Academy Sports and Outdoors Inc (ASO) 2023 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Academy Sports + Outdoors Second Quarter Fiscal 2023 Results Conference Call. At this time, this call is being recorded. (Operator Instructions) I will now turn the call over to Matt Hodges, Vice President of Investor Relations for Academy Sports and Outdoors. Matt, please go ahead.

早上好，女士們、先生們，歡迎參加學院體育與戶外 2023 財年第二季度業績電話會議。此時，該通話正在錄音中。 （操作員指示）我現在將電話轉給學院體育和戶外投資者關係副總裁馬特·霍奇斯 (Matt Hodges)。馬特，請繼續。

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the Academy Sports and Outdoors' Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results Call.

大家早上好，感謝您參加學院體育與戶外活動 2023 年第二季度財務業績電話會議。

Participating on the call are Steve Lawrence, Chief Executive Officer; Michael Mullican, President; and Carl Ford, Chief Financial Officer.

首席執行官 Steve Lawrence 參加了電話會議；邁克爾·穆里肯，總裁；和首席財務官卡爾·福特。

As a reminder, statements in today's earnings release and the comments made by management during this call may be considered forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the factors identified in the earnings release and in our SEC filings. The company undertakes no obligation to revise any forward-looking statements.

提醒一下，今天的收益發布中的聲明以及管理層在本次電話會議中發表的評論可能被視為前瞻性聲明。這些陳述存在風險和不確定性，可能導致我們的實際結果與我們的預期和預測存在重大差異。這些風險和不確定性包括但不限於收益報告和我們向 SEC 提交的文件中確定的因素。該公司不承擔修改任何前瞻性陳述的義務。

Today's remarks also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in today's earnings release, which is available at investors.academy.com.

今天的言論還提到了某些非公認會計準則財務指標。今天的收益報告中包含了與最具可比性的公認會計原則（GAAP）衡量標準的對賬，該報告可在 Investors.academy.com 上獲取。

I will now turn the call over to Steve Lawrence for his remarks. Steve?

現在我將把電話轉給史蒂夫·勞倫斯聽他的講話。史蒂夫？

Thank you, Matt. Good morning to all, and thank you for joining us for our Q2 earnings call. It's been 3 months since Michael and I stepped into our new roles. Over the past 90 days, we've worked hard to improve our sales trend [on] our expenses and the current run rate of the business and to backfill some key positions on our leadership team. I'm excited that we're able to fill all of our key roles with internal promotions, which speaks to the work the team has done over the past couple of years on building a strong internal bench and focusing on succession planning.

謝謝你，馬特。大家早上好，感謝您參加我們的第二季度財報電話會議。邁克爾和我擔任新角色已經三個月了。在過去的 90 天裡，我們努力改善我們的費用銷售趨勢和當前的業務運行率，並填補了我們領導團隊的一些關鍵職位。我很高興我們能夠通過內部晉升來填補所有關鍵職位的空缺，這說明了團隊在過去幾年中在建立強大的內部人才隊伍和專注於繼任計劃方面所做的工作。

To highlight that, I'm thrilled that Carl Ford, our new CFO, is 1 of these promotions, and he will be joining us on today's earnings call. Carl has been with the Academy for 4.5 years, and during that time, he's played an integral role in helping the company achieve several milestones including navigating the pandemic, achieving all the objectives in our first long-range strategy, supporting our IPO, and helping shape and create our new long-range plan.

需要強調的是，我很高興我們的新任首席財務官卡爾·福特（Carl Ford）成為其中之一，他將參加今天的財報電話會議。 Carl 已在學院工作4.5 年，在此期間，他在幫助公司實現多個里程碑方面發揮了不可或缺的作用，包括應對疫情、實現我們第一個長期戰略中的所有目標、支持我們的IPO 以及幫助制定並製定我們新的長期計劃。

Turning to our Q2 results. For the quarter, we achieved net sales of $1.58 billion for a negative 7.5% comp. While we are not happy with running a decrease, these results were in line with our first quarter trend and in line with the guidance we shared during our last call. What was encouraging was that unlike Q1, we saw the business decelerate as we moved through the quarter. In Q2, we saw steady improvements in both sales and margin rates with each month getting successively better. Our belief is that we can continue to build on this momentum as we progress through Q3 and into the holiday selling season in Q4.

轉向我們第二季度的業績。本季度，我們實現淨銷售額 15.8 億美元，同比下降 7.5%。雖然我們對下降感到不滿意，但這些結果符合我們第一季度的趨勢，也符合我們在上次電話會議中分享的指導。令人鼓舞的是，與第一季度不同的是，我們看到業務在整個季度都在減速。在第二季度，我們看到銷售額和利潤率穩步提高，每個月都在逐步好轉。我們相信，隨著第三季度的進展和第四季度的假日銷售季節，我們可以繼續保持這一勢頭。

Looking at sales by division, our best-performing business during the quarter was sports & recreation, which ran a 2.7% decrease. Sporting goods equipment, outdoor cooking, and outdoor furniture all performed well during the quarter. However, the fitness equipment and bike business continue to be tough. Apparel was the second best performing division with a negative 3.7% decrease. We continue to see solid performance out of the men's and youth businesses as well as our licensed apparel area. NIKE also continues to perform well for us along with our private label business.

從按部門劃分的銷售額來看，本季度表現最好的業務是體育和娛樂業務，下降了 2.7%。體育用品設備、戶外烹飪和戶外家具在本季度均表現良好。然而，健身器材和自行車業務仍然困難重重。服裝是表現第二好的部門，下降了 3.7%。我們繼續看到男裝和青年業務以及我們的授權服裝領域的穩健表現。耐克的自有品牌業務也繼續為我們表現良好。

The women's business has remained more challenging for us. As we move forward, we're very focused on getting our women's active business back on track. Footwear during Q2 ran a 4.5% decrease. We continue to see a strength in casual and work footwear driven by national brands such as HEYDUDE along with our private work boot and apparel brand, Brazos. The cleated business was also strong as we continue to be in a much better inventory position versus where we were a year ago.

女性業務對我們來說仍然更具挑戰性。隨著我們的前進，我們非常專注於讓我們的女性活躍業務重回正軌。第二季度鞋類下降了 4.5%。我們繼續看到由 HEYDUDE 等民族品牌以及我們的私人工作靴和服裝品牌 Brazos 推動的休閒鞋和工作鞋的優勢。防滑釘業務也很強勁，因為我們的庫存狀況比一年前要好得多。

Our outdoor trend for Q2 was a 12.2% decrease which was an improvement versus Q1 was down 15%, but it's still well below our expectations. Better performing categories for the quarter were fishing and camping. Hunting remained the most challenged business continued softness in both the ammunition and firearms businesses. Both of these categories continue to perform well above 2019 levels, but continue to decline from the peaks that we saw during the last couple of years. As we move forward, we expect to see the declines in these categories moderate as we start to lap softer comparisons from last year.

我們第二季度的戶外趨勢下降了 12.2%，與第一季度下降 15% 相比有所改善，但仍遠低於我們的預期。本季度表現較好的類別是釣魚和露營。狩獵仍然是面臨最大挑戰的業務，彈藥和槍支業務持續疲軟。這兩個類別的表現均繼續遠高於 2019 年的水平，但較過去幾年的峰值繼續下降。隨著我們的前進，我們預計這些類別的下降將會放緩，因為我們開始與去年進行比較。

When you look across the various businesses, many of the key themes that we called out in our Q1 call carried forward into the second quarter. Customers continue to gravitate towards value on 1 end of our assortment demonstrated by an increase in the penetration of private brand sales. At the same time, customers are also focusing on new and innovative products such as BOGG BAGS and OOFOS recovery slides which, in many cases, were not value items. Bigger ticket items with long replacement cycles continue to be challenged, along with many of the surge categories that benefited from increased demand during the pandemic. We've also seen a consistent pattern of the customer aggregating their purchases during the natural shopping time periods such as Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day and the Fourth of July.

當你縱觀各個業務時，我們在第一季度電話會議中提出的許多關鍵主題都延續到了第二季度。自有品牌銷售滲透率的提高就證明了客戶繼續關注我們產品系列中某一端的價值。與此同時，客戶還關注新的創新產品，例如 BOGG BAGS 和 OOFOS 恢復滑梯，這些產品在許多情況下並不有價值。更換週期較長的大件商品以及許多受益於疫情期間需求增加的激增品類繼續面臨挑戰。我們還發現，客戶在母親節、陣亡將士紀念日、父親節和國慶節等自然購物時段匯總購買的商品存在一致的模式。

We are continually adjusting our assortment and future buys along with our promotional efforts to align with these trends. Customers will continue to see us lean into our position as evaluated in our space by expanding our everyday value offerings while also leveraging strong promotional efforts during the key shopping moments in the calendar.

我們不斷調整我們的品種和未來的購買以及我們的促銷活動，以適應這些趨勢。客戶將繼續看到我們通過擴大我們的日常價值產品，同時在日曆中的關鍵購物時刻利用強有力的促銷努力來鞏固我們在我們領域所評估的地位。

In regards to new brands and ideas, I'd like to highlight a couple of new initiatives launching in Q3 that will help us take advantage of the customers' appetite for newness. This past week, we announced a new partnership with L.L.Bean become 1 of their key retail partners. We believe their focus on outdoor apparel and footwear with a Northern sensibility as the perfect complement to our Magellan Outdoors and Columbia businesses, which mean more towards fishing and southern climates. Another new initiative is our partnership with Escalade and American Cornhole League to become the exclusive seller of ACL boards and bags for this fall. With the strong market share we have in all things tailgating, this partnership is a perfect fit for us.

關於新品牌和想法，我想重點介紹第三季度推出的幾項新舉措，這些舉措將幫助我們充分利用客戶對新鮮事物的興趣。上週，我們宣布與 L.L.Bean 建立新的合作夥伴關係，成為他們的主要零售合作夥伴之一。我們相信，他們對具有北方敏感性的戶外服裝和鞋類的關注是對我們麥哲倫戶外和哥倫比亞業務的完美補充，這意味著更適合釣魚和南方氣候。另一項新舉措是我們與 Escalade 和 American Cornhole League 合作，成為今年秋季 ACL 板和包的獨家銷售商。由於我們在尾隨領域擁有強大的市場份額，因此這種合作關係非常適合我們。

Later in Q3, we'll kick off a new partnership with Fanatics to help expand our online offering and license team apparel. This business has been a strong suit for us over the years, but our offering has traditionally been anchored in the leagues and teams that live within our geographic footprint. Our new relationship will allow us to dramatically grow our assortment and to service a greatly expanded number of categories, teams and leagues moving forward.

在第三季度晚些時候，我們將與 Fanatics 建立新的合作夥伴關係，以幫助擴大我們的在線產品和授權團隊服裝。多年來，這項業務一直是我們的強項，但我們的產品傳統上以我們地理範圍內的聯盟和球隊為基礎。我們的新關係將使我們能夠大幅增加我們的產品種類，並為未來數量大大增加的類別、球隊和聯賽提供服務。

Shifting to profitability. We remain focused on proactively managing our business to deliver the best possible results for our shareholders this year while ensuring we remain on track to achieving our long-term initiatives and goals. Our gross margin for the quarter came in at 35.6% which was a 30 basis point improvement over last year, with a 180 basis point increase over our Q1 rate. Beneath the surface, our merchandise margin stabilized at down 21 basis points versus last year, which was a market improvement over our Q1 run rate of down 110 basis points versus 2022. Carl will give you more color around our financial performance shortly.

轉向盈利。我們仍然專注於積極管理我們的業務，以便今年為我們的股東提供最好的業績，同時確保我們繼續實現我們的長期計劃和目標。我們本季度的毛利率為 35.6%，比去年提高了 30 個基點，比第一季度毛利率提高了 180 個基點。從表面上看，我們的商品利潤率穩定在比去年下降21 個基點的水平，這比我們第一季度的運行率（比2022 年下降110 個基點）有所改善。卡爾很快就會為您提供有關我們財務業績的更多信息。

Turning to inventory. At the end of the quarter, our inventory balance was $1.3 billion, which was flat to last year in terms of dollars and down 2% in units in total. On a per-store basis, units declined 5% compared to Q2 of last year. The team has exhibited a very disciplined inventory management approach through the past couple of years, and we plan to continue to lean into this strength as we move forward. We are confident that our current inventory position is at the right level to support our business and the content is fresh and forward facing, which should position us well for the fall and holiday selling seasons.

轉向庫存。截至本季度末，我們的庫存餘額為 13 億美元，按美元計算與去年持平，總庫存量下降 2%。按每家商店計算，銷量比去年第二季度下降了 5%。在過去的幾年裡，該團隊表現出了非常嚴格的庫存管理方法，我們計劃在前進的過程中繼續發揮這一優勢。我們相信，我們目前的庫存狀況處於支持我們業務的適當水平，而且內容新鮮且具有前瞻性，這應該為我們在秋季和假日銷售季節做好準備。

As we discussed in June on our Q1 call, we're taking aggressive action in proactively addressing the trends that we've seen in the business this year in order to help improve sales and profitability as we move through the remainder of the year. I want to give a quick reminder of the key actions we're taking to drive the business.

正如我們在 6 月份第一季度電話會議中討論的那樣，我們正在採取積極行動，積極應對今年業務中出現的趨勢，以便在今年剩餘時間裡幫助提高銷售額和盈利能力。我想快速提醒一下我們為推動業務而採取的關鍵行動。

First, we'll continue to highlight and focus on our position as a value leader in the space across all customer touch points. Second, we're introducing new offerings in our assortments such as L.L.Bean, Fanatics, American Cornhole Holding to capitalize on the customers' desire for newness. Cross improving our advertising effectiveness with better targeted marketing that will be facilitated by our new customer data platform. We're continually enhancing our omnichannel functionality and features to improve the customer experience. And lastly, we also expect a sales boost from the new stores we opened up in 2022 along 11 to 12 new stores opening this fall.

首先，我們將繼續強調並專注於我們作為所有客戶接觸點領域的價值領導者的地位。其次，我們在產品類別中推出新產品，例如 L.L.Bean、Fanatics、American Cornhole Holding，以滿足客戶對新鮮事物的渴望。我們的新客戶數據平台將通過更有針對性的營銷來提高我們的廣告效果。我們不斷增強我們的全渠道功能和特性，以改善客戶體驗。最後，我們還預計 2022 年開設的新店以及今年秋季開設的 11 至 12 家新店將帶來銷售額的增長。

Now I'd like to turn the call over to our new CFO, to walk you through the financials. Carl?

現在我想將電話轉給我們的新任首席財務官，向您介紹財務狀況。卡爾？

Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone. It is an honor to be selected to follow Michael as the Chief Financial Officer of Academy Sports and Outdoors. I am excited about the opportunity to lead our finance organization into what I believe, has a very bright future. I have been with the company since 2019 and I am proud of the work we have done to strengthen our balance sheet and improve our operating model. Academy is not the same company as it was then and I am excited about our long-term growth initiatives and capital allocation philosophy.

謝謝你，史蒂夫。大家，早安。我很榮幸被選為繼邁克爾之後擔任學院體育與戶外活動的首席財務官。我很高興有機會領導我們的財務組織走向我相信的光明未來。我自 2019 年以來一直在公司工作，我對我們為加強資產負債表和改善運營模式所做的工作感到自豪。 Academy 與當時不同，我對我們的長期增長計劃和資本配置理念感到興奮。

I will now walk you through the details of our second quarter results. Net sales were $1.58 billion, a 6.2% decline compared to the second quarter of 2022, with comparable sales of negative 7.5%. Sales were impacted by an 8.3% decline in transactions, partially offset by a 0.8% increase in ticket size. During the quarter, customers were more active during holiday periods and we saw an improvement in the comp during each month of the quarter. Gross margin rate was 35.6%, an increase of 180 basis points sequentially and 30 basis points higher than last year. The improvement compared to last year was driven by 88 basis points of lower freight costs, partially offset by a 21 basis point decline in merchandise margins and 37 basis points of higher shrink.

現在我將向您介紹我們第二季度業績的詳細信息。淨銷售額為 15.8 億美元，較 2022 年第二季度下降 6.2%，可比銷售額為負 7.5%。銷售量受到交易量下降 8.3% 的影響，但門票規模增加 0.8% 部分抵消了這一影響。在本季度，客戶在假期期間更加活躍，我們看到該季度每個月的薪酬都有所改善。毛利率為35.6%，比上一季度增長180個基點，比去年提高30個基點。與去年相比，貨運成本下降 88 個基點，部分被商品利潤率下降 21 個基點和收縮率上升 37 個基點所抵消。

Our merchandise margins improved sequentially as we benefited from our ongoing efforts to manage inventory through system capabilities, price optimization, and localization. We saw a 42 basis-point sequential improvement in shrink driven by actions taken to detect and deter losses. We continue to be able to operate at substantially higher gross margin rates even in a challenging environment.

我們的商品利潤率連續提高，因為我們不斷努力通過系統功能、價格優化和本地化來管理庫存。我們看到，由於採取檢測和阻止損失的行動，收縮率連續改善了 42 個基點。即使在充滿挑戰的環境中，我們仍然能夠以大幅提高的毛利率運營。

During the quarter, SG&A expenses were $352.5 million or 22.3% of net sales, an increase of 220 basis points compared to the second quarter of 2022. This deleverage is primarily driven by investments we are making in our long-range plan. We are investing in new stores, omnichannel, IT, and digital marketing projects that support our growth initiatives. Approximately 80% of this quarter's SG&A dollar increase is related to growth investments. When compared to Q1 of this year, SG&A expenses were 230 basis points lower as a percentage of sales. As we discussed during our first quarter call, we focused on aligning our expenses with our revised sales guidance and the sequential improvement of our expenses as a percentage of sales reflects the hard work done across the organization to rightsize our spending.

本季度，SG&A 費用為3.525 億美元，占淨銷售額的22.3%，與2022 年第二季度相比增加了220 個基點。這種去槓桿化主要是由我們在長期計劃中進行的投資推動的。我們正在投資新店、全渠道、IT 和數字營銷項目，以支持我們的增長計劃。本季度 SG&A 美元增長的大約 80% 與增長投資相關。與今年第一季度相比，SG&A 費用佔銷售額的百分比降低了 230 個基點。正如我們在第一季度電話會議中討論的那樣，我們的重點是使我們的支出與修訂後的銷售指導保持一致，並且我們的支出佔銷售額百分比的連續改善反映了整個組織為調整支出規模所做的努力。

Examples of areas of the business we have focused on rightsizing include flexing store and distribution labor hours based on revised sales and inventory receipt expectations. Targeted distribution scheduling during nonpeak times and scaling back on projects that are not aligned with long-term growth strategies or current year sales growth.

我們重點關注的業務領域的例子包括根據修訂後的銷售和庫存收貨預期靈活調整商店和分銷工時。在非高峰時段進行有針對性的分銷計劃，並縮減與長期增長戰略或當年銷售增長不相符的項目。

Net income was $157.1 million or 9.9% of sales, a 130 basis point decrease from the second quarter of 2022, resulting in GAAP diluted earnings per share of $2.01, adjusted diluted earnings per share were $2.09.

淨利潤為 1.571 億美元，佔銷售額的 9.9%，較 2022 年第二季度下降 130 個基點，導致 GAAP 攤薄每股收益為 2.01 美元，調整後攤薄每股收益為 2.09 美元。

Moving to the balance sheet. At the end of the quarter, we had $311 million in cash and no outstanding borrowings on our $1 billion credit facility. Academy generated $191 million in net cash from operating activities during the second quarter. This is a 19% increase compared to the second quarter of last year. We deployed this cash to invest in our growth initiatives and to repurchase approximately 2 million shares for $107.3 million and pay out $6.9 million in dividends. The Board has approved a dividend of $0.09 per share payable on October 11, 2023, to stockholders of record as of September 13, 2023.

轉向資產負債表。截至本季度末，我們擁有 3.11 億美元現金，10 億美元信貸額度中沒有未償還借款。 Academy 第二季度運營活動產生的淨現金為 1.91 億美元。與去年第二季度相比，增長了 19%。我們將這筆現金用於投資我們的增長計劃，並以 1.073 億美元的價格回購約 200 萬股股票，並支付 690 萬美元的股息。董事會已批准於 2023 年 10 月 11 日向截至 2023 年 9 月 13 日在冊股東派發每股 0.09 美元的股息。

Capital expenditures were $69.3 million. For the full year, we still expect to spend between $200 million and $250 million.

資本支出為 6,930 萬美元。我們仍預計全年支出在 2 億至 2.5 億美元之間。

With that, I will turn the call over to Michael to provide an update on some of our key initiatives and our full year guidance. Michael?

接下來，我將把電話轉給邁克爾，以提供我們一些關鍵舉措和全年指導的最新信息。邁克爾？

Thanks, Carl. Good morning, everyone. I want to say congratulations to Carl on his promotion to Chief Financial Officer. He has been a core member of Academy's finance organization for the last several years. During that time, Carl has been a key driver of our financial performance. I know that Carl and his team will continue to be excellent financial stewards of the business as we move forward with our long-range plan.

謝謝，卡爾。大家，早安。我想祝賀卡爾晉升為首席財務官。過去幾年他一直是學院財務組織的核心成員。在那段時間裡，卡爾一直是我們財務業績的關鍵推動者。我知道，隨著我們推進長期計劃，卡爾和他的團隊將繼續成為企業優秀的財務管理者。

I'd like to take some time to update everyone on the progress of a few key initiatives that will drive the long-range growth plan we described during our Investor Day this past April. As a reminder, the key components of the growth plan are: First, to open new stores to expand the store base by 50% in existing and new markets; second, to build a more powerful omnichannel business; third, to drive our existing business by improving service and productivity in our stores, strengthening our merchandising, and attracting and engaging customers through communication, content and experiences; fourth, to leverage and scale our supply chain and to achieve these objectives by building the best team in retail.

我想花一些時間向大家介紹一些關鍵舉措的進展情況，這些舉措將推動我們在今年四月的投資者日期間描述的長期增長計劃。需要提醒的是，增長計劃的關鍵組成部分是：首先，開設新店，將現有市場和新市場的門店基數擴大 50%；第二，打造更強大的全渠道業務；第三，通過改善我們商店的服務和生產力、加強我們的推銷以及通過溝通、內容和體驗吸引和吸引客戶來推動我們現有的業務；第四，利用和擴展我們的供應鏈，並通過建立零售業最好的團隊來實現這些目標。

I'll start with our new store initiative, which we expect will be the largest driver of sales and profit growth over the next few years. As a reminder, all of our mature stores are profitable and collectively have sector-leading store productivity metrics. We opened 9 stores in 2022. And even though they opened in a challenging economic environment, they are, as a group, meeting expectations and already positively contributing to EBITDA. As I have said in the past, 2022 was a test-and-learn year, and we are in the very early innings of this initiative. While our current new store pro forma assumes approximately $18 million of sales in year 1, inclusive of omnichannel sales, we have learned that new market stores need time to build brand awareness and may have longer sales maturity ramps, while stores in existing markets generally come out of the gate faster.

我將從我們的新店計劃開始，我們預計該計劃將成為未來幾年銷售和利潤增長的最大推動力。提醒一下，我們所有成熟的商店都實現盈利，並且共同擁有行業領先的商店生產力指標。我們在 2022 年開設了 9 家門店。儘管它們是在充滿挑戰的經濟環境中開業的，但作為一個整體，它們滿足了預期，並已經為 EBITDA 做出了積極貢獻。正如我過去所說，2022 年是測試和學習的一年，我們正處於這一舉措的早期階段。雖然我們目前的新店預計第一年銷售額約為1800 萬美元（包括全渠道銷售），但我們了解到，新市場商店需要時間來建立品牌知名度，並且可能有更長的銷售成熟度，而現有市場的商店通常會更快地走出國門。

Our sample size is limited and the current economic environment is challenging but we continue to learn and refine our expectations and processes with the goal of making each new store opening better than the last one. So far, we are pleased with the learnings that we have implemented. Given the positive preliminary results of the stores we opened in 2022, we are confident that we can take our unique Academy brand, concept and business model to many new markets with great success.

我們的樣本量有限，當前的經濟環境充滿挑戰，但我們繼續學習和完善我們的期望和流程，目標是讓每一家新店開張都比上一家更好。到目前為止，我們對所實施的經驗感到滿意。鑑於我們在 2022 年開設的商店取得了積極的初步成果，我們有信心能夠將我們獨特的 Academy 品牌、概念和商業模式帶到許多新市場並取得巨大成功。

In the second quarter, we opened 1 store in Peoria, Illinois, which was our second store opening this year. We have 6 scheduled openings in Q3, including our first store in the Indianapolis, Indiana area, which opened last Friday. We are on track to open another 5 to 6 stores in Q4. Steve and Carl mentioned the challenging economic environment, but I want to emphasize that in spite of these challenges, we are able to fund store growth with our existing strong cash flow. As of today, we are only in 18 states, so we have a large runway for growth in front of us.

第二季度，我們在伊利諾伊州皮奧里亞開設了 1 家門店，這是我們今年開設的第二家門店。我們計劃在第三季度開設 6 家門店，其中包括上週五開業的位於印第安納州印第安納波利斯地區的第一家門店。我們有望在第四季度再開設 5 至 6 家商店。史蒂夫和卡爾提到了充滿挑戰的經濟環境，但我想強調的是，儘管面臨這些挑戰，我們仍然能夠利用現有的強勁現金流為商店的增長提供資金。截至目前，我們的業務僅覆蓋 18 個州，因此我們面前有廣闊的增長跑道。

In addition, with other retailers scaling back their outdoor product offerings, there are many markets that are favorable for market share gains. Our past experience has confirmed that our market research and due diligence identified locations where stores will be successful for the long term.

此外，隨著其他零售商縮減戶外產品供應，許多市場都有利於市場份額的增長。我們過去的經驗證實，我們的市場研究和盡職調查確定了商店將長期成功的地點。

We launched our new customer data platform in July to drive further sales growth. This valuable tool will allow us to aggregate customer data from multiple sources within our organization, creating a comprehensive view of our customers. With this new perspective, we will have the ability to create and develop a robust customer portfolio segmented by cohorts, shopping behaviors, outdoor interest, sports fandom and many other filters. We can use this refined customer data to proactively design highly targeted marketing campaigns tailored to specific customer behaviors and interests. We anticipate that connecting with our customers on this deeper level will drive an increase in traffic, conversion rates, and loyalty. We look forward to updating you about this exciting new capability as we develop and refine it further.

我們於 7 月推出了新的客戶數據平台，以推動銷售進一步增長。這個有價值的工具將使我們能夠匯總組織內多個來源的客戶數據，從而創建客戶的全面視圖。有了這個新的視角，我們將有能力創建和開發一個強大的客戶組合，按群體、購物行為、戶外興趣、體育迷和許多其他過濾器進行細分。我們可以利用這些精確的客戶數據，主動設計針對特定客戶行為和興趣的高度針對性的營銷活動。我們預計，在更深層次上與客戶建立聯繫將推動流量、轉化率和忠誠度的增加。隨著我們進一步開發和完善這一令人興奮的新功能，我們期待向您通報這一令人興奮的新功能的最新情況。

Finally, a brief update on our supply chain initiatives. As we discussed at our Investor Day in April, part of our long-range plan is to generate 100 basis points of adjusted EBIT margin improvement from our supply chain. We intend to do this by increasing our unit productivity, leveraging existing distribution capacity, lowering our e-commerce fulfillment costs, decreasing lead times, and leveraging transportation costs. A major component of achieving this goal is the implementation of a new warehouse management system in partnership with Manhattan. We are on track to convert 1 of our distribution centers to the new system in 2024. We are also taking other steps to improve supply chain logistics and productivity by implementing consistent processes and procedures, increasing cross-stocking and multi-store deliveries and investing in technology to improve visibility of product flow. I expect us to achieve our EBIT margin contribution goal by the end of the long-range plan.

最後，簡要介紹我們的供應鏈計劃。正如我們在 4 月份的投資者日討論的那樣，我們長期計劃的一部分是使我們的供應鏈調整後的息稅前利潤率提高 100 個基點。我們打算通過提高單位生產力、利用現有分銷能力、降低電子商務履行成本、縮短交貨時間和利用運輸成本來實現這一目標。實現這一目標的一個主要組成部分是與曼哈頓合作實施新的倉庫管理系統。我們有望在 2024 年將我們的 1 個配送中心轉變為新系統。我們還採取其他措施，通過實施一致的流程和程序、增加交叉庫存和多店配送以及投資於提高產品流程可視性的技術。我預計我們將在長期計劃結束時實現息稅前利潤貢獻目標。

To sum it all up, based on our results, current trends and back half expectations, we are reiterating our full year sales and net income guidance while updating our earnings per share forecast to reflect the share repurchase activity in the second quarter. Net sales are still expected to range from $6.17 billion to $6.36 billion with comparable sales ranging from negative 7.5% to negative 4.5%. Gross margin rate between 34% and 34.4%. GAAP income before taxes is still expected to range from $675 million to $750 million and GAAP net income between $520 million and $575 million.

總而言之，根據我們的業績、當前趨勢和下半年預期，我們重申全年銷售和淨利潤指引，同時更新每股收益預測，以反映第二季度的股票回購活動。預計淨銷售額仍將在 61.7 億美元至 63.6 億美元之間，可比銷售額將在負 7.5% 至負 4.5% 之間。毛利率在34%至34.4%之間。預計 GAAP 稅前收入仍將在 6.75 億美元至 7.5 億美元之間，GAAP 淨利潤將在 5.2 億美元至 5.75 億美元之間。

GAAP diluted earnings per share are now expected to range from $6.65 per share to $7.35 per share. Adjusted diluted earnings per share are expected to range from $6.95 per share to $7.65 per share. The earnings per share estimates are calculated on a share count of 78.1 million diluted weighted average shares outstanding for the full year and do not include any potential future repurchase activity.

目前，GAAP 攤薄後每股收益預計為每股 6.65 美元至 7.35 美元。調整後的稀釋每股收益預計為每股 6.95 美元至 7.65 美元。每股收益預測是根據全年已發行稀釋加權平均股數 7,810 萬股計算的，不包括任何潛在的未來回購活動。

Finally, we still expect to generate $400 million to $450 million of adjusted free cash flow.

最後，我們仍預計將產生 4 億至 4.5 億美元的調整後自由現金流。

With that, I will now turn the call back over to Steve for his closing remarks.

現在，我將把電話轉回給史蒂夫，讓他發表結束語。

Thanks, Michael. As we move forward, I think it's important to note that despite some short-term headwinds, Academy is a much stronger company than we were before the pandemic. Our sales and gross margin rate remained significantly above 2019 levels driven by the operational improvements made over the past few years that have structurally enhanced our earnings power. We have a strong and flexible balance sheet, a very productive 4-wall operating model that is scalable and transportable, a solid team with a track record of executing and delivering results and high customer affinity within our core markets.

謝謝，邁克爾。在我們前進的過程中，我認為值得注意的是，儘管存在一些短期阻力，但學院是一家比大流行之前更強大的公司。由於過去幾年的運營改進從結構上增強了我們的盈利能力，我們的銷售額和毛利率仍顯著高於 2019 年的水平。我們擁有強大而靈活的資產負債表、非常高效且可擴展和可移植的四壁運營模式、一支在執行和交付成果方面擁有良好記錄的堅實團隊以及在核心市場內具有高度客戶親和力的團隊。

Longer term, we believe we have a compelling growth strategy with multiple ways to capture market share and drive growth through new store expansion into adjacent new and existing markets. We have an improving dot-com business with significant upside, and we have the ability to continue to refine and drive more productivity out of our existing store base. Most importantly of all, this growth can be funded from the free cash flow generated by the business while also returning value to our shareholders through dividends and strategic share repurchases.

從長遠來看，我們相信我們擁有引人注目的增長戰略，通過多種方式來佔領市場份額，並通過新店擴張到鄰近的新市場和現有市場來推動增長。我們的網絡業務正在不斷改善，具有顯著的上升空間，並且我們有能力繼續完善現有的商店基礎並提高生產力。最重要的是，這種增長可以通過業務產生的自由現金流來資助，同時還可以通過股息和戰略性股票回購為股東回報價值。

In closing, I'd like to thank all of the Academy team members for their dedication and hard work in helping deliver an outstanding experience to our customers.

最後，我要感謝所有學院團隊成員的奉獻精神和辛勤工作，幫助我們為客戶提供卓越的體驗。

Now let's go, have fun out there. We'll now open the call up for your questions.

現在我們走吧，去那裡玩得開心。我們現在將打開電話詢問您的問題。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Daniel Imbro with Stephens.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 Daniel Imbro 和 Stephens 的線路。

Yes. I want to start just broadly on the consumer trends that you're seeing. We've talked in the past about Academy benefiting from a more discerning customer, maybe looking for value. Do you see any signs of that this quarter, whether it was new customers shopping the store, any trade down within the store? And then also within the quarter's kind of improvement, was any of that attributable to the new marketing plan? Or is that really going to be on the comp for the back half of the year when you think about the sales cadence?

是的。我想從您所看到的消費趨勢開始。我們過去曾討論過學院受益於更具洞察力的客戶，也許是在尋找價值。本季度您是否看到任何跡象，無論是新顧客在商店購物，還是商店內有任何折扣？然後，在本季度的改善中，這是否歸因於新的營銷計劃？或者當你考慮銷售節奏時，這真的會出現在今年下半年的計算中嗎？

Dan, this is Steve. I'll start with the first part. I'm sure Michael will jump in. We definitely see the customer under stress and under pressure. We see that reflected a couple of different ways. We talked about customer gravitating towards value. We see that in terms of growth in private label, which represents kind of the value-end of our assortment. We see them also taking a bigger advantage of deals or clearance when we sell that. So there definitely is a move towards customers seeking out value. On the flip side, we also see them seeking out newness, right? We see them going after things that our new and innovative, to a market like we talked about BOGG BAGS or OOFOS slides. That's why we're excited about some of the new brands that we're launching this fall between L.L.Bean and Fanatics and ACL. So that's definitely a trend we've seen.

丹，這是史蒂夫。我將從第一部分開始。我確信邁克爾會加入進來。我們確實看到客戶處於壓力之下。我們看到這反映了幾種不同的方式。我們討論了客戶被價值所吸引。我們看到自有品牌的增長，這代表了我們品種的價值端。當我們出售產品時，我們看到他們也利用了交易或清倉的更大優勢。因此，客戶肯定會尋求價值。另一方面，我們也看到他們尋求新鮮事物，對嗎？我們看到他們追求新的和創新的東西，進入像我們談到的 BOGG BAGS 或 OOFOS 幻燈片這樣的市場。這就是為什麼我們對今年秋天 L.L.Bean 與 Fanatics 和 ACL 推出的一些新品牌感到興奮。所以這絕對是我們看到的趨勢。

We've also seen the customer shop during kind of the key appointment shopping time periods and aggregate the purchases there. And then we've also seen them kind of -- when we get past those key shopping time periods, pull back a little bit, and that's really how we planned our marketing, our promotions throughout Q2 and all the way through the remainder of the year.

我們還看到客戶在關鍵的預約購物時間段內購物，並在那裡匯總購買的商品。然後我們也看到了這樣的情況——當我們過了那些關鍵的購物時間段時，稍微回撤一下，這就是我們在整個第二季度以及整個剩餘時間裡計劃營銷、促銷的方式。年。

In regards to the targeted market from the CDP, that was really put in place really late in the quarter. So we really didn't get any benefit out of that. We think we'll start seeing some benefit of that in the back half of the year.

至於 CDP 的目標市場，這一點在本季度末就已經落實到位。所以我們確實沒有從中得到任何好處。我們認為我們將在今年下半年開始看到一些好處。

Yes. Danny, on the CDP, we've been flying a propeller plane in a dog fight holding our own against fighter jets for the past 3 or 4 years. And now we have our own fighter jet. And we're learning to fly it. Most of that benefit will start to come next year. We should see a little bit this year, but it will not be a meaningful driver of comp this year. The big benefit will come in the out years.

是的。丹尼，在 CDP 中，過去三四年來，我們一直在駕駛螺旋槳飛機與戰鬥機進行激烈的戰鬥。現在我們有了自己的戰鬥機。我們正在學習駕駛它。大部分好處將於明年開始顯現。今年我們應該會看到一些，但這不會成為今年競爭的一個有意義的驅動因素。巨大的好處將在未來幾年出現。

Super helpful. And then maybe a follow-up just on gross margins. Obviously, there was discussion from peers around maybe higher promotions. Your margins held in well. I'm curious, when you look at your competitive pricing analysis, are the peers coming down to where Academy is priced? Are they actually trying to undercut you on certain items? Just any granularity on that or changing promotional backdrop? And then tied in to that, you know the shrink improved, I think, a little bit quarter-over-quarter. What was the main driver there? Anything worth calling out there for the back half?

超級有幫助。然後也許只是毛利率的後續行動。顯然，同行們就可能獲得更高的晉升進行了討論。您的利潤保持良好。我很好奇，當您查看競爭性定價分析時，同行是否會考慮學院的定價？他們真的想在某些項目上削弱你的價格嗎？只是關於這個或改變促銷背景的任何粒度嗎？與此相關的是，我認為收縮率比上一季度有所改善。那裡的主要驅動力是什麼？後半部分有什麼值得一提的嗎？

Yes, I'll start and answer the question on promotions, and then we'll have Carl jump in on shrink. Definitely, it's more promotional out there this year than it was a year ago at this time. We talked about in the past call, where we really started seeing promotions creep into the marketplace in the back half of last year and then carried forward into the first half of this year. That being said, as I just said earlier, we're definitely seeing those promotions most effective during those key shopping moments. So we're certainly leaning into that as we move forward. You know that's -- we did have a 20 basis point erosion in merch margin that came from some additional promotions. But probably the best thing that we've done to help manage through that is our inventory management.

是的，我將首先回答有關晉升的問題，然後我們將讓卡爾介入討論心理醫生的問題。當然，今年的促銷活動比一年前的這個時候更多。我們在過去的電話會議中談到，去年下半年我們真正開始看到促銷活動進入市場，然後延續到今年上半年。話雖這麼說，正如我剛才所說，我們肯定會看到這些促銷活動在那些關鍵的購物時刻最有效。因此，隨著我們的前進，我們肯定會傾向於這一點。您知道，由於一些額外的促銷活動，我們的商品利潤率確實下降了 20 個基點。但我們為幫助管理這一問題所做的最好的事情可能就是我們的庫存管理。

When you think about all the strong disciplines we put in place in terms of our planning and allocation, assortment planning, all those things have really helped us control inventories and control margins and not see the same erosion that maybe other people have seen.

當你想到我們在規劃和分配、分類規劃方面製定的所有嚴格紀律時，所有這些事情確實幫助我們控制了庫存和控制利潤，並且沒有看到其他人可能看到的同樣的侵蝕。

Let me -- I'll take shrink. It's a real issue. In spite of the headwinds we faced from higher shrink, as Steve said, we were able to meaningfully expand our gross margin rate compared to last year. We sequentially improved our gross margin from last quarter. We've taken a lot of actions, many of which are confidential and frankly, clandestine in nature, and we can't talk about many of them, but they're working.

讓我——我去接受心理治療。這是一個真正的問題。正如史蒂夫所說，儘管我們面臨著更高的收縮帶來的阻力，但與去年相比，我們仍能夠有意義地提高毛利率。我們的毛利率較上季度連續提高。我們採取了很多行動，其中許多是保密的，坦率地說，本質上是秘密的，其中許多我們不能談論，但它們正在發揮作用。

One thing that we do from a process standpoint is we count our stores regularly throughout the year. And we take our high-strength store inventories early in the year, that gives us some chance to adjust them and to take some actions and perhaps count them again. And so we have visibility into trends throughout the year. It's a difficult environment. I would tell you that good leaders adjust, and that's what we've done.

從流程的角度來看，我們做的一件事是我們全年定期統計我們的商店。我們在今年年初統計了高強度的商店庫存，這給了我們一些機會來調整它們並採取一些行動，也許還可以重新盤點它們。因此我們可以了解全年的趨勢。這是一個困難的環境。我會告訴你，優秀的領導者會調整，這就是我們所做的。

I do have to take the time to thank all of the Academy team members in our stores, the folks in the blue shirts that have been so attentive in helping us manage these issues. They want to do what they do best, and that's help customers have fun. And the best way to prevent shrink is to provide great customer service in the stores. We can do that and provide more labor and more customer service because our stores are significantly more productive than our peers. So we can have people in the stores helping customers.

我確實必須花時間感謝我們商店中所有的學院團隊成員，那些穿藍色襯衫的人，他們非常細心地幫助我們解決這些問題。他們想做自己最擅長的事情，那就是幫助客戶享受樂趣。防止縮水的最佳方法是在商店中提供優質的客戶服務。我們可以做到這一點，並提供更多的勞動力和更多的客戶服務，因為我們的商店比同行的生產力要高得多。這樣我們就可以讓商店裡的人幫助顧客。

Our LP department has worked very hard with law enforcement. We've got great partnerships with law enforcement. And we've been able to, frankly, help intervene and take down some organized crime rings that have helped shrink. So last thing I'll mention here on this issue because it is a big issue. We've heard a lot of people talking about it. If you reflect back on many challenges facing retailers over the past few years, we'll start with the COVID pandemic. During the peak of the COVID crisis, I believe we manage that better than anybody else. We got our stores opened more quickly. We were able to help the community get back on their feet more quickly.

我們的LP部門在執法方面非常努力。我們與執法部門建立了良好的合作夥伴關係。坦率地說，我們已經能夠幫助干預並打擊一些有助於縮小規模的有組織犯罪團伙。最後我要在這裡提到這個問題，因為這是一個大問題。我們聽到很多人談論它。如果您回顧過去幾年零售商面臨的許多挑戰，我們將從新冠疫情開始。在新冠危機最嚴重的時期，我相信我們比其他任何人都處理得更好。我們的商店開業速度更快。我們能夠幫助社區更快地恢復正常。

If you look at ballooning freight costs over the past few years. We've managed that better than most other folks in the space. If you look at back to a year ago, when many retailers were overbought and didn't manage their inventory well, we did that better than others. We're going to do the same with shrink. We have a great team. We're nimble and we're going to manage it. We're not going to use it an excuse to not hit our gross margin goals.

如果你看看過去幾年不斷膨脹的貨運成本。我們在這方面比該領域的大多數其他人做得更好。如果你回顧一年前，當時許多零售商都超買並且沒有很好地管理他們的庫存，我們比其他零售商做得更好。我們將對收縮做同樣的事情。我們有一支很棒的團隊。我們很靈活，我們會處理好它。我們不會以此為藉口不達到我們的毛利率目標。

Our next question comes from the line of Greg Melich with Evercore.

我們的下一個問題來自 Greg Melich 和 Evercore 的對話。

First, I wanted to -- just look at the comp. Were transaction counts getting better sequentially and did that drive the negative 7.5% comp? Or was it more average ticket?

首先，我想——看看比較。交易數量是否連續好轉？這是否導致了 7.5% 的負收益？還是更普通的門票？

So for the quarter transactions, which is also a proxy for us, the traffic was down high single digits, AUR up slightly, units per transaction down slightly. We did talk about how the comps successfully got better as the quarter progressed. You can [defer] traffic improve steadily as we -- got less negative as we got through the quarter.

因此，對於本季度的交易量（這也是我們的一個指標）而言，流量下降了高個位數，AUR 略有上升，每筆交易的單位數略有下降。我們確實討論了隨著本季度的進展，比較結果如何成功變得更好。您可以[推遲]流量的穩步改善，因為我們在整個季度中的負面影響有所減少。

And it sounds like given the -- I guess, the midpoint of the guide now would have you sort of a negative 4.5%, 5% comp in the back half that's -- is that where we're running now?

聽起來，我想，指南的中點現在會讓你在後半部分有 4.5%、5% 的負補償，這就是我們現在正在運行的地方？

So we obviously don't give inter-quarter guidance, but the performance of the business continues to be within the guidance range that we've shared.

因此，我們顯然不會給出季度間指導，但業務業績仍然在我們分享的指導範圍內。

Got it. And then I want to follow up on this -- thanks for the answer on shrink that was good and pretty holistic. Freight benefits or supply chain was a benefit that helped grow gross margin or hold stabilize it. Could you quantify that? And maybe sort of give us an idea as to how you're thinking about that into the back half?

知道了。然後我想跟進這個問題——感謝您對收縮的回答，它很好而且非常全面。貨運效益或供應鍊是有助於提高毛利率或保持毛利率穩定的一項效益。你能量化一下嗎？也許可以讓我們了解一下您在後半段是如何考慮這個問題的？

Yes, Greg, this is Carl. So freight was a tailwind of 88 basis points during the quarter, quarter-over-quarter improvement. So up 30 basis points in gross margin, the puts and takes on that were freight was a positive, 88. Merch was a negative 21, shrink was a negative 37. And we continue within the guidance to see that as a tailwind throughout fall.

是的，格雷格，這是卡爾。因此，本季度貨運量增長了 88 個基點，環比有所改善。因此，毛利率上升了 30 個基點，運費為正，88。商品為負，21，收縮為負 37。我們繼續在指導範圍內將其視為整個秋季的順風車。

Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Horvers with JPMorgan.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Christopher Horvers。

Can you talk about what you're seeing in some of the key COVID winning categories, whether it's hunt or exercise equipment, bike and so forth? Are you seeing the bottom form in the business such that we can start to look forward to, improvement in comp and then ultimately positive as you think about the out year? Or are those like basically relative to 2019, is -- are things stabilizing and we can start to think about the business more seasonally?

您能否談談您在一些關鍵的新冠獲勝類別中看到的情況，無論是狩獵還是健身器材、自行車等？您是否看到了業務的底部形式，以便我們可以開始期待，補償的改善，然後當您考慮過去的一年時最終會產生積極的影響？或者說基本上是相對於 2019 年而言，情況是否趨於穩定，我們可以開始更季節性地考慮業務？

Yes. On a key Y-o-Y basis, when you look at just the comparison of those bigger business, big ticket businesses, some of the search categories you talked about, they're still challenged, right? I mean our fitness business continues to be -- fitness equipment, in particular, continues to be pretty challenged. The hunt business you've talked about between (inaudible) and will continue to be challenged. As we get through this year, the comps get a little less daunting the further we get through the year. So we're counting on some of that improvement as we move through the year.

是的。在關鍵的同比基礎上，當你只看那些更大的業務、大額業務、你談到的一些搜索類別的比較時，它們仍然面臨挑戰，對嗎？我的意思是，我們的健身業務仍然面臨很大的挑戰，尤其是健身器材。你們之間談論過的狩獵業務（聽不清）並將繼續受到挑戰。當我們度過今年時，我們越過這一年，比賽就會變得不那麼令人畏懼。因此，我們希望在這一年中取得一些進展。

But going back to the latter part of your question, when you look at these businesses versus 2019, they're still all really, really healthy. When you look at like the hunt business. It's still up in the mid-40s versus '19. And if you take a category beneath the surface are like ammo, it's still up in like 96% versus where it was in '19. So it's certainly falling back a little bit from the activity we've seen in the last couple of years, but still maintaining a really healthy spread versus pre-pandemic. And once we kind of see this business start to stabilize, and I think it is going to stabilize at a higher level than where it was in '19, I think that's when we'll start being able to move more towards growth from a total company perspective.

但回到你問題的後半部分，當你對比 2019 年這些企業時，你會發現它們仍然非常非常健康。當你看看狩獵行業時。與 19 世紀相比，它仍處於 40 年代中期。如果你看一下表面之下的一個類別，比如彈藥，它與 19 年相比仍然上升了 96%。因此，與過去幾年我們看到的活動相比，它肯定有所回落，但與大流行前相比仍然保持著真正健康的傳播。一旦我們看到這項業務開始穩定下來，我認為它將穩定在比 19 年更高的水平，我認為那時我們將開始能夠從總體上轉向更多的增長公司視角。

So I guess just focusing on that. So in these or categories broadly in the business, do you feel more confident today than a quarter ago that we are getting to that point of, okay we're seeing a bottom form and you have better visibility as you look forward?

所以我想只關注這一點。因此，在這些或廣泛的業務類別中，您今天是否比一個季度前更有信心，我們已經達到了這樣的程度，好吧，我們看到了底部形式，並且您對未來有更好的了解？

They're becoming more predictable for us. We certainly can -- are getting a lot closer depend in terms of help forecasting those businesses. They're still running negative though. I mean I don't want to not mislead you on that. They're running negative. But as we get through the year, these headwinds start to diminish a little bit. And so that's what really we're counting on as part of our guidance.

對我們來說，它們變得更加可預測。我們當然可以——在幫助預測這些業務方面越來越依賴。但他們的表現仍然是負面的。我的意思是我不想在這一點上誤導你。他們的表現是負面的。但隨著這一年的過去，這些不利因素開始有所減弱。因此，這才是我們真正指望的指導的一部分。

Chris, 1 other thing. I think if we're looking out long term, and again, we're focused on the long term. We're more differentiated in this space than we were a few years ago. I think there's fewer competitors and some of the largest competitors have really backed away from this space. So short term, definitely, as Steve said, we're still running down in some of those categories. It is stabilizing. I think long term, we've got a great opportunity to pick up meaningful share and new customers as we really support and lean into this category.

克里斯，還有一件事。我認為，如果我們著眼長遠，那麼我們就會專注於長期。與幾年前相比，我們在這個領域更加與眾不同。我認為競爭對手越來越少，而且一些最大的競爭對手確實已經退出了這個領域。因此，短期內，正如史蒂夫所說，我們在某些類別中的表現仍然不佳。它正在穩定下來。我認為從長遠來看，我們有一個很好的機會來獲得有意義的份額和新客戶，因為我們真正支持並傾向於這一類別。

Yes, a lot of the categories that you're talking about have major cross shop across the company. And ultimately, even though we're fighting through some short-term chop on this, we believe the diversified assortment, the complementary nature of the businesses and how they cross shop is the right place for us to be. We're a sports and outdoor retailer. And candidly, as more people pull back from the outdoor space, we become maybe the only player in this space with a large footprint.

是的，您所談論的許多類別在整個公司都有主要的交叉商店。最終，儘管我們正在努力解決一些短期問題，但我們相信多元化的品種、業務的互補性以及它們的交叉銷售方式是我們的正確選擇。我們是一家運動和戶外用品零售商。坦率地說，隨著越來越多的人從戶外空間撤出，我們可能成為這個空間中唯一擁有大量足蹟的參與者。

Got it. And then my follow-up question is any help here on the back half in terms of cadence from a top line and gross margin perspective as we think about the models.

知道了。然後我的後續問題是，當我們考慮模型時，從營收和毛利率的角度來看，後半部分的節奏有什麼幫助。

Yes. No, I think our -- from a guidance perspective, we're comfortable with the annual guidance of down 7.5% to down 4.5%. The flexibility or the variability as you think about that is on consumer health. We're going to continue to lean into value. We're going to continue to lean into newness. It's completely related to consumer health. And on the margin guide from 34.4% down to 34.0%, we feel comfortable with that. We've delivered that consistently over the past 2 years. It's up 500 basis points since pre-COVID and all of those business disciplines that Steve kind of walked through of what we've -- this leadership team started doing in 2019 and really coming back to merchandise planning and allocation, the systems enhancements, planning and buy execution, open to buy discipline, having that markdown life cycle management, we're doing those consistently.

是的。不，我認為從指導的角度來看，我們對下降 7.5% 至 4.5% 的年度指導感到滿意。您所想到的靈活性或可變性關係到消費者的健康。我們將繼續傾向於價值。我們將繼續推陳出新。這完全關係到消費者的健康。根據利潤率指南從 34.4% 降至 34.0%，我們對此感到滿意。在過去的兩年裡，我們始終如一地實現了這一目標。自新冠疫情之前以來，已經上漲了 500 個基點，並且史蒂夫已經經歷了我們領導團隊在 2019 年開始做的所有業務規則，並真正回到了商品規劃和分配、系統增強、規劃上。購買執行、開放購買紀律、降價生命週期管理，我們一直在做這些。

That's what we're doing day in and day out as managing the business. And so we feel comfortable with the margin guide, and we've delivered it for the past 2 years.

這就是我們日復一日管理業務所做的事情。因此，我們對保證金指南感到滿意，並且我們已經在過去兩年中交付了它。

Our next question comes from the line of Kate McShane with Goldman Sachs.

我們的下一個問題來自高盛的凱特·麥克沙恩 (Kate McShane)。

This is Emily Ghosh on for Kate. We wondered how you were thinking about the overall health of the marketplace currently and into the second half of the year. It sounds like there are some areas where there's heavier inventory and we wondered how that might impact Academy.

我是艾米麗·戈什 (Emily Ghosh) 為凱特代言。我們想知道您如何看待當前和下半年市場的整體健康狀況。聽起來有些區域的庫存較多，我們想知道這會對學院產生什麼影響。

Yes. I mean, certainly, we've talked about we're very comfortable with where our inventory position is. We also know that competition sometimes has some issues out there and those problems can become our problems as they liquidate product. That being said, some of the headwinds you're talking about, there's definitely increased promotions out there, the heavy inventories you mentioned and customers are under pressure, right? There's -- the credit card debts higher than it's been. Inflation is real. But when you think about some of the other tailwinds we have, we've got this everyday value positioning that is kind of core and fundamental to who we are. And I think customers will continue to gravitate towards value.

是的。我的意思是，當然，我們已經談到我們對庫存狀況非常滿意。我們還知道，競爭有時會出現一些問題，當他們清算產品時，這些問題可能會成為我們的問題。話雖這麼說，你所說的一些不利因素，肯定是促銷活動增加了，你提到的大量庫存和客戶面臨壓力，對吧？信用卡債務比以往任何時候都高。通貨膨脹是真實存在的。但當你想到我們擁有的其他一些有利因素時，你會發現我們的日常價值定位是我們的核心和基礎。我認為客戶將繼續被價值所吸引。

We've got strong offerings of new brands and a really strong private label business that customers resonate with. So we've got some new things coming in. A combination of all those things. We feel like the guidance we gave is thoughtful and encompasses both an upside and the downside scenario. And we're just going to read the situation and react as we go much [have] been done all year.

我們擁有強大的新品牌產品和真正強大的自有品牌業務，能夠引起客戶的共鳴。所以我們引入了一些新東西。所有這些東西的組合。我們認為我們給出的指導是深思熟慮的，涵蓋了有利和不利的情況。我們將了解情況並根據全年所做的工作做出反應。

Yes. And going back to a year ago, there was, I think, a number of retailers weren't happy with their inventory positions at that time, and we certainly more than -- we're able to hold our own based on the strength of our inventory management. Reiterating what Steve said, we're in an environment where we certainly believe that value will be more important in the future than it is today than it was a year ago, and we think we're the best positioned to benefit from that.

是的。回到一年前，我認為，許多零售商對當時的庫存狀況並不滿意，我們當然能夠憑藉自身的實力保持自己的地位。我們的庫存管理。重申史蒂夫所說的，我們所處的環境我們當然相信，未來的價值將比今天比一年前更重要，而且我們認為我們最有能力從中受益。

At the risk of tripling up, our units are down 5% on a per store basis. We feel like we've really leaned into this inventory management thing. And we've been doing it consistently.

冒著漲三倍的風險，我們每家商店的銷量下降了 5%。我們覺得我們真的已經開始關注庫存管理了。我們一直在這樣做。

Our next question comes from the line of Robby Ohmes with Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的羅比·歐姆斯 (Robby Ohmes)。

This is Alex Perry on for Robby. Just first, could you give us some more color on how back-to-school is shaping up? Has the July momentum that you've seen sort of continued? And then I think the high end implies a same-store acceleration in the back half. Is that based on the trends you're currently seeing? And then what are sort of the buckets that were driving acceleration in the back half? And then also, I think you're lapping an Astros win as well. Can you just remind us how much of a headwind that could be to same-store sales, if that's not repeated?

我是亞歷克斯·佩里 (Alex Perry) 替補羅比 (Robby)。首先，您能給我們更多關於返校的情況嗎？您所看到的七月勢頭是否仍在繼續？然後我認為高端意味著後半段同店加速。這是基於您目前看到的趨勢嗎？那麼在後半段推動加速的是什麼類型的桶呢？而且，我認為你也贏得了太空人隊的勝利。您能否提醒我們，如果不重複這種情況，可能會對同店銷售造成多大的不利影響？

Lot wrapped up in that question. We'll do our best to tackle it. You know we -- as we said before, we don't give inter-quarter guidance. That being said, our back-to-school is earlier than a lot of other people. So our back-to-school really starts kind of in the back half of July. We already told you July was the best performing quarter for -- or best month of the quarter for us. A lot of those trends that we saw happen at the end of July carried into August in terms of strength in key back-to-school areas like youth apparel, footwear, backpacks, hydration, all those things were really strong for back-to-school for us.

洛特陷入了這個問題。我們將盡力解決它。正如我們之前所說，我們不提供季度間指導。話雖這麼說，我們的返校時間比很多其他人都要早。所以我們的返校活動實際上是在七月下半月開始的。我們已經告訴過您，七月是我們表現最好的季度，或者說是我們該季度表現最好的一個月。我們在 7 月底看到的許多趨勢都延續到了 8 月份，在返校季的關鍵領域，如青年服裝、鞋類、背包、水袋，所有這些東西對於返校季來說都非常強勁。我們的學校。

That being said, we still have a lot of the quarter ahead of us. We've talked about how we've seen the customer shop during those key appointment time periods. But once you get past back-to-school. Right now, we have kind of a kickoff the tailgating hunting season, then we go into a little bit of a lull in the later part of the quarter until we get to the holiday shopping time period. So we certainly got that modeled into our forecast.

話雖如此，本季度我們還有很長的路要走。我們已經討論了客戶在這些關鍵預約時間段購物的情況。但一旦你回到學校。現在，我們已經開始了尾隨狩獵季節，然後我們在本季度的後半段進入了一段平靜期，直到我們進入假日購物時間段。因此，我們當然將其納入了我們的預測中。

In terms of the Astros, we are up against Astros win. I hope you're not counting Astros out yet. We're tied for first place, I think, at this point in time. And we also, by the way, have the Ranger still in this as well as Brazos, I think, are still in the hunt. So we've got a lot of teams still in the hunt. And that's 1 of the kind of the fun things about the license business is that there's always something that happens, right? And while we certainly try to take those out of our forecast, we know that if we do get 1 of those teams to get into the world series and when the world series, that would be upside to what we're forecasting.

就太空人隊而言，我們面臨著太空人隊的勝利。我希望你還沒有把太空人隊排除在外。我認為，目前我們並列第一。順便說一句，我們還有遊騎兵和布拉索斯，我認為，仍在狩獵中。所以我們還有很多團隊仍在尋找。許可業務的有趣之處之一就是總會發生一些事情，對嗎？雖然我們確實試圖將這些排除在我們的預測之外，但我們知道，如果我們確實讓其中一支球隊進入世界大賽以及世界大賽的時間，那將比我們的預測有利。

And Alex, 1 more thing on the license business. We're not oddsmakers and we don't take the field and play the game. We like when the local teams win, but we don't really plan for that. No matter how strong, we think the seasons that they may have can be. So anything there that's beneficial to us is beneficial to the forecast.

亞歷克斯，還有一件關於許可業務的事情。我們不是賠率製造者，我們也不上場參加比賽。我們喜歡當地球隊獲勝，但我們並沒有真正為此計劃。無論多麼強大，我們認為他們可能擁有的賽季都可以。因此，任何對我們有利的事情都會對預測有利。

And then back to kind of the remainder of your question, the things we've talked about on the call that we think give us a belief that business is -- our forecast is achievable -- the focus on value that we have, leaning into the newness that we have, the new store initiatives where we've got somewhere between 14, 15 stores this year. We should have another 11, 12 open up in the back half of the year. That's going to be a tailwind for us. We start to anniversary some of the new store openings from last year. They start falling into the comps. So there's a lot of different things that give us a belief that our forecast is pretty solid for the back half of the year.

然後回到你問題的其餘部分，我們在電話會議上討論的事情讓我們相信業務是——我們的預測是可以實現的——關注我們擁有的價值，傾向於我們的新穎性，新店計劃，今年我們開設了14 到15 家商店。下半年我們應該還會開放 11、12 個。這對我們來說將是順風。我們開始慶祝去年一些新店開業的周年紀念日。他們開始陷入競爭。因此，有很多不同的因素讓我們相信我們對今年下半年的預測相當可靠。

I just want to say the forecast that we put out there, although noncomp, it includes 13 to 14 total new stores in this year.

我只想說一下我們的預測，儘管是非綜合性的，但今年的新店總數將達到 13 至 14 家。

Perfect. That's all really helpful. And then just on margins to follow up there. I think the high end of the guidance implies year-over-year increases in the back half what would sort of be the buckets of drivers there for 2H gross margin improvement? Maybe just give us some color in terms of how you're thinking about shrink versus freight versus the promo environment.

完美的。這一切都非常有幫助。然後就在邊緣跟進。我認為指導的高端意味著後半段的同比增長，推動第二季度毛利率改善的因素有哪些？也許只是給我們一些關於您如何考慮收縮、貨運和促銷環境的信息。

Yes. I mean the 34% to 34.4% annual actually represents a little bit of a give back from what we've had last year. It's still in that same general range. It's up 500 basis points to pre-pandemic. I think the 3 buckets that you saw this quarter, merch margins, shrink and freight are going to be the main players. We're not going to throw anything new H in the third quarter or the fourth quarter. We started seeing shrink start to turn last year beginning in the third quarter. We were up 40 basis points in the third quarter of FY '22 to the previous year.

是的。我的意思是，34% 到 34.4% 的年增長率實際上代表了我們去年的一點回饋。它仍然在相同的一般範圍內。比大流行前上漲了 500 個基點。我認為您在本季度看到的三個部分：商品利潤、損耗和運費將成為主要因素。我們不會在第三節或第四節推出任何新的H。從去年第三季度開始，我們開始看到收縮開始出現好轉。 2022 財年第三季度我們的增長率比去年同期上升了 40 個基點。

So Michael talking about taking those year-round physical inventories. We kind of got ahead of this a little bit. I'm not saying it's the environment is going to change, but we had already baked some of that into our accrual rate. With that being said, the second quarter was up 37%, approximately 40 basis points. From a merch margin standpoint, I think it begins and ends with inventory management, and just providing the customer with value options on stuff that they really want. And freight, as I previously stated, I think that's going to be a tailwind for fall. So that's what's embedded within the guidance.

所以邁克爾談到了全年的實物盤點。我們有點領先了一點。我並不是說環境會發生變化，但我們已經將其中的一些因素納入了我們的應計利率中。話雖如此，第二季度增長了 37%，約 40 個基點。從商品利潤的角度來看，我認為它始於和結束於庫存管理，並為客戶提供他們真正想要的東西的價值選擇。至於貨運，正如我之前所說，我認為這將成為秋季的順風車。這就是指南中所包含的內容。

Yes, just I would reiterate that point. We get this question every quarter around margin. And when you look back and you think about where we are as a company, I think we -- a couple of times we said it, we're a different company than we were pre-pandemic. We're sustaining right now at about 27% where we were in '19 from a sales perspective. The margin is about 500 basis points higher. And that's really built on the back of a lot of really strong meaningful operational changes that we've made to the business in terms of how we buy and allocate our regular price and markdown optimization work we do, the better size profiling we do in getting the right goods to the right stores.

是的，我只是重申這一點。我們每個季度都會收到這個關於利潤率的問題。當你回顧過去並思考我們作為一家公司的處境時，我認為我們——我們說過幾次，我們是一家與大流行前不同的公司。從銷售角度來看，我們現在維持在 19 年的 27% 左右。利潤率高出約 500 個基點。這實際上是建立在我們對業務做出的許多非常強大、有意義的運營變革的基礎上的，這些變革包括我們如何購買和分配我們的常規價格以及我們所做的降價優化工作，我們在獲得更好的尺寸分析方面所做的工作。將正確的商品運送到正確的商店。

We also think that mix should benefit us as the soft goods business starts to be kind of normalized and become a bigger percentage of the business, that provides a gross margin tailwind. Private brand becoming a bigger percentage of the business provides margin tailwind. So we feel like we've made the right moves long term to structurally improve the margin. Promotions are going to be what they're going to be. And we certainly participate in promotions during those time periods. But at our core, or an everyday value retailer we talked about on a previous call that roughly 75% of our sales come from regular price, which is driven by our value pricing, right?

我們還認為，隨著軟商品業務開始正常化並在業務中佔據更大的比例，這種組合應該對我們有利，這提供了毛利率的推動力。自有品牌在業務中所佔的比例越來越大，為利潤率帶來了推動力。因此，我們認為，從長遠來看，我們已經採取了正確的舉措，從結構上提高了利潤率。促銷活動將會是這樣的。我們當然會在這些時間段內參加促銷活動。但在我們的核心，或者我們在之前的電話會議中談到的日常價值零售商，我們大約 75% 的銷售額來自正常價格，這是由我們的價值定價驅動的，對嗎？

So promotions are out there. They're certainly going to be what they're going to be. We feel like we've got them planned appropriately. But we feel like the strength of the margin is structural and foundational and we're going to hold on to it.

所以促銷活動就在那裡。他們肯定會成為他們將成為的樣子。我們覺得我們已經對它們進行了適當的計劃。但我們認為利潤率的優勢是結構性和基礎性的，我們將堅持下去。

Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Chukumba with Loop Capital.

我們的下一個問題來自 Anthony Chukumba 與 Loop Capital 的對話。

To be respectful to my peers who may also want to ask questions on this call, I will just ask 1 question. So you talked about the SG&A expense and leverage drivers the new store investments, omnichannel, technology, and digital marketing. Obviously, the new store investments will continue, given the fact that you have a very aggressive new store opening plan. But I guess my question is, when do we start to anniversary the, I guess, the bulk of the omnichannel technology and digital marketing investments?

為了尊重可能也想在本次電話會議上提問的同事，我將只問 1 個問題。您談到了 SG&A 費用和槓桿驅動新店投資、全渠道、技術和數字營銷。顯然，鑑於您有非常積極的新店開業計劃，新店投資將會繼續。但我想我的問題是，我們什麼時候開始慶祝大部分全渠道技術和數字營銷投資的周年紀念日？

You say anniversary-ing the bulk of the -- I'm sorry, Anthony, 1 more time?

你說周年紀念日的大部分時間——對不起，安東尼，再來一次？

Yes. When do we start to anniversary the bulk of the omnichannel, technology, and digital marketing investments?

是的。我們什麼時候開始慶祝大部分全渠道、技術和數字營銷投資？

Anthony, it's Carl. When we launched our long-range plan back in April, we actually baked in about 100 basis points of expense deleverage into it. And it was really around the things that we viewed as strategic priorities to invest in new stores. We think there's a ton of white space there. Omni-channel capabilities, we think we have a lot of upside there and we're just starting to get into the cockpit of the fighter jet associated with the customer data platform. So I really think you can expect us to continue to lean into that. we're going to be responsive from an expense standpoint as we look at a challenged macroeconomic environment and that kind of always optimize our expense structure, but you're going to see us consistently leaning into investing in those areas throughout the long-range plan.

安東尼，是卡爾。當我們在 4 月份推出長期計劃時，我們實際上在其中加入了約 100 個基點的費用去槓桿化。這實際上是圍繞我們認為投資新店的戰略重點的事情。我們認為那裡有大量的空白。全渠道能力，我們認為我們有很多優勢，而且我們剛剛開始進入與客戶數據平台相關的戰鬥機駕駛艙。所以我真的認為你可以期待我們繼續致力於這一點。當我們面對充滿挑戰的宏觀經濟環境時，我們將從支出的角度做出反應，並且始終優化我們的支出結構，但你會看到我們在整個長期計劃中始終傾向於在這些領域進行投資。

Yes. I was going to say, I think, particularly in the realm of dot-com, the investment never stops, right? You're continually reinventing your site, adding new (inaudible) capabilities. We're adding some new (inaudible) capabilities. Currently, we're going to have several online in the next couple of weeks, which is a big win for us. So I don't think you're going to see us necessarily discontinue those investments or they're going to stop. They're going to be continual as we evolve the business. But we're going to be very thoughtful about where and how we invest those dollars and make sure that they really pay for themselves.

是的。我想說，我認為，特別是在互聯網領域，投資永遠不會停止，對吧？您不斷地重塑您的網站，添加新的（聽不清）功能。我們正在添加一些新的（聽不清）功能。目前，我們將在接下來的幾週內推出幾個在線版本，這對我們來說是一個巨大的勝利。因此，我認為我們不一定會停止這些投資，或者它們會停止。隨著我們業務的發展，它們將持續存在。但我們將非常仔細地考慮將這些資金投資到哪里以及如何投資，並確保它們真正物有所值。

This new marketing platform, I think we're really early things. As a matter of fact, I'd say we're at the start of the game on this one, and there's going to be more investment against that. But I guarantee you that everything we do, we run an ROIC against and we're going to get paid back in spades for those investments.

對於這個新的營銷平台，我認為我們確實處於早期階段。事實上，我想說我們在這方面還處於起步階段，並且將會有更多的投資。但我向你保證，我們所做的一切，我們都會運行投資回報率，並且我們將獲得這些投資的豐厚回報。

And funding those initiatives with existing cash flow. That's the -- 1 of the more important parts.

並利用現有現金流為這些舉措提供資金。這是更重要的部分之一。

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer.

我們的下一個問題來自布萊恩·內格爾和奧本海默的對話。

So I'll follow Anthony's lead and only ask 1 question as well, but with multiple parts. First off, congratulations, Carl. We look forward to working with you. So the question I have, look, you've done a fantastic job of managing the business through some cross products out there. Comps are still negative. The guidance you provided for balance sheet would suggest they stay negative through the year. So I guess the question I have is, how do we think about these negative comps? Is it -- what portion of it is lapping some of these post-pandemic type categories versus an underlying more challenged consumer? And then really, what are the -- as you're looking at the business beyond the current year, what are the building blocks to get back to that, say, steady positive comp for the company where it should be?

因此，我將遵循安東尼的指導，也只問 1 個問題，但有多個部分。首先，恭喜你，卡爾。我們期待著與您的合作。所以我的問題是，你在通過一些交叉產品管理業務方面做得非常出色。比較仍然為負。您為資產負債表提供的指導表明，資產負債表全年保持負值。所以我想我的問題是，我們如何看待這些負面影響？是不是——其中哪一部分正在將這些大流行後類型的類別與潛在的更具挑戰性的消費者進行比較？然後，實際上，當你審視今年之後的業務時，什麼是讓公司恢復穩定、積極的薪酬的基石？

Yes. So when we thought about coming out of the pandemic last year in '22, I mean clearly, during '20 and '21, the business grew to an outsized kind of state of proposed, right? It was inflated by onetime customers coming to our stores, 1 of the only store open, et cetera. We had some of these surge categories, there's extra stimulus in the economy. We saw last year's kind of that reset year and really intended to move back to growth this year. I think the thing we were counting on coming into this year was how much pressure the customer is under.

是的。因此，當我們考慮去年 22 年擺脫大流行時，我的意思顯然是，在 20 和 21 年間，業務發展到了一種超預期的狀態，對嗎？由於曾經的顧客來到我們的商店、唯一一家開著的商店等等，它被誇大了。我們有一些激增的類別，經濟中有額外的刺激。我們看到了去年的那種重置年，並且確實打算今年恢復增長。我認為今年我們所指望的是客戶承受的壓力有多大。

So I attribute a lot of what we're seeing this year is negotiating through that short-term kind of chop that's being created by the state of the economy. The inflation we talked about, high credit card debt, et cetera. So as we move forward, the thing that's going to -- that we have to keep navigating through is that short-term chop. When we see the customers start to get a little healthier and stabilize, I think that's when we start moving back to growth. And that's when a lot of these initiatives that we're still investing in, right? I mean that's 1 of the things we talk a lot about is these investments we're making in new stores, these investments we're making to our CDP or to our dot-com site, they're all long-term investments, and that's when they're really going to start paying off is once we come out of this kind of short-term dislocation we're having in the market, you're going to see those really kick in.

因此，我認為今年我們看到的很多事情都是通過經濟狀況造成的短期障礙進行談判。我們談論的通貨膨脹、高額信用卡債務等等。因此，當我們向前邁進時，我們必須繼續克服的問題是短期的波動。當我們看到客戶開始變得更加健康和穩定時，我認為那就是我們開始恢復增長的時候。那時我們仍在投資許多此類舉措，對吧？我的意思是，我們經常談論的一件事是我們在新商店中進行的投資，我們對 CDP 或我們的網絡網站進行的投資，它們都是長期投資，並且一旦我們擺脫市場上的這種短期混亂，他們就會真正開始獲得回報，你會看到這些真正開始發揮作用。

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Lasser with UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的邁克爾·拉瑟 (Michael Lasser)。

How much lower can Academy take its operating expenses without having a negative impact on the customer experience especially if comps remain negative into 2024?

在不對客戶體驗產生負面影響的情況下，學院的運營費用可以降低多少，尤其是在 2024 年競爭仍然為負的情況下？

Yes. Well, I think we've got our expense structure in a pretty good place. we're happy with it. I would reiterate, we are more productive, on a sales per square foot basis, we're more productive in a profit per square foot basis. We're more productive in the competition when you look at productivity for employee, and that's important. I know that others have had some actions with their employees, but we're more productive than our competition in most of the sector when it comes to productivity per employee.

是的。嗯，我認為我們的費用結構非常好。我們對此感到滿意。我要重申，我們的生產力更高，以每平方英尺的銷售額為基礎，我們以每平方英尺的利潤為基礎，我們的生產力更高。當你關注員工的生產力時，我們在競爭中會更有生產力，這很重要。我知道其他人已經對他們的員工採取了一些行動，但就每個員工的生產力而言，我們比大多數行業的競爭對手都更有生產力。

So I think we've got our expense structure in a pretty good place from a store standpoint, we are looking very diligently as you know, to improve our expense structure and our supply chain. And we've got a very long-lived initiative that we're undertaking there that really won't start benefiting us since the next year. So look, we are working hard on the initiatives that Steve talked about to turn the comp trajectory. We do anticipate that, that will happen based on the initiatives again, not this year, but hopefully, shortly thereafter, and as the other initiatives that we have on the expense side, particularly in the supply chain (inaudible), we should have some good offsets there.

因此，我認為從商店的角度來看，我們的費用結構處於一個非常好的位置，正如你所知，我們正在非常努力地改善我們的費用結構和供應鏈。我們在那裡開展了一項非常長期的舉措，但從明年開始，這項舉措就不會真正讓我們受益。所以看，我們正在努力實施史蒂夫談到的旨在扭轉競爭軌蹟的舉措。我們確實預計，根據這些舉措，這種情況將會再次發生，不是今年，但希望是此後不久，並且正如我們在費用方面，特別是在供應鏈（聽不清）方面的其他舉措一樣，我們應該有一些那裡有很好的抵消。

But your question is a great question. I mean that's something we spend a lot of time talking about is making sure that as we're managing through this, we're not doing anything to hurt the customer experience. We're more productive in our stores because we've taken noncustomer-facing tasks off the plate, and that's allowed us to flex our labor down there and we'll continue to flex as we need to. But there is a certain to your point, base level of service we want to provide to the customer. As business comes down, receipts come down a little bit, and that gives us a little bit of room in terms of how we manage our supply chain. So I think we've got some natural flexes still in the business based off of how receipts come in, how customers are shopping that we can flex up or down, but we also always want to make sure, to your point, we don't want to erode that customer experience.

但你的問題是一個很好的問題。我的意思是，我們花了很多時間討論的事情是確保在我們處理這個問題時，我們不會做任何損害客戶體驗的事情。我們商店的生產力更高，因為我們已經取消了非面向客戶的任務，這使我們能夠在那裡靈活運用我們的勞動力，並且我們將根據需要繼續靈活運用。但我們希望為客戶提供一定的基本服務水平。隨著業務下降，收入會略有下降，這為我們管理供應鏈的方式提供了一些空間。因此，我認為我們在業務中仍然有一些自然的靈活性，基於收據的方式、客戶的購物方式，我們可以向上或向下彎曲，但我們也總是想確保，就你的觀點而言，我們不'不想削弱客戶體驗。

Got it. My follow-up question is some of your key vendors are going to soon expand the distribution of their products. And the perception is that as there's more expanded distribution, this is going to put pressure on the profit pool that Academy plays in, which in turn is lowering the operating profit margins for some of your key competitors. So, a, how have you factored in this expanded distribution into your outlook? And b, over the next few years, if we see your competitors have their margins drift lower, what is it about Academy's model that would enable you to maintain the margins that Academy has right now?

知道了。我的後續問題是，你們的一些主要供應商將很快擴大其產品的分銷範圍。人們認為，隨著分銷範圍的擴大，這將對學院所參與的利潤池造成壓力，進而降低一些主要競爭對手的營業利潤率。那麼，a，您是如何將這種擴大的分佈納入您的前景的？ b，在接下來的幾年裡，如果我們看到您的競爭對手的利潤率下降，那麼 Academy 的模式如何使您能夠保持 Academy 目前的利潤率？

Yes. I'd start with the distribution question. We got this last quarter because it was right around that time. It was announced that I think NIKE is going back into a couple of retailers apparel in Macy's. And I believe footwear in DSW and our response then is the same as it is now. A lot of -- where Macy's are picking up apparel, they're mall-based, we're non -- not mall-based. We really don't anticipate that impacting us too much. DSW tends to be a little more off-mall-based. So certainly, that you could worry about maybe a little bit of traffic from there.

是的。我將從分配問題開始。我們在上個季度得到了這個，因為就在那個時候。據報導，我認為耐克將重返梅西百貨的幾家零售商服裝店。我相信 DSW 的鞋類以及我們當時的反應與現在是一樣的。很多——梅西百貨買衣服的地方，都是以商場為基礎的，而我們不是——不是以商場為基礎的。我們確實預計這不會對我們產生太大影響。 DSW 往往更加遠離購物中心。當然，您可能會擔心那裡的流量。

But when we look at their assortment and what they traditionally have carried, it's not the same level of assortment that we carry. So having more people having access to brands isn't a positive thing for us, but we think we've got it accounted for and appropriately projected in our margin forecast. Longer term, I keep coming back to the margin improvement that we've seen over the past 5 years is foundational and it's how we manage the business. And I think Carl said it a couple of times on this call. It starts with inventory management. That is a key foundational thing.

但是，當我們查看他們的品種以及他們傳統上攜帶的物品時，會發現這與我們攜帶的品種水平不同。因此，讓更多的人接觸到品牌對我們來說並不是一件積極的事情，但我們認為我們已經在利潤預測中考慮並適當預測了這一點。從長遠來看，我不斷回顧過去五年我們看到的利潤率改善是基礎性的，這就是我們管理業務的方式。我想卡爾在這次電話會議上說過好幾次了。它從庫存管理開始。這是一個關鍵的基礎性的事情。

As a company, we used to carry way too much inventory that created way too any markdowns and inefficiencies in the system. Managing the inventory, managing the receipt flow has so many positive benefits in terms of not creating markdowns on the back end in terms of not creating traffic inventory that stores have to move around needlessly. So inventory management is a big 1 and then just how we manage through our pricing and make sure that we present a value price on a day and day out basis and offer great value. I think the combination of those disciplines we put in place in our everyday value model, I think, there are 2 things that help us believe that our margin is going to be sustainable in the long term.

作為一家公司，我們曾經持有過多的庫存，這導致了系統的降價和低效率。管理庫存、管理收貨流有很多積極的好處，不會在後端造成降價，也不會產生商店不得不不必要地移動的流量庫存。因此，庫存管理是一個重要因素，然後就是我們如何管理定價並確保我們每天提供有價值的價格並提供巨大的價值。我認為，結合我們在日常價值模型中實施的這些原則，有兩件事可以幫助我們相信，從長遠來看，我們的利潤率將是可持續的。

And then again, back to the other initiatives, we believe very strongly that we've got 100 basis points of benefit coming from the supply chain, more cross-stock, more multi-stop deliveries, better use of variable labor. I mean our workforce in our DC today is frankly highly fixed. So we've got opportunities there. And then with more effective and efficient marketing, being able to target customers directly instead of using a blunt instrument, using a scalpel will help our margins as well.

再說一遍，回到其他舉措，我們非常堅信，我們已經從供應鏈、更多的交叉庫存、更多的多站交貨以及更好地利用可變勞動力中獲得了 100 個基點的收益。我的意思是，坦率地說，今天我們華盛頓特區的勞動力是高度固定的。所以我們在那裡有機會。然後，通過更有效和高效的營銷，能夠直接瞄準客戶而不是使用鈍器，使用手術刀也將有助於我們的利潤。

Our next question comes from the line of Seth Basham with Wedbush.

我們的下一個問題來自塞斯·巴沙姆（Seth Basham）和韋德布什（Wedbush）的對話。

My question is around new store productivity. By our calculation. (inaudible) again, this quarter. I'm wondering if there's anything associated with the new store [opened] in terms of location or timing? That's my first question.

我的問題是關於新店的生產力。根據我們的計算。 （聽不清）又是這個季度。我想知道新店[開業]在地點或時間方面是否有任何關聯？這是我的第一個問題。

Sure. We're pleased with the progress of the new stores. We've opened 3 stores this year, all 3 have been out of footprint. All 3 much more successful than the out-of-footprint openings we had back in 2018, 2019. The last store we opened was in the Westfield Carmel, Indianapolis. And even though, to be quite honest, not an ideal time to open a new store, it's 1 of the better openings we've had out of market in the past 5 years. So we are seeing the 2022 stores a little slower ramp than we had planned. But again, the chain is down. It's -- they're opening stronger than they did in 2019. The economy is challenging, and it takes time to build some brand awareness. And as I said many times over, the test-and-learn year, our 2022 stores, we're still learning from those. We've got 13 to 14 that will open this year. The analogy that I've used internally around this initiative is Milton Friedman, fool in the shower. You turn the water hot, and it doesn't get hot and then you turn it cold and when you turn it cold, it to finally gets hot.

當然。我們對新店的進展感到滿意。今年我們開了 3 家店，這 3 家店都已經關門了。所有這 3 家店都比我們 2018 年和 2019 年在佔地面積外開設的店要成功得多。我們開設的最後一家店位於印第安納波利斯的韋斯特菲爾德卡梅爾。儘管說實話，這不是開設新店的理想時機，但這是過去 5 年來我們在市場上開設的最好的店之一。因此，我們看到 2022 年門店的擴張速度比我們計劃的要慢一些。但同樣，鏈條又斷了。他們的開業比 2019 年更加強勁。經濟充滿挑戰，需要時間來建立一些品牌知名度。正如我多次說過的，在測試和學習的一年，我們的 2022 年商店，我們仍在從中學習。今年我們將開設 13 至 14 家。我在內部圍繞這一舉措使用的類比是米爾頓·弗里德曼（Milton Friedman），“洗澡時的傻瓜”。你把水加熱，它不會變熱，然後你把它變冷，當你把它變冷時，它最終會變熱。

And that's meant to illustrate that many times, people fail to account for the lag time when they're studying cause and effect. And so this initiative, we're going slowly here. The punchline is when you have these large initiatives when you can implement them slowly and not all at once, you can study the impact of those decisions, and that's what we're doing. We're still studying the 2022 vintage. We feel like we've got some good learnings and we're applying them. But very, very happy so far. Again, the key things to keep in mind is that all of our mature stores are profitable. We've got more white space than almost any retailer that I can think of, certainly in our sector, only being in 18 states. And we're funding all of this growth through existing cash flow. The stores that we opened in 2022 are already creating cash flow. They're accretive to cash flow. So now we're reinvesting that to open more stores.

這意味著很多時候，人們在研究因果關係時沒有考慮到滯後時間。因此，我們正在緩慢推進這項舉措。最重要的是，當你有這些大型舉措時，你可以緩慢地而不是一次性全部實施它們，你可以研究這些決策的影響，這就是我們正在做的事情。我們仍在研究 2022 年年份。我們覺得我們已經學到了一些很好的經驗，並且正在應用它們。但到目前為止非常非常高興。再次強調，要記住的關鍵是我們所有成熟的商店都是盈利的。我們的空白空間比我能想到的幾乎所有零售商都多，尤其是在我們這個行業，僅分佈在 18 個州。我們通過現有現金流為所有這些增長提供資金。我們 2022 年開設的商店已經在創造現金流。它們會增加現金流。所以現在我們正在對其進行再投資以開設更多商店。

The other thing I would add, that is as we continue to open stores out of our traditional footprint, that's all market share opportunity for us. (inaudible) pick up market share in those markets.

我要補充的另一件事是，隨著我們繼續在傳統足蹟之外開設商店，這對我們來說都是市場份額的機會。 （聽不清）提高這些市場的市場份額。

And it helps the dot-com business as those customers now have awareness to Academy.

它有助於互聯網業務，因為這些客戶現在已經認識到學院。

That's helpful. Just a follow-up. So the 2022 class, you're still expecting, on average, $18 million in sales for that -- those stores. And then the 2023 class with more of those opening outside your footprint, do you expect that $18 million figure again? Or could it be lower than that?

這很有幫助。只是後續行動。因此，對於 2022 年的學生，您仍然預計這些商店的平均銷售額為 1800 萬美元。然後 2023 年的課程中會有更多課程在您的足蹟之外開設，您預計會再次達到 1800 萬美元的數字嗎？或者可以比這個更低嗎？

Beyond average, that's how we underwrite the stores, and that's what we expect on average. They may be different depending again, we've tried some different things. We've got some smaller format stores. I would say that are below the 62,000 prototype, those will be smaller. Again, 20% ROIC hurdle for really every store, and they will achieve that, both vintages based on what we've seen.

超出平均水平，這就是我們對商店進行承保的方式，這也是我們對平均水平的期望。它們可能會有所不同，具體取決於我們已經嘗試了一些不同的事情。我們有一些規模較小的商店。我想說的是低於 62,000 原型，那些會更小。再說一遍，實際上每家商店的投資回報率為 20%，他們將實現這一目標，根據我們所看到的情況，這兩個年份都是如此。

And tracking ahead of that.

並在此之前進行跟踪。

Tracking ahead of that. That's a pretty attractive return.

在此之前進行跟踪。這是一個相當有吸引力的回報。

Ladies and gentlemen, we have time for 1 more question, which will come from the line of Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley.

女士們、先生們，我們還有時間再問一個問題，該問題將由摩根士丹利的西蒙·古特曼 (Simeon Gutman) 提出。

This is Jackie on for Simeon. Just looking forward, what is the right kind of comp level that you would need to drive leverage in the business? Should we expect there to be some degree of deleverage in the model over time as you open new stores and ramp up your growth investments? Or how should we think about that?

這是傑基為西蒙代言。展望未來，您需要什麼樣的薪酬水平來推動業務槓桿？隨著時間的推移，當您開設新店並增加增長投資時，我們是否應該預期該模型會出現一定程度的去槓桿化？或者說我們應該如何思考這個問題？

Yes, from a long-range plan standpoint, we modeled in low single digit comps and 100 basis points of expense deleverage. We do have some things that offset that in the supply chain space. And we've seen nothing that says that, that's not what we're expecting. If you look at SG&A, for example, in near term in the current quarter, up $13 million year-over-year. That investment is really in those long-range strategic priorities. And our free cash flow, Michael spoke to it, but $190 million in cash flow from operations during the quarter, that's actually up $30 million year-over-year compared to last year, I think, 19% increase in a tough environment when you got a down 7.5% comp. We're creating the cash flow that makes us feel like we have permission to continue to invest in these strategic priorities, and that's what we're doing.

是的，從長期計劃的角度來看，我們以低個位數的比較和 100 個基點的費用去槓桿化為模型。我們確實有一些東西可以在供應鏈領域抵消這一點。我們沒有看到任何這樣的說法，這不是我們所期望的。例如，如果您看一下本季度的 SG&A，短期內將同比增長 1300 萬美元。這項投資實際上是針對那些長期戰略優先事項的。邁克爾談到了我們的自由現金流，但本季度運營產生的現金流為 1.9 億美元，實際上比去年同期增長了 3000 萬美元，我認為，在嚴峻的環境下，增長了 19%。同比下降7.5 %。我們正在創造現金流，讓我們感覺我們有權繼續投資於這些戰略重點，而這就是我們正在做的事情。

Great. Just one (inaudible). Go ahead.

偉大的。只有一個（聽不清）。前進。

You go ahead. Just if I can squeeze in a quick follow-up. I know you guys don't guide Q3, Q4 gross margin. But given that Q2 gross margin kind of came in line with normal seasonality versus Q1. Should we think about whether Q3 and Q4 from a margin cadence should follow seasonality as well?

你先走。如果我能快速跟進就好了。我知道你們不指導第三季度、第四季度的毛利率。但考慮到第二季度的毛利率與第一季度的正常季節性相符。我們是否應該考慮第三季度和第四季度的利潤節奏是否也應該遵循季節性？

I'll take it. I'm just going to reiterate the 34% to 34.4%, the 3 things that are going to move it are the 3 things that you saw move it this quarter, merch margin, shrink, and freight. From a merch margin standpoint, units down 5%. We feel pretty good from a sales to inventory spread standpoint. We feel like from a promotional standpoint, we're going to do that, but we're going to do it during those key time periods and that really worked for us in the second quarter.

我要買它。我只是要重申 34% 到 34.4%，這三件事將推動它的發展，這三件事是你在本季度看到的推動它的三件事：商品利潤、損耗和運費。從商品利潤的角度來看，單位數量下降了 5%。從銷售到庫存利差的角度來看，我們感覺相當不錯。我們覺得從促銷的角度來看，我們會這樣做，但我們會在關鍵時間段這樣做，這在第二季度對我們來說確實有效。

From a shrink perspective, we're beginning to lap some stuff from last year that we saw, but I'm not expecting the environment to change magically. We're doing the things that we think help prevent and deter and, in some cases, follow-up on losses that is having a beneficial sequential impact.

從收縮的角度來看，我們開始重複去年看到的一些東西，但我不認為環境會發生神奇的變化。我們正在做一些我們認為有助於預防和阻止的事情，並且在某些情況下，對正在產生有益的連續影響的損失採取後續行動。

And freight, it's still going to be a tailwind into fall. So those are the 3 things. We're not going to give guidance on Q3 and Q4 specifically. But those are the 3 things that are going to impact it, and we feel like we're managing what we can manage in those spaces.

至於貨運，它仍將成為秋季的順風車。這就是三件事。我們不會專門針對第三季度和第四季度提供指導。但這是會影響它的三件事，我們覺得我們正在管理我們在這些空間中可以管理的東西。

So I just want to close and kind of reiterate, we believe that Academy represents a compelling growth opportunity in the retail space for investors. We have 1 of the most compelling growth opportunities out there. And I want to make sure you guys realize the team is simultaneously focused on 2 things. We're going to continue to navigate through the short-term headwinds while the customers are under pressure. At the same time, we're going to be working against our long-range plan and make sure we're setting ourselves up for success in the long term to achieve our long-range planning and objectives.

因此，我想在結束時重申一下，我們相信學院為投資者提供了零售領域引人注目的增長機會。我們擁有最引人注目的增長機會之一。我想確保你們意識到團隊同時專注於兩件事。當客戶面臨壓力時，我們將繼續克服短期阻力。與此同時，我們將根據我們的長期計劃開展工作，並確保我們為長期成功做好準備，以實現我們的長期計劃和目標。

So with that, I want to thank everybody for joining the call out there. And thanks to all of our Academy associates. And everybody should have a good Labor Day weekend. Thanks.

因此，我要感謝大家加入這次呼籲。感謝我們學院的所有同事。每個人都應該度過一個愉快的勞動節週末。謝謝。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Ladies and gentlemen, the call has now concluded. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

女士們、先生們，通話現已結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連接。