Q1 2025 Citi Trends Inc Earnings Call
Greetings and welcome to the Citi trends first quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation.
If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference. Please press star zero on your telephone keypad.
As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
I'd now like to turn the conference over to your host needs. The Mckee senior associate at ICR. Thank you may begin.
Speaker Change: Thank you and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Citi trends first quarter 2025 earnings call on our call today is chief Executive Officer, Ken Sighful, and Chief Financial Officer, Heather protein out our earnings release was sent out. This morning at 645, a M. Eastern time, if you have not received a copy of the release.
Speaker Change: It's available on the company's website under the Investor Relations section at Www Dot Citi trends dotcom.
Speaker Change: You should be aware that prepared remarks today made during this call may contain forward looking statements within the meaning of the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 management May make additional forward looking statements in response to your questions. These statements do not guarantee future performance and therefore, you should not place undue reliance on these statements.
Speaker Change: We refer you to the company's most recent report on Form 10-K, and other subsequent filings within the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed discussion of the factors that can cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward looking statements I will now turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Ken cycle.
Speaker Change: Ken.
Ken: Thank you and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today for our first quarter earnings call.
Speaker Change: I'm happy to report at Citi trends, we're gaining traction on our strategic transformation. Please.
Speaker Change: Pleased to report that our first quarter progress and which total sales grew $15 4 million or eight 3% over the prior year and our adjusted EBITDA increased $6 2 million, representing a sales to profit flow through of 40%.
Speaker Change: Our strong profit flow through was driven by gross margin expansion of 90 basis points and meaningful operating expense leverage at 220 basis points, demonstrating our ability to leverage the cost structure as we grow the top line.
Speaker Change: The highlight of our first quarter performance was our comparable store sales growth of nine point.
Speaker Change: Sure.
Speaker Change: Over the prior year, which is a two year stack of 13%. These metrics demonstrate that we're clearly gaining market share.
Speaker Change: Before I provide a comprehensive review of our first quarter warehouse as well as areas in which we see opportunity to improve I'd also like to take a moment to recap the three strategic phases of our business journey. This.
Speaker Change: This is the framework on which we are building a high performance company positioned for long term sustainable and profit growth.
Speaker Change: So I just wanted to repair phase and this phase will be focused on reestablishing fundamental practices and foundational improvements.
Speaker Change: This includes implementing the three tiered product plan opening price points or about your products and familiar brands. While also developing our extreme value product capabilities, which enables us to offer a well known brands at amazing prices.
Speaker Change: The repair phase also included building and improving foundational retail processes across the organization from a merchandise allocation and planning along with standardization of our reporting in our metrics.
Speaker Change: So in phase two the execute phase, we're focused on developing consistent execution capabilities and best practices. During this phase we are improving our core product selection and value creation as well as our supply chain speed, which will measurably reduce our working capital requirements and improve our inventory turns.
Speaker Change: And we're leveraging SG&A expenses across all areas of the business to ensure sufficient sales to profit flow through.
Speaker Change: And finally phase III the optimization phase this phase will prepare us for business acceleration. This means leveraging new systems and processes fueling efficient sales to EBITDA flow through while still.
Speaker Change: Simultaneously developing our new store expansion capabilities.
Speaker Change: The combination of these three phases repair executed an optimized creates the foundation for accelerated growth and position Citi trends to capitalize on the significant market opportunity ahead of us as we expand into both existing and new markets.
Speaker Change: So with that backdrop, let me walk you through what worked in the first quarter, what the opportunities are and what's next in our journey.
Speaker Change: So during the first quarter, we made significant progress on our strategic product initiatives, we took another meaningful step toward offering.
Speaker Change: Off price deals.
Speaker Change: Carrying value branded products, our enhanced focus on delivering exceptional value merchandise continued to resonate strongly with our customers across all of our categories.
Speaker Change: The strong first quarter performance across all apparel and home categories and many of our focused categories experienced double digit growth.
Speaker Change: Plus size business, which we flagged as a growth opportunity showed meaningful improvement from the first quarter as you might recall from prior calls we've been focused on rebuilding our footwear business and the shift to off price has enabled us to generate consistent topline improvements in this category as well and.
Speaker Change: In all categories, our merchants continue to improve the product value equation, adding several new brands to the assortment at exceptional prices, while enhancing the style and quality of the overall assortment.
Speaker Change: On the opportunity side. The accessory business is currently in transition and was slightly below plan for the quarter were actively refining assortments to better meet our customer needs. Our merchants are in the midst of adjusting our offering handbags jewelry and beauty to be more consumer relevance and I look forward to updating you on their progress here in the future.
Speaker Change: Looking ahead, we have several initiatives underway to further strengthen our product offering we're specifically focused on product and justification areas that offer significant growth potential. This includes a broader more consistent assortment of plus sizes for women and extended sizes for big men.
Speaker Change: We're improving trend relevancy for our juniors and young men's offering alongside continued development of our women's accessories and family footwear.
Speaker Change: And as we are nearing the important back to school season, our children's team is laser focused on building on the strengths that they've developed in the market by executing an enhanced assortment to Brandon and core products.
Speaker Change: Our comprehensive product strategy, combining our three tiered approach of opening prices value products extra layer brands with our expanding extreme value capabilities positions us well to serve customers across all income levels, while driving both traffic and basket growth.
Speaker Change: As we also mentioned our Q4 call we have leveraged the extensive consumer research to sharpen our focus on understanding both the demographics and ethnography of our African American customer base.
Speaker Change: This research revealed that we have a significant group of average and higher income customers, which creates a tremendous opportunity for us expanding our product assortment to continue to meet their fashion needs.
Speaker Change: Our customers have responded very positively to recognizable brands and amazing prices as many of our brands have quickly become some of our best selling products as we advance our assortment relevancy, we expect to add a large number of new brands to our product offering this year with a longer term goal of ensuring that most desired brands are available to our custom.
Speaker Change: <unk> had a strong value.
Speaker Change: As we move deeper into the execute phase of the transformation a notable highlight has been our sustainability.
Speaker Change: Excuse me, our substantially improved preseason product planning and in season execution capabilities.
Speaker Change: Our detailed focus on planning combined with enhanced product allocation practices has allowed us to maximize sales opportunities while operating on a leaner inventory base.
Speaker Change: As I mentioned, we registered the first quarter comparable store sales increase of nine nine and that was with average in store inventories down roughly 5%.
Speaker Change: This achievement reflects our disciplined approach to inventory management, our continued focus on maximizing productivity across all areas of the business and positions.
Speaker Change: Positions us well for continued working capital optimization.
Speaker Change: Regarding our stores, we've made meaningful strides consistently executing neat clean and organize shopping experiences for our customers. We've implemented new way finding signage systems to improve in store navigation, making it easier for customers to find what they're looking for and enhancing their overall shopping experience.
Speaker Change: These improvements support our strategy of creating a welcoming environment that encourages both traffic and basket growth.
Speaker Change: And while we're pleased with our store level operational improvements distribution center performance was below expectations for this quarter.
Speaker Change: Although our D. C is still remained very stable and functional we recognize that there is significant room for improvement in this critical area. We are actively making personnel and process changes to drive improved second half performance as efficient distribution capabilities or is central to our long term success.
Speaker Change: And we're also in the final stages right now of testing, our new AI based allocation system.
Speaker Change: Excited to report that test performance has exceeded our expectations.
Speaker Change: We're currently planning for a full chain rollout with following the back to school season and prior to the holiday period.
Speaker Change: This technology will be a game changer for inventory efficiency and represents a significant step forward in our operational capabilities.
Speaker Change: As part of our execute phase, we've implemented comprehensive kpis and performance dashboards across all key functions this enhanced visibility and your performance metrics.
Speaker Change: And we have standard operating procedures gives us confidence in our ability to drive continued operational improvement through the balance of the year.
Speaker Change: These systems create the accountability and transfer and transparency necessary to achieve our operational excellence goals and support our path to sustainable profitability.
Speaker Change: Our growth initiatives continue to gain momentum as we build the foundation for expansion during the quarter. We maintained our disciplined approach to fleet optimization and enhancement continuing our remodel program with 36 store refreshes completed year to date.
Speaker Change: These investments are showing solid returns and we're seeing strong customer response to our refresh Thor.
Speaker Change: Store environments, which aligns with our strategy of maximizing market share in existing locations.
Speaker Change: We're taking a data driven approach to our expansion strategy that positions us for intelligent profitable growth. We've engaged a third party expert to help develop company specific site selection tools tailored to our unique customer base and market positioning with.
Speaker Change: This partnership represents a significant investment in our growth capabilities.
Speaker Change: And we will provide us with sophisticated analytics to guide our real estate expansion decisions.
Speaker Change: We've leveraged actual transaction data from the past three years across every single store location and recently completed a comprehensive fleet wide Geo location study complements this rich dataset.
Speaker Change: This combination of transactional and geographical intelligence gives us unprecedented insight into our customer behavior patterns and market dynamics.
Speaker Change: In the near future, we will have detailed store specific profiles of our shoppers and their shopping habits, which will enable us to more accurately identify and duplicate our most successful locations.
Speaker Change: This analytical approach is crucial to our strategy both backfill in existing markets with new locations and entering new select markets.
Speaker Change: By understanding the specific characteristics that drive success in our current locations, we can minimize risk and maximize probability of success as we expand our footprint.
Speaker Change: And finally, we're working closely with our board of directors to develop a comprehensive plan that will guide our growth strategy for the next three years.
Speaker Change: As I previously stated we have a clear path to achieving a target of $40 million to $50 million of EBITDA and this plant will provide the detailed initiatives roadmap to achieve that goal the.
Speaker Change: The strategic planning process ensures that our growth initiatives are aligned with our financial objectives, and we have the operational capabilities to support sustainable expansion, while maintaining our focus on profitability and shareholder returns.
Speaker Change: And now a few comments if I may regarding the current tariff environment.
Speaker Change: As we discussed on our last call, we're maintaining an aggressive approach to business growth, while ensuring that we have adequate flexibility to react and adjust to the evolving macro environment.
Speaker Change: The new administration's introduction of potential changes in tariffs continues to create uncertainty for business.
Speaker Change: Our teams have demonstrated remarkable agility and navigating these challenges.
Speaker Change: I'd like to specifically recognize our entire merchant team.
Speaker Change: Their outstanding work over the last couple of months in this unpredictable tariff environment.
Speaker Change: They have successfully navigated the ever changing landscape and they've been able to hold overall product cost flat.
Speaker Change: Identify alternative sourcing opportunities when needed and position us to take advantage of off price opportunities presented by this disrupted environment.
Speaker Change: Their expertise and quick redemption have been instrumental in protecting our margin profile, while maintaining our competitive price advantage.
Speaker Change: So while the tariff situation has introduced many challenges. It's also created a good deal of opportunity.
Speaker Change: As an off price extreme value retailer, we are well positioned to capitalize on tariff related disruptions in the market in.
Speaker Change: In fact, we're currently reviewing a large amount of extreme value and deal flow and expect that deal flow to increase as a follow up progresses.
Speaker Change: And then my direction to the team in addition to being aggressive and flexible.
Speaker Change: Also stay focused on our strategy was to play our game.
Speaker Change: And what's a win at our game.
Heather Protein: So with that I'd like to turn it over to Heather for a review of the first quarter results further.
Heather Protein: Thank you Ken and good morning, everyone.
Heather Protein: Im excited to have the opportunity to walk you through our first quarter results and how we're thinking about the balance of the year before I dive in let me set the stage by stating that we remain encouraged by the broad positive trends, we are seeing across the business and regain market share thanks to the strategic and foundational.
Heather Protein: Improvements implemented over the last few quarters by our Citi trends.
Heather Protein: Now the details of the first quarter.
Heather Protein: Starting with the top line Q1 sales were $201 7 million up $15 4 million or.
Heather Protein: Or eight 3% compared to Q1 2024.
Heather Protein: Comparable store sales grew nine 9%, our third quarter of sequential comp improvement and we delivered a two year stack of 13%.
Heather Protein: Comp store sales were positive each month of the quarter, starting with low single digit comps in February impacted by weather and delayed tax refunds, and then significantly improving to low double digit comps in March and April.
Heather Protein: Tax refund caught up and the <unk>.
Heather Protein: Mr selling season kicked in.
Heather Protein: Importantly improvement to last year with fairly consistent across climate zones and store volume with broad based strength across most product categories.
Heather Protein: We delivered strong results across our retail metrics in the quarter with increased traffic mid single digit transaction count growth and strong and improved conversion rates.
Heather Protein: We also saw an increase in basket as customers showed a willingness to add units while trading into higher ticket extreme value product procured as part of our strategy shift.
Heather Protein: Gross margin was 39, 6% in the quarter, a 90 basis point expansion compared to last year.
Heather Protein: The primary drivers of the year over year increase.
Heather Protein: Higher initial markup and lower freight partially offset by higher markdowns as we followed our updated approach to take more in season markdowns, keeping our inventory fresh.
Heather Protein: Gross margin was also helped by a 70 basis point improvement in shrink as we continued to make notable progress again this quarter evidenced by improved results from the 179 physical inventory counts taken in the quarter.
Heather Protein: Adjusted SG&A expense totaled $74 4 million or 36, 9% of revenue.
Heather Protein: Paired to $72 8 million or 39, 1% in the prior year period.
Heather Protein: The 220 basis point improvement in SG&A rate was.
Heather Protein: Driven largely by disciplined cost control and the impact of improved top line results demonstrating.
Heather Protein: Demonstrating our ability to leverage the cost structure as we grow the top line.
Heather Protein: Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $5 4 million, an increase of $6 $2 million versus Q1 2024 result.
Heather Protein: Sales to EBITDA flow through as Ken mentioned with 40% well above our goal of 20% to 25%.
Heather Protein: Diluted earnings per share were 11, 417 cents as adjusted compared to a loss per share of <unk> 42, or <unk> 32 cents as adjusted in the first quarter of 2024.
Heather Protein: During Q1, we remodeled 19 stores ending the quarter with 25% of the fleet and an updated format.
Heather Protein: Second quarter to date, we've completed an additional 17 remodels getting up to the year to date remodel count of 36 store Ken spoke of in his remarks.
Heather Protein: Now turning to the balance sheet.
Heather Protein: Total inventory dollars at quarter end decreased seven 6% compared to last year with average in store inventory down four 9%.
Heather Protein: Importantly, Q1 inventory was significantly fresher than last year with a 45% reduction in product AIDS seven months or more.
Heather Protein: <unk> the impact of our 2024 markdown of aged goods.
Heather Protein: Plus our dedication to taking timely in season markdowns.
Heather Protein: We are pleased with our current inventory level composition and freshness.
Heather Protein: At the end of the quarter, we remained in a healthy financial position with a strong balance sheet, including no debt no drawings on our $75 million revolver and $42 million in cash.
Heather Protein: With liquidity of approximately $117 million, we remain able to more than sufficiently fund our business initiatives building on our foundational strength for future profitable growth.
Heather Protein: In the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 251000 shares for a total spend of $6 $3 million and.
Heather Protein: Ending the quarter with $40 million remaining on our repurchase authorization.
Heather Protein: Now turning to our fiscal 2025 outlook based on our first quarter results.
Heather Protein: Our confidence in the continued effectiveness of our turnaround plan along.
Heather Protein: Along with recognition that there is a significant degree of uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment. We are pleased to update our outlook for 2025 as follows.
Heather Protein: With the strength of our first quarter sales, we now expect full year comp store sales growth of mid single digits on the <unk>.
Heather Protein: High end of our previous outlook of low to mid single digit growth.
Heather Protein: We now expect full year gross margin expansion of approximately 200 basis points versus 2024.
Heather Protein: Slightly below previous outlook due to an extended timeline for the repair phase of our supply chain transformation.
Heather Protein: SG&A is now expected to leverage in the range of 60 to 80 basis points versus 2024.
Heather Protein: Our previous outlook of 30 to 50 basis points.
Heather Protein: The improvement is driven by leverage from higher sales and includes the build of our incentive compensation accrual.
Heather Protein: I want to share a few comments on the incentive comp accrual to keep in mind for modeling purposes.
Heather Protein: Bonus expense accrual was reinstated in the first quarter of 2025 after no accrual in the last three quarters of 2024.
Heather Protein: As a result sales to EBITDA flow through particularly in the second half of 2025 will be lower than what we delivered this quarter.
Heather Protein: We anticipate returning to an EBITDA flow through rate that meets or exceeds our goal of 20% to 25%. Once this period of bonus to no bonus comparison is behind us.
Heather Protein: Turning back to outlook with.
Heather Protein: With these updates we now expect full year EBITDA to be in the range of 6 million to $10 million, a $20 million to $24 million improvement versus fiscal 2024.
Heather Protein: There is no change to our expected effective tax rate of approximately zero percent for the year.
Heather Protein: We continue to plan to open up to five new stores to close up to five stores and to remodel approximately 50 locations in the year.
Heather Protein: And finally expected full year capital expenditures remain in the range of $18 million to $22 million.
Heather Protein: Before I turn the call back to Ken I want to emphasize how pleased we are with our first quarter results and the improving trends we've seen over the past three quarters.
Heather Protein: There is a new level of energy at Citi trends and we're getting used to the idea of winning we're committed and we're focused.
Heather Protein: The foundational enhancements, we've already made and the improvements we are continuing to make our setting this company up for sustainable profitable growth.
Heather Protein: I'm confident that our strategic initiatives plus our disciplined execution will continue to deliver meaningful value to our shareholders.
Ken: With that I'll turn the call back to Ken Ken.
Ken: Thanks Heather.
Heather Protein: Before we open the call for questions I do want to take a minute and express my sincere gratitude to our entire Citi trends team for their exceptional hard work during this quarter.
Heather Protein: I am, particularly impressed by the willingness to embrace our strategic initiatives and execute them and a clear focus and consistent manner.
Heather Protein: The address we're seeing today is a direct result of their dedication and commitment to our transformation journey.
Heather Protein: And also speaking on behalf of her entire team. We are very pleased with the meaningful progress we've made.
Heather Protein: But collectively we remain humble youre aware of the need for continuous business improvement.
Heather Protein: We understand that we're still in early stages of a turnaround.
Heather Protein: With significant opportunity ahead of us as we continue to strengthen our foundation and build toward our long term objectives.
Heather Protein: Our strategic plan remains crystal clear.
Heather Protein: Maintain an unwavering focus on our core African American customer.
Heather Protein: Deliver.
Heather Protein: Selling product to value proposition that features <unk>, great brands and extreme value treasures.
Heather Protein: <unk> can't find anywhere else.
Heather Protein: Execute our business model with consistency and precision.
Heather Protein: Drive attractive attractive profit flow through as we leverage our cost structure.
Heather Protein: And position ourselves for long term square footage expansion as we capitalize on the substantial opportunities ahead of us.
Heather Protein: Okay.
Heather Protein: The combination of our highly differentiated market position, our strengthened operational capabilities and our healthy balance sheet position Citi trends to generate meaningful free cash flow and drive significant shareholder returns. We have a clear line of sight to our targeted EBITDA range of $40 million to $50 million and we are excited about the upside potential.
Heather Protein: As we continue to execute our strategy.
Heather Protein: So I'd like to thank everyone for your continued interest and support of Citi trends and with that I'd like to turn it over to the operator to open up the lines for questions operator.
Heather Protein: Thank you.
Speaker Change: If you'd like to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone keypad, a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue.
Speaker Change: You May press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue for participants using speaker equipment. It may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys to allow for as many questions as possible. We ask that you each keep to one question and one follow up.
Speaker Change: Kim.
Speaker Change: Our first question comes from the line of Michael Baker with D. A Davidson. Please proceed with your question.
Michael Baker: Okay, Hi, Ken.
Heather Protein: Can you hear me okay.
Heather Protein: Yeah, we get some margin.
Heather Protein: Awesome I wanted to focus on the merchandising and the closeout aspect. If I could can you just remind us where you are in that process I think in the past you did some <unk>.
Heather Protein: All of Closeouts more more end of the season and as I understand that this is more in season sort of treasure Hunt type stuff. So can you just articulate the change in your clothes on strategy and then.
Heather Protein: You said that you can quantify what closeouts were in the past what they are now in season versus end of season, what it could be over time, just a little bit more context and color on that whole closeout opportunity would be great. Thanks.
Heather Protein: For Mike Good question, I think probably best to kind of Dimensionalize, the word off price, which gets tossed around quite a bit and it really doesn't mean a lot of different things to different retailers. So very specifically when you think about off price was released the Citi trends.
Heather Protein: It really falls into a couple of different buckets. So there isn't in the season closeout opportunity as you described which is the company overview over the years had participated in from time to time. So there were certain points of it I actually don't have a specific number of what the company had done historically there was some of that into the assortments.
Heather Protein: And many of our categories. So that's typical in this season by a good deal and you can bring it in type of closeout.
Heather Protein: And then the other side of this which has been where we have been focusing in addition to.
Heather Protein: It was adding but I called would attempt extreme value product and that was a little different and as much as it quite often is either current or just past season product.
Heather Protein: Qualification on this is a little bit different it has to have a high brand cache, meaning well known brand and we have to buy it as a significantly discounted rate. The goal here would be good to have.
Heather Protein: Brand and it's offered at least 50% off and in many cases in the 70% off.
Heather Protein: Manufacturer's suggested retail it's a little different discipline to buy these deals sometimes are a little bit messy theyre oftentimes.
Heather Protein: You have to require a lot of levels of negotiation to get to and the process things a little bit more difficult, but the markup the value and the resignation of consumers are very strong so that portion.
Speaker Change: What I would say, we're trying to bring them a renewed emphasis on Citi trends and I think I would say that perhaps in <unk>.
Heather Protein: I think actually in January I rolled to south, but long term our goal would be to make this extreme value portion of the off price segment.
Heather Protein: Incremental about 10% topline.
Heather Protein: It's going to take us a little bit of time to grow into that we're not quite there yet we're still testing and learning as we go.
Heather Protein: As we go forward I see incremental 10% relative to that particular portion of the business and we will continue to do my industry. Even closeouts, we still are actually in and Thats a key part of what our merchants do on a regular basis. So I hope that helps you dimensionalize what's in the inner core.
Heather Protein: History versus where we are headed in terms of the future.
Speaker Change: Yes sure.
Speaker Change: It does.
Speaker Change: If I could ask a I suppose a related follow up.
Speaker Change: All seems like it's going well.
Speaker Change: I suppose it's.
Speaker Change: Maybe an obvious question and the answer is probably just being conservative, but just comped up nine 9% current quarter at least a month through is a mid to upper single digits. Your full year guidance is below that is that tougher comparisons just being conservative or is there something else that we should know about us.
Speaker Change: Why.
Speaker Change: Yes.
Speaker Change: Comp trends would would decelerate so much in the back half of the year implicit in that outlook.
Speaker Change: Yeah, a couple of things happening there Mike. Thank you again for that question. We are as you know in the back half of the year. We had a 5.3 things I think it was in Q3 and a little over six.
Speaker Change: Q4, so we are going up against more difficult compares in the back half.
Speaker Change: We're looking at our business, probably more collectively on a two year stack comp basis, and we're coming off of a very strong 13, two year stack, we have a double digit stack planned for Q2, and then we're bringing the two year stack down to upper single digits as we go into the back half so.
Speaker Change: I don't know, if it's conservative or not but as I mentioned earlier, there's enough uncertainty in the macro world.
Speaker Change: Right now around the product flow and things of that nature. So we wanted to make sure that we don't get our forecasting to.
Speaker Change: Too aggressive until the point where.
Speaker Change: We invest too much expenses or anything in the business. So maybe there's a slight amount of conservatism in them, but I think the better way to look at our comp base going forward would be on a two year stack basis, and that's how we're thinking about it.
Speaker Change: Perfect Fair enough I'll turn it over to someone else.
Mike Good: Thanks, Mike.
Speaker Change: Yes.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeremy Hamblin with Craig Hallum Capital Group. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker Change: Hey, this is will on for Jeremy Congrats on the strong results and thanks for taking my question.
Speaker Change: Just wanted to follow up here on sales trends, maybe specifically if you could share any more color on specific category performance and maybe what you're seeing quarter to date it sounds like.
Speaker Change: Plus size and footwear were strong.
Speaker Change: I guess are you seeing these trends continue in Q2, and then maybe which categories you'd like to see the most improvement.
Speaker Change: Yeah, I'm happy to comment on that and certainly Heather can add some additional detail if I if I Miss.
Speaker Change: As I said in my remarks, and it absolutely is true.
Speaker Change: Literally every single category had a tremendous Q1.
Speaker Change: Really across the board, we had many of them in some mid single upper single digits.
Speaker Change: Or six categories that got into low double digit growth.
Speaker Change: So very strong and it's hard to kind of distinguish if there was one category.
Speaker Change: Drove the business. It was really a combination of all of our categories working well together, which is why we didn't really talk about it but.
Speaker Change: Our market basket, we saw our consumers actually adding to the units per transaction, but just means they're finding a better selection to shop right and so big credit to the merchant team across the board and I mentioned that our specialty business was a little bit off plan, but for them. They were still pretty much flat to O y and performing okay. So there was real.
Steve: No Steve.
Speaker Change: Handouts, one way or the other.
Steve: Truly the tide is rising.
Steve: Think about category growth and that kind of continues going forward and I'm quite pleased with that actually because it just means that all of our teams are really working hard to deliver a better product value equation and our customers are finding a much more balanced shopping experience inside of our stores and we're not over reliant on one category or together now to your question.
Steve: About how we're emphasizing going forward and also as I called out there. There are some categories that we believe we've underserved or customer.
Steve: Plus sizes and big months are a couple that are obvious.
Steve: Just as you sort of need to be broadened a little bit more we need to be more consistent with how we offer those assortments. So there's clearly an opportunity as you know the majority of our not the majority, but a large portion of our consumer does need plus size or bigger than apparel. So we see real opportunity. There and then the other thing I mentioned was also a trend.
Steve: Particularly in our <unk>.
Steve: Men's categories in our Juniors again, both good businesses for US. This is about really fine tuning and taking it to the next level and being a little bit more trend relevant and really offerings. Some of those trends that would really distinguish us in the marketplace.
Steve: Then beyond those categories. We're working to include grow our consumables business. Our home business continues to do well and we see opportunities there for them to be traffic drivers and basket builders of our assortment and I would be remiss. If I didn't talk about kids just has a tremendous history.
Steve: Will the company in this past year and continues to perform well. So I guess it was in answering your question on basically saying all of the above but we are quite pleased with how everything's working Heather where you want to further clarify my generic answer there.
Steve: So honestly I would I would double down on it Ken and say well one of my favorite things of the many great. That's a this quarter is the broad based improvement right. So <unk>.
Steve: Merrell was up significantly to last year non apparel was up significantly to last year our store.
Steve: Our stores were up across the board by region by.
Steve: By volume by.
Steve: The market in which they sit I mean it was it was like all boats rise and that I think is the is the strongest statement. We can make about the quarter. It was broad based so are there areas, where we're leaning in yes. Ken has walked you through that rate plus big men's young men's junior's, making sure our trend is right and that were showing up in the sizes that are customers looking.
Steve: Four.
Steve: Is working across the board and that to me is the most exciting part.
Steve: Great and if I may just add one additional thoughts that too because we're talking about categories, but it's also important to understand that or across their store fleet.
Steve: They just come in her remarks literally every single region every single zone is actually.
Steve: Proving at about the same rate.
Steve: Or regardless of demography. So we are happy to see that the spending is really resonating across all lines and all customers in all markets right now.
Steve: Great that is a C.
Steve: <unk> helpful. And then I guess, just a follow up there.
Steve: Shifting over to the Remodels. So 36 year to date I guess I'm wondering if you're able to quantify what you've seen in terms of performance uplift from the recently remodeled units.
Steve: It's early yet well I mean, we did our first round of Remodels in February. So we've only had a couple of months under our belt, but I will tell you that were happy with the performance in it.
Steve: Not inconsistent with prior classes of remodeled stores.
Speaker Change: Got it thank you guys.
Bob: Thanks, Bob.
Speaker Change: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen that concludes our question and answer session I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Stifel for any final question our final comments.
Speaker Change: Alright, well again. Thank you everybody. We do appreciate your continued interest in our business and we look forward to updating you on more results on our next call. Thank you very much.
Steve: Thank you. This concludes today's conference call you may disconnect. Your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.