Laura Alber: Welcome to the Williams-Sonoma, Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the conclusion of the prepared remarks.
Operator: I would now like to turn the call over to Jeremy Brooks, Chief Accounting Officer and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Jeremy Brooks: Good morning, and thank you for joining our first quarter earnings call. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that during this call, we will make forward-looking statements with respect to future events and financial performance, including our annual guidance for fiscal 26 and our long-term outlook. We believe these statements reflect our best estimates. However, we cannot make any assurances these statements will materialize, and actual results may differ significantly from our expectations. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any of these statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after today's call. Additionally, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These measures should not be considered replacements for and should be read together with our GAAP results. This call should also be considered in conjunction with our filings with the SEC. Finally, a replay of the call will be available on our investor relations website. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Laura Elber, our President and Chief Executive Officer.
Laura Alber: Thank you, Jeremy. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. We are off to a strong start in fiscal 2026. In Q1, our comp came in at 4.8%, reflecting strong execution across our portfolio of brands, our channels, and our teams. Thank you to everyone at the company for your hard work and dedication. We are pleased that our growth initiatives are working, and every brand delivered a positive comp in Q1. We also saw strength in both our retail and DTC channels, with improvements across the customer journey. Furniture and non-furniture trends were strong, and collaborations, newness, and innovation all performed well. From a profitability standpoint, we delivered an operating margin of 15.2% ahead of expectations. We've delivered this operating margin even while absorbing tariffs and higher fuel costs. Earnings per share was $1.93 up from $1.85 last year. We continue to outperform on both top and bottom lines in this uncertain environment, which includes, but is certainly not limited to, war, trade policy, including tariffs and interest rates. We are delivering compounding results year after year despite the cyclical swings of the housing market and other macroeconomic events. We believe our strong brand, our proven ability to execute our vision, and our relentless focus on customer service will allow us to accomplish our goals in 2026 and beyond. First, on growth. In Q1, our 4.8 comp reflected our company-wide focus on growing our top line. Our quarter was driven by strong performance and all of our brands grow from our B2B division and continue the outperformance of our smaller but quickly growing and profitable emerging brands. Also, the product pipeline that we laid out this year is working. We are committed to delivering great customer service, and we continue to put the customer at the center of everything we do. We extended AI further into the customer journey. we scaled personalization across our portfolio of brands, and we continued to optimize the shopping and checkout experience. We also made progress using automation to improve customer care and strengthen product discovery while continuing to advance our design tools. And across operations, we delivered enhancements to support supply chain efficiency and enabled important brand initiatives this quarter. And We continue to make progress in supply chain performance without focus on time and delivery and low returns and replacements. These agreements help us offset higher year-on-year tariffs and higher fuel costs. We stay lean and efficient throughout the organization and manage variable costs. And you can see those results in the P&L we share with you today. Additionally, in the quarter, we returned $373 million to our investors through share buybacks and dividends. Our results demonstrate our discipline and commitment to delivering quality earnings and returning free cash flow to our stockholders. Now let's talk about guidance. We are reiterating the annual guidance we provided on our Q4 call. We are confident about our business, both because of our Q1 results and our strategies for the balance of 2026. However, Despite our beat in the first quarter, we are not raising guidance as it is early in the year, and there's a lot of uncertainty in the external environment. We are not building in a meaningful housing recovery, and we are assuming continued volatility across geopolitics, war, fuel prices, trade policy, and tariff and interest rates. Of course, you can never plan for extreme outlier events, but what we can do is give you our best estimate for 2026, which at this point reflects comp brand revenue growth of 2% to 6% with a midpoint of 4% and an operating margin at a range of 17.5% to 18.1% with a midpoint of 17.8%. Now let's review our brands. Pottery Barn delivered a positive 1 comp in Q1, and we were pleased to see the brand's results improved. We saw progress in key categories for Pottery Barn, across furniture, lighting, and textiles. Customers responded to both our spring and summer assortments. The quarter also reflected the actions we have been taking in marketing. We are focused on Pottery Barn's heritage aesthetic, both in marketing and product design, and we are improving value across key categories. At the Pottery Barn channel level, DTC improved as we focused on the digital experience. Retail remains strong as customers continue to respond positively to our stores, design services, and the in-person shopping experience, including take-it-home today. We remain focused on executing the Pottery Barn strategy quarter by quarter and are confident about the brand's trajectory in 2026 and beyond. Before I move on, I also want to share an update on leadership at Pottery Barn. This morning, we announced the promotion of Jennifer Keller to the role of President of Pottery Barn. Over the course of her 29-year tenure, Jen has demonstrated an exceptional track record of driving growth and incubating brands. She brings deep expertise across merchandising, design, e-commerce, and marketing, and has helped drive significant growth for our company. We also have a strong bench of talent in our Pottery Barn children's businesses, and that team will continue to lead the brands and will report to me. And finally, today we announced former Pottery Barn President Monica Vargas' departure from the company. I want to thank Monica for her significant accomplishments throughout her 26 years with our company. Monica's visionary leadership and creative talent have made a lasting impact across our brands, and we are grateful for her many contributions. Now let's turn to our County Barn children's business, which delivered yet another strong quarter, running a positive 4.5 comp in Q1. Growth was driven by product innovation with strength in both furniture and non-furniture. Collaborations in licensing remain key drivers led by Love Shack Fancy, Grist Loves Julia, and partners that keep the assortment fresh and bring in new customers. We also saw strong momentum in baby, supported by high-quality furniture, and expanded gifting assortment and improvements to the registry experience both in stores and online. And in dorm, we are entering the season well-positioned with complete solutions that meet customers' needs and preferences. In the quarter, we also launched Dormify as our 10th brand, which expands our reach in dorm and small space living with functional, style-driven solutions for the next generation of customers. As we think about the future, we see meaningful growth ahead in our children's business. Our pipeline of new product introductions and continued collaboration growth is strong, and we are excited about the momentum as we move through the year. Now let's review West Elm. West Elm ran a positive 8.5% in Q1, and I'm proud to say again that West Elm is on a roll. The drivers at West Elm are consistent, and the results are compounding. West Elm continued to make improvements across products, brand seat, and channel excellence. New introductions in both furniture and non-furniture drove growth, and both spring and summer newness performed particularly well. We found West Elm was a highlight in Q1. Customers came into our stores and saw more newness and better in-stock availability. And the strength in the brand gives us confidence to return store count growth. with five West Elm openings planned in 2026. Collaborations also remain a key pillar of the growth strategy at West Elm. The Emma Chamberlain collection was a great example. It brought new energy to the brand and connected with a younger customer. It is another proof point that West Elm can create brand heat and drive growth through distinctive products and storytelling. Overall, we are thrilled with the medicine at West Elm. The brand is executing well, and we feel good about the opportunity to build on this progress as we move through 26 and beyond. Now let's review the Williams-Sonoma brand. Williams-Sonoma continues its streak of strong performance with a positive 5 comp in T1 on top of a 7.3 comp last year. As we spoke about on the last earnings call, 2026 marks Williams-Sonoma's 70th anniversary, and at 70 years old, This brand is not slowing down. In fact, it's gaining momentum. The kitchen business continues to accelerate, and our pipeline of proprietary in-house design products and market exclusives separate us from the competition. We also continue to strengthen the brand through collaborations and marketing partnerships. In G1, we welcome world-renowned interior designer Kelly Wurzler as a spokesperson for our exclusive Bravo offerings. We also launched the Stanley sushi pizza oven from Green Pan and a food collaboration with Oakville Grocery, our Napa Valley Culinary Institution, and the oldest continuously operating grocery store in California. In our Williams-Sonoma stores, we continue to bring the brand to life through experiences that deepen engagement. In Q1, skill series classes remains an important driver, and we also built a men's stuff in the registry through events and concierge appointments. We also saw notable momentum in Williams-Sonoma Home in the quarter. Customers responded to newness and innovation in color, prints, and patterns. And while the business is small, we see opportunity to expand in the underserved, high-end furniture and home furnishings market. Looking ahead, we are excited for the summer entertaining season. We have Bottle Rock this weekend which is another great example of how we bring the brand to life, to food, community, and experiences that are uniquely Williams-Sonoma. And if you're going to be in NACA this weekend, please give me a call. Now I'd like to update you on B2B. B2B started the year strong with another record-breaking quarter, delivering growth of 13.7%. We saw the strength across B2B with continued momentum in both trade, which grew 9%, and contracts, which grew 22%. Our BV team continues to strengthen our position as a preferred partner. We're winning because of our deep relationships with designers, developers, procurement groups, and brands, and because our design-to-deliver capabilities are difficult to replicate. We also delivered several marquee projects in the quarter, including hospitality work, for Delano, Miami, Bernadette's Resort and Spa, multiple locations with national developers like Amar and Graystar, and continuing momentum in sports and entertainment with Capital One Arena, Live Nation Philadelphia, and upcoming work with the U.S. Open. At Star Q2, the team was recognized at the Hospitality Design Expo, winning the Best in Show Award. Overall, we are pleased with the stars of the year, B&B, and we are getting excited about the pipeline and the opportunity ahead. Now I'd like to update you on our emerging brands. With our proven ability to incubate scale brands in-house, these concepts represent sizable growth opportunities for us. Starting with Juvenation, which had another strong quarter with double-digit comp growth. Performance was driven by continued momentum in project-like categories, including cabinet hardware, bath, lighting, and mirrors. Rejuvenation also continued to see strong engagement from the trade, which reinforces the brand's position with design and renovation customers. And DTC growth was supported by continued engagement in our core categories. Product innovation continued to be a focus in the brand, with high-quality, design-driven products, distinctive details, and customizable options that matter in home project categories. With only 13 stores and great online growth, we are thrilled with the progress in rejuvenation, and we continue to believe in the opportunity for rejuvenation to be our next billion-dollar brand. Mark and Graham also have a strong T1 with a double digit of positive comp. The brand continues to build momentum across key categories And it remains a distinctive destination for personalized gifts for life's meaningful moments. As we look ahead, we are leading into major seasonal milestones, like graduation, Father's Day, wedding season, and summer entertaining. And we are doing that with compelling new products and elevated coastal point of view. And last, but certainly not least, green rope. Green Row continues to deliver growth and humor. We opened our first store in March, and it's a great manifestation of the brand. And since we last talked, I hope you have had an opportunity to stop by and see the store yourself in Soho. Green Row focuses on sustainable, responsibly crafted, vintage-inspired design. The brand combines colorful, eclectic styling with heirloom-quality materials and low-impact manufacturing practices. Finally, I'd like to talk about our global business. We continue to see strong performance across our strategic global markets, including Canada, Mexico, and the UK, driven by differentiated products, ongoing omni-channel improvements, and continuous growth in our design and trade businesses. So in closing, as you can see, we are off to a strong start. in fiscal 2026. I will summarize to you on the three accomplishments. First, we delivered strong top-line growth with every grand positive. Second, we drove operating margin that exceeded expectations. And third, we delivered earnings growth. And we did all of this in a dynamic and uncertain external environment. This quarter reflected what we set out to do in 2026. We are accelerating growth through strong execution across channels, strengthening both furniture and non-furniture, and continued momentum in collaborations, product newness, and product innovation. We are continuing to invest in the customer experience and making progress in service and supply chain. And finally, we are staying disciplined on cost and productivity, which supports strong profitability and returns to our shareholders. We feel good about the start of the year. and we remain confident in our priorities and our strategies for 2026. And while the external environment can shift quickly, our model and our team are built to navigate volatility and keep delivering. And with that, I want to thank our teams again for their work and their commitment, and I also want to thank our vendors and our shareholders for their partnership and support. Now I will turn it over to Jeff to walk you through the numbers but I'll look in more detail.
Jeff Yurich: Thank you, Laura, and good morning, everyone. We delivered another quarter of growth and strong earnings in Q1. Our results reflect the power of William Snowman, Inc.' 's operating model and our team's strong execution on the priorities we laid out for fiscal year 26, accelerating growth, delivering world-class customer service, and driving earnings. As I walk through the numbers, You'll see how we deliver on all three priorities this quarter. I'll start with our Q1 results and then review our guidance for fiscal year 26. Q1 net revenues finished at $1.81 billion, with comp growth of 4.8%. Both our one-year and two-year comps accelerated from Q4 to Q1, reflecting the continued strength and momentum of our business. Both furniture and non-furniture categories posted positive comps in the quarter, and the trend in both categories accelerated significantly from Q4. From a channel perspective, both e-commerce and retail delivered strong comps, with e-commerce up 4.8% and retail up 4.7%. We accelerated our market share gains as the home furnishings market declined in the low single digits in Q1. We accomplished this even as we maintained our level of full-price selling. Our strong results demonstrate the power of our portfolio of brands, which span different aesthetics, life stages, and price points. Combined with our growth strategies, our portfolio sets Williams-Soma Inc. apart in the home furnishings industry. Moving down the income statement, Q1 gross margin was 44%. down approximately 30 basis points versus last year. Our focus on growth, customer service, and supply chain efficiency partially offset the headwinds from tariffs and higher fuel costs. Merchandise margins declined 100 basis points versus last year. Higher tariffs flowing through to our weighted average cost of goods sold drove this decline. Full price selling was essentially flat year over year. Ocean freight costs were also pressured by higher oil prices. However, our size and scale and our talented supply chain team helped mitigate the impact. Supply chain efficiencies, including a lower shrink accrual, delivered approximately 50 basis points of gross margin benefit in the quarter. Our focus and execution on customer service continued to drive efficiency across our supply chain, enabling us to offset the impact of higher fuel prices to domestic shipping costs. I'd like to acknowledge and thank our supply chain team for their relentless focus on service and efficiency that is helping us offset higher fuel prices. Occupancy costs leveraged approximately 20 basis points versus last year, with our strong top-line growth more than offsetting the 3% increase in occupancy dollars. Overall, our gross margin came in ahead of our expectations. We are pleased with our ability to partially offset tariff-related merchandise margin pressure and higher fuel prices through supply chain efficiencies and occupancy leverage. Turning now to SG&A, Q1 SG&A ran at 27.8% of revenues, approximately 30 basis points higher than last year. Employment expense leveraged 30 basis points. We continued to manage variable employment costs in line with top-line trends while staying focused on investing in talent. Advertising expense as a percent of revenues leveraged 10 basis points. Our in-house marketing team continued to test, scale, and optimize across our portfolio of brands, driving strong customer engagement while remaining disciplined on spend. We also invested in social media. using compelling content, collaborations, and influencer partnerships to increase relevance, expand reach, and drive brand heat. Lastly, General Spence deleveraged approximately 10 basis points, primarily from timing. On the bottom line, we delivered operating income of $292 million, with operating margin at 16.2%. Diluted earnings per share were $1.93, up 4% versus last year. On the balance sheet, merchandise inventories were $1.46 billion, up 9% to last year. Included in our inventory is approximately $60 million of embedded incremental tariff costs. Excluding these tariff costs, inventories would have been in line with our top-line growth. Our inventory levels and composition continue to be well-positioned to support our sales growth and customer service goals. During the quarter, we invested $58 million in capital expenditures to support our long-term growth. We also returned $373 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. We repurchased $288 million of stock for approximately 1.4% of shares outstanding. We also paid $85 million in dividends, a 15% increase year over year. Summing up our Q1 results, we are proud of the strong execution across the business. We accelerated our top-line growth, continued to improve customer service and supply chain efficiency, and grew earnings per share. These results speak to the power of our operating model, but none of it would be possible without the incredible team we have here at William Stoneman, Inc. I'd like to thank our team for their outstanding execution this quarter. Now, let's turn to our fiscal year 26 outlook. As Laura mentioned, we remain confident in our strategy and momentum. We are reiterating our guidance as it's still early in the year and the environment is uncertain. We expect fiscal year 26 net revenue comps to be in the range of 2% to 6%. with total net revenue growth of 2.7% to 6.7%. We expect operating margin to be in the range of 17.5% to 18.1%. Our guidance continues to assume no material changes in the macroeconomic environment or housing turnover or interest rates. We remain focused on accelerating growth, delivering world-class customer service, and driving earnings. As we discuss guidance, I'd like to address three topics top of mind for investors. Higher oil prices, tariff refunds, and tariffs. First, higher oil prices. Higher oil prices are pressuring transportation costs. With Ocean Freight, we believe our size and scale, combined with the outstanding work of our experienced transportation team, will allow us to continue to mitigate the impact. For domestic shipping expense, Fuel prices near today's levels are embedded in our guidance. While the direction of oil prices is difficult to predict, our guidance reflects our best estimate of the impact of higher oil prices on our business. Second, tariff refunds. Our guidance does not contemplate recognizing any benefit from tariff refunds due to the uncertainty surrounding the timing and potential of recovery. Finally, tariffs. Our assumptions on tariffs remain unchanged as well. As discussed last quarter, we continue to expect the impact of tariffs to be front-half weighted and then moderate over the balance of the year. Our guidance continues to assume all tariffs currently in place remain in effect for the balance of the year, including the Section 232 tariffs, the current Section 301 tariffs, and the Section 122 tariffs. While the Section 122 tariffs are currently set to expire in July, our guidance assumes they will be replaced with tariffs at a similar rate. With the ongoing uncertainty around tariffs, it is impossible to say where they will ultimately land, and it is difficult to determine what impact they will have on our business. Our guidance reflects our best estimates based on the tariffs in place as of this call. As tariff policy changes, we may need to update our guidance. Also today, we are providing some further inputs for modeling purposes. We expect our full-year interest income to be approximately $25 million and our full-year effective tax rate to be approximately 25.5%. Turning now to capital allocation, we will continue to prioritize funding our business operations and investing in long-term growth. Our capital expenditure guidance is unchanged. We expect to spend approximately $275 million in capital expenditures for the year. About 95% of that investment will be focused on e-commerce, retail, and supply chain. With regards to our investment in retail, we continue to expect our year-end store count to be essentially flat to last year, after which we anticipate 1% to 3% growth in store count each year starting in fiscal year 27. Embedded in our fiscal year 26 guidance continues to be approximately 70 basis points of non-comp growth from our investment in retail. We remain committed to returning excess cash to shareholders through a combination of increased dividends and ongoing share repurchases. On dividends, we will continue to pay our quarterly dividend of 76 cents per share, which is a 15% increase year over year. We are proud to say that fiscal year 26 is the 17th consecutive year of increased dividend payouts. On share repurchases, we have approximately $1.1 billion remaining under our current authorizations, and we will continue to repurchase shares opportunistically as part of our disciplined approach to delivering shareholder returns. Looking beyond fiscal year 26, we are reiterating our long-term outlook for mid- to high-single-digit revenue growth and operating margins in the mid to high teens. Wrapping up our comments, we are proud to have delivered yet another strong quarter for our shareholders. We're confident we'll continue to outperform our peers and deliver shareholder returns for these five reasons that remain consistent. Our ability to gain market share in the fragmented home furnishings industry. The strength of our in-house proprietary design. The competitive advantage of our digital first, but not digital only, channel strategy, the ongoing strength of our growth initiatives, and the resiliency of our fortress balance sheet. With that, I'll open the call for questions.
Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session.
Laura Alber: Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again.
Operator: Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Kate: Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. We wanted to first ask about the health of the consumer. If you saw any change in behavior during the quarter, any differences between income cohorts, and if you've seen any changes made to date.
Laura Alber: Sure. Good morning, Kate. How are you? I, you know, can't really speak for others and what they're saying, but the consumer, our consumer, is responding to our products and our strategies across our channels and across our brands, as you can see by this morning's set of numbers. And it's, you know, from furniture to smaller items and collaborations across the board, really. I think that the truth is that We have put together a pipeline of products that is very appealing and distinctive in the market. And people shop to us for our great prices and quality. And they're coming into our stores because of our engaging store experiences and service. And, you know, it seems like they are very... interested in spending with us and we believe that that's going to continue as we look through the year because the strategies that we built through the year that are going to come look like the ones we've been implementing and so i think you're going to continue to see the momentum that we've seen in the first quarter thank you and it does appear that you were able to offset a lot of the higher fuel costs with the efficiencies in the supply chain that you laid out on the call
Kate: But was wondering if this inflationary environment were to persist, do you think you will have to look to increasing prices at all?
Laura Alber: I think it's really to comment on that. You know, and remember, we don't just compete on price. We're competing on the whole, which is the product itself and where it sits in our market versus other similar products. And we have incredible finishes and product design, exclusives. exciting stuff in the works. And that's where we see the customer being less price sensitive. That said, we're careful to make sure that they feel really good about buying from us and we want to continue to invest in our customer and give them the best value in the market.
Jeff Yurich: And I'll just add, Kate, that as I said in our opening remarks, oil prices at today's levels are embedded in our guidance. And we are seeing ocean freight prices pressured But given our size and scale, we're able to mitigate them. And then with domestic transportation, we are seeing higher costs, but our supply chain efficiencies are really offsetting them. And I want to take a moment just to acknowledge and recognize and thank our entire supply chain organization for their ongoing focus on just efficiency and driving customer service, which, as everyone has seen, is really producing phenomenal results for the company.
Seth Signet: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Seth Signet of Barclays.
Laura Alber: Your line is open.
Operator: Please go ahead.
Seth Signet: Thanks so much. Good morning, everyone. So, with comps accelerating this quarter relative to prior quarters at a time when it seems like you've raised prices, but it seems like those price increases are maybe starting to stabilize. So, it would imply that the composition of the business is maybe shifting, meaning more volume is improving. Is that right directionally? And if so, what do you think is changing that is driving that? And how do you think about the sustainability as you move through this year?
Laura Alber: You are right. And so we're seeing broad-based comp lever improvements, and we're very excited to see it across channels. It's based on our strategy stuff, the execution of our strategies, which are very competitive. We did lay out a bunch of them, you know, in the last conference call and in this one. And so we're thrilled to see furniture recovering. We had a good Easter. We're going back to school. We've invested in the dorm experience, total customer experience, in-socket retail. All these things are good for the comp lovers. You know, I always think of comp lovers as the output of the strategy, not the thing to focus on. But just to tell you, it's not just for us.
Seth Signet: Okay. That's helpful. And then maybe for Jeff, on the merchandise margin, they were down this quarter but a little bit better than I think expected. You're going to start to lap very healthy merchandise margins, particularly in the second and third quarter. Can you just remind us how you're thinking about that, how you would expect the cadence to play out throughout the year?
Jeff Yurich: Yeah, good morning, Seth. So margin was down about 100 basis points in the MMU in Q1, a little better. than Q4 and a little better than we expected. But we still are guiding that the impact of tariffs will be heavily front-weighted and then moderate across the back half of the year, simply because the way the tariffs are flowing through on our weighted average cost accounting. Now, Q1 had an easier compare because we were up against some timing items in last year. Q2 won't have that benefit, so Q2 will probably be peak impact of the tariffs. But after that, we expect it to moderate for the balance of the year.
spk00: Okay, great. Thanks, guys. Bye.
Laura Alber: Your next question comes from the line of Chuck Grom of Gordon Haskett. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Greg Porter: Hey, guys. I'm Greg Porter. Can you help us think about the underlying demand curve in the business? I mean, skeptics are going to say that this is tax-refund driven, but I don't think that's the case. And I was hoping maybe you could opine on strength at West Elm and the recovery in PB specifically. But more importantly, just getting a better sense for the demand curve, the underlying demand curve in the business.
Laura Alber: Yeah, we're thrilled with the results in West Elm. We're not entirely tied, though. We've been building this foundation for growth. And you remember, you know, many, many years ago, I mentioned that we started to see newness really working, but we were chasing it. And now we have that back, and we have confidence to build more newness, both in the core and then also in the collaboration. And it is broad-based, so the categories we just had, but we also have new categories that are really performing well for us. And then hopefully going on, not just furniture, but things that are coming in more regularly in the high. And the combination of the two things is great. I also want to say that this is not emotionally led. We have a very, very strong in West Alabama, and we don't deal with those members, but I would just say that it's very important to note that it is not emotionally driven at all, and we believe that this is sustainable. The brand is very well positioned to reverse the competition, and I find it extremely exciting. As a way to popularize, we continue to see improvements based on the strategy that I laid out, working quarter to quarter on multiple key strategies and measuring our results. And we have had a lot of changes, especially to our website, how we are transitioning and getting back to what is a traditional hot or warm aesthetic, which is really resonating with the customer. And we've only begun to implement that. Okay, great. Thanks for that, Laura.
Greg Porter: And then just, Jeff, on the supply chain, in another 50 of improvement there to help offset some of the merchandising metrics we follow to give us a sense of kind of where you are on that journey and the visibility you have to continue to gain on the supply chain side. Thank you.
Jeff Yurich: Absolutely, Chuck. So, you know, supply chain efficiencies continues to be a big benefit for us. And our goal remains the same. It's having a perfect order on time, damage-free every time. And those are really the key KPIs that we track. Is the order on time? Is it damage-free? Are there no issues with it? And is the customer satisfied? And at the end of the day, it's really about making sure that customer is satisfied. And we have an incredible supply chain team that really makes a difference in terms of our customer service. And as many of you have heard me say, we don't just compete on price. We also compete on service. We compete on service in our stores with our pre-interior design services, which is helping propel the strength of our retail division. And also, we compete on our in-home delivery. We make 2.4 million in-home deliveries a year. That's about 7,000 a day. And we do it better than just about anybody else out there. And we do it by focusing on making sure the customer is happy and that the order comes, you know, perfect every time. Is it on time? Did we hit the delivery window? Did we have all the pieces together? Did we put it where the customer wanted it? Are they happy with it? At the end of every order, they actually have to sign and acknowledge that they're happy with it. We take pictures of the order, and we make sure that it's what they want. And that customer service is really what differentiates us. And the more we service our customer, the better our results are.
Greg Porter: Great. Thank you both.
Laura Alber: Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Mataszewski of Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Jonathan Mataszewski: Great. Good morning and thanks for the time. My question was on the trade channel. It's promotional in the industry for consumers, but it's also increasingly promotional in the industry for the trade channel. Seems like many retailers are increasingly trying to court the interior design community. It looks like your trade channel business was strong this quarter, up around 9%, I believe. So my question is, what's on the horizon in terms of initiatives to maintain that momentum and, you know, neutralize maybe some of the higher promotions that some competitors are doing to, you know, court those designers? Thanks.
Unknown: Good morning, Jonathan. You know, we continue to believe in our energy business.
Jeff Yurich: It has another industry record of 14%. That was our largest quarter ever to date. Now, trade is an important part of it.
Unknown: To your point, it was up to 9% in the quarter. And that's not really being driven by price. We're not changing anything regarding the pricing we do with our trade consumers or promotional activity.
Jeff Yurich: We're working on service. And it comes down to our local stores partnering with the local trade community, building those relationships, and really executing on all the different strategies we have around product and service And then the place that really focuses BDD is on the contract side, which had a 22% increase on board.
Unknown: We continue to have an incredibly robust pipeline and are making really big, big moves here. I'll share that as many of you guys know, I manage BDD. And earlier this month, I joined our BDD down in Las Vegas at the Hospitality Design Expo. where we won Best Food, which was signed, you know, how much, you know, attention you get in the industry. And I'll just share with you, it was an incredible visit. I've never seen a team more motivated to drive results. And so much activity in that group of customers coming in. It left me incredibly excited about our ability to achieve our goal, which is to drive us to $2 billion.
Samir: Thank you.
Laura Alber: Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Horbers of JPM. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Christopher Horvers: Thanks for taking my question. I feel like I'm at a Pink Floyd concert right now. Laura, can you maybe talk about the West Elm acceleration a bit more? There's a lot going on with the brand. You're running that PB playbook of category expansion, you know, rooms, outdoor, kids. You have the B2B side, which I think is a big driver of the West Elm business. And then you have the Emma collaboration. So, you know, as we think about that sequential improvement, could you maybe qualitatively buck it? you know, how the drivers, you know, which one of these drivers have been more significant.
Laura Alber: Thank you. I'm assuming you're commenting about the echo, which we're very sorry for. Is it any better now?
spk00: It's a little better.
Laura Alber: Okay. I mean, it's our partner Q4, and they're working on it as we speak. But I apologize. It's distracting for us, too. But I'm not so distracted. I won't tell you about the amazing – business, which is driven by multiple things. We laid out the strategies, and we have been executing against them, and it's not one thing. You know, Emma Janglin is amazing. She has got such a wonderful following, and she continues to gain momentum in this. in the world and people knowing her. And the team started working with her a while back, and they put together a beautiful line of products that is really bringing in new customers, younger customers to the brand, and bringing back that hip feeling and that surprise. You know, I think in great retailers, execute, you know, it's not what you always expect. It's this new layer that makes you smile, and that's what Emma did. all her great products from pigeons to beautiful beds. I mean, it's across the categories. And, you know, that's just one thing. There's a bunch of really exciting other collaborators coming. And you can imagine, you know, when you have one hit like that and people see it, a lot of people want to work with you. So we have a wonderful opportunity to continue to feed the collaboration pipeline. with really interesting names. And then at the same time, we've been working on, um, filling white space in the market with West Elm's unique designs, um, modern aesthetic and price point. And we're making progress against the categories of furniture. We've, um, you know, I would say we've added more looks. We've, we've seen, you know, Pearson Ward continued to do well. Um, and then we have our core categories, textiles and, you know, um, rugs and deck deck and tabletop and we have winds across the board. So it really isn't pointing to just one thing, but there's a lot of room to go. I mean, there's still areas where we are underdeveloped versus potter barn and areas where we haven't hit it and that's what we're focused on. We're just going to keep driving it and we're going to keep pushing for even higher costs. I think this brand has a lot of growth in it and its positioning and We're going to go get it.
Christopher Horvers: Excellent. And then, Jeff, as a follow-up, can you help us with the price-cost lapse? You know, you mentioned gross margin troughs year-over-year in the second quarter. You know, how much did 2Q25 have the price-cost benefit, and does that $60 million of tariff costs that's hung up in inventory right now essentially flow through in the second quarter? Thanks so much.
Unknown: Yeah, good morning, Chris. So, not all of the 60 million will go through the second quarter, but some of the data, like I said earlier, Q2 will be . The front half will be heavily impacted at the . But as I said, this quarter and that quarter, the as we travel throughout the year, Q2, the tariffs are essentially still being .
Jeff Yurich: We did take things quite financially in Q2 last year.
Unknown: And then in Q3, they're, you know, partially gone for part of the quarter, and then in Q4, they're total gone. So, when you think about that across the year, it goes back to Q2, we'll feel the pressure, and then we'll moderate across our data. In terms of, you know, price and overall, I think the more I've tested on that is, okay, we don't give out the statistics regarding actions or AOS, but Thank you.
Laura Alber: Your next question comes from the line of Peter Benedict of Bears. Your line is open. Please, go ahead.
Peter Benedict: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I guess, Jeff, so the full year guide still embeds about a 70 basis point gap between your top brand revenue growth and your total revenue growth. The first quarter, it was a 40 basis point negative, I guess. So just help us understand the cadence and what's going to drive that as we think about over the balance of the year.
Unknown: yeah good morning peter it really comes down to our store opening schedule um as we talked about by last fall uh we did say that key one would have a benefit at the 70 days benefit uh we're right on the full year because of the other all these activities have been discussed which includes opening 20 new stores and repositioning 99 stores we'll all have some later years today they probably construct on china uh so we still anticipated a full year benefit at 70 days to revenues from all this retail activity, and it will accelerate as we go throughout the year.
Peter Benedict: Okay. Makes sense. And then my other question is just on the shrink accrual. I can't recall if you trained the size of that in the quarter, if that was just part of maybe one of the other buckets, but can you talk about the shrink accrual in the first quarter, and if we should expect that to continue to be a good guy, I guess, over the balance of the next couple quarters before we cycle the positive in the fourth quarter of last year. Thank you. Yeah, happy to do it.
Unknown: And as you may recall, your fiscal year 1.5, and for fiscal year 26, we screwed up your approval, which was a blackout outcome.
Jeff Yurich: As a result, we will be done with it in 41.1.3.3, and then come up again in the dynamic you saw last year in Q4. You know, in terms of how much of what was in Q1 went up after benefits, as we reported with some splicing benefits. And, you know, here's the thing.
Unknown: You never know what's going to happen until you take it as opposed to when you're in reference to other things. You think they have the right tool for this year. And all of this is embedded in our guidelines.
Peter Benedict: Great. Thanks so much.
Operator: Thanks, Peter.
Laura Alber: Your next question. comes from the line of Christina Fernandez of Chelsea Advisory Group. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Operator: Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to ask about the accelerating trends in ZTC. Can you talk perhaps about what you're doing on the advertising, you know, that's different and driving traffic to the website in an environment that has seemed more promotional to us? not pursued from the competition.
Laura Alber: Well, I'd say that we're always looking at, you know, where we can make a tweak to our mix that drives incremental traffic and conversion. And we are using our grantees to fuel social, organic, and pay. And influencers are doing a great job for us. With our partners, you know, we are continuing to invest in the, you know, high ROIC ad costs terms and programs, and we're doing a lot of testing with these groups to find, you know, what will matter in this new world and how we feed the LLMs. And I do have Samir here with me, and I'm going to – before we run out of time – use your question to turn it to him to talk a little bit more about what we're doing with AI and how we're using that to accelerate really all of our strategies. And if you don't mind, I'm just going to give him the chance to do that now. It's relevant to your question.
Samir: Yeah, appreciate you. So you've heard a lot about how we're You know, you talked right now about, you know, digital marketing and how we can tackle the work that we're doing in there. But I do want to take a minute and talk about what were all the accelerations and the impact of screening and now that they're in their comfort life, I think you want to share a few examples of that. So, first, we talked about all of our building Sonoma's culinary resistance. And we'll just continue to be more and more and more and more. And then we'll talk about service question and then we'll talk about question and answer and cooking. And now he's helping to sell. He's on the product pages, he's helping customers with questions, he's driving customers into checkout at a high mobile level. It's really, really incredible results.
spk00: Room plan is another area.
Samir: And so, you know, we're using the engineering data on the room plan to help customers visualize an actual room plan with photo-realistic noise, giving them confidence, and helping guide them through the gen-gen tools. A barrier-in-plex user design experience that's really impacts the We're able to bring together with AI in a way that nobody else can. Designing them from day to day is trying to enable them to talk about everything that the customer is doing and not just providing them comfort from day to day, but helping them to realize that they're completely equal. Here's how we're going to complete it. Here's how we're going to come together in a way that personalizes the customer's stuff, the customer's preference. You know, we talked about sidelining, the math efficiency you come through, the AI lines of sidelining, identifying opportunities in order to ride sidelines, the sidelines of sidelines, taking calls, documentation, and taking calls before the three-three process. And so I found this video. Within our corporate association, Coding Automation, it's a little bit more quickly, we've rolled out a gen-gen training, and we're close to a 10-3 corporate problem, because we have champions embedded in every part of our organization. Thank you for that. And then as a second question, did you talk about
Operator: Pottery Barn, I mean, it was good to see the improvement this quarter, but what areas are you focused on as we look at the rest of the year to even accelerate growth in that brand? Great.
Laura Alber: We continue to make improvements on our DTC channel in the way that the customer finds products and shops, as Samir just told you. And that is across the board, but in particular, we've been very focused in Pottery Barn in really – having everyone study where we can make those improvements the fastest, and also in the photography. So the photography, if you go on, you'll see just, I think, some of the best photography we've had, and it's going to get even better into the fall season. I've had the chance to look at the fall film with the new product, and I think it's going to really, you know, it's going to really blow everybody's socks off. I mean, it's great. It is... appealing, it is fresh, and it's also what you would imagine when potter barn is at its best, what it should look like. And multiple layers of different aesthetics that are all working well together. So, you know, creatively I'm excited about how that feeds the brand. And the stores have looked great. We've done really well with the stores. And so focusing on the DTC channel is going to really help improve the the performance, because that has been where it's been lagging. And then from a product perspective, we are seeing, and this is competitive, so I have to be careful not to tell too much, but we're seeing some new things work, and it was what we expected, and we're going to continue to develop more into those looks across the board, both in textiles and in furniture. Those are the big pieces. There's a lot of other things, too, that we're working on in the store experience. And, you know, all of it will be incremental and we're very, very confident.
Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to pass the call back to Laura Alber. Chief Executive Officer, for closing remarks.
Laura Alber: Okay, well, thank you all for your patience on this call. I hope you could hear everything, and we appreciate your support. We're confident in our business, and we can't wait to talk to you next time.
Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.
