羅斯百貨 (ROST) 2025 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Ross Stores fourth quarter and fiscal 2025 earnings release conference call. (Operator Instructions)

下午好，歡迎參加羅斯百貨公司第四季及2025財年財報發布電話會議。（操作說明）

Before we get started, on behalf of Ross Stores, I would like to note that the comments made on this call will contain forward-looking statements regarding expectations about future growth and financial results, including sales and earnings forecasts, new store openings and other matters that are based on the company's current forecast of aspects of its future business. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical performance or current expectations. Risk factors are included in today's press release and the company's fiscal 2024 Form 10-K and fiscal 2025 Form 10-Qs and 8-Ks on file with the SEC.

在正式開始之前，我謹代表羅斯百貨公司指出，本次電話會議中的發言將包含有關未來增長和財務業績預期的前瞻性陳述，包括銷售和盈利預測、新店開業以及其他基於公司目前對其未來業務各方面預測的事項。這些前瞻性陳述存在風險和不確定性，可能導致實際結果與歷史績效或當前預期有重大差異。風險因素已包含在今天的新聞稿以及公司向美國證券交易委員會提交的 2024 財年 10-K 表格和 2025 財年 10-Q 表格和 8-K 表格中。

And now I'd like to turn the call over to Jim Conroy, Chief Executive Officer.

現在我想把電話交給執行長吉姆·康羅伊。

Thank you, John, and good afternoon, everyone. Joining me on our call today are Michael Hartshorn, Group President and Chief Operating Officer; Bill Sheehan, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Connie Kao, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations.

謝謝你，約翰，大家下午好。今天與我一起參加電話會議的有：集團總裁兼營運長麥可·哈特肖恩；執行副總裁兼財務長比爾·希恩；以及高級副總裁兼投資者關係主管康妮·高。

Before I review our performance for the quarter and the year, I wanted to acknowledge all of the associates throughout the Ross organization. The results we achieved in 2025 are a direct reflection of your dedication and hard work throughout the year. The strong collaboration across the company in all functional areas was essential to our success. I want to thank all of you for your great work.

在回顧本季和本年度的業績之前，我想對羅斯公司所有員工表示感謝。我們在 2025 年所取得的成果，直接體現了你們一年來的奉獻和努力。公司各職能部門之間的密切合作是我們成功的關鍵。我要感謝大家所做的出色工作。

Now turning to our quarterly results. As noted in today's press release, we are pleased to report that our business momentum accelerated further in the fourth quarter, with both sales and earnings significantly surpassing our expectations. Throughout the holiday season, we delivered compelling merchandise assortments to our stores, benefited from higher customer engagement through our new marketing campaigns and executed in-store initiatives that enhanced the customer experience. These efforts, combined with healthy growth in new stores contributed to a 12% growth in total sales for the quarter.

現在來看我們的季度業績。正如今天發布的新聞稿中所述，我們很高興地報告，第四季度我們的業務發展勢頭進一步加快，銷售額和收益均大幅超出預期。在整個假期季節期間，我們為門市提供了極具吸引力的商品組合，透過新的行銷活動提高了客戶參與度，並執行了提升客戶體驗的店內舉措。這些努力，加上新店的穩健成長，使得本季總銷售額成長了 12%。

Turning to comparable store sales growth. We delivered a robust 9% increase despite a 1 percentage-point erosion in comps from weather, primarily the January storms that impacted many parts of the country. We were quite pleased with the health of the comp growth as it was driven mainly by an increase in transactions and customers with a modest increase in basket. We saw broad-based strength across both departments and geographies. Every major merchandise category showed solid positive sales growth with Shoes and Cosmetics performing the best.

接下來我們來看同店銷售成長情形。儘管受天氣因素（主要是1月份影響全國許多地區的風暴）的影響，同店銷售額下降了1個百分點，但我們仍然實現了強勁的9%增長。我們對同店銷售成長的健康狀況相當滿意，這主要得益於交易量和顧客數量的增加，以及客單價的適度成長。我們看到各個部門和地區都展現了廣泛的實力。所有主要商品類別均實現了穩健的銷售成長，其中鞋類和化妝品表現最佳。

Similarly, every region of the country was positive, with the Midwest and Mountain regions the strongest. dd's DISCOUNTS also posted healthy sales gains as the chain’s value and fashion offerings continue to resonate with shoppers. Similar to Ross, the growth was broad-based across both merchandise categories and regions.

同樣，全國各地銷售情況均呈現上升趨勢，其中中西部和山區表現最為強勁。 dd's DISCOUNTS 的銷售額也實現了可觀的成長，該連鎖店物美價廉的時尚商品持續受到消費者的青睞。與羅斯百貨類似，其成長在商品類別和地區方面都十分廣泛。

Moving to inventory. Consolidated inventories were up 8% and Packaway represented 37% of total inventory compared with 41% last year. We are pleased with our inventory position at year-end.

移入庫存。綜合庫存成長了 8%，其中 Packaway 佔總庫存的 37%，而去年為 41%。我們對年底的庫存狀況感到滿意。

Regarding our store expansion program, 2025 is an exciting year of continued growth as we expanded into new markets while deepening our footprint in existing ones. During the year, we added 80 new Ross Dress for Less stores and 10 dd's DISCOUNTS stores.

關於我們的門市擴張計劃，2025 年是令人興奮的一年，我們將繼續成長，拓展新市場，同時深化在現有市場的業務。年內，我們新增了 80 家 Ross Dress for Less 門市和 10 家 dd's DISCOUNTS 門市。

Importantly, we expanded into several new markets for Ross, including our first stores in the New York Metro area and Puerto Rico. Inclusive of nine closures, we ended the year with 2,267 stores, consisting of 1,904 Ross Dress for Less and 363 dd's DISCOUNTS locations.

重要的是，我們為 Ross 拓展了幾個新市場，包括我們在紐約都會區和波多黎各的第一家門市。包括關閉的九家門市在內，我們年底共有 2,267 家門市，其中包括 1,904 家 Ross Dress for Less 門市和 363 家 dd's DISCOUNTS 門市。

Before I turn the call over to Bill, I'd like to briefly review initiatives underway that position us well for incremental sales and profit growth as we enter 2026. First, with merchandising. We are pleased with the strength of our assortments across the store, where we have delivered more brands at the right value for our customers.

在將電話交給比爾之前，我想簡要回顧一下我們正在進行的各項舉措，這些舉措將使我們在進入 2026 年時能夠實現銷售額和利潤的穩步增長。首先是商品銷售。我們對店內商品種類齊全的現狀感到滿意，我們為顧客提供了更多物美價廉的品牌。

Our buying organization has done an incredible job navigating through tariffs and strengthening our vendor relationships to deliver merchandise that is resonating with our customers. It is encouraging to see the strength in the Ladies business as well as the solid growth and continued sequential improvement with our Home category, which faced heavy pressure from tariffs throughout the year.

我們的採購部門在應對關稅和加強與供應商的關係方面做得非常出色，從而能夠提供深受客戶喜愛的商品。令人鼓舞的是，女裝業務表現強勁，家居品類也實現了穩健成長並持續改善，儘管該品類全年都面臨著關稅帶來的巨大壓力。

Looking forward, we are pleased with our inventory levels and are seeing ample availability in the marketplace to support our business trend going forward.

展望未來，我們對目前的庫存水準感到滿意，並看到市場上有充足的貨源來支持我們未來的業務發展趨勢。

On the marketing front, we are pleased with our holiday campaign as we continue to refine our brand messaging and believe it is connecting with today's shopper. We are encouraged by the higher levels of customer awareness and engagement we are seeing. We are also quite pleased with the increase in customer traffic and believe that this positions us well for continued growth as we look ahead.

在行銷方面，我們對假日行銷活動感到滿意，因為我們不斷完善品牌訊息，並相信它能與當今的購物者產生共鳴。我們對客戶意識和參與度的不斷提高感到鼓舞。我們對客流量的成長感到非常滿意，並相信這將使我們在未來繼續保持成長動能。

In our stores, we have made meaningful merchandising and operational improvements which we believe also contributed to the outsized sales growth. The stores team did a great job of managing the holiday surge in the business. Additionally, the supply chain organization executed extremely well during the peak season, which enabled us to drive exceptional sales growth through fresh receipts and fast turning inventory. Overall, we are encouraged by the positive impact these initiatives have had on our recent performance, and we see opportunities to build on these learnings to support our growth plans in 2026 and beyond. As we enter the new year, we are seeing a very strong start to the first quarter, which gives us confidence that our focus on improving our connection with the customer is taking hold.

我們在門市中進行了有意義的商品陳列和營運改進，我們相信這也有助於實現超額銷售額的成長。門市團隊在應對假日業務高峰方面做得非常出色。此外，供應鏈組織在旺季期間表現出色，使我們能夠透過新貨到貨和快速庫存週轉推動銷售的顯著成長。總的來說，這些舉措對我們近期的業績產生了積極影響，我們對此感到鼓舞，並且我們看到了利用這些經驗來支持我們2026年及以後的成長計劃的機會。新年伊始，我們看到第一季開局非常強勁，這讓我們相信，我們致力於改善與客戶關係的努力正在取得成效。

Turning to store expansion. Many of the changes we implemented that helped drive comp store sales growth also had a positive impact on new store productivity, which further bolsters our confidence in accelerating our store opening plans going forward. As a result, we are planning to open 110 new locations this year, which represents 5% growth. Part of that growth reflects the reacceleration of dd's DISCOUNTS with plans to open 25 stores in 2026. For Ross, we see an opportunity to open 85 new stores this year, slightly above last year.

轉向門市擴張。我們實施的許多有助於推動同店銷售成長的變革也對新店生產力產生了積極影響，這進一步增強了我們加快未來新店開業計劃的信心。因此，我們計劃今年開設 110 個新地點，增幅達 5%。部分成長反映了 dd's DISCOUNTS 的重新加速發展，並計劃在 2026 年開設 25 家門市。對羅斯來說，我們看到了今年開設 85 家新店的機會，略高於去年。

As we continue to identify attractive real estate opportunities across our markets, we remain confident in the long-term potential to grow Ross and dd's chains to 2,900 and 700 stores, respectively and expand our reach to even more customers over time.

隨著我們不斷在各個市場尋找有吸引力的房地產機會，我們仍然對Ross和dd's連鎖店的長期發展潛力充滿信心，目標是分別發展到2900家和700家門店，並隨著時間的推移，將我們的業務範圍擴大到更多的客戶。

Now Bill will provide further details on our fourth quarter and fiscal year results and additional color on our outlook for fiscal 2026.

現在，比爾將提供更多關於我們第四季和財年業績的細節，並進一步闡述我們對 2026 財年的展望。

Thank you, Jim. Turning to our financial results. Starting with the fourth quarter. Total sales for the quarter grew 12% to $6.6 billion. Comparable store sales grew a robust 9% primarily driven by an increase in the number of transactions.

謝謝你，吉姆。接下來來看看我們的財務表現。從第四節開始。本季總銷售額成長12%，達到66億美元。同店銷售額強勁成長 9%，主要得益於交易數量的增加。

Fourth quarter 2025 operating margin was 12.3% compared to last year's 12.4%, which included a 105 basis points benefit from the sale of a packaway facility. Excluding the benefit last year, operating margin increased 95 basis points. Cost of goods sold was 65 basis points lower in the quarter. Occupancy leveraged by 30 basis points on strong sales results, while distribution and domestic freight costs declined by 20 and 15 basis points, respectively.

2025 年第四季營業利潤率為 12.3%，而去年同期為 12.4%，其中包括出售包裝設施帶來的 105 個基點收益。剔除去年的利多因素，營業利益率提高了95個基點。本季銷售成本下降了65個基點。強勁的銷售業績帶動入住率上升了 30 個基點，而分銷和國內貨運成本分別下降了 20 和 15 個基點。

Merchandise margin improved by 10 basis points. Partially offsetting these benefits were buying costs that rose by 10 basis points mainly due to higher incentives given the earnings outperformance. SG&A for the period rose 75 basis points, primarily due to last year's packaway facility sale. Excluding the sale, SG&A was 30 basis points lower. Fourth quarter net income was $646 million, and earnings per share for the fourth quarter was $2.00. This compares to net income of $587 million and $1.79 in earnings per share in the prior year, which included the previously mentioned benefit of approximately $0.14 per share related to the sale of a packaway facility. Excluding the benefit, earnings per share for the quarter grew 21%.

商品毛利率提高了10個基點。部分抵銷這些收益的是採購成本上升了 10 個基點，這主要是由於獲利表現優異帶來的更高誘因。本期銷售、一般及行政費用上漲 75 個基點，主要原因是去年出售了包裝設施。剔除此次銷售，銷售、一般及行政費用下降了30個基點。第四季淨利為 6.46 億美元，每股收益為 2.00 美元。相比之下，去年同期淨利潤為 5.87 億美元，每股收益為 1.79 美元，其中包括先前提到的與出售包裝廠相關的每股約 0.14 美元的收益。不計入該項收益，本季每股收益成長了 21%。

Now turning to results for the full year. Total sales for the year increased 8% to a record $22.8 billion, up from $21.1 billion last year. Comparable store sales grew 5% on top of a solid 3% gain in fiscal 2024. Net income for fiscal 2025 was $2.1 billion, similar to last year. Earnings per share were $6.61, up from $6.32 in the prior year. Excluding the previously mentioned $0.14 gain from the facility sale last year and the approximate $0.16 per share impact from tariff-related costs this year, earnings per share grew 10%.

現在來看全年業績。全年總銷售額成長 8%，達到創紀錄的 228 億美元，高於去年的 211 億美元。2024 財年同店銷售額成長 5%，此前該財年已達到 3% 的穩健成長。2025財年淨收入為21億美元，與去年基本持平。每股收益為 6.61 美元，高於去年的 6.32 美元。除去去年出售工廠所得的 0.14 美元收益以及今年關稅相關成本帶來的每股約 0.16 美元的影響，每股收益增長了 10%。

Now to our shareholder return activity. As noted in today's release, we repurchased 1.5 million shares during the quarter, completing the two-year $2.1 billion program announced in March 2024, in line with our plans. Our Board of Directors recently approved a new two-year $2.55 billion stock repurchase authorization or approximately $1.275 billion each year for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. This new plan represents a 21% increase over the recently completed repurchase program. In addition, the Board also approved a 10% increase in our quarterly cash dividend to $0.445 per share.

現在來談談我們的股東回報活動。正如今天發布的公告中所述，我們在本季度回購了 150 萬股股票，完成了 2024 年 3 月宣布的為期兩年、總額 21 億美元的回購計劃，符合我們的計劃。我們的董事會最近批准了一項新的為期兩年的 25.5 億美元股票回購授權，即 2026 和 2027 財年每年約 12.75 億美元。這項新計劃比最近完成的回購計劃增加了 21%。此外，董事會也批准將季度現金股利提高 10%，至每股 0.445 美元。

The increase to our stock repurchase and dividend programs reflect our continued commitment to return excess cash to our shareholders after funding growth and other capital needs of our business.

我們增加股票回購和分紅計劃，體現了我們持續致力於在滿足業務成長和其他資本需求後，將剩餘現金返還給股東的承諾。

Now let's discuss our outlook for fiscal 2026, starting with the first quarter. As Jim noted earlier, we ended the quarter with solid momentum. And while early, we are encouraged by the continued strength in the business as the spring season begins. As a result, we are projecting comparable store sales for the 13 weeks ending May 2, 2026, to be up 7% to 8% and earnings per share of $1.60 to $1.67. The operating statement assumptions that support our first quarter guidance include total sales are projected to increase 10% to 12% versus last year.

現在讓我們來討論一下 2026 財年的展望，首先從第一季開始。正如吉姆之前提到的那樣，我們以強勁的發展勢頭結束了本季。雖然現在還為時過早，但隨著春季的到來，我們對業務的持續強勁成長感到鼓舞。因此，我們預期截至2026年5月2日的13週內，同店銷售額將成長7%至8%，每股收益為1.60美元至1.67美元。支持我們第一季業績指引的營運報表假設包括：預計總銷售額將比去年成長10%至12%。

If same-store sales perform in line with our forecast, operating margin for the first quarter is expected to be in the range of 11.8% to 12.1% compared to 12.2% last year. The expected decrease reflects higher DC costs from the opening of a new distribution center in the second quarter of last year and unfavorable timing of packaway-related expenses. In addition, we project higher incentive costs versus 2025 when we underperformed our plan.

如果同店銷售額符合我們的預測，預計第一季的營業利潤率將在 11.8% 至 12.1% 之間，而去年同期為 12.2%。預計下降反映了去年第二季開設新配送中心所導致的配送中心成本增加，以及與打包相關的費用發生時間不利。此外，我們預期 2025 年的激勵成本將高於 2025 年，因為 2025 年我們的計畫執行情況不理想。

Partially offsetting these higher costs is our expectation of an increase in merchandise margin. We plan to add 17 new stores, consisting of 13 Ross and 4 dd's DISCOUNTS during the period. Net interest income is estimated to be $27 million. Our tax rate is expected to be approximately 23% to 24%, and weighted average diluted shares outstanding are forecasted to be about $322 million.

我們預期商品毛利率的提高將部分抵銷這些更高的成本。在此期間，我們計劃新增 17 家門市，其中包括 13 家 Ross 門市和 4 家 dd's DISCOUNTS 門市。淨利息收入預計為2700萬美元。我們的稅率預計約為 23% 至 24%，加權平均稀釋後流通股預計約為 3.22 億美元。

Turning to our full year guidance assumptions for 2026. For the 52 weeks ending January 30, 2027, we are forecasting same-store sales to be up 3% to 4%, and earnings per share to be $7.02 to $7.36 compared to $6.61 for fiscal 2025. Total sales are projected to be up 5% to 7% for the year. If same-store sales perform in line with our forecast, operating margin for the full year is expected to be in the range of 12% to 12.3% compared to 11.9% in 2025. This plan reflects higher merchandise margin and lower distribution costs for the year.

接下來，讓我們來看看2026年全年業績的預測假設。截至 2027 年 1 月 30 日的 52 週內，我們預測同店銷售額將成長 3% 至 4%，每股盈餘將達到 7.02 美元至 7.36 美元，而 2025 財年為 6.61 美元。預計全年總銷售額將成長 5% 至 7%。如果同店銷售額符合我們的預測，預計全年營業利潤率將在 12% 至 12.3% 之間，而 2025 年的營業利潤率為 11.9%。該計劃體現了更高的商品利潤率和更低的年度分銷成本。

As Jim mentioned earlier, we expect to grow our store base by 5%, reflecting approximately 110 new locations comprised of about 85 Ross and 25 dd's DISCOUNTS. These openings do not include our plans to close or relocate about 10 to 15 older stores. Net interest income is estimated to be $92 million. Depreciation and amortization expense inclusive of stock-based amortization is forecasted to be about $740 million for the year. The tax rate is projected to be about 24% to 25% and weighted average diluted shares outstanding are expected to be about 319 million.

正如吉姆之前提到的，我們預計門市數量將成長 5%，新增約 110 個門市，其中包括約 85 個 Ross 門市和 25 個 dd's DISCOUNTS 門市。這些新店開幕計畫並不包括我們關閉或搬遷約 10 至 15 家老店的計畫。淨利息收入預計為9200萬美元。預計本年度折舊攤銷費用（包括股票攤提）約為 7.4 億美元。預計稅率約 24% 至 25%，加權平均稀釋後流通股數預計約 3.19 億股。

In addition, capital expenditures for 2026 are projected to be approximately $1.1 billion. There are several key investments included in our 2026 plans. First, as previously mentioned, we are reaccelerating our store opening plans. At dd's, we are opening 25 stores this year compared to 10 last year. In addition, we plan to open 85 new Ross stores this year compared to 80 last year.

此外，預計 2026 年的資本支出約為 11 億美元。我們的2026年計畫中包含幾項關鍵投資。首先，正如之前提到的，我們正在重新加快門市開業計劃。今年，dd's 將開設 25 家新店，而去年只有 10 家。此外，我們計劃今年開設 85 家新的 Ross 門市，而去年為 80 家。

Next, we plan to make further investments in our supply chain, including the continued buildout of our next distribution center as well as the initial outlay for another DC. Lastly, we are investing in our existing store base to drive an improved customer experience.

接下來，我們計劃進一步投資供應鏈，包括繼續建造下一個配送中心以及為另一個配送中心進行初步投資。最後，我們正在投資現有門市，以提升顧客體驗。

Now I will turn the call back to Jim for closing comments.

現在我將把電話轉回給吉姆，請他做總結發言。

Thank you, Bill. As I reflect on my first year as CEO, I'm extremely grateful for the support and dedication of the entire team. The year had its early challenges with tariffs and uncertainty in the macro environment, but we remain resilient and focused on executing our strategies. Looking ahead, we are optimistic about the strength of our business and the initiatives planned for 2026. At this point, we would like to open the call and respond to any questions that you might have.

謝謝你，比爾。回顧我擔任執行長的第一年，我非常感謝整個團隊的支持和奉獻。今年年初，我們面臨關稅和宏觀環境不確定性帶來的挑戰，但我們保持韌性，專注於執行我們的策略。展望未來，我們對公司業務的實力以及2026年所製定的各項計畫充滿信心。現在，我們想開啟通話，回答大家可能提出的任何問題。

John?

約翰？

(Operator Instructions)

（操作說明）

Matthew Boss, JPMorgan.

馬修‧博斯，摩根大通。

Congrats on a great quarter. So Jim, could you elaborate on the inflection to 8% traffic led comps in the back half of the year? Or I guess, how would you bridge the more than 600 basis points of comp improvement relative to low single digits over the last four quarters? And on the 7% to 8% comp guide, you know I had to ask you on this. I mean this comes from a conservative company and a conservative guy historically. Could you elaborate on the further improvement you saw to start the quarter, maybe confirm the moderation that you're embedding for the remainder of the quarter. And did you embed any potential lift from tax refunds or stimulus during the quarter?

恭喜你本季表現出色。吉姆，你能詳細解釋一下下半年流量成長導致同店銷售額成長 8% 的原因嗎？或者說，您如何看待過去四個季度以來，同業比較業績從個位數低點提升超過 600 個基點的情況呢？至於 7% 到 8% 的薪資指導，你知道我必須問你這個問題。我的意思是，這是一家保守的公司，而這個人本身在歷史上也是保守派。能否詳細說明本季初您看到的進一步改進情況，並確認您在本季剩餘時間內將採取的調整措施？你們是否將本季可能出現的稅收退稅或經濟刺激措施帶來的提振效應計入了預算？

Sure. Happy to answer both of those questions. In terms of the inflection point, it was really broad-based across essentially all merchandise categories, all regions of the country. You were talking about the sequential improvement from sort of the first half to the second half of the business -- of the year. And if we look at the second half in total, there's a lot of great things that are coming together.

當然。我很樂意回答這兩個問題。就拐點而言，它的影響範圍非常廣泛，幾乎涵蓋了所有商品類別和全國所有地區。您剛才談到的是業務從上半年到下半年的持續改善。如果我們縱觀下半季，會發現很多好事正在匯聚在一起。

We've had a lot of conversation on past calls about the Ladies business. We mentioned on Q3 that the Ladies business had returned to strength -- was slightly stronger than the company. And then on the fourth quarter, the Ladies business continued to be very strong, more in line with the overall business. Men's continues to be strong. We've seen probably the most sequential improvement in the quadrant of the store that we would call center core. So we called out Cosmetics and Shoes specifically. Those were 2 very nicely growing businesses for us in both Q3 and Q4 and really nice sequential improvement throughout the year.

我們過去幾次通話中都討論過女性業務。我們在第三季報告中提到，女裝業務已經恢復強勁——略強於公司整體業務。到了第四季度，女裝業務持續保持強勁勢頭，與整體業務更加一致。男股依然強勁。我們看到，商店中心核心區域的改善幅度可能最大。所以我們特別點名批評了化妝品和鞋類。這兩個業務在第三季和第四季都實現了非常好的成長，並且全年都取得了非常好的持續進步。

And then finally, not to leave Gurmeet in the Home business and the Home team out, the Home business in the beginning of the year was kind of difficult for us, and it was a business that was most under attack with tariffs, but they have done a really nice job of turning around that business across the board within home. On our last call, we spoke specifically about Toys being important and we finished up the holiday quarter with very strong business in Toys.

最後，不能忽略家居業務的 Gurmeet 和家居團隊，年初家居業務對我們來說有點困難，而且這個業務受關稅衝擊最大，但他們在家居業務內部全面扭轉局面方面做得非常出色。在上次電話會議上，我們專門討論了玩具的重要性，並且我們在假期季節結束時玩具業務表現非常強勁。

In terms of the comp guide, I would turn to Bill or to Michael, I would preface it with -- we, of course, are excited about a 7% to 8% comp guide, but we haven't changed the conservative nature of our guide. So it's not like we're putting out some high-flying number to get headlines, we still feel pretty good about it. I don't know if you -- either if you would like to add to that.

關於薪酬指導，我會向比爾或邁克爾請教，我會先說明一點——我們當然對 7% 到 8% 的薪酬指導感到興奮，但我們並沒有改變我們指導的保守性質。所以這並不是說我們為了博取眼球而公佈了一個驚人的數字，但我們仍然對這個數字感到非常滿意。我不知道你是否也想補充一些內容。

No. Matt, I would say, one, it is a reflection of the initiatives we have in place and the momentum we have coming out of the fourth quarter, the merchants did a tremendous job transitioning into the first quarter that we can see in the business. We're in the inverse position we were last year where we started off very, very weak. So we feel good about how we started the year. You had a question on tax refunds.

不。馬特，我想說，首先，這反映了我們已實施的各項舉措以及我們從第四季度延續下來的發展勢頭，商家們在過渡到第一季度方面做得非常出色，這一點我們可以從業務中看出。我們現在的處境與去年正好相反，去年我們開局非常非常不利。所以，我們對今年的開局感到滿意。您有一個關於退稅的問題。

We haven't built anything in for the tax refunds. It's still early. Obviously, in the tax refund season, the significant refunds just began to flow last week. And from what we can see from the treasury, they're up about 7% thus far. But with roughly two-third of the refunds left to come, we'll have to wait and see the impact over the entire quarter.

我們沒有為退稅預留任何資金。現在還為時過早。顯然，在退稅季，大額退稅款項直到上週才開始陸續到帳。從財政部的數據來看，到目前為止，它們的漲幅約為 7%。但由於還有大約三分之二的退款尚未到賬，我們還需要觀察整個季度受到的影響。

Great. And then just one follow-up, Jim, on new stores, productivity that you're seeing in the Northeast, how does that inform your opportunity to expand the unit growth opportunity over time?

偉大的。吉姆，我還有一個後續問題，關於你在東北地區看到的門市和生產力，這對你未來擴大門市數量成長機會有何影響？

Matt, it's Michael again. We wouldn't get into the specifics of the Northeast other than it's been very strong and it gives us a lot of confidence that we can grow there. I would say, but not only in the Northeast and you can see it in the difference between comp and total sales growth. We had one of our best years in a while in terms of new store productivity, which also gives us confidence that we can grow in our existing markets.

馬特，我是麥可。我們不會深入探討東北地區的具體情況，但該地區的發展勢頭非常強勁，這讓我們對我們能夠在那裡發展壯大充滿信心。不僅在東北地區，而且從同店銷售額成長和總銷售額成長之間的差異可以看出這一點。就新店業績而言，我們今年取得了近年來最好的成績之一，這也讓我們有信心在現有市場中成長。

Paul Lejuez, Citigroup.

Paul Lejuez，花旗集團。

It's Tracy Kogan filling in for Paul. I had two questions. The first is on your merchandise margin improvement in 4Q, how much of it was driven by by better IMU from buying better versus how much was driven by lower markdowns? And what are you expecting in F '26? And then I have a follow-up.

是特蕾西·科根代替保羅。我有兩個問題。首先，關於您第四季的商品毛利率提升，其中有多少是因為採購效率提高所帶來的IMU提升，又有多少是因為降價幅度降低所帶來的提升？您對2026年秋天有什麼期待？然後我還有一個後續問題。

No. For the merchandise margin, that 10 basis points improvement, I think we feel good about it. It was driven mostly by better buying and our merchants just making good decisions as they always do, around how to deliver value at the same time, following some benefit through to us.

不。對於商品毛利率這 10 個基點的提升，我認為我們感到滿意。這主要得益於更合理的採購，以及我們的商家一如既往地做出正確的決策，在如何創造價值的同時，也為我們帶來了一些好處。

And on '26, it's -- again, it's mainly driven by the better buying. To some extent, we get some benefit from recapturing some of the tariff pressure early in the year.

而到了 26 年，情況再次表明，這主要是由於更好的購買力所驅動的。從某種程度上說，我們在年初就重新奪回一些關稅壓力，會為我們帶來一些好處。

Great. And then on the flow through in 1Q, I know you mentioned higher incentive comp and timing of packaway. Can you size either of those headwinds and which one is bigger.

偉大的。關於第一季的業績下滑，我知道你提到了更高的激勵補償和打包時間表。你能估算一下這兩個逆風​​的大小，並判斷哪個風力比較大嗎？

Could you repeat the question for me one more time?

您能再重複一次我的問題嗎？

Yeah, sure. I think on the 7 to 8 comp, we would have expected maybe more flow through to the EPS line. And I think you mentioned that you had a higher incentive comp in there as well as timing of packaway. And I was just wondering if you could frame how big either of those are in terms of basis points of pressure for the quarter.

當然可以。我認為在 7 到 8 倍壓縮比下，我們原本預期 EPS 生產線會有更大的流量。我想你也提到過，你們的激勵補償方案更高，而且打包時間也有限制。我只是想問一下，您能否用季度壓力基點數來描述這兩項指標對本季的影響有多大？

Tracy, it's Michael. As you can see on the full year guidance at a 3 to 4 comp, we leveraged EBIT by 10 to 40. So that actually above what our normal kind of long-range algorithm, always timing quarter-to-quarter. In the first quarter, we have a couple of things driving the deleverage, the first of which is we haven't yet lapped the distribution center opening from last year. So we'll begin to lap that in the second quarter, but that has a bigger impact in the first quarter.

特蕾西，我是麥可。從全年績效指引（以 3 到 4 年的年比計算）可以看出，我們將息稅前利潤提高了 10 到 40 倍。所以實際上，這高於我們通常的長期演算法，總是按季度進行計時。第一季度，有兩個因素推動了去槓桿化，首先是我們還沒有趕上去年配送中心開幕帶來的成長。所以我們會在第二季開始逐漸縮小差距，但這在第一季的影響更大。

Number two, we have built into our forecast at how it plays out some pressure on the packaway impact, the packaway expense. And then finally, we had a pretty disappointing first quarter for us last year, which means the incentive comp base will be lower from last year, but pressure this year. Among those, they're pretty evenly split.

第二，我們在預測中已經考慮到了打包的影響和打包費用方面的一些壓力。最後，去年第一季我們業績相當令人失望，這意味著今年的激勵薪酬基數將比去年低，但今年的壓力會更大。其中，人數大致相當。

Lorraine Hutchinson, Bank of America.

洛琳‧哈欽森，美國銀行。

What are the key factors driving the acceleration in the Ladies business? And what's your outlook for the category as we move through the year?

推動女裝產業加速發展的關鍵因素是什麼？那麼，您對今年該類別的發展前景有何看法？

The acceleration in the Ladies business is rooted back with the brand strategy the company had put that in place maybe two years ago now, and that team has really done a great job of resetting that vendor base and the assortment there, finding a really nice balance of bringing in branded bargains across good, better and best. We've seen some nice strength in the Juniors business specifically. So that's been a part of the growth there. In terms of the outlook going forward, right now, a lot of things are performing quite well. And I would imagine we're going to see continued strength in that business going forward, certainly in the first half of 2026. Did I get all of your questions there, Lorraine?

女裝業務的加速發展源於公司大約兩年前製定的品牌策略，該團隊在重塑供應商基礎和產品種類方面做得非常出色，在引入優質、更好和最佳品牌折扣商品方面找到了很好的平衡。我們看到青少年足球業務尤其表現強勁。所以，這也是當地發展的一部分。展望未來，目前很多方面都表現得相當好。我預計該業務在未來一段時間內將繼續保持強勁勢頭，尤其是在 2026 年上半年。洛琳，你的問題都問完了嗎？

It seems like you brought more inventory into the stores during the holiday season. Is this a change in strategy? And would you expect to move more from the distribution centers into the stores as you did for the 4Q?

看來你們在假日期間增加了門市的庫存。這是戰略上的改變嗎？您是否預期會像第四季一樣，將更多貨物從配送中心運送到門市？

Lorraine, on inventory, we did mention in our remarks that inventory grew 8%. Obviously, that's one point in the quarter, but that's slower than our overall sales growth. We did see opportunities to increase our inventory position in front of the customer. And we believe that supported our growth and ability to chase sales in Q4 while also better transitioning into Q1, all of that while maintaining solid margins and inventory turns.

洛林，關於庫存，我們在發言中提到庫存增加了 8%。顯然，這只是本季的一個階段，但比我們整體的銷售成長速度要慢。我們確實看到了提升我們在客戶面前的庫存優勢的機會。我們相信，這支持了我們在第四季度實現成長和銷售目標的能力，同時也更好地過渡到了第一季度，所有這一切都是在保持穩健的利潤率和庫存週轉率的情況下實現的。

So I think we do have more opportunity, but we feel good about the levels coming into the first quarter.

所以我認為我們還有更多機會，但我們對第一季的水平感到滿意。

Chuck Grom, Gordon Haskett.

查克·格羅姆，戈登·哈斯克特。

Jim, you talked a lot about the changes made in marketing and social media campaigns have been highly successful. I guess I'm curious how you continue to evolve the marketing strategy in '26? And do you expect marketing expenses as a percentage of sales to start to move higher over the next couple of years? Or do they stay consistent?

吉姆，你多次提到行銷和社群媒體行銷活動所做的改變都非常成功。我很好奇你們在 2026 年將如何持續發展行銷策略？您是否預期未來幾年行銷費用佔銷售額的比例會開始上升？還是它們始終保持一致？

Great question. We're really pleased with the marketing team, the new campaigns and the agency that was put in place at the beginning of 2025. Their work started to hit the market, so to speak, for back-to-school. So I would say we're really pleased with amongst a number of other factors the change in marketing was one of the things that helped the business have an inflection point positive. So the change in marketing, some in-store changes, of course, the assortments being really great.

問得好。我們對行銷團隊、新活動以及2025年初成立的代理商都非常滿意。他們的作品開始進入市場，可以說是趕上了開學季。所以我覺得我們非常滿意，除了其他許多因素之外，行銷方式的改變是幫助公司實現正向轉捩點的因素之一。所以行銷方式有所改變，店內也進行了一些改變，當然，商品種類也非常豐富。

You put all that together and just make for a really good Q3 and Q4. In terms of marketing spend, we've had questions as to whether we're going to spend or invest more in marketing. We're pretty pleased with the results in Q3 and Q4. And as a rate of sales, we haven't changed our marketing spend. It certainly seems like it could be a lever for us to use going forward.

把所有這些因素綜合起來，就能打造出非常出色的第三季和第四季業績。在行銷支出方面，我們一直被問到是否會增加行銷支出或投資。我們對第三季和第四季的業績相當滿意。就銷售額而言，我們的行銷支出並沒有改變。這看起來確實可以成為我們未來發展的一個槓桿。

So we might experiment with some slight increase there. But we don't feel like we need to make any major investments in new marketing to drive traffic because the demand generation part of the business right now seems so strong.

因此，我們可以嘗試略微增加這個數值。但我們覺得目前無需在新的行銷方面進行任何重大投資來吸引流量，因為業務的需求創造部分目前看來非常強勁。

Okay. That's great. And then just to double click on the second part of your answer on the store experience. Can you -- can you dive in there? What's worked? What can you expand? How much is left on the opportunity set within the stores themselves? Because clearly, NSP, to your point earlier, was very strong for the second quarter in a row along with a good comp.

好的。那太棒了。然後只需雙擊您關於商店體驗的答案的第二部分即可。你能……你能潛進去嗎？哪些方法奏效了？哪些方面可以擴充？商店自身還蘊藏多少機會？因為很明顯，如你之前所說，NSP連續第二季表現非常強勁，而且同期基數也很高。

It's Michael. On the store front, similar to marketing, we haven't made major investments there. But we do have a pretty strong test and learn capability in our store organization. And what we did during the back half of the year is we targeted payroll investments to improve both store recovery and registered throughput really focusing on high-volume activity in the store. And we clearly saw some early successes that we can build on those learnings in 2026. The other thing that you'll see in '26, as we've discussed in the past, we've been piloting self-checkout actually for some time now, and we plan to expand to more stores given the positive results we've seen thus far.

是麥可。在店面裝潢方面，和行銷一樣，我們沒有進行大量投資。但是，我們的門市組織確實擁有相當強大的測試和學習能力。我們在下半年所做的，是將薪資投入作為提高門市復甦率和收銀吞吐量的重點，並真正關注門市的高交易量活動。我們顯然看到了一些早期成功案例，我們可以利用這些經驗教訓在 2026 年繼續發展。2026 年你還會看到另一件事，正如我們過去討論過的，我們實際上已經試行自助結帳一段時間了，鑑於我們迄今為止看到的積極結果，我們計劃將其推廣到更多門店。

Brooke Roach, Goldman Sachs.

Brooke Roach，高盛集團。

Jim, I wanted to follow up on your marketing comments. As you assess the higher pace of traffic that's coming into the store, are you seeing any shifts in the age or household income demographic of your customer base? Is this a reactivation of lapsed customers? Or are these new younger customers coming into the store that can repeat?

吉姆，我想就你提出的行銷觀點做個後續跟進。在評估進店客流量增加的情況時，您是否發現客戶群的年齡或家庭收入組成發生了任何變化？這是重新激活已流失客戶嗎？或者，這些是會再次光顧的新的年輕顧客嗎？

It's a great question. Starting at the top side, we're very encouraged that we are seeing nice customer count growth, right? And it's hard to determine sometimes whether that's a "brand new customer" or a lapsed customer returning, but we are -- it's really exciting for us to have comp sales growth driven not only by transactions, but by customers finding Ross and we're really investing in the Ross brand. In terms of how those customers split by income and age, et cetera, it's -- once you push down to that level, the data becomes a little bit more complicated to read. We're very comfortable saying that we've seen growth very broad-based across income demographics, age demographics, including 18- to 34-year-old customers.

這是一個很好的問題。從客戶數量成長來看，我們非常欣喜地看到客戶數量出現了可觀的成長，對吧？有時很難確定這是「全新客戶」還是回歸的老客戶，但我們很高興看到同店銷售成長不僅來自交易，也來自顧客對 Ross 的了解，我們正在大力投資 Ross 品牌。至於這些客戶以收入和年齡等因素如何劃分，一旦你深入到那個層面，數據就變得有點難以理解了。我們非常有信心說，我們已經看到各個收入群體、各個年齡層的群體都實現了廣泛的增長，包括 18 至 34 歲的客戶。

We're pleased with our Juniors business. We're pleased with our Young Men's business. So we feel good about the younger portion of the customer base, but overall, we're just quite encouraged to start to see some really nice acceleration in customer count.

我們對青少年業務很滿意。我們對青年男士業務很滿意。我們對年輕客戶群感到滿意，但總的來說，我們很高興看到客戶數量開始出現非常可觀的成長。

Great. And then as a follow-up, can you share your latest view on the earnings algorithm for Ross on a multiyear basis? Are there -- is there anything that's structural preventing you from returning to a 14% operating margin over time?

偉大的。其次，您能否分享一下您對羅斯公司多年獲利演算法的最新看法？是否存在任何結構性因素阻礙您逐步恢復到 14% 的營業利潤率？

Sure, Brooke. The algorithm is -- hasn't changed dramatically. We're -- new store growth, we have at 5%. And obviously, that would suggest -- this year, we're at 5% that we'd continue to grow both banners, and we think we can do that over time to maintain the new store growth there. Productivity Jim mentioned that we've seen heightened productivity built into our guidance this year is about 70% to 75% new store productivity of an average store.

當然可以，布魯克。演算法並沒有發生顯著變化。我們—新店成長率為 5%。顯然，這表明——今年，我們的成長率為 5%，我們將繼續保持這兩個品牌的成長，我們認為隨著時間的推移，我們可以做到這一點，以維持新店的成長。吉姆提到，今年的生產力預期中已經包含了更高的生產力，新店生產力約為一般門市的 70% 至 75%。

So that gets you to 3% to 4% growth. The EBIT margin, we've said historically, will get leverage between 3% to 4%. Occupancy is about 4%, SG&A is 3% to 4%. And then the stock repurchase is about 2%. It gets you to the about 8% to 10% long-term earnings growth.

這樣就能達到 3% 到 4% 的成長。我們之前說過，息稅前利潤率將達到 3% 到 4%。入住率約 4%，銷售、管理及行政費用為 3% 至 4%。然後股票回購率約為 2%。這樣可以實現大約 8% 到 10% 的長期收益成長。

Michael Binetti, Evercore.

Michael Binetti，Evercore。

Great quarter. So first quarter has been a source of underperformance for -- on a multiyear basis. You thought there was an opportunity to maybe come out of the holiday Jim and transition to a little more aggressively into the transition inventory. Can you help us understand within the context of the 7% to 8% comp then with the margins compressing on some of the biggest comps. Can you just walk us through -- is there something unique in the first quarter that you're kind of going for it to get to that 7% to 8% comp that isn't as much of an opportunity as you get out to the rest of the year?

很棒的季度。因此，多年來，第一季一直是業績不佳的根源。吉姆，你認為或許有機會結束假期，更積極地過渡到過渡庫存階段。您能否幫助我們理解，在7%到8%的同業比較基礎上，以及一些最大同業比較的利潤率下降的情況下，這種情況是如何發生的？能給我們詳細介紹一下嗎？第一季有什麼特別之處，讓您努力爭取達到 7% 到 8% 的薪資成長，而這在一年中的其他時間裡並不是那麼容易實現的？

And is it something that you have to invest in to get there as we look at the margin? And then on the margins, if I look at 2025, that's coming in at 11.9% for the year, excluding tariffs, that was probably in the low 12s. This year, you're guiding 12.1% to 12.3% on the best comp guidance we've seen in a while and that's lapping some of the duplicative executive costs, the distribution center costs that wrap around for just one quarter, and then there's some reticketing last year. Can you just talk about what's conservative there or if there's a change to the to the long-term language of 15 basis points of expansion above the 2 to 3 points of comp or anything like that we should think about?

那麼，從利潤率來看，這是你必須投資才能實現的嗎？然後，從邊際效益來看，如果我看 2025 年，那一年的成長率為 11.9%，不包括關稅的話，可能在 12% 左右。今年，你們給出的業績預期是 12.1% 到 12.3%，這是我們一段時間以來看到的最佳業績預期，而且這還扣除了一些重複的高管成本、只持續一個季度的配送中心成本，以及去年的一些重新定價成本。您能否談談其中的保守之處是什麼，或者長期政策措辭是否有所改變，例如在 2 到 3 個基點的基礎上擴張 15 個基點，或者我們應該考慮的其他類似因素？

I'm happy to walk through this. So I would separate the EBIT margin. I would -- I'm happy to -- I would separate the EBIT margin in the first quarter from the comp because I think there's distinct things that I walked through with -- we haven't lapped the DC. We have packaway pressure in the first quarter. And also, we had a lousy start last year.

我很樂意一起探討這個問題。因此，我會單獨計算息稅前利潤率。我很樂意將第一季的息稅前利潤率與同店銷售額分開計算，因為我認為兩者之間存在一些顯著差異，我已經詳細分析過了——我們還沒有超越配送中心。我們在第一季面臨包裝壓力。而且，我們去年開局也很糟糕。

So we're working off a lower incentive base from last year. Those are really the things that are impacting EBIT margin in the first quarter. In terms of the 7% to 8% guidance, it's a reflection of certainly the momentum coming out of the fourth quarter, but also we're up against pretty weak compares, not only last year, as you mentioned, but over the last couple of years. And we think the initiatives we have in place, including, as I mentioned earlier, with inventory levels are having an impact in the first quarter and are sustaining. In terms of the back half of the year, nothing has really changed in our earnings algorithm for every point of comp over the guidance, it's worth about 10 to 15 basis points of EBIT margin.

因此，我們今年的激勵基數比去年低。這些才是真正影響第一季息稅前利潤率的因素。至於 7% 到 8% 的成長預期，這當然反映了第四季以來的成長勢頭，但我們也面臨著相當疲軟的基數，不僅像你提到的那樣是去年，而且是過去幾年。我們認為，我們已採取的措施，包括我之前提到的庫存水準措施，在第一季產生了影響，而這種影響是持續的。就下半年而言，我們的獲利演算法並沒有發生任何實質變化，每超過預期一個百分點，EBIT 利潤率就會提高約 10 到 15 個基點。

And just to add, there's been questions for the last year about are we investing more in marketing or investing more in store labor as a rate of sales, both marketing and for labor are very much in line with last year. We don't intend to sort of buy the comp in Q1 or for the year going forward. I think Michael answered the flow-through question better than I could have. But -- if and when we decide at some point to overinvest in part of the business, hoping for an ROI on it, we will signal that. But at the moment, we're getting some really nice growth without making artificial investments.

另外，過去一年來一直有人質疑，我們是應該加大對行銷的投入，還是應該加大對門市勞動力的投入，因為就銷售額而言，行銷和勞動力方面的投入都與去年基本持平。我們不打算在第一季或今年接下來的時間收購競爭對手。我認為麥可對「流通性」問題的回答比我好得多。但是——如果我們在某個時候決定對業務的某個部分進行過度投資，希望獲得投資回報率，我們會發出信號。但目前，我們在不進行人為投資的情況下，也獲得了非常可觀的成長。

Mark Altschwager, Baird.

馬克·阿爾特施瓦格，貝爾德。

Could you expand on the higher new store productivity you're seeing? Is that a function of the markets you're entering that are perhaps higher rent, but structurally higher sales per square foot? Is it a reflection of the operational improvements you cited in the prepared remarks? Just what are the key factors there?

您能否詳細說明一下您觀察到的新店生產力更高的情況？這是否與你所進入的市場有關，這些市場的租金可能較高，但每平方英尺的銷售額結構性較高？這是否反映了您在準備好的演講稿中提到的營運改善措施？關鍵因素究竟是什麼？

We are -- first, I'd say it's -- overall, it's not just the new markets. We're seeing it across the regions, even some of our tried and true regions in California, Florida and Texas. And I think it is a reflection of some of the things we're doing in existing stores being more aggressive out of the gate in new stores and seeing it pay off. That said, to your point, we are entering more populated higher rent markets, and we're very pleased with our entry and are seeing great performance there.

首先，我想說的是，整體而言，這不僅僅是新市場的問題。我們看到這種情況在各個地區都有發生，甚至包括加州、佛羅裡達州和德克薩斯州等一些我們久經考驗的地區。我認為這反映了我們在現有門市採取的一些措施，以及在新店開業之初就採取更積極的策略，並且看到了成效。也就是說，正如您所說，我們正在進入人口更密集、租金更高的市場，我們對進入這些市場感到非常滿意，並且在那裡取得了很好的表現。

And then following up on the branded strategy and the success in Ladies apparel. Can you talk about the road map for replicating that success in other categories? What's the next area of focus?

然後繼續推進品牌策略，並取得女裝領域的成功。您能否談談如何將這種成功模式複製到其他領域？下一個重點領域是什麼？

Well, the brand strategy cuts across the whole store, probably most prominent within the Ladies business. But as we talked a bit in the prepared remarks, the growth for the quarter -- actually for each of the last few quarters, was very broad based. And as I look at comps by merchandise category between Men's, Ladies, Kids, the whole Center Core set of businesses, Cosmetics and Shoes, all very strong. Home has really regained its ground. It slightly comp eroding.

嗯，品牌策略貫穿整個商店，在女裝業務方面可能最為突出。但正如我們在準備好的發言稿中提到的，本季的成長——實際上是過去幾季的成長——基礎非常廣泛。當我查看男裝、女裝、童裝、整個核心業務、化妝品和鞋類等商品類別的同店銷售情況時，發現它們都非常強勁。家園已經真正重新站穩腳跟。它略微受到侵蝕。

But given where it started at the beginning of the year, it's very much in play for helping us drive a very strong fourth quarter comp. So it's not really a sequential rollout between Ladies and the other businesses. And I think it's kind of now in our DNA. Now we're just kind of looking forward as to how we how we grow our business going forward quarter-to-quarter. But again, nearly every piece of our business actually, every major merchandising category was solidly positive with a very strong business in Outerwear, which was a bigger business for us this quarter than it's been in the past. So it's very broad-based.

但考慮到它年初的開局，它很有可能幫助我們在第四季度取得非常強勁的成績。所以，女士們和其他企業之間並不是依照順序推出的。我覺得這已經融入我們的基因裡了。現在我們正在展望未來，思考如何才能實現季度之間的業務成長。但實際上，我們幾乎所有業務，每個主要商品類別都取得了穩健的積極進展，其中外套業務表現非常強勁，本季度外套業務的規模比以往任何時候都大。所以它的基礎非常廣泛。

Simeon Siegel, Guggenheim.

西蒙西格爾，古根漢美術館。

Really nice job. Jim, just following up on the last one. When thinking about the branded effort, any way to frame how AUR has been looking at a category level. So just to -- before accounting for any category shifts because in the categories that you're working after, how AUR looks? And then any -- did you guys quantify the new store versus maintenance CapEx within next year's guide?

幹得漂亮！吉姆，我只是接著上次的問題問。在考慮品牌推廣工作時，任何能夠從品類層面來闡述 AUR 是如何看待這個問題的方案都值得探討。所以，在考慮任何類別變化之前——因為在你接下來要研究的類別中，AUR 看起來是什麼樣的？還有──你們在明年的預算中量化了新店建設與維護資本支出之間的關係嗎？

On the AUR, our AUR increase was pretty modest in the quarter. I think we've called out basket -- a modest increase in the basket, but most of the comp coming from transactions. The UPT was flattish versus last year. So you could surmise that AUR was just a modest increase as well. It was a little disproportionate to the part of the business that got hit hardest by tariffs, which was Home.

本季我們的AUR成長幅度相當有限。我認為我們已經指出了購物籃的趨勢——購物籃略有增長，但大部分增長來自交易。與去年相比，UPT 指數基本持平。所以你可以推斷，AUR 的成長幅度也只是小幅的。這與受關稅衝擊最大的業務部門（即 Home）相比，比例略顯不成比例。

So Home was up. The other businesses didn't see that much of an AUR increase I think if we had a learning coming out of the quarter is that we probably have the ability to push for either higher-priced goods or potentially taking some retails up. But what's made us successful for years and years is having the best bargains in retail and always maintaining our umbrella relative to mainstream retail.

所以，Home 已經上線了。我認為其他業務的平均營業額成長並不明顯。如果說本季我們有什麼經驗教訓的話，那就是我們或許有能力推動更高價位的商品銷售，或者有可能提高一些零售額。但多年來我們成功的秘訣在於，我們始終提供零售業最優惠的價格，並始終保持與主流零售業的差異化優勢。

So we're going to focus on that for sure. But we probably have gained some confidence in shifting our assortment to, again, slightly higher priced goods, new goods, not like-for-like and higher prices and maybe in certain targeted places, if we feel like we have merchandise categories that are margin eroding increasing AUR a little bit to recapture some of that. So we feel just really well positioned as we start 2026. We're excited about the current growth, but there's -- they're seemingly another dozen levers that we can pull for additional growth going forward.

所以我們肯定會重點關注這一點。但我們可能已經對調整商品組合更有信心了，再次轉向價格稍高的商品、新品，而不是同類商品，並且價格更高，也許在某些目標地點，如果我們覺得某些商品類別正在侵蝕利潤，那麼稍微提高平均售價（AUR）以彌補一些損失。因此，我們感覺在2026年伊始，我們已經做好了非常充分的準備。我們對目前的成長感到興奮，但似乎還有十幾個其他的槓桿可以讓我們在未來進一步成長。

And then regarding capital, right, the best way to probably think about it for us is maybe think about one-third each for DCs and new stores and maybe 25% for store maintenance and the balance for technology enhancements to merchandising tools and initiatives and other things that are going to support long-term growth.

至於資金方面，對我們來說，最好的考慮方式可能是將三分之一用於配送中心和新店，25%用於門市維護，其餘部分用於商品銷售工具和舉措的技術改進以及其他支持長期增長的事項。

Boruchow, Wells Fargo.

博魯喬夫，富國銀行。

This is Juliana Duque on for Ike. I wanted to ask if you've seen any changes in the type of consumer shopping you've been seeing across both the brands whether that's between the good, better, best towards branded or any other commentary to get there?

這裡是朱莉安娜·杜克為艾克報道。我想問一下，您是否觀察到消費者在購買這兩個品牌的產品時，在選擇商品類型方面有任何變化，例如從“好”、“更好”、“最好”到“品牌商品”的轉變，或者您對此有何其他看法？

The quick answer, I would say is no. The composition of our customer base seems to be very much intact. We've seen growth across essentially all pieces of it in terms of income levels, age, different ethnicities. So to tease out any minor differences, it would be kind of unnecessary. It's been an overarching rising tide, I think, for essentially all customers.

簡單來說，我的答案是否定的。我們的客戶群組成似乎非常穩定。我們看到，從收入水平、年齡、不同種族等各個方面來看，幾乎所有群體都實現了成長。所以，要找出任何細微差別，其實沒有必要。我認為，對幾乎所有客戶而言，這都是一股整體的上漲趨勢。

Dana Telsey, Telsey Group.

Dana Telsey，Telsey集團。

Congratulations on the very nice results. as you talked about expanding dd's, I believe, going from 10 new store openings in '25 to 25 in '26. Is it the same strategies that give you confidence in dd's and that you're seeing the results on and is there any changes either to cost of stores, size of store and dd's that you're seeing? And is the better the best -- the good, better, best strategy, how it is applied to dd's. And just lastly, new store openings cadence this year? How do they flow through? And what percentage of the stores will be in the Northeast this year.

恭喜取得如此優異的成績。正如您所說，為了擴大 dd's 的規模，我相信，2025 年新開 10 家門市，2026 年將增加到 25 家。你是否仍採用相同的策略來增強對門市的信心，並看到成效？門市成本、門市規模以及門市營運是否有任何變化？而「更好」是否就是「最好」——好的、更好的、最好的策略，如何應用於 dds。最後，今年新店開幕的節奏如何？它們是如何流動的？今年東北地區將佔門市總數的百分之多少？

Dana, on dd's, what really gives us confidence is the underlying merchandising strategies that we've been working on in the last couple of years and certainly the overall performance of dd's, which has, like Ross has had very, very strong trends. On the reacceleration, no change in store size. Like Ross, we're seeing very strong new store performance, which also gives us confidence. This year's new stores are primarily in some of their older markets. We were able to take advantage of some Rite-Aid bankruptcy deals that helped shore up the pipeline for this year. In terms of cadence, I think it will be more weighted to the summer and fall opening groups. I think those are going to be pretty even with about, I think, we said 17 new stores in the first opening window.

Dana，關於 dd's，真正讓我們充滿信心的是我們過去幾年一直在努力製定的基礎商品銷售策略，當然還有 dd's 的整體表現，就像 Ross 一樣，它一直保持著非常強勁的趨勢。重新加速發展期間，門市規模不變。與羅斯一樣，我們看到新店業績非常強勁，這也給了我們信心。今年新開的門市主要集中在一些老市場。我們利用了 Rite-Aid 的一些破產交易，這有助於鞏固今年的供貨管道。就節奏而言，我認為夏季和秋季的開賽組會佔比較大。我認為這些數字應該會相當接近，我們之前說過，在第一階段開幕期間會有大約 17 家新店。

Marni Shapiro, Retail Tracker.

Marni Shapiro，零售追蹤器。

I just want to follow up on Dana's comments on dd's. I was curious, did you see the same trends there as well. It was driven by traffic and not basket. And have you taken over the last year due to tariffs, any price increases at dd's? And then just one last follow-up on dd's. Do you have much of a Home business there compared to Ross? Or is it smaller?

我只是想就 Dana 對 dd 的評論做個補充說明。我很好奇，你那邊也觀察到同樣的趨勢了嗎？是交通流量而不是籃子造成的。過去一年，由於關稅問題，dd's 的價格是否有所上漲？最後再跟進一下 dd 的情況。與羅斯相比，你在那裡的家庭生意規模大嗎？或者它更小？

On the trends for dd's, I'd say they're very similar for Ross, including basket and price increase, increases.

就 dd 的趨勢而言，我認為 Ross 的情況非常相似，包括購物籃和價格上漲。

And they have a very vibrant Home business at dd's in line with the percent of total store that Ross has. The categories are slightly different. The mix of categories within Home are slightly different. But it's a very strong part of that business as well.

dd's 的家居業務非常活躍，其佔比與 Ross 門市總佔比相符。類別略有不同。首頁類別的組合略有不同。但這同時也是該業務中非常重要的一部分。

And I remember when you guys were first tinkering with dd's and over the years as you played with dd's, you've had a larger Kids business. Is that still true? Or is it more balanced today? Is it more like Ross?

我還記得你們最初擺弄 dd's 的時候，這些年來，隨著你們不斷改進 dd's，你們的兒童用品生意也越來越大了。現在情況仍然如此嗎？或者說，如今的情況更平衡了？更像羅斯嗎？

I'm not sure I know the answer to that off the top of my head, but it's -- they also have a decent kids business, and we tend to not want to disclose sort of with such specificity of the size of each of our businesses.

我一時想不起來答案，但是——他們也有不錯的兒童用品業務，我們通常不想如此具體地透露我們每項業務的規模。

Fair enough. Actually, don't disclose it, keep it to yourself. Thank you, guys. Best of luck in the first quarter. I rescind my question.

很公平。實際上，不要說出去，自己保守秘密。謝謝大家。祝你第一季一切順利。我收回我的問題。

No one needs to know the answers. Good luck with the first quarter.

沒人需要知道答案。祝你第一季一切順利。

Aneesha Sherman, Bernstein.

阿妮莎·謝爾曼，伯恩斯坦。

Great quarter. So you talked about capturing additional market share. Jim, you used the word inflection that you saw during back-to-school. You're obviously guiding for a step down in comp in the second half. You're facing some tougher compares. Can you talk about how you're thinking about how sustainable this accelerated level of comp is. Do you see it as you lap a year and then you go back to algo? Or do you see this as more sustainable as you're winning over new customers who can be a more permanent fixture in the comp growth going forward?

很棒的季度。所以你談到如何獲得更多市場份額。吉姆，你用了在返校期間看到的詞形變化。很明顯，你是在為下半季降低比賽難度做準備。你面臨著一些更嚴峻的比較。您能否談談您如何看待這種加速競爭的可持續性？你覺得你用一年的時間跑完一圈，然後再回到演算法程式設計嗎？或者，您認為這種方式更具永續性，因為您可以贏得新客戶，而這些客戶在未來可以成為公司成長中更穩定的組成部分？

I'll take a crack at it, and then my partner will probably give a more conservative view. I don't -- look, we came out of a nice third quarter and we feel excited about our fourth quarter. We're clearly exiting Q4 with strength and putting up a -- we think, a nice guide for Q1. I don't think it's overly aggressive given where the business is. There are two schools of thought in retail. One is so you start lapping these numbers, you'll, everybody looking at two year, you can’t put great numbers on top of great numbers. I think sometimes that's true. I don't, it's much too early as we sit here in the very beginning of March to prognosticate the back half of the year, and we have a guide that we just put out there. But there's another school of thought that says we're inviting new customers into the brand, the assortment and in-store experiences converting them into shoppers.

我先嘗試一下，然後我的搭檔可能會提出更保守的觀點。我不——你看，我們第三節打得不錯，我們對第四節充滿期待。我們顯然以強勁的勢頭結束了第四季度，我們認為，這將為第一季提供一個很好的指引。考慮到這家公司所處的地理位置，我認為這並不算過於激進。零售業有兩種主要思想流派。一是當你開始重複這些數字時，你會發現，所有著眼於兩年的人都無法在偉大的數字之上再疊加偉大的數字。我覺得有時候確實如此。我不這麼認為，現在才三月初，預測下半年還為時過早，而且我們剛剛發布了一份指南。但也有另一種觀點認為，我們正在透過豐富的商品種類和店內體驗，吸引新顧客加入品牌，並將他們轉化為消費者。

The in-store experience is better, they're returning more quickly, word of mouth begins to spread, bringing even more customers in as comp store sales increases you naturally get more marketing dollars as we do it as a rate of sales. So you naturally get more labor so the stores look better and you can start spinning that proverbial flywheel or virtuous cycle or whatever. That's the school of thought that I come from. And the one that we're trying to sort of embed in the culture here, a growth orientation, getting all of the functional areas in alignment.

店內體驗更好了，顧客回頭率更高了，口碑開始傳播，隨著同店銷售額的增長，吸引了更多顧客，自然而然地，我們隨著銷售額的增長而獲得更多的營銷資金。這樣一來，自然就能吸引更多勞動力，讓商店看起來更好，然後你就可以開始運轉那個眾所周知的飛輪或良性循環之類的東西了。這就是我所秉持的思想流派。我們正在努力將成長導向融入這裡的文化中，讓所有職能部門保持一致。

And when we look at the back half of the year, certainly this early, we want to remain conservative, but I see tremendous opportunity for us to continue to grow the business in a somewhat outsized way.

當我們展望下半年時，當然現在還為時過早，我們希望保持保守，但我認為我們有巨大的機會繼續以相當大的方式發展業務。

Helpful. Is it fair to say that your guidance encompass is the first school of thought where you're looking at the two year stacks or CAGRs and normalizing for that, but then you internally are pushing your bias to the second school of thought, where it's more sustainable?

很有幫助。可以說，您的指導方針涵蓋了第一種思路，即關注兩年的累積成長率或複合年增長率並進行標準化，但您內部卻傾向於第二種思路，即更具可持續性的思路？

Perhaps that's part of it. The other part of it is it's just so early. And we've had two nice quarters, but the two quarters prior that weren't so great. And clearly, there's a lot going on in the macro environment right now. So we just felt it would have been irresponsible to be more aggressive for the balance of the year. And let's say that I think one of the stronger full year comps we've put out as a company in a while. So we thought that was -- should have been an indication of positive momentum.

或許這是原因之一。另一方面，現在時間還太早了。我們最近兩個季度業績不錯，但之前的兩個季度業績不太好。顯然，目前宏觀環境正在發生很多事情。因此，我們覺得在今年剩餘的時間裡採取更激進的策略是不負責任的。可以說，我認為這是我們公司近來發布的業績最強勁的全年業績之一。所以我們認為這應該是積極勢頭的跡象。

Jay Sole, UBS.

Jay Sole，瑞銀集團。

I want to ask about market share in a different way. Jim, do you think you're taking market share from other off-price retailers? Or do you think it's coming more from traditional retailers? How do you see that?

我想換個角度詢問市場佔有率的問題。吉姆，你認為你正在從其他折扣零售商搶佔市場份額嗎？還是你認為這種趨勢比較來自傳統零售商？你對此有何看法？

Well, it's a giant retail market out there, of course. And I think the bigger forfeiture of market share is coming from mainstream retail. One of our other off-price competitors just posted a very solid quarter as well and they're a bigger business than us. So it would be foolhardy to say we're taking a lot of share from them. I think the share shift is more from mainstream retail to department stores and other places like that to off-price in general. And we would just like to get our fair share or of course, more than our fair share from that shift.

當然，零售市場非常龐大。我認為市佔率的最大損失來自主流零售業。我們另一家折扣零售商的競爭對手也剛剛公佈了非常穩健的季度業績，而且他們的規模比我們大。所以說我們從他們那裡奪取了很多市場份額是愚蠢的。我認為市場佔有率的轉移更多是從主流零售轉向百貨公司和其他類似場所，再轉向折扣店。我們只是想從這種轉變中獲得我們應得的份額，或者當然，是超過我們應得的份額。

Krisztina Katai, Deutsche Bank.

克里斯蒂娜·卡泰，德意志銀行。

Congrats on a great quarter. you credited the branded strategy with sequential comp improvement. Can you just help contextualize for us how it's helping evolve your vendor base and strengthen the existing vendor relationships and then secondly, when thinking about the new customer acquisition, how do you see their behavior in terms of spend or frequency of trips versus existing shoppers? Or just any early reads in terms of how you think about the stickiness of the newer customers that have been coming to you.

恭喜你本季業績出色。你將業績環比成長歸功於品牌策略。您能否為我們解釋一下，這如何幫助您發展供應商基礎並加強與現有供應商的關係？其次，在考慮獲取新客戶時，您如何看待他們在消費或購物頻率方面與現有顧客的行為差異？或者，您也可以先看看您對新客戶的黏性有何看法。

Yeah. On the branded strategy, that's been in place for a while now, and we sort of anniversaried it a couple of quarters ago. So the -- I think that team particularly in Ladies -- maybe across the whole store, but particularly in Ladies, has really started to build some nice momentum there, and the underpinning of it was the branded strategy. But the rest of the business, though, there's been a whole bunch of different changes made to the assortment, some modest increase in inventory selection in the store. So it's not specifically the branded strategy in every particular business.

是的。關於品牌策略，我們已經實施了一段時間，並在幾個季度前慶祝了它的周年紀念日。所以——我認為那個團隊，特別是女裝部——或許在整個商店，但特別是女裝部，真的開始建立起一些不錯的勢頭，而其基礎是品牌策略。但就其他業務而言，商品種類發生了一系列變化，店內庫存選擇也略有增加。所以，這並非指每個特定企業都必須採用的品牌策略。

I would say the sequential improvement in comps was much broader than just the branded strategy and included marketing changes, in-store merchandising and operational changes, bringing the store experience up a couple of levels.

我認為，同店銷售額的持續成長不僅得益於品牌策略，還包括行銷變革、店內商品陳列和營運變革，從而將門市體驗提升了好幾個層次。

So a shopper would feel like the store was tidier and that you get in and out more quickly, et cetera. In terms of the customer count and customer frequency behavior, we simply just don't have enough good data to say our current customer shopping more frequently? Or is it all new customers? Or is it lapsed customers, we -- in some of the same sets of data that you all receive from the credit card tracking companies we get some pretty specific data on customer cards and card numbers, and then we have to sort of make sense of all of that. But it's hard to then say, is that the same customer shopping with a different card or the new customers or lapsed customers, a different card, et cetera.

這樣一來，顧客就會覺得商店更整潔，進出也更快等等。就客戶數量和客戶購買頻率而言，我們目前還沒有足夠的有效數據來判斷現有客戶的購物頻率是否更高？還是說全是新客戶？或者說，就是流失客戶？在你們從信用卡追蹤公司收到的一些相同的數據集中，我們獲得了一些關於客戶卡和卡號的非常具體的數據，然後我們必須弄清楚所有這些數據的含義。但這樣就很難說，是同一個顧客用不同的卡片購物，還是新顧客或老顧客用不同的卡片購物，等等。

When you zoom out a little bit and open aperture a little bit, it is clear to us that we're starting to build customer count growth, and that's exciting for us. That answer your question? We may have lost her. I think that's the end of the queue. John, are you there?

當我們稍微拉遠鏡頭，放大視野時，我們清楚地看到客戶數量開始成長，這讓我們感到興奮。這樣回答你的問題了嗎？我們可能失去她了。我想隊伍到此就結束了。約翰，你在嗎？

John Carden, William Blair.

約翰卡登，威廉布萊爾。

Just Jim, you alluded to this thought that there was going to be this big increase in marketing, increase in store investment and you're proving kind of comp acceleration with leverage if you look at kind of the fourth quarter. You mentioned some of the things that are blocking out the first quarter. But I'm curious on what the right way to think about marketing and store investment is go forward. Is it that there's a more flexible nature of marketing, more variable nature to marketing there you can kind of be more nimble in any given period and the store investment is just minute or simple in nature and kind of tails off or you'll be more focused on keeping it fresh go forward? Sort of what is the right way to think about this.

吉姆，你之前暗示過，行銷和門市投資將會大幅增加，如果你看看第四季的數據，你會發現利用槓桿效應可以實現同店銷售加速成長。你提到了一些阻礙第一季進展的因素。但我很好奇，未來在行銷和店鋪投資方面，正確的思考方式是什麼。是因為行銷方式更靈活、更可變，所以你才能在任何特定時期都更加靈活，而且店鋪投資很小或者很簡單，而且會逐漸減少，或者你會更專注於保持其新鮮感？思考這個問題的正確方法是什麼？

Happy to answer that. I'm not sure what I said that led you to that conclusion. I thought I said almost the exact opposite of that, which is we have not made investments, outside investments in marketing or outsized investments in store labor. And we've gotten the comp growth that we've gotten within the confines of the operating model and coming out of Q4, which is a really nice leverage based on the fact that we haven't made those investments.

樂意回答這個問題。我不確定我說了什麼讓你得出這樣的結論。我覺得我說的幾乎是完全相反的話，那就是我們沒有進行任何投資，無論是外部行銷投資還是門市勞動力的巨額投資。在營運模式的限制下，我們在第四季度實現了同業成長，這非常不錯，因為我們還沒有進行那些投資。

I do think going forward, we might experiment a little bit, but still within the confines of the operating model of should we pick up marketing slightly, not meaningfully, but slightly. We're always doing targeted investments to -- Michael talked a lot about test and learn. If we do certain things in a store with store labor, either some additional hours or reallocating hours what's the benefit to the way the store looks or how fast we move through the queue line. So we'll be experimenting going forward. But I would hope that the takeaway from the call is we've been achieving some really nice, I'd say, outsized comp sales growth in Q3, Q4 and our guide for Q1 without having to do any unnecessary or artificial investment in either marketing store labor or CapEx.

我認為，展望未來，我們或許可以做一些嘗試，但仍然在營運模式的框架內，也就是我們是否應該稍微加大行銷力度，不是大幅加大，而是稍微加大。我們一直在進行有針對性的投資——邁克爾經常談到測試和學習。如果我們對商店員工進行一些額外的工時或重新分配工時，那麼對商店的形像或我們通過排隊的速度有什麼好處？所以接下來我們會進行一些試驗。但我希望大家從這次電話會議中得到的結論是，我們在第三季度、第四季度以及我們對第一季度的預測中，都取得了非常不錯的、可以說是超額的同店銷售增長，而我們並沒有在營銷、門店勞動力或資本支出方面進行任何不必要的或人為的投資。

I think those levers exist out there for us, and we might -- if we can find ROI on them, we might start playing with those, but it was funny. It was on this call last year where we said we're going to look to try to do all of these things expense neutral. And I think we've achieved that 12 months later, as we go forward, I'm in my second year, the team has really come together nicely the two chief merchants that have now been in their roles for a year are both doing unbelievably well. And we're sort of just hitting our stride in building momentum going forward. So for 2026, a lot more opportunities going forward. As Michael teases me all the time, the best is yet to come.

我認為這些槓桿是存在的，如果我們能從中找到投資報酬率，我們或許會開始嘗試使用它們，但這很有趣。在去年的電話會議上，我們說過我們將努力在不增加成本的情況下完成所有這些事情。我認為我們已經實現了這個目標。 12 個月過去了，隨著我進入第二年，團隊也真正團結起來，兩位首席商務官上任一年來都做得非常出色。我們現在正步入正軌，穩步前進。因此，2026年將迎來更多發展機會。麥可總是取笑我，說最好的還在後頭。

This now concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Jim Conroy for any closing comments.

問答環節到此結束。我謹將發言權交還給吉姆·康羅伊，請他作總結發言。

So thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call, and we look forward to speaking with you on our next earnings call. Take care.

感謝各位參加今日的電話會議，我們期待在下次財報電話會議上與大家再次交流。小心。

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference call. We thank you for your participation. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

謝謝各位，今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。請斷開您的線路，祝您有美好的一天。