Citi Trends Inc

NASDAQ:CTRN

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Greetings, and welcome to the Citi Trends Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on Tuesday, November 28, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Nitza McKee, Senior Associate. Please go ahead.

[Nitza McKee]

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Citi Trends' Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. On our call today is our Chief Executive Officer, David Makuen; and Chief Financial Officer, Heather Plutino. Our earnings release was sent out this morning at 6:45 a.m. Eastern Time. If you have not received a copy of the release, it's available on the company's website under the Investor Relations section at www.cititrends.com.

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. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on these statements. We refer you to the company's most recent report on Form 10-K and other subsequent filings with 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, David Makuen. David?

[David Makuen, executive]

Thank you, Nitza. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today on our third quarter fiscal 2023 earnings call. I will begin our call with highlights of our third quarter performance. Heather Plutino, our Chief Financial Officer, will then elaborate on our detailed financial results and our outlook. Then we'll open the call for your questions.

In the third quarter, our team continued to advance our strategic initiatives while navigating a very challenging selling environment and controlling the controllables, like we always do. We successfully managed the middle of the P&L as we registered a strong gross margin of 38.2% and kept operating expense dollars essentially flat compared to the prior year. That said, our third quarter top line performance did not meet our expectations, with sales held back more than we expected by the ongoing challenging macroeconomic backdrop. Our primarily low income customer base, consisting mostly of families earning $45,000 and less per year, is being very selective and purchasing much closer to need as they navigate higher cost of living, a buying pattern further impacted by unseasonably warm weather throughout the quarter.

Our third quarter comp sales decline of 6.2%, while similar to the prior quarter's run rate, did benefit from the intentional inventory rebuilds that I referenced during our Q2 earnings call. In particular, rebuilds in Home, Men's, Big Men's and Beauty were embraced by customers, thanks to significantly better inventory levels, enhanced assortments and better values than last year.

Additionally, our Ladies business benefited from excellent preseason trend forecasting that showed up in one of our best assortments ever. As the quarter unfolded, we experienced strong and consistent in-store conversion, signaling that many components of our trend-right assortment for all ages continue to resonate with our customers.

Our total sales were held back equally by stubborn traffic and basket trends. Contributing to these trends was meaningfully warmer weather throughout most of the quarter across a large portion of our fleet. Additionally, in our latest research, it's clear that rent, utilities, food and gas are still real issues for our customers who top out at about $55,000 annual household income, with 50% of customers earning $25,000 or less per year. Our back-to-school and back-to-college business felt this pressure as parents and students bought less during a volatile financial environment, coupled with persistent heat waves that kept kids in shorts and short sleeves far longer than normal, therefore curtailing historically strong selling of fall goods.

Even though we fell short of our quarterly expectations, we continue to play offense. We began testing a more robust marketing strategy in a few markets to drive traffic and deeper customer engagement from current lapse to new customers, and we are very pleased with early test results and are planning to have digital and radio marketing play a bigger role in our future. Additionally, our remodels in the quarter contributed strong sales lifts, more evidence that when we refresh our store experience in established markets, our customers' excitement translates to better traffic and basket trends.

Lastly, our focus on inventory and margin management in the face of discretionary sales headwinds continues with a steady hand at the wheel, ensuring we flow to stores the appropriate amount of newness 2 to 3 times per week. With many important selling days ahead of us, I am pleased to report that we've experienced improved top line momentum fourth quarter to date. Our customers are loving our Ready. Set. GIFT! Campaign, supported by a timely setup of our holiday floor set and a wide offering of gifts, including great toys, mega Bluetooth party speakers, the most amazing fragrance gift sets, all the cozy a person could want, and of course, so much trend right clothing accessories and home for all ages, all at incredible values. We are also ready with must-have fits to help our customers show up to their holiday gatherings with style and confidence.

We know for sure that our customers show up in stores for the big moments in their life. And this holiday will be no exception. Our stores and staff are energized, and we feel really good about our jaw-dropping prices and appropriate inventory position.

Notably, this year's extra selling day -- this year's extra selling day between Thanksgiving and Christmas and resulting super weekend is perfect for last-minute shopping, a hallmark of our customers. I'm confident we are well positioned to win the holiday season, and we look forward to updating you on our progress during our fourth quarter call.

Importantly, the strength of our balance sheet with total liquidity of $135 million at quarter end with no debt provides us the necessary flexibility to navigate the dynamic consumer environment while maintaining our focus on our strategic initiatives as we seek to create long-term shareholder value. I'd like to take a moment to express my gratitude to our teams for their unwavering dedication in serving our African American and multicultural families across the United States in the heart of their local neighborhoods, making them feel welcome each and every time they visit, particularly during the busy holiday season.

Before I pass it on to Heather for a review of our third quarter results and a discussion of our outlook, I want to quickly review the steps we are taking to improve our top line performance. During the quarter, we made significant progress against our 4 strategic initiatives. To remind you, they are: first, driving comp stores productivity; second, managing inventory and maximizing margin; third, controlling SG&A expenses and leveraging our balance sheet; and fourth, executing technology enhancements.

In addition to these initiatives, we are taking decisive actions to drive top line sales for the remainder of 2023 and into first quarter of 2024. Examples include: first, marketing testing. As I mentioned, during the third quarter, we began testing a more robust marketing strategy in a few select markets. Early results are promising, and we have advanced this marketing effort to approximately 20% of our fleet for the holiday season, the first time in Citi Trends' history.

Next up, optimizing inventory. We are still bullish regarding the ongoing benefits of building optimal inventory levels for specific categories that offer unique items and upsides at the best values around. Many of these categories, such as Home, Big Men's and Beauty were not rebuilt during last year in spring. So we're excited to see continued momentum during holiday and continued traction when we turn the corner into 2024.

Third, delivering a differentiated store experience. We are laser-focused on improving our in-store experience. This includes heightened attention towards visual merchandising, accentuating newness and putting together head-to-toe looks. In essence, creating a specialty store vibe with an everyday emphasis on style, quality and affordability. Our customers think of us as a guide or approach, providing all ages with today's trends at totally gettable prices.

Lastly, in the list of quick, decisive actions, improved Spring '24 setup. We are looking forward to the Spring selling season. And from a product standpoint, we are highly focused on flowing newness on a regular basis while delivering our Spring assortments to our warmer weather stores earlier than last year. Our decision to launch Spring assortments earlier was influenced in part by our new ERP system launched in the early portion of the third quarter. This is a significant upgrade from our previous ERP system and allows for more dynamic analytics, product allocation and assortment planning. Our teams across the organization are benefiting from this new and exciting tool.

Looking ahead to next year, we believe the new ERP system will gradually improve our planning and allocation functions and lead to more precise allocations of the right product to the right store at the right time. As you can hear, we are not standing still. We have highly engaged loyal customers that shop us frequently for curated made for them trends, fashion and basics for way less spend and lots of complementary accessories, home and impulsive items that they just can't resist. I have met with customers during the last quarter in the heart of our most important neighborhoods, from Jackson, Mississippi to Birmingham, to Tuscaloosa, to Jacksonville, to Savannah, to Charleston, to Atlanta and beyond. And I can assure you that our customers love their Citi Trends. Our job is to deliver goods aligned to their trend-based wants and needs at values that fit within their means. It's what we know how to do for our core African American customer base.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Heather. She will discuss our third quarter results in detail as well as our outlook. Heather?

[Heather Plutino, executive]

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. As David mentioned, our third quarter results were softer than expected, given the difficult macro environment that continued to pressure our customers, coupled with unseasonably warm weather. The quarter was highlighted by healthy gross margin of 38.2%, flat to the second quarter, continued expense control and inventory that remained in good shape throughout the quarter as we made progress on improving in-stocks in targeted merchandise categories.

We finished the quarter with a strong balance sheet that provides us with the financial flexibility to continue to navigate the current uncertain environment. Importantly, we are very proud of our team's execution against our strategic initiatives that will continue to drive our business forward as we focus on driving profitable growth ahead.

Turning to the specifics of our third quarter financial results. Total sales for the quarter were $179.5 million, a decrease of 6.7% versus Q3 2022. Strong shopper conversion throughout the quarter once again served as proof that our assortment is resonating with our customers. Basket, while still under pressure versus last year, showed trends consistent with the second quarter.

Third quarter comp sales decreased 6.2% compared to last year. Gross margin remained strong in the third quarter at 38.2%. While flat to prior quarter, we did see contraction versus prior year, driven primarily by higher freight expense as we moved more cartons through the network. The decline to last year was also impacted by higher shrink, with a small group of stores accounting for most of the impact. Through cross-functional collaboration, we remain keenly focused on minimizing the impact of shrink.

SG&A expense dollars remained well controlled and flat to prior year at $69.7 million for the quarter or $70.8 million as adjusted. Lower sales in the quarter drove adjusted SG&A deleveraged to a rate of 39.5% of total sales.

Operating loss was $6 million in the quarter or $7.2 million as adjusted compared to operating income of $31.6 million or $2.4 million as adjusted for the impact of a sale-leaseback transaction in Q3 2022. Net loss per share was $0.47 or $0.56 as adjusted versus diluted earnings per share of $3.02 or $0.24 as adjusted in the third quarter of fiscal 2022. During the third quarter, we closed 5 stores and remodeled 7 stores, bringing our total store count at the end of the quarter to 606 and our year-to-date remodel count to 15 stores.

Now turning to the balance sheet. Total inventory dollars at quarter end increased 0.9% versus Q3 2022 as we stock the stores for the holiday season and continue to rebuild certain categories. We remain comfortable with the level and makeup of our inventory as we enter the holiday gift-giving season. As David mentioned, our stores are geared up to delight customers with our Ready. Set. GIFT! campaign. Additionally, we are pleased with the buying environment as we procure attractive merchandise for Spring 2024 for our value-seeking customers.

Finally, we ended the quarter with $135 million of liquidity, made up of approximately $60 million of cash, no borrowings under our $75 million revolving line of credit and no debt.

Now turning to our outlook. As we've discussed in prior earnings calls, our previous guidance assumes improvement in the second half of the year, driven primarily by our initiatives, plus slight economic relief for our customers. While we still believe in our initiatives, what we've learned is that our customers remain under more pressure than our expectations assumed, are shopping closer to need and are reducing their average spend per basket. We now believe that this dynamic will continue for the low-income families that we serve through the balance of the fiscal year.

As a result, we are updating our outlook as follows for fiscal 2023: Total sales for the year are expected to be down mid-single-digits as compared to fiscal 2022; Full year gross margin is still expected to be in the high 30s; Full year EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $1 million to $7 million; Full year capital expenditures are expected to be in the range of $17 million to $20 million; and year-end cash balance is expected to be in the range of $80 million to $90 million.

While we don't give quarterly guidance, given where we are in the year, let me help clarify what this revised annual guidance implies for the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter total sales are expected to be approximately flat to up low single digits versus Q4 2022. As a reminder, the fourth quarter this year includes 14 weeks compared to 13 weeks last year. Comp sales for the quarter, which is measured on a 13- to 13-week basis, are expected to be in the range of down mid-single digits is flat to last year. EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $9 million to $15 million in Q4.

In closing, there is no doubt that this is a difficult selling environment and that our customer is under pressure. While we aren't satisfied with our top and bottom line results in the third quarter, we remain focused on our strategic initiatives while carefully managing our expenses and inventory investments. Doing so will allow us to continue navigating the current environment alongside our loyal customer base. And in the longer term, we'll fuel our ability to drive the full earnings potential of this important brand. With that, I'll turn the call back to David for closing comments. David?

[David Makuen, executive]

Thanks, Heather. As a brand and a company, we're really proud of our connection to our neighborhoods, employing and serving true locals with a high-quality experience. During our 77 years of operation, our differentiated positioning in markets where others aren't, including the vast majority of stores located within 5 miles or less of our core customer, has fueled our ongoing presence in more than 250 amazing neighborhoods in 33 states.

Importantly, our strong and expanding partnerships with our vendors continue to supply our customers with a compelling merchandise offering that drives our customers' loyalty and continued engagement, even in a challenging environment. As we look ahead, we will continue to execute against our key strategies in support of our Citi Life purpose, which is live bold, live proud, respect all. Perhaps most vital is our ability to help our customers show up for whatever comes their way and bring opportunities to life at prices that don't break the bank. We continue to be excited to drive the full potential of our brand as we focus on driving long-term profitability and shareholder value.

Before I turn the call over to the operator, I want to again extend my gratitude and appreciation to our Citi Trends team. It is their execution that drives our strategy forward and reinforces my confidence and excitement in our future. Happy holidays to all. We are now ready to take your questions. Over to you, Frank.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Jeremy Hamblin with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

[Jeremy Hamblin, analyst]

So I wanted to start by getting an understanding of the cadence of comps that you saw throughout the quarter. You noted on the August call that July was the best month that you had in Q2. And I wanted to get a sense, given that you missed your own expectations, does that imply that -- was September worse than you expected or October worse than you expected? Can you provide a little bit more color? And then also just to get a sense for what you're seeing thus far in Q4 on a same-store sales basis.

[Heather Plutino, executive]

Jeremy, this is Heather. I'll take at least part of that question. Cadence of comps in the quarter, in Q3, it was really consistent. The range between the months was fairly tight. And just really in line with full Q2. So you're right, July was our strongest month in the second quarter, but that's what I'll say about Q3, right? Tight and more in line with the full quarter of Q2 results.

So when you peel it back and you look underneath the cover of those months, it's -- it's really a story of weather was abnormally warm, comps are down. Weather is not back, comps are up. And I will say that we thought -- we used the word stubborn, stubborn traffic and basket trends throughout the quarter as well for all the reasons that we talked about in the call, right? Continued pressure, buying closer to need. And we talked about this in many earnings release calls, right, that need equals weather changes for our customer as well, right, not just gifting moments, but the weather changes, back-to-school is a good example.

The mom and dad were only buying what the kids needed. And if they're going back in 90-degree weather, they are wearing the T-shirts and shorts that they were wearing during the Summer, we mentioned in the prepared remarks, right? So that had an impact on fall selling, for sure, throughout the quarter.

[David Makuen, executive]

Yes. Jeremy, it's David. Thanks for calling. On the Q4 question, yes, I mean, the headline really is like we stated in our release, improved momentum has been really encouraging, driven by a really timely setup of our gift presentation kind of within the context of our Ready. Set. GIFT! holiday campaign. We were in boxes by late October, meaning in our stores with the right assortment, that's driving the momentum.

And we've seen some decent weather snaps throughout some, not all, of November. And so that's all contributing to the improved momentum, giving us a nice run into the rest of the quarter. So we're excited about what we're seeing.

[Jeremy Hamblin, analyst]

So just coming back then to what you saw in Q3. So if comp trends were relatively steady, then you were expecting more of an acceleration on comps than what you got and you think maybe that didn't happen because of weather or maybe was a macro maybe more of a factor? Just trying to understand the difference between your expectation and the end result.

[David Makuen, executive]

They were both important factors, Jeremy. As we stated in the Q2 call, we entered BTS set up really well, similarly to the setup that I just mentioned for Q4. So we were confident in our offering, in our values and in the mix across all ages. And what really bamboozled the quarter, in our view, was weather and the macro impact being far more pressurized than we anticipated, right? As we've often said, we can't predict the macro. We do our best to estimate whether it gets worse or better. But in this case, it really presented a lot of pressure.

And I think one of the telltale metrics, Jeremy, that we've shared before is our conversion remains incredibly good. So for those who come in and have the means to shop, we convert so consistently. I mean, it's been 24 months of consistent conversion. But what we see, as Heather pointed out in her remarks, is the stubborn traffic -- excuse me, the stubborn basket pressure is just kind of presenting more of a fight for every dollar in the basket. We're getting the conversion. We're getting the transactions. It's just the basket pressure.

So -- and it's both, right? It's abnormally hot weather. It's the macro. So I can't give you exact percentages, but it's -- they're both being felt, for sure.

[Jeremy Hamblin, analyst]

That's helpful clarity. And just coming back to Q4 because I want to make sure that on the guidance -- is it implying like a down 1 to a down 4 comp, that kind of what your expectations are? There's some noise added, obviously, with the extra week in Q4.

[Heather Plutino, executive]

Well, comp again, is on a 13- to 13-week basis. So that's the cleanest way to look at it, Jeremy. And as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we are expecting down mid-single digits to flat in the quarter from a comp perspective.

[Jeremy Hamblin, analyst]

Okay. All right. Just -- and then moving on, I want to understand a little bit about the gross margin impact. So down 160 basis points year-over-year. Conversion remains strong, I think you noted 2 things in here, higher shrink, higher freight expense year-over-year. I wanted to understand attribution of each of those components. And if there was anything else that might have contributed to it, given where you were in Q2, which was also the 38.2% gross margin. But on a year-over-year basis, certainly was a bit more of a step back, I think, than expected.

[Heather Plutino, executive]

Yes. It's -- as you mentioned, the 2 components really are freight and shrink, heavily -- more heavily weighted towards freight. And the -- the issue there is that, as I mentioned, we've got more cartons going through the system. And if you think about some of the rebuilds that David called out, Big Men's, Home, Footwear, and those are bulkier items, right? So the -- in the weeds here, Jeremy, forgive me, but the units per carton are lower.

So in order to get that 1% increase in inventory that we reported at the end of the quarter, you're moving a lot more cartons through the system. So higher volume equals higher freight expense as we expect that to mitigate in Q4 as we -- as the rebuild, the bulk of the rebuild is behind us.

So for the shrink line, which is a smaller component, but still a component, as I mentioned -- and I think you know this, we talked about this in the past. Our cadence is to take physical inventories in a section of our stores every month, as opposed to other retailers to do it maybe 1 time a year or 2 times a year. So we're testing our results every month, but it is subject to how those particular stores are performing from a shrink perspective.

So in Q3, we had a group of stores, a class of stores, if you will, who had higher strength than the balance of the chain, which was driving the majority of that increase in shrink expense. So bummer, for sure. As I mentioned, we're really focused on controlling strength. We've got a cross-functional team, loss prevention, field HR, field leadership that are really, really focused on controlling shrink, whether it's from a talent perspective, from a reporting perspective, from a local law enforcement perspective, we are all over it. So hopefully, I'm giving you the feel that we are all over both shrink and freight and don't expect the same level of headwinds going forward.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mike Baker with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed.

[Michael Baker, analyst]

Okay. A little bit of a follow-up and some new questions. I guess for the fourth quarter, does that guidance of down mid-single digits to flat -- what does that -- does that imply a pickup throughout the rest of the quarter or not? And I guess maybe another way to ask that, can you remind us what you're up against by month from the fourth quarter of last year, the comparisons get easier, harder, et cetera, and if you are expecting a pickup? I presume if people are shopping closer to need than last year, you're assuming that sales get better as you get closer to the holidays, but just wanted to confirm that?

[Heather Plutino, executive]

Yes, Mike. Thanks for the question. Good to hear you. So the Q4 guidance does assume improvements, right, down mid-single digits to flat versus the down 6 that we produced in Q3, for sure. As I look at the -- I'm speaking slowly as I find the numbers, as I look at the -- the forecast throughout the month. I mean, it won't surprise you, it's really about the moment within the quarter, right?

So November, it's about the lead in to Thanksgiving. That's where we see in strong sales, right? And we expect, because of all of the merch initiatives that David laid out, we expect to have stronger performance around the lead-in to Thanksgiving. And a reminder, our customer, actually, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is very important to our customer as opposed to Friday after, still important, but they're coming in to dress for their events, right? And then as we get closer to the actual Christmas holiday later in December, that becomes important as well.

So it's really about the moment within. But yes, improvement throughout. And then as I look at versus last year, I would say, David, I might ask for a bailout here. I would say that there's -- we have a softer-than-expected holiday season last year as well. So I don't think there's anything that I would say is a headwind tailwind. It was -- there's room to improve, for sure. David, anything you'd add?

[David Makuen, executive]

Yes. Yes, Mike, I think the last thing I'd add -- good to hear from you -- is these rebuilds that we've been talking about give us some added fuel for the quarter. And so there's nothing really abnormal from a lapping perspective I'd call out, but I would give you confidence and it gives us confidence that there's a bunch of what I'd call added firepower to Q4 that weren't kind of in the mix last year as strong as we would have wanted them to be. Example, our Home business was weaker last year than this year from an inventory quality and value standpoint. So we believe we're much better positioned in that very high-indexing holiday category because we embed in that category our gifts and our toys and our throes and all the things that people gift. So that's what gives us good confidence in being able to improve our trend from Q3, as you can tell, and as it's framed in the guide.

[Michael Baker, analyst]

Okay. Fair enough. A couple of more questions. One, within the gross margin commentary, nothing on markdowns or clearance or anything like that. Can you just give us a sense as to full price selling or with sales being a little bit weaker this quarter, is there any kind of markdown risk? Or how that may have impacted gross margins on a year-over-year basis.

[David Makuen, executive]

I'll take that one, Mike. I mean basically, Heather has highlighted shrink and freight, which we've got a handle on, as you can hopefully hear from her past answer, were really the big reasons for the slight deleverage in gross margin versus LY. From a markdown perspective, the team has done a really good job managing our inventory and trying to -- in the moment, make adjustments and all that good stuff. It is a little bit of fancy footwork, especially when the fall goods, as I pointed out in my comments, are selling a little slower than we like or did sell a little slower than we liked in Q3.

But we're taking appropriate action when it matters the most, which is in the time period sell, not waiting too long and all that good stuff. So we're -- we're on it, but there was no newsworthy item in Q3 to call out. It was pretty much as we expected.

[Heather Plutino, executive]

And in line with prior year.

[Michael Baker, analyst]

Okay, that's good. One more, if I could. The new marketing initiatives. Any more color on that? What kind of sales lift is it driving? And what's the cost associated with that? Your SG&A has been pretty consistent around $70 million a quarter. Does that go up because of the marketing initiative? Or do you have to see the comps work out before you invest in that? Just how should we think about that dynamic?

[David Makuen, executive]

Yes. It's a great question. Well, first off, Mike, on the test base for Q3 that I comment on. It's too small. It's a rounding error in SG&A. So you don't need to worry about that. But what the test did inform us about is our ability to drive both new and the lapsed customers back into the fold. And so our ability to kind of see lifts in traffic and conversion, which was nice to see, and even a little bit in basket per customer showed that we can reignite the audience in very established markets.

I want to be clear, these tests were not in new markets where capturing new customers, you could argue, is easy. These are in long-time legacy Citi Trends markets, very African American and [ fat ] markets where we wanted to test the water.

So we're seeing some, I would couch it as healthy lifts, encouraging lifts. And that what drove us to drive into about 20% of the chain for Q4. Again, that number is not huge. It's embedded in our SG&A. And really, what's exciting is -- and I'll give a little sneak peek. We're -- we're going to figure out how to do more of this in Q1, and more to come on that. But we're bullish on basically reawakening lapsed customers and convincing even some existing ones to shop a little more often during and even post the advertising exposure window. So more to come, but we're pretty pumped about what we're seeing and what can it do for top line improvement.

[Michael Baker, analyst]

Understood. But just to be specific, so any reason -- do we bump up -- will SG&A, just on the marketing, be higher than it has been? What kind of dollar investment is embedded in that SG&A -- in that marketing?

[David Makuen, executive]

We don't release at that level detail, Mike. But I can tell you, we're -- I'll call it, we're self-funding it out of our expected and what you have expected in our SG&A budget for Q4. It's not a big enough number to unsettle that overall SG&A.

[Heather Plutino, executive]

70 range is still fine. Yes.

[Michael Baker, analyst]

Got it.

[Heather Plutino, executive]

If I point out, Mike, 70 range is still fine. Yes, yes.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett.

[Charles Grom, analyst]

I just wanted to follow up on Mike's question, just on the quarter-to-date. You talked about a lot of improvement. And you're not alone, a lot of retailers called that out at this point. I'm just curious if you guys are in that range, that down mid-single digits to flat. And I believe your holiday comp last year was down 17.5%. So I just wonder if you could just confirm that for us.

[David Makuen, executive]

Chuck, thanks for calling in. Yes, a good Thanksgiving. I hope you did too. Yes, we won't divulge an exact number, but what I can leave you with, Chuck, is that it is within the negative 5 to negative 1. So it's certainly shown improvement versus our run rate for both Q2 and Q3. And we're cautiously optimistic about December being a strong month, based on some of the answers I provided, more firepower from the inventory quality and availability standpoint, even better values than last year. And this phenomenon that we've seen largely all year long, where our customers are so tied to these family moments. So we're excited for what's to come.

I think the 1 wildcard, which I know you study a lot, Chuck, is weather. We've definitely seen, as you've heard and can ascertain to our Q3 comments, that our customers are more than they used to be sensitive to the weather, in part tethered to their economic status. They're just holding off until they really need something. So I would asterisk Q4 a little bit with if weather goes the wrong way, they'll have an impact. But at the same token, we know that particularly in the last 2 weeks of December, our customers come out in droves, whether it's 70 or 20 out, and we're ready for them. So that's how I describe kind of the back half for the rest of the quarter.

[Charles Grom, analyst]

Okay. Great. That's very helpful. And then just looking ahead to Spring, and I wondered to see if you guys could talk about the opportunity from the new ERP system and the product -- in the inventory product you're going to be rolling out in terms of the newness that you referenced as 1 of the 4 sales drivers for next year. So if you maybe just dive into that a little bit more.

[David Makuen, executive]

Yes, for sure. I think, A, our ERP system went live end of August, as we told everybody it would. And we've been learning and using adapting to the new system, which is pretty normal, call it, change management. And at the end of the day, what we're discovering is it's going to deliver on many of the commitments we made to all of you starting back in last first quarter of this year.

And I'll highlight a couple, Chuck, because it relates directly to your Spring question. First off, we've got much deeper analytics. I've been touting this ever since we announced our plans to do a new ERP system. And the analytics are powerful and insightful and enable far better action. Second, we're able to really dissect and define our chain differently. I've mentioned in this call prior that we've been more accustomed to peanut buttering a lot of our allocations across the chain. And our chain is pretty dynamic. We've got uber hot. We've got warm. We've got kind of cool, and then we got cold within our 600-plus stores. And they all need a little bit of love from an allocation standpoint based on the climate.

And so this system allows us to get at a much finer level of detail around all of that and allow us to better allocate back into the demand that we see in those different climates, as an example. So our allocation would be number three, being more precise and accurate about where things go at what time. And so that's a perfect lead into setting up our warm and hot stores, which we have a lot of. It's well over 40% of our fleet. We can be more accurate in sending them the right goods that they'll more likely adopt in as early as late December or during as early as late December and certainly in January and Feb.

So what this all leads to is it sets us up for the tax refund season in mid to late Feb. And we're excited to comment on that because we're pretty bullish on all of the things we're doing across that list of 4 items, Chuck. It's going to have marketing. It's going to have different inventory optimization. It's got to have better experience and it's going to have more appropriate product for the climates that we serve. So a lot of that will be additive, we believe, in contributing to a strong Q1 of '24 as we look into the future. Does that make sense?

[Charles Grom, analyst]

Yes. No, it totally does. It seems like a big opportunity. My last question is for Heather. I'm just looking at the '24. And just in the scenario that the comps stay, call it flat to down, just the opportunity to get EBIT margins, not EBITDA, EBIT margins back in a positive territory. Can you just maybe speak to that opportunity? And then as a follow-up, how should we be thinking about new store growth in '24, the number of CTX remodels, which are clearly good? That's my final question.

[Heather Plutino, executive]

Yes, Chuck, thanks. We're not revealing anything really about '24 right now, but in the spirit of being helpful, it really is all about top line, right? So I know you asked that we -- we say that comp performance stays the same, but that's not our plan. Our plan is that top line improves. And as we've talked about many times in the past, that's the real juice here. You get the top line going, the flow-through to get that EBITDA margin and EBIT margin is there. We have very limited variable expenses relative to other retailers. We believe we have a healthy margin. So the flow-through is really strong.

So I'm going to tell you that it's really -- it's all about the top line. And that's why driving -- driving comp store productivity always is #1 when we talk about our strategic initiatives.

And then new stores, it's too thin to say what we're going to do with new stores in 2024. So -- but I will say that remodels, you know that we like our remodel cadence. We like what we see from remodels. We get a nice lift, mid- to high- single-digit lift after the remodel. It's important to us, it's important to our store associates, and it's important to our customers, right? They get excited about what have we done to refresh their Citi Trends store and that buzz is real and it shows up in top line, again, our most important lever, top line. So more to come on '24, but that's what we're thinking right now.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from John Lawrence with Benchmark.

[John Lawrence, analyst]

David, not to beat a dead horse here on the weather, et cetera. But the stores are in the South, I mean, the weather situation, am I correct that if you looked at the planogram with the weather, you only had about 10 days to 2 weeks of weather-correct merchandise that match the weather in the quarter?

[David Makuen, executive]

John, you're referring to kind of an estimate on the number of days, weeks in the quarter that was more suitable to sell fall goods? Is that what you're asking?

[John Lawrence, analyst]

Yes, that's correct.

[David Makuen, executive]

You're not far off. And we made this comment in the prepared remarks. The weather impact was felt across the entire quarter. I mean, we had stores in the heart of our chain in Louisiana, Texas that were 10, 15, 20 degrees hotter for prolonged periods of time with 0 rain. People were staying inside, et cetera, et cetera, or just wearing short sleeves and shorts all day long.

And so when the weather snapped, which you got your math generally right, John, it was a couple of weeks max that snapped, and we saw an appropriate, almost immediate bounce back to a much better trend than the quarterly trend. And that's what -- prompted me to share that comment in the last question from Chuck in that the sensitivity is even more heightened. But I really believe that's brought on by a lot of macro, too. But the weather is certainly not helping to be in our favor.

[John Lawrence, analyst]

And once again, just briefly here that -- my checks in stores saw, for instance, the NBA hoodies or the NFL hoodies really didn't fly until that, obviously, til that first of November, first week of November. And once it was weather-correct, they flew off the shelf and was the hottest item in the store. Can you explain to me, am I looking at that right? So when the customer has the need, as you talk about, to come get a hoodie, does that spread then to picking up to making other purchases around the store for home, et cetera, because of the need for that hoodie?

[David Makuen, executive]

John, thanks for being in our stores. And then second question in a row, you're right on, yes. I mean, I don't have a lot to add to your findings. We are really confident in our assortment. I mentioned our ladies assortment being on trend better than anything I've ever seen in my tenure here. I can probably ditto that for some of the other businesses. Men's is another example. We are just -- we're nailing it with team apparel, branded apparel and then a terrific assortment like we do in ladies, of -- made for the African-American customer.

So we're out there with the right inventory. And you're right. When the weather snaps, boy oh boy, they come on in and flow into our stores, our conversion goes up in those weeks, up from already a high, high level. And you're absolutely right. Generally, all boats rise. It's not like they come only in for the guys' stuff if I'm a guy and I walk out. They're walking around getting other stuff, building a basket, same for mom, same for the young singles that come into our stores, Gen Z and young millennials, et cetera. So we watch it like clockwork. And what you said is true.

And so where we are in Q4 -- I'll maybe, [ don't ] tell you in November comments, we've got a bunch of really important movements. We just got through Black Friday and Black -- we call Black Wednesday. And now we're going into massive stock up on gifts mode and make sure you got enough under the tree.

And we've taken our prices down, John, in some cases. So we've got like-for-like items, QY versus LY they're down $3 and $5 and $10 in some cases. So team has done just an amazing job, frankly, responding to the pressure that the customer is under an offering important vignettes within our assortments that are like -- they're just -- they're unbeatable and stoppable values. So we think that also helps garner engagement and continues to fuel our conversion and should feel the basket we hope in the rest of the quarter.

[John Lawrence, analyst]

All right. Just the tough subject, and I'll leave it alone, but the shrink situation. I know, as you're indicating you're all over it, but is there any parts or any stores that have gotten significant or difficult enough that you might consider closing?

[Heather Plutino, executive]

Yes, we're not there yet, John. I appreciate the question. We're not there yet from a shrink perspective. I know other retailers have made the difficult decision based on the environment. That is -- it's not -- if we close the store, it's -- there are bigger factors going into it.

Shrink, for us, as you know, particularly in the market that you know very well, Memphis, right, is something that we're very keenly aware of and are managing closely. It's -- for us, the external staff happens. We're not -- I feel like I shouldn't say this out loud because I'm going to tempt the universe, right -- but we're not subject to some of the smash and grab that you've seen in headlines that you see for others. Knock on wood that doesn't come to us, but it's -- it's more small. It happens on occasion, and you know that, you've seen that, but it's not like broad-based.

So we're really focusing on what can we control, right? And we say that a lot, right, control the controllable. True to and shrink, what can we control? We make sure we have the right people on the team that we've got solid citizens who are looking out for the Citi Trends family. That we've got reporting that helps us understand. We've got concerns that need to be addressed. We partner with local law enforcement to make sure that we're aware of what the environment is, et cetera, et cetera. So that's a long way of saying no, shrink is not causing us to determine that we need to close some stores.

[John Lawrence, analyst]

Great. And last question for me. David, you've mentioned about the rebuilds. I mean, back several months ago, you were talking about -- and I think toys is one of those areas that there were opportunities for freshness, new brands, et cetera, I assume across the platform, I assume that continues to be the case?

[David Makuen, executive]

Yes. Great. Last question, John. I'm talking about gifts. And you're absolutely right, a good memory. We saw an opportunity to get into the toys business earlier, like I mentioned in my comments, set it up earlier for the customer to consider and gravitate to. And we have a little thing called layaway, and layaway is a meaningful part of our sales during Q4. But what the customer does is they come in, in October, even first couple of weeks November. And they go, "Oh, that's a pretty cool African-American Barbie play set," as an example, or "That's a really cool remote control racecar. I'm going to put that and a bunch of other stuff on layaway and come back and get it in December."

And so we rely pretty importantly on that, I'll call it, pre-consideration, I'm going to put it in layaway. I'm going to put a little down payment on it, and I'm going to pay it off, pick it up in time to put it under the tree in December. So you're absolutely right, rebuilding and getting those, I'll call it, layaway-friendly businesses out on the floor earlier is really germane, it's a part of the intentional rebuilds that we've been doing. So we're looking forward to a good toy selling season as a result.

[John Lawrence, analyst]

Great. Thanks for your help. Good luck.

[David Makuen, executive]

Thanks, John. Happy holidays.

[Operator]

Mr. Makuen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to you.

[David Makuen, executive]

Thanks, Frank. Thanks, everybody, for joining us today. Have a great holiday. See you at the next one. Bye-bye.

[Operator]

That does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your line. Have a great day, everyone.