right thing to do and then as you as you then step a little bit further back.
When you when you look at some of the work we have to do just internally.
It's probably a prudent thing to do to step back a little bit as well. So we can go forward faster in the outer years now I believe that you know this well this may or may not be a one year phenomenon I would tell you that the way we're looking at it right now we're not here to give guidance past 'twenty four is that we don't see any reason why we can't.
Our new store openings as we continue to move forward, we love what we see them still 12000 opportunities to put a dollar general out in the continental United States and we've always prided ourselves on being very quick and first to market to capture the majority and released the oversized a portion of those 12000 opportune.
<unk>, so nothing yet that we see stands in the way of that.
And Kelly you may want to just touch on the returns just really quickly yeah, no absolutely and so you know an 18% return in this environment is fabulous and Todd noted it it's still a great use of capital the New unit economics are still very strong as we move into 'twenty four and it has a great payback period still left as less than two years and the other.
Thing that we haven't seen is any change in the cannibalization rate and the other thing I'd point out and and you know dollar General is just fantastic at this are our real estate group is pretty amazing and we have an extremely high rate of success and you've seen that over the years. So we feel really good about the projects we feel good about the 18% written.
Turn and of course, there's as Todd noted I'm you know, while we're pleased with all of that in typical dollar general fashion, we're going to work to improve it as we go through 'twenty four.
Our next question is from Seth Sigman with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, good morning, everyone I wanted to talk about inventory a little bit just in terms of the progress right sizing. Your inventory position can you just give us a little bit more perspective on where you sit today with consumables versus non consumables and then is it your expectation to exit the year clean or do you feel like youre going to still need some incremental actions into next year.
And I'll just add a second part to the question around the top line. When you look at the improving trends. The last few months to what extent has that been influenced by markdowns and clearance activity. Thank you.
Yeah no. Thanks for the question and an inventory reduction is absolutely a priority of ours. This year and then there'll be a priority as we move into next year I think the good news for US is that the quality of our inventory is good but you know we've talked a lot in the past about the benefits of inventory reduction and just what that does as you reduce the complexities in the stores.
And the the distribution centers, so I would say our progress is on track and our reduction efforts and you saw a little bit of that in the numbers. Today. So total inventory increase was 3% on a year over year basis, but if you look at it on a per store basis were down one 8% I think the real story here is is.
On the non consumable piece and so we are down 15% on a year over year basis, there and were down 19% on a per store basis I think the other important thing to call out and we've been calling it out every quarter, but this one is even more significant as we've seen a 58% decrease in our import receipts and again that's as buying.
Around that product and making sure that we're selling through it and so we feel good about where we're headed for the end of the year I'm, just a little bit longer term I would say we have several work streams in place that are working on inventory reduction, but just as important and this kind of goes to the top line is inventory optimization and making sure that we're go.
Where the customer wants us to go and so I would say with all of these things in place and we should feel pretty good about where we're landing at the end of 'twenty three but we're going to feel even better as we see continued improvement in inventory levels as we move through 'twenty four.
Thanks, Kelly and you know as you as you look at our results in Q3, and how that relates to any any activity around clearing this inventory I would tell you that you know I feel very good about the balance here a while there was some activity. There you know actually some of the bigger activity is is really slated for Q4 if.
If needed and a lot of that will.
We will be centered around our sell through of of holiday. So we're watching that very closely but again early results would say.
It's right in line, where we thought it would be right now and actually in some areas a little bit better. So we're watching that carefully but I would also say you know as we continue to move forward, what we like and what I've seen since I've been back is I believe we've done exactly the.
The right thing on on moving through some of this inventory but.
As I look at the quality of our inventory. It is in very good shape and actually as Kelly just indicated you know a lot of what we have right now to deal with on a overstock basis is actually more in our core everyday good. So this isn't about a bunch of screwdrivers and hammers or.
Or or or.
Fashion type items for holiday that we have to move through this is about having a little bit too much of some basic paper cleaning food type items things like that that will move through the system pretty naturally.
As long as we do the right thing with our supply chain in our stores and that's exactly went back to the basics is is meant to address so feel very good about that and very good about what we see going into the back half of this year and 24.
Our next question is from Michael Lasser with UBS. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning. Thank you so much for taking my question and welcome back <unk>.
Given everything that outline this morning, when is it realistic for us as outsiders to hold the team accountable to getting back to consistently producing a double digit EPS growth algorithm like dollar general has done in the past and its part.
That Kelly pointed to a few factors that are going to weigh on dollar General's profitability in 2024 could you give more texture and timing around how large those factors or like incentive compensation and shrink. Thank you very much.
Thank you Michael as both Kelly and I have both said I don't see anything that gets in the way longer term.
To get them back to some of our historical.
Ways that we AR that we return to our shareholders and our customers. We we feel that we're on the right track with our back to basics of moves here.
Both in our and in our labor investments in our inventory investments as well as in our supply chain and merchandising. So we feel like we've taken the right appropriate actions now and we're moving with speed and intent.
As I said in my prepared remarks, some of it will occur and manifests itself faster and some will take a little bit more time.
But rest assured we are hitting every single item and we're monitoring every single item every week here to make sure. It's on the right track and if it happens not to move the way. We want we will then make or are making an adjustment to ensure that it does.
We we are squarely focused on getting this company back to its historical returns that are everyone is accustomed machine and most importantly, our customer is used to seeing at store level now as Kelly indicated there are some nearer term had term headwinds as much as I would love Michael to give you more color right now.
We're not here to give 24 guidance, we wanted to do it make sure that you can contextualize at least.
Some of those headwinds as we start to move into 'twenty 'twenty four but rest assured we're going to give you more than you need and the components. When we come back in and give you the guidance for 2024 to make sure that you can build the models out the proper way.
Again, I want to make sure you also understand though that we're not going to wait till 'twenty four we're taking action now to to continue to modify and also continue to ensure that we're addressing any of the gaps that are out there that are well in our control there'll just be a few things that may not be fully in our <unk>.
Troll in 'twenty for that or that will probably be more of a one time in nature that will address at the right time.
Our next question comes from Kate Mcshane with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, good morning, Thanks for taking our question.
We were wondering how you would frame the risk of deflation across our box.
Into next year and how do you think about the puts and takes across the P&L as a result.
Yeah. That's a good question and you know theres been a.
A lot written up them in certain areas on on deflation.
We've seen some deflationary.
Pieces, starting to show up, especially in our non consumable discretionary.
Type areas.
Nothing that alarms us at this point as we move into 2024, Oh, how we're looking at it as we see some real opportunity.
To reduce initial costs, especially in our important related goods not only from the factory, but also for the transportation side, So ocean freight and.
Fuel cost bunker fuel cost and such have moderated greatly over the last year. So there's some opportunity to to pull cost out.
Some of that we will definitely pass onto the consumer as we continue to to watch, especially in those commodity areas of of the of the import side of the business or because theres always some some good even in our non consumable areas. There theres some good commodity type items in there.
From a consumable perspective.
While there there's always there's always movement in in those areas of commodities, you know milk dairy type areas oils wheat, we watch that very carefully we have component pricing here at dollar general for not only our national brands, but our private brands, where we are.
Watch that very very closely.
And and we monitor that now in saying that we havent seen in in center of store, if you will dry grocery.
Chemical paper very very little deflationary pressures, a little bit on those commodities and dairy as I indicated some meat items, which we don't are not a huge player in produce.
We're a little bit of a player there and what we've done there's some deflation there, but again I would tell you in totality nothing that alarms us or or believes that it will adversely affect the topline as.
As we move into 'twenty for at least nothing that at this point shows that.
Our final question is from Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, Thanks, Good morning, and welcome back pod as well can you talk a little bit about the out of the out of stock issue and perhaps quantify the drag that it's been to comps over the past few quarters I believe it's probably a pretty sizable and the measures you're taking to improve that issue and then on the SKU rationalization. That's interesting I was just wondering if you could speak.
Maybe the number of Skus you have in an average store today say relative to back in 2019, and how big of an opportunity that can be and how long do you think you'll you'll take to get back to an optimal level.
Yes, sure you know I would tell you that the the amount of out of stocks. We have in our store are probably some of the largest that I that I have seen you know in the 15 plus years I've been here and saying that.
There are so many work streams that are now underway Chuck that you know I feel good about where we're headed as I just indicated a few moments ago.
We saw a meaningful change over the last two weeks.
In our in stock rates at store level and and these are not just on our perpetual inventory system, but this is actually counted inventory from our inventory of our Washington inventory group that takes our yearly physical inventory. So were these are these are real counts if you will real out of stocks.
And not just out of stocks on the shelf, but all the stocks in the back room to so meaning it is not in our system for the consumer at all so we saw a meaningful drop in that many more available to the consumer we believe as we move through the rest of this quarter and into the first we're going to make even further meaningful advances.
Why we're putting hours toward the inventory specialist roles that I mentioned earlier. This is a this is a first for for dollar general to go in and ensure that we keep our on hand or a perpetual inventories more accurate.
Then we have in the past we've done this activity in the past, but we have we've come up with and we are teaching and training our individuals' to do this in a little bit of a different way, taking a fresh look at it a fresh approach at it doing more areas of the store on a weekly basis at a time to ensure that we are.
We touch every SKU and by the way touching every department of the store at least once a month and the higher velocity areas more than once a month. So we feel good about the direction. We feel good about how we will be able to quickly pivot.
Pivot and make some some adjustments here now on the SKU rationalization side I would tell you that and we've said this in the past we've.
We've got between 11 and 12000 total skus in our store today, depending on the format right. We've got some larger formats as you know than our smaller ones, but we believe we have an opportunity to take out a meaningful number of skus I'm not going to give you. The number right now we're still in the midst of looking at that.
We're looking at it again as from that secondary and tertiary type areas that I talked about it earlier. We're also taking a fresh approach look to it from a standpoint of of return right. So not only are Jim Roy look at it but also looking at it from from the standpoint of shrink and.
The other area of areas of components that go into a SKU and is it still profitable with shrink being elevated so a lot of it are in our control some not in our control there may be skus and by the way there are skus that will be dropping due to the.
The amount of shrink that is in our store as well so it's gonna be a fresh look across the portfolio skews we carry.
With the consumer in mind first but also profitability in mind throughout the entire supply chain through our stores. So more to come I think we can give you a little bit more color as you as we go into Q1 of next year on both our progress as well as maybe contextualize how meaningful.
We're talking about here, but rest assured I wouldn't talk about it on this if I didn't believe it was going to be a meaningful number of skus and a meaningful impact.
To the simplification efforts within our stores.
We have reached the end of the question and answer session I'd now like to turn the call back over to Todd basis for closing comments.
Thank you and thanks for all the questions and your kind words for welcoming me back.
As I said last year that serving this team at dollar General has been the highlight of my professional career and I feel the same sense of honor today.
As you heard this morning.
We have some hard work yet ahead of us, but we know what to do we.
We've done it before and we are absolutely set on doing it again as quickly as possible I'm excited about the opportunities in front of us and all that we've accomplished together over the years and will continue to do so for our customers associates and shareholders.
You for listening and I hope you have a great day.
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