Burlington Stores, Inc. (NYSE: NYSE:BURL) has announced a strong financial performance for the third quarter of 2024, with total sales rising by 11% and comparable store sales seeing a 1% uptick. Despite the warmer October weather impacting sales of cold weather items, the underlying trend for comparable store sales would have been approximately 4%. Adjusted earnings per share soared by 41% to $1.55, reflecting robust growth despite external challenges.
Key Takeaways
- Total (EPA:TTEF) sales increased by 11% compared to the same period last year.
- Comparable store sales grew by 1%, with an underlying trend of approximately 4% excluding weather impacts.
- Adjusted earnings per share reached $1.55, marking a significant 41% year-over-year increase.
- Store expansion continues with 147 new stores opened in 2024 and projections of 101 net new stores by year-end.
- The company is targeting 100 net new stores for 2025 and aims for 500 net new stores between 2024-2028.
Company Outlook
- High single-digit total sales growth expected in 2025.
- Comp (WA:CMP) sales guidance for 2025 is flat to 2%.
- Operating margin expected to modestly expand by 20-30 basis points.
- Additional EBIT margin growth of 10-15 basis points for each 100 basis points of comp above 2%.
Bearish Highlights
- Warmer-than-usual October weather negatively affected sales of cold weather merchandise.
Bullish Highlights
- New stores are outperforming expectations with an average of $7 million in first-year sales.
- Comparable store inventories ended 2% lower than the previous year, indicating efficient inventory management.
Misses
- The company has acknowledged that it is behind its off-price retail peers in terms of processes, systems, tools, and execution.
Q&A Highlights
- CEO Michael O'Sullivan expressed that uncertainty and disruption can benefit the off-price retail model in the long run.
- CFO Kristin Wolf highlighted the company's ability to negotiate prices and mitigate potential impacts of tariffs.
- The company's low direct import exposure of about 8% positions it to better handle tariff-related challenges.
Store Expansion and Strategy
- The expansion strategy includes opening 147 new stores in 2024 and a projection of 101 net new stores by the end of the year.
- The company is on track to open 100 net new stores in 2025 and aims for a total of 500 new stores from 2024 to 2028.
Key Strategic Initiatives
- Burlington Stores is focusing on "Burlington 2.0" to improve merchandising, supply chain, and store operations.
- New sales trending processes and store-level sales algorithms are being implemented.
- The company is committed to elevating its product assortment and brand mix while maintaining flexibility in response to economic uncertainties.
Tariff and Economic Considerations
- Burlington Stores' low direct import exposure allows for confidence in mitigating tariff impacts.
- The company views economic uncertainty as a potential advantage for the off-price retail model.
Burlington Stores continues to expand and refine its operations, demonstrating resilience in the face of external economic challenges. With strategic initiatives in place and a positive outlook for the upcoming year, the company remains poised for further growth in the off-price retail sector.
Full transcript - Burlington Stores Inc (BURL) Q3 2025:
Conference Call Operator: Hello, and welcome to the Burlington Stores Inc. 3rd Quarter 2024 Earnings Webcast and Conference Call. Please note that this call is being recorded. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Thank you.
I'd now like to hand the call over to David Glick, Group's Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer. You may now begin.
David Glick, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer, Burlington Stores: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate everyone's participation in today's conference call to discuss Burlington's fiscal 2024 Q3 operating results. Our presenters today are Michael O'Sullivan, our Chief Executive Officer and Kristin Wolf, our EVP and Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn the call over to Michael, I would like to inform listeners that this call may not be transcribed, recorded or broadcast without our expressed permission. A replay of the call will be available until December 3, 2024.
We take no responsibility for inaccuracies that may appear in transcripts of this call by third parties. Our remarks and the Q and A that follows are copyrighted today by Burlington Stores. Remarks made on this call concerning future expectations, events, strategies, objectives, trends or projected financial results are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those that are projected in such forward looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include those that are described in the company's 10 ks for fiscal 2023 and in other filings with the SEC, all of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference.
Please note that the financial results and expectations we discuss today are on a continuing operations basis. Reconciliations of the non GAAP measures we discuss today to GAAP measures are included in today's press release. Now here's Michael.
Michael O'Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, Burlington Stores: Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I would like to cover 4 topics this morning. Firstly, I will discuss our 3rd quarter results. Secondly, I will review our 4th quarter outlook.
Thirdly, I will share some comments on our longer term model and specifically our new store program. And lastly, I will describe our preliminary thinking on our sales and earnings growth outlook for 2025. Then I will pass the call to Kristin to share the financial details. Okay. Let's start with our Q3 results.
Total sales increased 11% in the 3rd quarter on top of 12% sales growth last year. The major driver of this growth is our new store opening program. We continue to be very pleased with the performance of our new stores and we are excited by the strength of our new store pipeline. I will talk more about our new store program in a few moments. Comp store sales for the Q3 increased 1%.
This was on top of 6% comp growth in the same period in 2023. Our comp sales trend in the Q3 was impacted by significantly warmer temperatures than last year. After stripping out the impact of these warmer temperatures, our underlying comp store sales growth was very healthy. To explain and illustrate this, I'm going to provide more context on our Q3 comp performance than I normally would. In the past, I have described Q3 as having 2 very distinct sales drivers.
For the first half of the period, the trend is dominated by back to school selling. Typically, this lasts through the 2nd week of September. After that, the trend depends critically on the weather. If the temperature for the remainder of the quarter is cooler than last year, then that helps to drive positive comp growth. On the other hand, if it is warmer than last year, then that is a headwind to comp.
At Burlington, we are particularly sensitive to warmer weather in Q3. Many shoppers still think of us as Burlington Coat Factory. In October, our cold weather businesses represent almost a quarter of our sales. This is significantly higher than our peers. Let me break down our comp performance in Q3.
In the 1st 6 weeks of the quarter, our quarter to date trend was up 6%. We were very happy with our back to school performance. Then from mid September onwards, the trend dropped off significantly. This was driven by much warmer temperatures than last year. I'm going to illustrate this impact with a couple of data points.
We track and internally report the sales trends for cold weather categories. These include all the areas that you might imagine, coats, hats, boots, fleece and so on. For Q3 as a whole, these categories represent about 15% of sales. This mix is much lower in August, then as I described a moment ago, by October, this mix expands to almost a quarter of our business. In Q3, the comp store sales trend for these categories was down in the negative teens.
Meanwhile, our comp trend in non cold weather categories, which represents 85% of our business in Q3 was up 4%. In other words, the impact of warmer weather was worth 3 points of comp. If you strip out this impact, then our underlying comp trend in Q3 was positive 4%. This is consistent with the trend that we have seen since March of this year. I should add that this analysis probably understates our underlying trend in Q3.
Unseasonably warm temperatures do not just impact the comp sales trend for cold weather merchandise, they also they're also a drag on overall traffic coming into the store, which affects every business. Anyway, even leaving aside this additional point, we are very encouraged with our underlying comp sales trend. In addition to this strong underlying trend, I was also very pleased with our margin performance in Q3. 80 basis points of margin improvement on 1% comp sales growth. As Kristen will describe later in this call, this was a very high quality increase driven by higher merchant margin and supply chain savings.
I'd like to make one other point about Q3. Early in the quarter, when we saw strong back to school selling, we were careful not to overreact to this. One of the advantages of a conservative plan is that it makes it easier to keep tight control over liquidity and receipts. This means that in the back half of September, we were able to react quickly to the unseasonably warm temperatures. So despite the sudden slowdown in the sales trend in September October, at the end of the quarter, our selling inventory on a comp basis was down 2% versus last year.
I've talked about this in the past. As an off price retailer, it is important not just to chase the sales trend when it is strong, but to react quickly when it softens. I am very happy with how our teams reacted in Q3. Because of these actions, our inventories are clean and current and we are in great shape as we enter the critical holiday selling period. This is a good segue to our Q4 guidance.
For all the reasons that I have described, we are optimistic about holiday and Q4 as a whole. For November month to date, sales are running ahead of plan. With that said, the big sales weeks are still ahead of us. And as you have probably heard from other retailers, the holiday calendar, specifically the number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas is relatively compressed this year. Given these factors, we are maintaining our previously issued guidance range of flat to 2% comp growth in Q4.
I would like to pivot now and talk about our long term model. A year ago, we shared our financial goals and assumptions for the next 5 years. The headline from that discussion was that by 2028, we expect to grow total sales to about $16,000,000,000 and operating income to $1,600,000,000 Overall, we feel very good about the progress that we are making towards these goals. On our Q4 call in early March, we will get into more specifics and provide a scorecard if you like and some commentary on key metrics and assumptions. But I would like to take a few moments today to provide an update on one of the most important drivers of this long range model, our new store opening program.
Including a handful of stores that we opened this month, we have now opened a gross total of 147 new stores this year. This is comprised of 116 new stores and 31 relocations of older oversized existing stores. After factoring in 15 store closures, we are now projecting that we will end 2024 with 101 net new stores. Almost all of the stores that we have opened this year are our 25,000 square foot prototype and most of these stores are in busy strip malls with national co tenants. We are making rapid progress in transforming our chain.
As we have disclosed previously, on average, we expect new stores to run at about $7,000,000 in sales volume in their 1st full year. It is early, but our 2024 new stores are running well ahead of this expectation. Also, as we have disclosed in the past, we expect store relocations to see an average sales lift of 10%. I am pleased to say that our 2024 relocations are running well ahead of this expectation. Again, it is early, but these run rates reinforce our confidence and our excitement in our new store program over the next several years.
Separately, I would like to comment on our new store pipeline. We typically build our new store pipeline by identifying attractive potential new store locations and working directly with individual landlords to secure and lease these sites. I would anticipate that this will continue to be our primary approach going forward. But in the past couple of years, we have been able to supplement our new store pipeline by selectively acquiring existing leases from retailers that are going through a bankruptcy process. This approach has allowed us to move into centers that we might not have otherwise been able to access.
Of course, as you would expect, we carefully evaluate the detailed economics of these locations before making any bid. In 2023, we picked up 64 former Bed Bath and Beyond locations through this process. And this year, we have picked up or are working on a few dozen locations from other troubled retailers. We are excited about the quality and the full economic potential of these stores. Adding these deals to our existing pipeline and with the prospect of more opportunities ahead, we are very well positioned to open 100 net new stores in 2025 as well as meet or even exceed our 500 net new store opening goal for the period 2024 through 2028.
That is all I plan to say today about our long range model. We will come back in March and provide a more comprehensive update on progress towards our goals. In a moment, I will hand the call over to Kristin. But before I do, let me talk about our outlook for 2025.
David Glick, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer, Burlington Stores: We think that there is
Michael O'Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, Burlington Stores: a lot of uncertainty in the year ahead. It is difficult to forecast what will happen with the economy and with consumer spending and add to that the potential impact of tariffs, changes in the tax code and other factors. As we have discussed before, in general, we believe that uncertainty and disruption tend to be good for off price versus other forms of retail. In addition, there are a number of very exciting internal improvements and initiatives that we believe will help us to drive sales and earnings in the next few years. As we look forward, we feel very optimistic.
But when it comes to planning our business, we know that the best posture for us is to plan conservatively and be ready to chase. That is what we have done this year. This playbook has worked well for us. So I anticipate that our 2025 outlook will be for total sales growth of up high single digits driven by 100 net new stores and comp sales growth of flat to 2%. We would expect some modest operating margin expansion at the high end of this comp range.
We will update this initial outlook and share more details in our Q4 call in March. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Kristin.
Kristin Wolf, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Burlington Stores: Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with our Q3 results. Total sales grew 11% on top of 12% total sales growth in the Q3 of 2023. Comp sales grew 1%, which was on top of 6% last year. This result was at the midpoint of our guidance range.
Our adjusted EBIT margin expanded 80 basis points versus last year. The drivers of this margin expansion were higher gross margin and leverage on supply chain costs. Let me walk through the details. The gross margin rate for the Q3 was 43.9%, an increase of 70 basis points versus last year. This was driven by a 50 basis point increase in merchandise margin due to strong regular price selling, which generated faster inventory turns and lower markdowns and also due to higher markup from better buying.
Freight expenses decreased 20 basis points in the quarter. Product sourcing costs were $210,000,000 versus $200,000,000 in the Q3 of 2023, decreasing 50 basis points as a percentage of sales. This was entirely driven by supply chain expense leverage from continued progress on our distribution center productivity initiatives. Adjusted SG and A costs in Q3 were 40 basis points lower than last year. When excluding approximately $10,000,000 in expenses associated with the acquisition of Bed Bath and Beyond leases in the prior year, adjusted SG and A delevered by 10 basis points.
Q3 adjusted EBIT margin was 5.6%, 80 basis points above last year. We had guided to 60 basis points to 80 basis points of improvement. Our adjusted earnings per share in Q3 was $1.55 at the high end of our guidance range and represents a 41% increase versus the prior year. Last year's Q3 2023 results exclude approximately $10,000,000 of pre tax expenses associated with Bed Bath and Beyond leases. At the end of the quarter, our comparable store inventories were down 2% versus the end of the Q3 in 2023 as we pulled back on cold weather merchandise receipts in reaction to the unfavorable Q3 weather.
At the end of the quarter, our reserve inventory was 32% of our total inventory versus 30% of our inventory last year. We are very pleased with the quality of the merchandise and the values that we have in reserve. During the quarter, we repurchased $56,000,000 in common stock. At the end of Q3, we had $325,000,000 remaining on our share repurchase authorization that expires in August 2025. Before I turn to guidance, I would like to briefly touch on our longer term supply chain strategy.
As we've discussed previously, going forward, we would like to own rather than lease new distribution centers. This will enable us to design these facilities to support the flexibility and efficiency that our off price model requires. We have a new 2,000,000 square foot DC under construction in Savannah, Georgia that is on target to be open in 2026. We intend to own this facility. As a reminder, as previously discussed, we expect our CapEx in 2024 2025 to be around 7% of sales, slightly higher than our historical levels.
This is driven by our new store opening program and our investment in new distribution centers. In addition, we may also explore opportunities to take ownership of an existing lease distribution center. It is possible that this might make sense for 1 or 2 of our existing lease DCs and we would only pursue opportunities where the economics work. These opportunistic buy versus lease deals are not factored into the CapEx levels that we have discussed previously. Now I will turn to our outlook for the Q4 of fiscal 2024.
We are maintaining our Q4 2024 guidance for comp sales, total sales, EBIT margin and earnings per share. We are guiding comparable store sales to be flat to up 2% with total sales to increase 5% to 7% for the 4th quarter. We expect our 4th quarter adjusted EBIT margin to decrease by 50 basis points to 80 basis points, unchanged from our previous outlook. This margin outlook still translates to adjusted earnings per share range of $3.55 to $3.75 dollars And it's important to note, as we discussed on our last quarter's earnings call, that the 53rd week calendar shift has a negative impact on Q4 total sales, adjusted EBIT margin and adjusted earnings per share. For fiscal 2024, after factoring in our actual Q3 results and Q4 guidance, this outlook implies comp store sales growth of approximately 2%, total sales to increase 9% to 10% and EBIT margins to range from an increase of 60 basis points to 70 basis points.
Finally, factoring in Q3 actuals, full year earnings per share is now expected to be in the range of $7.76 to $7.96 I will now turn the call back to Michael.
Michael O'Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, Burlington Stores: Thank you, Kristen. Before I turn the call over to questions, I would like to emphasize 3 key points from today's call. Firstly, we feel very good about the underlying comp trend that we achieved in the Q3. Our comp trend after factoring out cold weather categories was around 4%. This was consistent with our trend since March of this year.
We're also very pleased with our margin performance in Q3. We achieved 80 basis points of leverage on 1% comp growth. Secondly, we believe that we are well positioned as we enter the key holiday selling period in Q4. We are managing our business cautiously, but based on our underlying sales trend in the Q3 and on the strength of our holiday assortments, we are optimistic about our prospects. Thirdly, we feel very good about the progress we are making towards our longer term financial goals.
We will talk more about this progress in our year end call in March. But we are especially pleased with our new store opening program. The early performance of our 2024 stores has been strong and our new store pipeline for 2025 and beyond looks very good. I would now like to turn the call over for your questions.
Conference Call Operator: Thank you so much. We are now opening the floor for question and answer session. Your first question comes from Matthew Boss from JPMorgan. Your line is now open.
Matthew Boss, Analyst, JPMorgan: Great. Thanks and good morning. So maybe Michael, just to kick off on your cold weather businesses and the sensitivity to warmer weather that you cited. In your remarks, you said that the weather impacted your 3Q comp by 300 basis points. Does this include the impact from hurricanes?
And then just looking forward, do you see risk in the 4th quarter if the weather were to be unseasonably warm? Or just any additional color on November, maybe Q4 to date trends, I think, would be really great.
Michael O'Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, Burlington Stores: Well, good morning, Matt. Thank you for the question. Before I answer your question, I would like to make a comment about our cold weather businesses. I realized that in listening to our prepared remarks today, investors might get the mistaken impression that our strong position in cold weather merchandise is somehow a problem. It is absolutely not.
The fact that we are one of the first retailers that shoppers think of when they need outerwear is a huge strength for us and a source of competitive advantage. The outerwear business is a great business. We are very good at it and we will continue to look for ways to build and strengthen that business. But with that said, of course, we know that there will be temperature variations from year to year, especially in a transitional month like October. But those variations tend to even out over time.
After an October like the one we've just had, where temperatures were well above the long term average, the odds are very good that the temperatures next October will be cooler than this year. And that's likely to be a tailwind to our comp in 2025. As that happens, then we'll probably call that out on this call next year. And you can be sure that we will not be complaining about it. The key thing with cold weather categories is to be ready for those fluctuations and to manage the business flexibly so we can react up or down.
I should also add that as an off price retailer, there is a silver lining for us. In years like this, where the season to date has been unusually warm, it's likely that in the coming weeks, we will see a lot of terrific buying opportunities in outerwear that we can put into reserve and bring out next year. So with all that as a preface, let me address your specific question. The three points of comp that we discussed in the prepared remarks relate exclusively to the impact of warm temperatures. Separately, we estimate that major hurricanes in Q3 impacted our comp by about an additional point.
It's not hard for us to estimate that. We can look at local stores that were affected by the hurricanes. We can quantify the impact on their sales during the hurricane period and during any subsequent power outage. Anyway, the bottom line is if you strip out the warmer temperatures and the hurricane impact, then our Q3 comp growth would have been 5%. Now by the way, we our rationale for not calling out that hurricane impact in the prepared remarks is that we recognize that that affects all retailers or at least all retailers with a presence in those areas.
In contrast, the reason that we called out the warmer temperatures or the impact of warmer temperatures is that for all the reasons we've described, those warmer temperatures at this time of year differentially affect us versus other retail companies. Maybe just wrapping up on the last part of your question about weather risk in Q4. Of course, there might be unfavorable or favorable weather in Q4. It's hard to predict. But there are a couple of reasons why we're comfortable with that risk.
Firstly, as I said in the remarks, the quarter is off to a good start with November month to date running ahead of plan. And secondly, it's important to understand that as we get further into the quarter, cold weather selling becomes less important relative to holiday selling and gift giving. In other words, for the next 5, 6 weeks, the customer could come into the store looking for outerwear, but at this point, they're more likely to be looking for toys or gifts or holiday merchandise. Our early selling in those businesses has been strong. So we are optimistic about Q4.
Matthew Boss, Analyst, JPMorgan: Great. And then a follow-up for Kristen. If you could just elaborate on your comments about inventory levels exiting the Q3, if there's any imbalance with outerwear inventory tied to the slower 3Q sales trend or just any residual markdown risk to consider in the Q4?
Kristin Wolf, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Burlington Stores: Good morning. Thanks, Matt. Regarding inventory levels, we were very pleased with how we manage inventory during the Q3. As Michael described, our merchants were careful not to overreact to the strong back to school selling in the first half of the quarter. We reacted quickly to the warmer temperatures and the resulting challenging sales trends and pull back on receipts.
And as a result, as I mentioned, we ended Q3 with comp store inventories down 2%. Our inventories are clean and current and we do not have a major markdown liability heading into the 4th quarter. And finally, as it relates to reserve inventory, our penetration increased to 32% of total inventory versus 30% last year. We are very happy with the great buys we were able to make. We feel good about our reserve, especially the content and values.
And finally, I should add, as Michael just mentioned, this slow start to outerwear could perhaps translate to great buying opportunities in the category later in the season.
Matthew Boss, Analyst, JPMorgan: Great color. Best of luck.
Kristin Wolf, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Burlington Stores: Thanks, Matt. Your
Conference Call Operator: next question comes from Ike Boruchow from Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC). Your line is now
Ike Boruchow, Analyst, Wells Fargo: open. Hey, good morning, everyone. 2 for me. Michael, first, I guess I was wondering if you could share, you've helped us out in the past, just comments on the health of the low income consumer. I know dollar stores have been struggling this year, but this doesn't seem to have affected your business.
I guess just what are you seeing in your customer research, your underlying trends within that segment would be great?
Michael O'Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, Burlington Stores: Well, good morning, Ike. Thank you for the question. Yes, as you know, the lower income customer is a very important customer to us. We tend to index much higher among this demographic than our retail peers. We're very focused on offering great value to that customer.
And I would say that we're more tuned in now, more tuned in than we ever were before into what is happening with that customer demographic. I can't really comment on what's happening with dollar stores. Their business is so different to ours given their focus on consumables. But instead, let me describe what we are seeing with the data we have around the lower income customer. One of the things that we track very closely is the performance of our stores based on the demographics of their local trade area.
So we segment our stores based upon the demographics of the local trade area and we look at their sales trend. Some of our highest volume and most productive stores are in lower income trade areas. And 2 years ago in 2022, those stores were underperforming the chain. Now because they are relatively high volume, that had a big impact on our overall comp trend. If I fast forward to today, our stores in lower income trade areas are outperforming the chain.
Based on comments that we've heard from other discretionary retailers that are focused on lower income customers, we think that may be part of a general trend. We think that customer is looking for great value and maybe for the first time since 2021, it looks like their real incomes are finally edging up. I should also add that in that analysis of store performance by trade area demographic, we are seeing healthy performance in other income bands as well. And we see that as evidence that shoppers from moderate to higher income bands may be trading down. But coming back to the lower income customer, as we've discussed previously, that customer really bore the brunt of cost of living increases in 2022.
Unlike other income groups, those shoppers don't have savings or debt capacity that they can use to cushion the impact of higher rental grocery prices. So in 2022, that customer had to pull back sharply on discretionary spending. Over the past year or so, what we're seeing is that as their real incomes have stabilized and started to pick back up, they're spending more and we think that's helping to support the strength of our underlying trend.
Ike Boruchow, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Got it. Super helpful. And then maybe follow-up for Kristen. Just on margin expansion, can you maybe give us additional color on the drivers of the margin in Q3? And maybe just some details on the Q4 guide, what's embedded in your plan for Q4 margin?
Kristin Wolf, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Burlington Stores: Great. Good morning, Ike. Thanks for the question. I'll start with the Q3. We were pleased to deliver the 80 basis points of operating margin expansion, especially on a 1% comp.
I'll provide a little bit more color on those drivers. Within the gross margin line, merch margin was up 50 basis points. This was driven by lower markdowns as we had strong regular price selling and fast returns. We also got a bit of help from higher markup driven by better buying. And then in gross margin freight as a percentage of sales also improved by 20 basis points.
Moving down on product sourcing costs, as we mentioned supply chain leveraged by 50 basis points. This was driven by our continued progress on our efficiency initiatives. These are primarily productivity improvements in distribution centers. And then excluding the impact of Bed Bath and Beyond leases last year, adjusted SG and A was higher by 10 basis points due to deleverage of fixed costs on a 1% comp and the balance of the P and L delevered by about 30 basis points including depreciation and other income. So that was kind of the Q3.
If we turn now to the Q4, we're maintaining our previously issued guidance. So that was a 5% to 7% total sales growth, a flat to 2% comp growth and a 50 to 80 basis point decline in EBIT margin. And there are several drivers of the lower projected EBIT margin in Q4 that I want to talk through. First, we have a few transitory headwinds in gross margin in the 4th quarter. There's some incremental ocean freight cost and merch margin that we referenced on last quarter's call with the exposure to the spot market and clearance levels are expected to be more similar to last year's levels that will provide less merch margin benefit than we've seen year to date.
Secondly, we're accruing a higher year over year shortage rate compared to last year. We will, course, true this up with our physical inventory at the end of the fiscal year. Thirdly, we're lapping the cost savings in our supply chain that we started to benefit from in the Q4 last year. So there are less supply chain productivity benefits we expect in Q4. And the final point on the Q4 is, as we discussed on last quarter's call, there is an impact for us with the 53rd week calendar shift.
We're about 1 week ahead of last year when we compare the quarters year over year. So for comp store sales, we shift or we adjust for this and we line up the weeks. But for total sales growth, there's an impact on sales, margin and earnings. Essentially, we lose a high volume, higher margin week in November and then we gain a lower volume, lower margin week in January. And this translates into lower total sales growth in Q4 versus last year and we experienced more fixed cost deleverage.
So those are really the drivers of Q4 EBIT margin outlook. But one final note I want to make. I wouldn't extrapolate that Q4 margin trend into 2025. There are several transitory and timing factors impacting EBIT margin in Q4. And as we shared in the prepared remarks, we would expect modest operating margin expansion in 2025 on a 2 comp.
John Kernan, Analyst, T.D. Cohen: Awesome. Thanks so much guys.
Kristin Wolf, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Burlington Stores: Your
Conference Call Operator: next question comes from Lorraine Hutchinson from Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Lorraine Hutchinson, Analyst, Bank of America: Thank you. Good morning. Michael, I realize there's a lot of external uncertainty, but what impact do you think the policies of the new administration might have on your business over the next few years? And how are you preparing for this?
Michael O'Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, Burlington Stores: Good morning, Lorraine. I think that's what they might call a $64,000 question. The headline I think is it's very difficult to predict. If I think about it, there are some policies that I could absolutely imagine might help our business, especially policies that enhance the real incomes or the discretionary spending power of our core customers. For example, lower taxes on overtime pay or on tips or higher child tax credit or policies that bring down the cost of energy.
And of course, as a separate item, if corporate taxes are reduced, then that would be very helpful to our business in terms of earnings and cash. We are a domestic U. S. Retailer. We don't have foreign subsidiaries.
Our earnings are all in the United States. So lower corporate taxes would have a huge impact. Of course, there are also risks and potential headwinds. For example, if inflation were to pick up again or if there were an economic slowdown. And then there are policies such as tariffs or tighter immigration controls or reductions in federal programs where the potential impact I think really depends on the scale of the policy.
For example, on tariffs, we don't know how significant those will be, what categories they'll apply to or even which countries. I think we just have to wait and see the details before we make an assessment. But maybe I should just make a general comment. My experience has been that whenever there is significant uncertainty or disruption in the external environment, then, in the external environment, then while that can be a headwind and a headache for everyone, including us in the short term, the uncertainty and disruption is often very good for off price retail in the end. The reason why uncertainty disruption often work out well for off price is that the off price business model when it's well executed is better able to handle the uncertainty and respond to whatever happens.
The implication for us is that we need to execute our business well. In other words, plan conservatively, maintain flexibility and be ready to react. If we do that, then there may be some bumps along the road, but I believe that things will work out well for us.
Conference Call Operator: Thank you. And then, Kristen,
Lorraine Hutchinson, Analyst, Bank of America: can you provide any additional details on how you're thinking about the outlook for 2025? In your remarks, you mentioned the possible comp range of flat to plus 2 and some modest margin expansion at the high end. I'm curious about your confidence in the level of margin expansion and what the major drivers of this expansion are likely to be?
Kristin Wolf, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Burlington Stores: Thanks, Lorraine. It's a good question. First, I'd caveat a bit that what we've shared with you is our preliminary plan for fiscal 2025. And that could change obviously if conditions change over the course of the next few months. And as Michael just described, there really do remain a lot of unknowns, whether it's fiscal policy, tariffs or the health of our core customer, etcetera.
But that said, given what we know today, we've done a lot of work on our preliminary budget for next year and we can share some high level thinking. 1st, on a flat to 2% comp, we would expect high single digit revenue growth driven by 100 net new stores. And while we would of course strive to do better than this, planning our comp sales and our expenses on the conservative comp range gives us flexibility to react to our business to effectively chase and to flow through any upside as well as more effectively manage any downside risk. And at the 2% comp, we would expect to get some modest operating margin improvement, perhaps 20 to 30 basis points. Similar to 2024, we expect most of the same drivers, including merch margin improvement and continued benefit from supply chain productivity initiatives.
And I do want to acknowledge that this operating margin expansion is a bit less than where we started fiscal 2024 and there are just a couple of reasons for that. First, we've captured supply chain cost savings at a faster pace than we've expected. In the long range plan we shared this time last year, we spoke to driving 100 basis points of supply chain cost savings over the 1st 3 years in our long range plan. We will likely recognize about half of that around 50 basis points in fiscal 2024. So the balance we expect over fiscal 2025 and 2026.
And secondly, we're being a bit more cautious on freight for next year. We've made very good progress on freight this year, but we want to plan conservatively here based on uncertainty, certainly around tariffs and what impact that could have on freight rates next year. So ultimately, we expect the margin improvement on a 2% comp to come from incremental merchandise margin improvement from faster turns and lower markdowns and additional supply chain efficiencies. These will be offset by some deleverage in store costs like occupancy on the 2% comp. And I also want to call out that for every 100 basis points of comp above the 2% comp, we would expect 10 to 15 basis points of incremental EBIT margin.
So of course, a final caveat, these assumptions could change as the external environment evolves, but I did want to give a sense for our assumptions at this stage as we've done historically. Thank you. Thanks, Sameer.
Conference Call Operator: Your next question comes from John Kernan from T. D. Cohen. Your line is now open.
John Kernan, Analyst, T.D. Cohen: Good morning. Congrats on the continued margin expansion.
David Glick, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer, Burlington Stores: Thanks, John.
John Kernan, Analyst, T.D. Cohen: Michael, maybe another $64,000 question here. You've been at Burlington for 5 years. That's a long time for CEO in this sector these days. There's been a number of CEO turnover announcements recently, including among one of your off price peers. How are you thinking about your own timeframe in the role and how you're feeling about the executive team at Burlington overall?
Michael O'Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, Burlington Stores: Well, good morning, John. That's $264,000 questions. That's great. The direct answer to your question is that I'm not going anywhere. I'm a young man and I'm not thinking of retirement.
I'm 100% committed to Burlington. But maybe I should just take a minute to expand on that answer. In 2023 to 2028 long range plan, we've laid out I think fairly ambitious growth goals, 500 net new stores, 60% higher sales and a tripling of operating income. I intend to be around to hit those financial targets. And I should add that those growth numbers are not just are just the beginning for Burlington.
We have potential well beyond 2028. Leaving aside the numbers though, on a personal level, I feel really vested in driving our business to its full potential and in the specific initiatives that will get us there. We're doing some tremendously exciting things in merchandising, localization, supply chain, store environment and with our new store and store relocation programs. And I plan to be right here working with my team to support and help drive those specific programs. So lastly, let me talk about the team.
I don't mean to brag, but I genuinely feel like I've assembled the A team here at Burlington. Across the company, we've been able to bring in tremendous talent. That's especially true at the senior level. We have a huge amount of off price experience, but we've also successfully brought in functional and category expertise and experience from other retail environments. Add to that, we have a very strong and experienced base of long tenured and homegrown Burlington talent.
Whenever you put together a new team like that, it can take a little bit of time to gel. But over the past 12 to 18 months, I've seen a real maturation in that group. I think our senior leaders are operating very effectively as a team.
John Kernan, Analyst, T.D. Cohen: Got it. Thank you. That's good to hear. And then, Kristen, can you share some more details on the supply chain savings initiatives? You spoke to some of these in response to Arain's question.
We can see in the model you've achieved strong leverage on expenses throughout this year, but how do we think about the basis point opportunity related to supply chain expenses in 2025 and beyond?
Kristin Wolf, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Burlington Stores: Good morning, John. I appreciate the question. We are really pleased that supply chain deleverage recapture is running ahead of schedule. As I just described in an earlier question, we estimate that supply chain productivity improvements, we target driving potentially 100 basis points of the 400 basis points of margin improvement we outlined in the long range plan. Again, in Q3, supply chain leveraged 50 basis points as our efficiency initiatives help drive cost savings in DCs.
We have a number of productivity initiatives we're working on in DC operations. We're redesigning how merchandise flows within the DC, automating select processes, ultimately reducing touches and time to process merchandise and saving labor dollars in DCs. And as I mentioned a few moments ago, looking ahead into Q4, it's important to keep in mind that we will be lapping the quarter last year when we first started to drive meaningful cost savings in our supply chain. In Q4 last year, we leveraged supply chain expense by 40 basis points and this was a real turning point for us on the expense line a year ago. So we would expect to show more modest leverage on supply chain in Q4 of this year.
We'll probably in 2024 showing product sourcing leverage of around 50 basis points better than last year. So we're about halfway there to the 100 basis points goal embedded in our 5 year plan. And then longer term, beyond 2028, we do have an opportunity to drive incremental leverage as we modernize our supply chain with new, larger and much more automated DCs that we expect to open to support our growth. As I mentioned, our Southeast DC in Savannah, Georgia is slated to open in 2026 and it's a great example of this. And with new DCs, we have an opportunity to design these distribution centers for off price and with more automation.
John Kernan, Analyst, T.D. Cohen: That's very helpful. Thank you.
Conference Call Operator: Your next question comes from Brooke Roche from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.
Brooke Roche, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Good morning and thank you for taking our question. Michael, can you provide an update on the strategy to increase the mix of better brands within the Burlington assortment?
Michael O'Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, Burlington Stores: Good morning, Brook. Thank you for the question. I think I'm going to reframe your question slightly. Rather than just focusing on better brands, I would say that for the last couple of years, we've been working to elevate our assortments and thereby deliver even better value to the customer. Now in businesses like say sportswear or footwear that means a higher mix of better or recognizable brands.
But in other areas like home or juniors, it's more about the quality or the design or the fashion. And that together with price, those are all drivers of value. And the importance of each driver, it depends on the business and also depends on the customer, which is why our work very hard to make sure that we're offering great value, but within the context of a good, better, best assortment. Now as we've discussed before, this isn't a new strategy. When you boil it down, the strategy is and always has been to offer great value to shoppers.
Elevating our assortment in terms of brand mix, fashion, design and quality is more of an evolution rather than a revolution. There's no significant hit to merchant margin here. In fact, as Kristin described in the prepared remarks, in Q3, we achieved an increase in merchant margin driven by lower markdowns and higher markup. Together with our strong underlying sales trend, we see that as evidence that our elevation strategy is working.
Brooke Roche, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Great. And then just for Kristen, tariffs have been mentioned a few times on today's call. Can you speak in more detail on how you're thinking about tariffs? Should they be implemented and the potential impact on Burlington's business?
Kristin Wolf, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Burlington Stores: Good morning, Brooke. Yes, it's a very good question. It's one that's pretty difficult to answer at this point. Michael talked about next year's uncertainties, including the unknowns on tariffs. But I can provide some tariff data and some history to put this in context.
So our direct import exposure where we are directly paying the tariff to import goods into the U. S. Is relatively small and much lower than many retailers. In 2024, we expect to have directly imported about 8% of our merchandise. And of those direct imports, the majority is from China.
So let's call it about 7% of our merchandise has direct tariff exposure to China. So well over 90% of our buyers are on merchandise where we are not directly paying the tariff. And as an off price retailer with a flexible buying model, we do have the ability to negotiate the price we pay and to mitigate that impact. And most importantly, we will ensure we continue to provide value and provide value to the customers and sustain a value gap, I. E.
Savings versus full price retailers. And as we did in 2018 and the 2019 timeframe, we will look for strategies to offset incremental tariffs. We'll work with vendor partners on the cost side as well as examining our sourcing and where we source from. And we managed this well during the last iteration of tariffs and we actually saw our merch margin was up in both fiscal 2018 2019. And finally, and most importantly, as Michael kind of described earlier, tariffs will likely lead or could lead to disruption, which is ultimately good for off price.
Manufacturers may build up inventory levels to get out in front of tariffs or production in various categories could move from one country to another, these sorts of disruptions do create buying opportunities for off price. So ultimately, we acknowledge there's tremendous uncertainty around tariffs, but our off price model is flexible in terms of what we buy and from where and our direct import penetration is low. So ultimately, we see that as a positive as we face this potential issue.
Brooke Roche, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Great. Thanks so much. I'll pass it on.
Kristin Wolf, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Burlington Stores: Thanks, Brooks.
Conference Call Operator: Your next question comes from Alex Stratton from Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS). Your line is now open.
Lorraine Hutchinson, Analyst, Bank of America: Thanks a lot. Maybe for Michael, taking a step back, what Burlington 2.0 initiatives are you most excited about right now? And how will those show up in Burlington's financial profile over time?
Michael O'Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, Burlington Stores: Well, good morning, Alex. Thank you for the question. I really like this question. Let me talk a little bit about well, first of all, there are many important initiatives going on across the company in merchandising, stores, supply chain, real estate and IT. But to answer your question, maybe I should just highlight 2 specific initiatives that we've recently rolled out and that I expect will have a big impact over time.
Firstly, in 2023, we completely refreshed and updated the suite of reports that our merchants use to analyze sales trends. But then in the first half of this year, so quite recently, we followed that up and rolled out a new in season trending process. Now that allows merchants and planners to more frequently and rapidly react to what they're seeing in those sales reports. They can re forecast sales and they can move open to buy dollars into businesses that are trending and they can pull money out of areas that are not trending. Now to some degree, of course, they've always been able to do that to some degree, but the new reports are more accurate and up to date and they provide our merchants with better visibility to support the fact reporting process.
And add to that, the new process enables greater frequency and speed in making those changes. So I think those improvements were already helping us to more rapidly and effectively chase or pull back based on the trend. Secondly, in the summer, we turned on new store level sales and allocation algorithms to more effectively respond to trends at the individual store class level and thereby drive greater customization of the assortment by store. Now those localization algorithms are based on machine learning and over time they're going to optimize the allocation of receipts based on store class level selling. That will take some time for that effect to really build, but it should drive stronger sales, faster turns and lower markdowns.
I think that the two initiatives I've just described provide a good illustration of what we're trying to do with Burlington 2.0. We know that when it comes to processes, systems, tools and execution, we're behind our off price peers. But that's just another way of saying we have huge opportunity and upside, and we're very focused on that upside and on narrowing that gap versus our peers. The 2 initiatives that I've described, I think, are good examples of how we're going to do that.
Lorraine Hutchinson, Analyst, Bank of America: That's really exciting. Thanks for sharing that. Maybe one more near term question for Kristen. Can you just provide some color on comp trends in the quarter as it relates to regular price versus clearance selling?
Kristin Wolf, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Burlington Stores: Alex, good morning. Yes, thanks for the question. I acknowledge that this was a benefit to merch margin in Q3, but let me provide just a little more detail. Our regular price selling continues to be very strong. In the Q3, regular price sales once again outpaced our trend.
Regular price selling did a 3 comp increase in Q3, 200 basis points above our overall trend. We continue to benefit from our approach of chasing the business, operating with leaner inventories, driving faster turns and thereby incurring lower markdowns, which then translates to higher merchandise margins. And we really do see this as further validation on our merch 2.0 initiatives, our growth and maturation of our merchandising team and strong inventory control. And I believe I mentioned this on the earlier question, but it's worth reiterating. In regards to Q4, clearance levels are projected to be more similar to last year's levels, which will provide less merch margin benefit in Q4 than we've seen year to date.
David Glick, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer, Burlington Stores: Operator, I think we're out of time. You can turn the call back to Michael.
Conference Call Operator: Thank you so much. We are now done with the Q and A session. I'd now like to hand back over to Michael O'Sullivan for final remarks.
Michael O'Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, Burlington Stores: Well, let me close the call by thanking everyone for your interest in Burlington Stores. We look forward to talking to you again in March to discuss our Q4 2024 fiscal results. I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and thank you for your time today.
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