Earnings call transcript: Zumiez Q2 2025 earnings beat expectations, stock surges

Zumiez Inc. reported its Q2 2025 earnings, revealing a better-than-expected performance. The company posted a net loss of $0.06 per share, surpassing the forecasted loss of $0.11 per share. Revenue reached $214.3 million, slightly above the anticipated $210.53 million. Following the earnings announcement, Zumiez’s stock rose by 5.02% in after-hours trading, closing at $17.54. According to InvestingPro analysis, the stock currently trades below its Fair Value, suggesting potential upside opportunity despite trading at a relatively high P/E multiple of 463x.

Key Takeaways

• Zumiez exceeded earnings expectations with a smaller-than-expected loss.
• Revenue surpassed forecasts, with a 1.9% year-over-year increase.
• The stock price increased by 5.02% in after-hours trading.
• Strong sales growth in North America and back-to-school season momentum.
• Continued expansion of private labels and new brand introductions.

Company Performance

Zumiez demonstrated resilience in Q2 2025, achieving a 1.9% increase in net sales compared to the previous year. The company benefited from strong performance in North America and a successful back-to-school season, which contributed to an 11.2% comparable sales growth in August. Despite challenges in the European and footwear markets, Zumiez’s focus on trend-leading merchandise and premium pricing strategy helped maintain its competitive edge.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $214.3 million, up 1.9% year-over-year
• Earnings per share: -$0.06, better than the forecast of -$0.11
• Gross profit: $76 million, a 5.9% increase
• Gross margin: 35.5%, up from 34.2% last year
• Cash and marketable securities: $106.7 million

Earnings vs. Forecast

Zumiez’s Q2 results outperformed expectations, with an earnings surprise of 45.45%. The company’s ability to post a smaller net loss than anticipated reflects its effective cost management and strategic focus on high-margin private label products. This marks a positive deviation from previous quarters, where earnings often aligned with or missed forecasts.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, Zumiez’s stock experienced a significant uptick, gaining 5.02% in after-hours trading. This positive market reaction indicates investor confidence in the company’s strategic direction and financial health. The stock’s movement contrasts with its 52-week high of $31.37, suggesting room for further growth. InvestingPro data reveals strong momentum with a 34.9% price return over the past six months. InvestingPro subscribers can access 12 additional exclusive tips about Zumiez, including insights on management’s aggressive share buyback program.

Outlook & Guidance

Zumiez projects full-year sales growth of 3-4% and anticipates Q3 total sales between $232 million and $237 million, with comparable sales growth of 5.5-7.5%. The company aims to return to profitability in 2025, driven by modest product margin growth and strategic investments in unique merchandise offerings. Want deeper insights? Access the comprehensive Pro Research Report for Zumiez, available exclusively on InvestingPro, featuring detailed analysis of the company’s growth trajectory and financial health metrics.

Executive Commentary

CEO Rick Brooks emphasized the company’s recovery trajectory, stating, "Our story is a sales recovery story." CFO Chris Work highlighted long-term goals, noting, "We still believe we can get long-term operating margins back to that high single-digit level." Brooks also reiterated Zumiez’s premium positioning, saying, "We’re not a value player here in private label. We’re the premium price player."

Risks and Challenges

• Economic uncertainties and potential tariff impacts could affect profitability.
• Challenges in the European market and footwear segment may hinder growth.
• Supply chain disruptions could impact inventory levels and sales.
• Market saturation in key regions could limit expansion opportunities.
• Fluctuations in consumer spending due to macroeconomic pressures.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about Zumiez’s private label strategy and its impact on margins. The company addressed concerns about economic uncertainties and tariff impacts, emphasizing its focus on premium pricing and unique product offerings to mitigate these challenges.

Full transcript - Zumiez Inc (ZUMZ) Q2 2026:

Conference Moderator: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Zumiez Inc. second quarter fiscal 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone of the company’s safe harbor language. Today’s conference call includes comments concerning Zumiez Inc. business outlook and contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements and all other statements that may be made on this call that are not based on historical facts are subject to risk and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Additional information concerning a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the information that will be discussed is available in Zumiez Inc. filings with the SEC. At this time, I will turn the call over to Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Brooks.

Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Officer, Zumiez Inc.: Thank you. Hello, and again, thank you for everyone joining us on today’s call. With me today is Chris Work, our Chief Financial Officer. I’ll begin with a few remarks about the second quarter and the back-to-school season before touching on our strategic priorities. Chris will then take you through the financials and our outlook for the balance of the year. After that, we’ll open the call to your questions. We are pleased that our second quarter results exceeded expectations, demonstrating the continued resilience of our North American business and the effectiveness of our strategic initiatives. Comparable sales grew 2.5%, marking our fifth consecutive quarter of positive comparable sales growth. Even more encouraging is that our two-year comparable sales stack accelerated 300 basis points versus the first quarter, indicating our momentum is building even as we face increasingly difficult year-over-year comparisons.

Comparable sales growth accelerated each period during the quarter as we built towards back-to-school, and the North American business continues to be the primary driver of our performance. This strength reflects a successful execution of our merchandise and customer experience initiatives, which are clearly resonating with our core customer base despite the challenging operating environment. Our momentum continued to build into August, with low teens comparable sales growth in the United States, on top of a double-digit increase in the year-ago period, providing confidence in our approach and optimism heading into the important holiday season. However, we remain prudent in our outlook given the broader economic uncertainties around tariffs and the consumer. Heading into the back half of 2025, we remain focused on three strategic priorities. First, driving revenue growth through customer-focused strategic initiatives. Our commitment to refreshing our product mix with innovative offerings continues to generate strong customer response.

Building on momentum from introducing over 120 new brands throughout 2024, we persist in our mission to deliver distinctive, exclusive merchandise that sets us apart in the marketplace. The expanded presence of these new and emerging brands in our sales mix validates the effectiveness of our merchandising approach. Private label performance remains exceptionally strong, reaching 30% of total sales year to date through the second quarter versus 27% a year ago and representing the highest private label penetration in our history. This sustained expansion showcases our organization’s capability to identify emerging trends and create compelling products that connect with our customers while enhancing our margin profile. Our commitment to exceptional customer experiences across both physical and digital touchpoints remains unwavering. Continued investments in staff development and technological capabilities allow us to engage with customers through increasingly tailored and meaningful interactions, reinforcing the relationships that have anchored our success for decades.

Second, sustaining our rigorous commitment to profitability optimization across our geographic footprint. Within North America, our emphasis on premium pricing strategies continues supporting margin gains alongside market share expansion. The operational improvements we have executed continue to generate benefits, establishing a more efficient and profitable business framework. Regarding Europe, market conditions are challenging, making it difficult to build on the improvements we made in sales, product margin, and operating results in 2024. We remain actively engaged in driving revenue through distinctive product offerings while preserving our commitment to premium pricing and expense management. We continue to have confidence in its long-term potential, particularly as we see trends developing locally before expanding internationally. Third, capitalizing on a solid financial foundation to manage volatility while funding expansion.

Our financial position remains strong, with cash and liquid investments exceeding $106 million at quarter end and, historically speaking, our highest cash generation months ahead of us. This fiscal stability enables continued investment in our strategic objectives, provides the ability to address obstacles that could emerge, and simultaneously delivers shareable value through our stock repurchase initiative. Despite operating in an environment characterized by economic volatility and shifting trade relationships, I am confident in our ability to generate value for our entire stakeholder community. The fundamental approaches that have powered our achievements across the organization’s history continue holding tremendous relevance, and our teams demonstrate adaptability and execution capabilities fuel my enthusiasm regarding our trajectory through the balance of 2025.

Our direction remains well-defined, maintaining our dedication to delivering distinctive, fashion-forward merchandise through the customer connection strategies that have propelled our growth while preserving the operational rigor that has strengthened our financial performance. We’ve proven our resilience through previous market cycles, and I am certain we’re strategically positioned to uphold that tradition. Before transitioning to Chris, I want to express my appreciation to our entire organization for their ongoing commitment and flexibility. Your dedication to our values and our customers continues to serve as a foundation for all of our achievements. With that, let me hand the call over to Chris for the financial review.

Chris Work, Chief Financial Officer, Zumiez Inc.: Thanks, Rick, and good afternoon, everyone. I’m going to start with a review of our second quarter results. I’ll then provide an update on our third quarter-to-date sales trends. Second quarter net sales were $214.3 million, up 1.9% from $210.2 million in the second quarter of 2024. Comparable sales were up 2.5% for the quarter. As Rick mentioned, the primary driver was our North America business, which shows outside strength even as macroeconomic uncertainty spurred by global trade policy intensified during the period. For the second quarter, North America net sales were $180 million, an increase of 2.1% from 2024. Other international net sales, which consist of Europe and Australia, were $34.2 million, up 1% from last year. Excluding the impact of foreign currency translation, North America net sales increased 2.1%, and other international net sales decreased 4.2% year over year.

Comparable sales for North America were up 4.2%, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of comparable sales growth. After positive comparable sales in the important fourth quarter of 2024, our other international comparable sales have been negative in 2025, declining 5.5% in the second quarter. From a category perspective, women’s was our largest positive comping category, followed by hard goods and accessories. Footwear was our largest negative comping category, followed by men’s. The consolidated increase in comparable sales was driven by an increase in dollars per transaction, partially offset by a decrease in transactions. Dollars per transaction were up for the quarter, driven by an increase in average unit retail, offset by a decrease in units per transaction. Second quarter gross profit was $76 million, up 5.9% compared to $71.8 million in the second quarter of last year.

Gross profit as a percentage of sales was 35.5% for the quarter, compared to 34.2% in the second quarter of 2024. The 130 basis point increase in gross margin was primarily driven by 60 basis points of improvement in product margin and 60 basis points of benefit related to the leverage of store occupancy costs on higher sales and the closure of underperforming stores. SG&A expense was $75.9 million, or 35.4% of sales in the second quarter, compared to $72.2 million, or 35.4% of net sales a year ago.

The 100 basis point increase in SG&A expense was driven by a 40 basis point increase in corporate costs, 30 basis points related to higher than anticipated legal settlement, a 20 basis point increase related to annual incentive compensation, a 20 basis point increase related to store wages, a 20 basis point increase in non-store SG&A wage costs, and a 30 basis point increase related to numerous smaller changes to impairment costs, training, and other miscellaneous costs. These increases were partially offset by 60 basis points of benefit in non-wage store operating costs. Operating income in the second quarter of 2025 was $0.1 million, or 0.1% of net sales, compared with an operating loss of $0.4 million, or 0.2% of net sales last year. Net loss for the second quarter was $1 million or $0.06 per share.

This compared to a net loss of $0.8 million or $0.04 per share in the second quarter of 2024. Our effective tax rate for the second quarter of 2025 was 210%, compared with 252% in the year-ago period. The higher than usual tax rate in the second quarter of this year and last year was primarily due to the allocation of losses across the jurisdictions in which we operate. Turning to the balance sheet, the business ended the quarter in a strong financial position. We had cash and current marketable securities of $106.7 million as of August 2, 2025, compared to $127 million as of August 3, 2024.

The decrease in cash and current marketable securities over the trailing 12 month periods was driven primarily by share repurchases and capital expenditures of $38.3 million and $14.1 million, respectively, partially offset by $26.6 million in cash provided by operating activities and the release of $3 million in restricted cash. As of August 2, 2025, we have no debt on the balance sheet. During the second quarter, we repurchased 0.6 million shares at an average cost, including commission, of $13.10 per share for a total of $7.8 million. As of August 2, 2025, we had $7.2 million remaining on the $15 million repurchase authorization approved by the board on June 4. We ended the quarter with $157.7 million in inventory, down 0.6% compared with $158.8 million last year. On a constant currency basis, our inventory levels were down 1.7% from last year. We feel good about our current inventory position.

Now to our third quarter-to-date results. Net sales for the 30-day period into September 1, 2025, increased 10.6% compared to the 30-day period in the prior year into September 2, 2024. Comparable sales for the 30-day period into September 1, 2025, were up 11.2% from the comparable period in the prior year, representing a two-year comparable sales stack of 23.3%. From a regional perspective, net sales for our North America business for the 30-day period into September 1, 2025, increased 11.7% compared to the 30-day period ended September 2, 2024, while our other international business increased 2.3%. Excluding the impact of foreign currency translation, North America net sales for the 30-day period ended September 1, 2025, increased 11.7% from the prior year, while their international net sales decreased 2.1% compared with 2024.

Comparable sales for North America increased 13% for the 30-day period ended September 1, 2025, compared to the same weeks in the prior year, while comparable sales for other international business declined 3.2%. From a category perspective, all categories delivered positive comparable sales quarter-to-date, with women’s being the largest comp, followed by men’s, accessories, footwear, and hard goods. The consolidated increase in comparable sales was driven by an increase in dollars per transaction and an increase in transactions. Dollars per transaction were up for the period, driven by an increase in average unit retail, partially offset by a slight decrease in units per transaction.

With respect to our outlook for the third quarter of fiscal 2025, I want to remind everyone that formulating our guidance involves some inherent uncertainty and complexity in estimating sales, product margin, and earnings growth, given the variety of internal and external factors that impact our performance. This is even more pronounced in today’s environment, with the current tariff situation that adds additional uncertainty and complexity to pricing and the potential to limit the ability of the consumer to continue to spend. Our recent trend line in North America during back-to-school has been very encouraging and provides confidence as we head into the holiday season. That said, we think it is prudent to balance our current domestic momentum with some near-term conservatism, given the general uncertainty in the macro environment and recent trends where we have seen non-peak consumer traffic soften.

We are anticipating total sales will be between $232 million and $237 million for the 13 weeks into November 1, 2025, including comparable sales growth of 5.5% to 7.5% over the prior year. For the third quarter, we are expecting product margin to increase from the third quarter of last year, and consolidated operating income for the third quarter is expected to be between 2.3% and 3.3% of sales. We anticipate earnings per share will be between $0.19 and $0.29 compared to EPS of $0.06 in the prior year. Regarding full-year 2025 results, uncertainty remains in the macro environment. The overall tariff situation and continued pressure on consumer discretionary income require caution. We have performed well in North America during the important back-to-school season, which is generally a reasonable indicator for holiday performance.

Overall, barring a significant downturn in the economy, we remain confident in our original projections for the year. We now believe that we’ll see year-over-year sales growth of 3% to 4% in 2025, despite the closure of 33 stores in fiscal 2024 and 20 store closures planned primarily in late 2025, which combined are estimated to have a negative impact on sales of roughly $14 million for the year. We anticipate modest year-over-year growth in product margins in 2025, on top of 70 basis points of improvement in fiscal 2024. We anticipate driving additional gross margin leverage through the other expense categories, such as occupancy, distribution, and logistics. We believe that we can hold our 2025 SG&A costs, excluding the one-time legal charges, relatively flat as a percent of sales with our fiscal 2024 results, through continued focus on expense management while also investing in important long-term strategic initiatives.

Combined, these expectations will drive a year-over-year increase in operating margins and net profit for fiscal 2025, bringing the company back to profitability. Included in these fiscal 2025 expectations are the following: six new store openings during the year, including five in North America and one in Australia. We also plan to close approximately 20 stores in fiscal 2025, including up to 17 in the United States, two in Canada, and one in Europe. We expect our capital expenditures for 2025 will be between $11 million and $13 million, compared to $15 million in fiscal 2024 and $20.4 million in 2023. We expect that depreciation and amortization, excluding non-cash lease expense, will be approximately $22 million, in line with the prior year. While effective tax rates are likely to fluctuate significantly by quarter, we anticipate that our full-year effective tax rate will be roughly 50% to 60% in fiscal 2025.

We are currently projecting our diluted share count for the full year to be approximately 17.3 million shares, which excludes any stock repurchases beyond the end of the second quarter. With that, we would like to open the call up for questions.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Mitch Kummetz with Seaport Research Partners. You may proceed.

Mitch Kummetz, Analyst, Seaport Research Partners: Yes, thanks for taking my questions. I got a few of them. First of all, I guess, Chris, on the 3Q guide, maybe a couple of things there. Obviously, you’re comping very well quarter to date. What are you assuming for comp for the balance of the quarter to get to your comp guide for the quarter? Also, can you maybe kind of break out the op margin in terms of kind of gross and SG&A? I would imagine that you’d get a pretty good amount of leverage both on kind of BDO and also SG&A expense based on the kind of the comp level that you’re expecting, but you’re also expecting product margin to be up too. Maybe some more color there would be helpful.

Chris Work, Chief Financial Officer, Zumiez Inc.: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Mitch. Happy to take that. I think from an overall comp perspective, as we’ve seen from the last couple of years, we have seen kind of the non-peak time period slow. While we are ecstatic about how our back-to-school has run here, I mean, as we said in our prepared remarks, the August comp was 11.2%. The two-year comp was 23.3%. If we just look at North America, the two-year stack is 27.9%. We are really encouraged by what the product offering’s been through back-to-school, but we know we have seen some slowdown in the last two years after back-to-school. We are assuming a much lower comp level in the, I’ll say, low single digits to end the quarter as we kind of wrap up this week, which is week five of the period.

From here on out, we would assume it to go back to something closer to what we saw in Q2. Obviously, if we’re able to beat that, we see that there’s some upside to the plan. On the second piece of your question, just thinking about Q3, on this type of comp growth, we expect to get pretty meaningful expansion both in gross margin tied to what we would expect to see pretty significant leverage on things like occupancy and distribution, as well as some product margin expansion. On the SG&A side, we would expect to have pretty meaningful leverage. As we talked about in our annual remarks, we expect to grow SG&A at a lower rate than sales.

I think with the sales levels that we’re predicting at this point for 2025, we think we’ll be there kind of absent some of these one-time legal charges that have happened in the first six months that we’ve laid out. We feel like we can leverage SG&A. Obviously, you know, Q2 was a little higher, but I think that’s going to show to be timing as we wrap the entire year and feel like we’ll get some good leverage on SG&A in Q3.

Mitch Kummetz, Analyst, Seaport Research Partners: Right, that’s very helpful. Maybe two others. It sounds like comp in the quarter was really driven by AUR and that that’s also benefiting you guys for 3Q to date. Could you maybe speak to what’s driving AUR? Like how much of that is just higher MSRPs given the tariffs versus maybe mix of business or a lower level of promotions or anything else? Could you maybe address that?

Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Officer, Zumiez Inc.: Yeah, I’ll start and let Chris add on, Mitch. It is going to be a combination of those factors, clearly. I mean, as we discussed in the previous quarter call, we have taken some price increases as we prepared for the back-to-school window. There’s also obviously mixed shifts in the business. Obviously, there are apparel businesses that are driving the business, so you’re seeing some positive, I think, mixed shifts relative to the nature of the business and away from other departments that have been a little bit more pressured or like accessories, which tend to have you lower AUR. There is no doubt mixed shift in place here, as well as some emphasis on price. The price we took was obviously in our private label businesses. We have been dealing with mixed shifts on the brand side too.

I think you do look at what we’ve been doing with our bundling promotions. There’s aspects of that, but again, there’s mixed shifts among those too that are playing out not only in Q2, but into Q3 as well. Did I miss anything, Chris?

Chris Work, Chief Financial Officer, Zumiez Inc.: No, I think the only thing I do think is important to call out is, you know, this is our fifth overall quarter. Q2 is our fifth overall quarter of positive comparable sales. It’s our sixth in North America. What’s interesting across those quarters is almost all of it has been driven by AUR gains, as you indicated and Rick just laid out. What’s encouraging for us is we did move into back-to-school here as we did see transaction gains. AUR was still a larger portion, but we’re encouraged to see transactions as well during the peak of back-to-school.

Mitch Kummetz, Analyst, Seaport Research Partners: I guess my last question, just on the strength of the private label business, you know, getting to a 30% penetration level in the, I guess that’s year to date. What categories, product categories are you seeing the most strength in your private label? I don’t know if you’re willing to say it, but I’d be curious to know what private label penetration is of denim and if you’re benefiting from some, or if you think you’re benefiting from some of kind of the overall strength in the denim category these days.

Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Officer, Zumiez Inc.: I’ll start again and let Chris add, Mitch. Clearly you can be in our stores and see how significant our denim presentation is amongst our private label brands. I think you can surmise that we have fairly high penetration within our private label brands in those key bottom categories just by observing what we’re doing in store. I think what’s going on in private label is something a bit deeper relative to what’s happening more broadly within the consumer world today. What our share gains in private label reflect over the last number of years, because we’ve been doing well in growing private label for the last four or five years now, I think it fundamentally reflects something different from the consumer world perspective.

That’s that brand cycles are so fast now, and new brands are cycling faster than they’ve ever cycled into our business, which is really exciting from that perspective. It also means that new brands don’t have as much time to develop their competencies around cut and sew categories. I think we’ve recognized over the last few years that we have to own those categories in a much deeper way. That’s been the initiative. Of course, to do that, you have to lead on track and be at the front end of the trend cycle. I think that is exactly what we’ve done over the last few years with our private label products. I think we have the advantage again of a number of brands that are positioned uniquely to target specific consumer segments within our customer base.

Again, it’s not just one brand fits all sizes; we’re actually targeting different brands at different niches of our consumer base. I think we have a really well-established platform. I think we’re recognizing the realities of the consumer world and reacting to it. We’re benefiting across that both in terms of our ability to be responsive to the customer and to drive sales because we’re not a value player here in private label. I want to be clear about that. Whereas, as we’ve talked about, we’re the premium price player now in the mall in a lot of these categories like denim. We’re really doing it, and it’s because we’re offering a unique product and leading on the trend cycle itself. I feel great about where we’re at. I think it’s been, again, reflective of what’s going on in the consumer world.

I think our team’s adapted to it at a really high level. Chris, anything else?

Mitch Kummetz, Analyst, Seaport Research Partners: All right. I appreciate that. Thanks and good luck.

Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Officer, Zumiez Inc.: Thank you, Mitch.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. Our next question comes from Jeff and Cinderin with EURADA Securities. You may proceed.

Mitch Kummetz, Analyst, Seaport Research Partners: Hi, everyone. Let me say congratulations on the stronger peak back-to-school trends. Looking at your business from sort of a high level, what do you believe is feasible in terms of operating margins for the enterprise over the next couple of years? What are the drivers that you see to get you to whatever that higher level of operating margin is?

Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Officer, Zumiez Inc.: Jeff, I’ll let Chris deal with the numbers here. He’s usually better at the numbers side than I am. I think clearly the story is a simple one, which is that we have to have unique products both in the sense of what we’re delivering from a brand perspective and also, as I just commented on, relative to trend cycles and those trend cycles that really play in our private label. This is going to benefit margin, but most importantly, our story is a sales recovery story. Post the pandemic, where we actually had a good year in 2020, a really good year in 2021, like everyone else, with the stimulus spending, we had some really tough challenges after that, right? We moved all that skate volume into 2020, really difficult years across skate hard goods the last few years.

Likewise, we had a big challenge with the footwear brand that had a big downturn. We had some big headwinds that hit us in 2022 and 2023. Our story is how do we recover back our sales level at the same time establishing a much higher basis for our product margins? I think that’s why we’re so excited about the stacked back-to-school comps, and particularly here in our U.S. business, because I think that is exactly what we’re demonstrating we can do. With that color, I’ll let Chris comment a bit on how he thinks about the targets.

Chris Work, Chief Financial Officer, Zumiez Inc.: Yeah, and I think, Jeff, you’ve been around the model for a long time. You know, as we have kind of rethought this and obviously had a little bit of a reset here, I don’t think our long-term goals have changed. I’m not saying this is where we’re going to be in the next three years, but I think over time, we still believe we can get long-term operating margins back to that high single-digit level. We’ve been there before. We’ve been beyond that before. I think it speaks to what Rick’s talking about. It’s number one, a sales recovery, right? When you look at our sales, even compared to a period like a lot of retailers look at 2019, there’s a good chunk, still a good discrepancy from where we are planning this year to 2019.

If you break that apart even further, knowing that we’ve grown the international side of the business, the North America side of the business still has a lot of growth to get back to 2019 levels. That’s just on a pure dollars perspective. As we think about really the newness and the ability to inject with both our branded and our private label format, we think we should be able to grow beyond 2019 because we all know that AURs have gone up since then. We have to continue to push to bring in newness that will drive sales beyond those levels. That alone would solve a lion’s share of our delta to where we sit from 2019 profitability. Beyond that, as Rick said, I think product margin is an opportunity for us.

I think there’ll be some pretty meaningful leverage on some of the bigger cost items of the business with sales at that level. The international side of the business continues to be an opportunity for us to fix. As we’ve talked about with Europe, we are in year one of a three-year plan to really drive that back to a break-even level. We’re pushing very hard to do that. I think the first six months have been tougher than we would like, but I think we’re on the right trajectory to be able to execute on that over a multi-year period. As that piece flips, you’ll see additional kind of leverage and growth in operating profit on the bottom line that would be significant.

Mitch Kummetz, Analyst, Seaport Research Partners: You sort of touched on the European business, and I was also thinking about the Aussie business, just thinking about Europe and that business. I realize you have a multi-year plan to improve it, but what are really the biggest headwinds that you’re facing in that business now? What do you need to overcome to sort of have that three-year plan work out?

Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Officer, Zumiez Inc.: First, I think, Jeff, we need the economy to cooperate there. I think we feel that we have maybe some good indications that the economy will start growing at a more significant rate. Particularly, the largest market for us in Europe is Germany, which the last few years has had basically no growth. In fact, it’s slightly negative. With the spending package coming into Germany that the government’s just approved, I’m hoping, and the forecasts are going to see some growth economically from the GDP perspective in 2026. I hope we get some assistance from that perspective. It would be nice if there was more in Europe too, in terms of consumer confidence. We have to execute, to be clear, we have to execute better. I think we said this in the script that we have to really distinguish our assortments more than we have.

We have to be better on the trend side of the business over there. We’re really leveraging from the strengths and what we know here in the U.S. We have to make sure that we are curating and differentiating the assortment. That is mission one. Of course, we want to replicate and amaze. I think we have a really unique store experience today, but I want to continue to work on that and heighten that experience so we can again sell more units and win more wallet share with that consumer. I think we own the piece that we own, better assortments, great in-store experiences, and then we need some cooperation just in general recovery in the economic environment.

Mitch Kummetz, Analyst, Seaport Research Partners: Okay, thanks for taking my questions, and best of luck.

Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Officer, Zumiez Inc.: Thank you.

Chris Work, Chief Financial Officer, Zumiez Inc.: Thank you, Jeff.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Mitch Kummetz with Seaport Research Partners. You may proceed.

Mitch Kummetz, Analyst, Seaport Research Partners: Yeah, thanks. I’ve got a couple of follow-ups. One, Rick, you mentioned in response to one of Jeff’s questions that it’s a sales recovery story. You mentioned a couple of, you know, somewhat unique headwinds to your business, one being skate and the other one being this large footwear brand. I’m curious, as you kind of look at those two pieces, do you think that, you know, you kind of reached the bottom there with those and that that being kind of a pressure point on comp, that that’s largely behind you? I have one more.

Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Officer, Zumiez Inc.: All right. I’ll start and try to best address both the skate and shoe business, Mitch, and let Chris add again to it. As you saw in our disclosure, it’s our skate business, skate hard goods businesses turned positive. We’re still going to be cautious, why we’re encouraged there. I’ll remind, I know you know this well, Mitch, but generally, I think we’re probably the most significant skate retailer, true skate component businesses in the world today in terms of just our scale. We benefit greatly. We benefit disproportionately on the up cycles and unfortunately disproportionately when there’s a major down cycle like we’ve had over the last few years. I’m encouraged, and I think our whole team is encouraged by the positive results we’ve been getting lately in our skate hard goods business. I’ll be a little bit cautious.

Typically, we always see better results in skate hard goods in the spring and summertime. I think I want to be a little bit cautious if we head into the fall and winter season in North America before I call that a permanent trend, but it certainly is encouraging. We’ve been feeling like we just have to find the bottom, so we’re hopeful we have found the bottom of the cycle. Shoes continue to be why we ran some comps here periodically in the shoe categories. It continues to be a very challenging category overall. It’s not just one brand. We’ve had a few brands that have been very challenging in the footwear business. This speaks in some ways to, when looking at our whole business, consecutive quarters of comp gains now.

We’re doing, despite the up and downs in the footwear business, despite the negative drag of skate, I think it shows resilience that we can find ways to run gains. I would say we’re not out of the, I’m hoping we’re, I’m hopeful that we’re out of that, we found the bottom of the skate trend. We can look to a prolonged period of upward cycle in skate. I think we still have a ways to go, Mitch, on really getting shoes figured out relative to what the consumer wants today.

Mitch Kummetz, Analyst, Seaport Research Partners: Yeah, my last question, because it also sounds like you expect continued product margin opportunity. I guess I’m wondering how much of that is tied to the private label penetration continuing to grow. Is there any way you can say from a product margin standpoint what the delta is between private label and third party?

Chris Work, Chief Financial Officer, Zumiez Inc.: Sure. I’ll go ahead and take that from a numbers perspective. I just want to remind you too, as we look back in time, we do believe that a chunk of our product margin great gains are driven by what we’re doing with private label. We’ve run product margin gains in branded cycles too. If we look back into 2017, 2018, 2019, we grew product margin pretty meaningfully, and private label was actually shrinking as a percent of the business. It is a pretty heavy branded cycle. As we think about product margin overall, we think there’s probably 10% to 15% benefit in our private label product from our pure branded product. Of course, there is also kind of an in-between where we work with brands on more of a licensed model, which is sort of a, that will fall in between those numbers.

We’re executing all of those today and believe there’s a real benefit of that strategy to both have your own private label to capture trend, as Rick has talked about, obviously to have brands that are hard to find and unique in the market. We have a licensed model as well, in which we can work with brands that we can help in more ways. We’ve got a lot of resources in regards to building product and sourcing product, and where we can help brands we’ll execute in that way as well.

Mitch Kummetz, Analyst, Seaport Research Partners: Great. Thanks again.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Rick Brooks for any closing remarks.

Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Officer, Zumiez Inc.: All right. As I always like to say, I truly appreciate everyone’s interest in Zumiez and appreciate your continued interest in Zumiez. We’re going to look forward to talking to you in December when we release Q3 results. Thank you, everybody.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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