Ollie's Bargain Outlet Holdings, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the OLLI's Bargain Outlet Conference call to discuss financial results for the fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2020. Currently, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time. Please be advised that reproduction of this call in whole or in its part is not permitted without written authorization from OLLI's. And as a reminder, this call is being recorded. On the call today from management are John Swigert, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Jay Stas, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Jean Fontana, Investor Relations, to get started. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. A press release covering the company's financial results was issued this afternoon, and a copy of that press release can be found in the Investor Relations section on the company's website. I want to remind everyone that management's remarks on this call may contain forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, predictions, expectations, or estimates, and that actual results could differ materially from those mentioned on today's call. Any such items, including with respect to our future performance, should be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You should not place any undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. which speak only as of today, and we are to take no obligation to update or revise them for any new information or future events. Factors that may affect future results may not be in our control and are discussed in our SEC filings. We encourage you to review these filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, as well as our earnings release issued earlier today for a more detailed description of these factors. We will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures on today's call, such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, and adjusted net income per diluted share that we would believe may be important to investors to assess our operating performance. Reconciliations of the most closely comparable GAAP financial measures to these non-GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings list. With that, I will turn the call over to John.

Thanks, Jean, and hello, everyone. Thanks for joining our call today. We delivered another record-breaking quarter to finish fiscal 2020, capping off the best full-year results and our 38-year history. This year, we surpassed $1.8 billion in top-line sales and increased the justity of the DA by over 56% to $300 million. These results were achieved in a year of unprecedented challenges and demonstrates the strength of our business model and the extraordinary execution of our team. They truly went above and beyond leveraging many years of experience and longstanding relationships in the closeout industry to share the very best deals for our customers. This responsiveness and know-how is our secret sauce. It drives our success and shows the flexibility of our business model and nimble operational capabilities. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the entire Ollies family who demonstrated their dedication and resiliency during these challenging times. Since the outset of the pandemic, our priorities have been consistent. Ensure the health and safety of our team members and customers, support our communities, and provide our customers with a steady flow of extraordinary deals and items they need. Great deal flow across all departments, productive new stores, and strong convertible store sales drove a 22% increase in our top line in the fourth quarter. Comp store sales increased 8.8%. As you may recall, our comp trends were running in the low single digits early in the quarter, and we saw momentum build as we progressed through the holiday season and into January. We continued to benefit from spending trends that worked in our favor with a shift in demand for merchandise that appealed to a stay-at-home lifestyle. In January, we believe the second round of government stimulus also fueled some of the comp sales growth. Our top line growth combined with our gross margin expansion in tight expense control drove adjusted net income growth of 31% in the quarter. We are very happy with the broad-based strength across our merchandise categories with over two-thirds of our departments comping positive. Our top performing categories included bed and bath, housewares, flooring, food, health and beauty aids, and seasonal. We executed the OLLI's formula, buy cheap and sell cheap, and we had the right products at a great value. Deal flow remains very strong and we are excited about what we are seeing in the marketplace with great deals presented to us every day. The merchant team continues to leverage longstanding vendor partnerships and establish new vendor relationships to capture incredible deals across all merchandise categories. Our ability to capitalize on these opportunities in the current retail landscape has never been better as we continue to leverage our increasing scale. We have a proven ability to handle large deals from our suppliers and an exceptionally strong liquidity position. We are pleased with our current inventory position, ending the quarter with inventories up 5.5% compared to last year. Our continued sales velocity has us chasing the business a little, but as I mentioned, deal flow remains as strong as ever. As you heard me say before, our approach to maintaining dry powder and our open-to-buy gives us the flexibility to ramp up receipts and opportunistic purchases. We can also respond quickly to changing consumer demands. All of this plays to our strength, our aggressiveness, and agility as an organization. The strong deal flow is always driving great new store performance. New stores once again delivered sales above our expectations with our recent store classes across new states and new markets outperforming our model. We opened a total of 46 new stores in 2020, and I am very proud of the team's ability to execute these projects despite the added complexities of operating and opening during the pandemic. New stores remain the primary driver of our growth, and we see great opportunities to continue to expand our footprint in 2021 and beyond. We're targeting 50 store openings this year, including three to four relocations, and are planning to introduce the Ollie's brand to three new states. Kansas, Missouri, and Vermont. So far this year, we've opened seven stores, including one relocation, and we are very pleased with the early results. We have a tremendous runway for growth with the potential to expand our store base to over 1,050 locations nationwide. We feel good about the significant white space and the availability of high-quality sites. The value-driven consumer is clearly not going away. By most measures, value is gaining in importance. With this in mind, we feel very confident in our runway for growth. OLLI's Army continued to be a significant sales driver in the fourth quarter and membership keeps growing. We ended the period with over 11.6 million active members, a 13.6% increase over the prior year with growth in the membership levels outpacing store growth. Army members shop our stores more often and drive a substantially larger basket. Ali's Army sales comprised of over 75% of our total sales in both the quarter and the year, representing the highest sales penetration ever. Clearly, these are very important customers with whom we look to build long-lasting relationships through special benefits and, of course, great deals. As we shared with you last quarter, we are in the early stages of enhancing our marketing programs and redeploying dollars to optimize their effectiveness. Our focus is twofold, deepen engagement with existing customers and attract new customers. We are pleased with what we are seeing so far and we will continue to refine our efforts, particularly regarding new digital initiatives in fiscal 2021. We are very excited about our results for the quarter and the continued momentum of the business. Comps for sales growth is tracking in the high single digits quarter to date. We are pleased with our current sales trends, and we believe we are well positioned to deliver solid first quarter results. As a reminder, we anniversary the onset of last year's COVID demand surge in mid-April, and it's from that point forward that we'll be up against very challenging year-over-year comparisons. Like everyone, we look forward to putting the pandemic behind us but we undoubtedly will be dealing with opportunities and challenges in fiscal 21 that, like last year, will have varying degrees of impact on the economy, consumers, and our business. No matter what comes, we're going to keep doing what we do best, buy and sell good stuff cheap, while maintaining discipline in how we operate the business. As Mark would say, we are hitting all our marks. We are offering incredible deals, controlling expenses, and opening successful new stores. Simply said, our team knows how to execute our strategy and deliver results in both good and bad economic periods, and we believe we are well-positioned to benefit from the continued disruption in the marketplace. Looking ahead, our long-term growth algorithm remains intact, and I am bullish as ever about our business. We delivered unbelievable results in the quarter and the year, and I could not be prouder to be part of this team. I want to thank our almost 9,500 team members for their incredible dedication and contributions to the business, particularly during these challenging times. As we say, we are OLLIES. I'll now hand the call over to Jay to take you through our financial results.

Thanks, John, and good afternoon, everyone. I want to start by thanking the entire OLLIES team for their tireless efforts and teamwork in a year unlike any other in our history. Despite the numerous challenges, you consistently stepped up to drive business and meet the customer's needs. I appreciate all that you do. We are very pleased to have delivered a record quarter in fiscal year. For the quarter, net sales increased 22.1% to $515.8 million. Great deal flow, productive new stores, and strong comps drove this increase. Comparable store sales increased 8.8% in the quarter, fueled by a significant increase in average basket partially offset by fewer transactions. We ended the quarter with 388 stores in 25 states, a 12.5% year-over-year increase in store count, with a total of 46 new stores for the year. These stores are the engine of our growth, and we are very pleased with their productivity and ROI as our new stores pay for themselves in less than two years. Gross profit increased 23.6% to $204.7 million, and gross margin increased 50 basis points to 39.7%. The increase in margin was due to improvement in the merchandise margin and leveraging of supply chain costs. SG&A expenses, excluding insurance gains in both the current and prior year, increased 20% to $114.4 million, primarily due to additional selling expenses from our new stores' higher store payroll to support the increase in sales and increased incentive compensation. SG&A as a percentage of net sales, excluding the insurance gains, decreased 40 basis points to 22.2%. The decrease was driven by leveraging occupancy and many other costs due to our strong sales performance and continued tight expense control. Adjusted operating income, which excludes the gain from the insurance settlements, increased 31.7% to $84.5 million. Operating margin increased 120 basis points to 16.4%. Adjusted net income, which excludes tax benefits related to stock-based compensation and the after-tax insurance gain, increased 31% to $63.8 million. Adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 31.1% to 97 cents per share. Adjusted EBITDA increased 32.9% to $92.1 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin increased 150 basis points to 17.9% for the quarter. In 2020, net sales increased 28.4% to $1,809,000,000, and comparable store sales increased 15.6% for the year. Adjusted net income in 2020 increased 61.1% to $208 million and adjusted net income per diluted share increased 61.2% to $3.16. Adjusted EBITDA totaled $306.5 million and adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.9% for the year. Capital expenditures in 2020 totaled $30.5 million compared with $77 million in the prior year. Last year, expenditures included approximately $43 million for the construction of the Texas DC. At the end of the period, we had no outstanding borrowings under our $100 million revolving credit facility and $447 million in cash. In 2020, we generated over $361 million in operating cash flows. Our proven track record of robust cash flow generation is a testament to the strength of our model, allowing us to fund our growth and continue to build our cash position. This year, we plan to strategically deploy our cash on hand to buy back shares of our stock in both a programmatic and opportunistic manner, putting our cash to good use and increasing shareholder value. As you saw in our press release, the Board recently authorized a $100 million increase in our share buyback program, resulting in over $200 million approved for share repurchases. While we are optimistic... about the momentum of our business, there remains uncertainty related to COVID-19 and its potential impacts on the economy, the consumer, and our 2021 results. For these reasons, we will not be providing specific guidance at this time, but I will share some high-level thoughts on fiscal 2021. As John indicated, we're off to a good start with comps tracking in the high single digits. We continue to operate in an uncertain environment, including the timing and duration of stimulus spending Inflation and evolving consumer behavior as we emerge from the pandemic. As you know, we are up against exceptionally strong numbers and strong comps in 2020 with the initial COVID-related sales surge beginning in mid-April. The second quarter will certainly be our most difficult comparison, both from a sales and net income standpoint, given our incredible performance in 2020. The third and fourth quarter comparisons will be challenging as well as we continue to perform at unprecedented levels and saw top-line benefits from economic stimulus. Under normal circumstances, we would not expect to comp these numbers. We are anticipating some headwinds in gross margin due to ongoing supply chain pressures impacting all retailers, such as increased import and trucking costs. We expect a headwind of approximately 20 to 30 basis points for the year, taking us from our typical target of 40% gross margin to 39.7% to 39.8% for the year. In addition to these increased costs, we are currently seeing increased port congestion, which could create delays in certain imported product categories. However, as always, disruption of this nature may lead to opportunities down the road. Finally, SG&A. As you know, we have and always will keep a tight rein on our expenses. However, even with the continued prudent approach to expense management, We are facing very challenging comparisons given the leverage we achieved in 2020. We expect to return to more historical norms in our SG&A expense rate for 2021. Our current plans include the following. The opening of 50 stores, including three to four relocations. We are planning a split of approximately 50-50 in openings between the first and second halves of the year. We feel confident that we can achieve our target, but we will be dependent on local market conditions to stay on schedule. We expect capital expenditures of $40 to $45 million, primarily for new stores, IT projects, and store-level initiatives. Depreciation and amortization expense in the range of $26 to $27 million, including approximately $6 million that runs through cost of goods sold. An effective tax rate of 25.2%, which excludes the tax benefits related to stock-based compensation. diluted weighted average shares outstanding of approximately 66.6 million before any impact from stock buybacks while challenges remain in 2021 opportunities also exist the strength of our model in both strong and weak economic cycles are very strong financial position and our confidence in our ability to deliver on our long-term growth algorithm have as excited as ever for the future i'll now turn the call back to the operator to start the q a session operator

Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press star then 1 on your touchtone telephone. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. Our first question comes from the line of Matthew Voss from JP Morgan. Your question, please.

Great. Thanks. John, maybe to kick off, could you just elaborate on customer behavior that you're seeing quarter to date? Maybe any early takeaways from this round of stimulus versus the round a year ago? And when it's all said and done, I mean, do you believe this pandemic will ultimately prove additive to Ollie's brand awareness or market share? Just kind of trying to think about the model on the other side, you know, as we approach the end, hopefully, of this pandemic.

Sure, Matt. From what we can see, obviously, it's very, very early on in what I would call the third stimulus package that just came out starting Friday, Saturday of this past week. But the behaviors are really resembling what we saw in stimulus one and two relative to the immediate response to at least our model. We're seeing some pretty nice benefits from what people are doing. I do believe that we will see some continued benefits all the way through probably the mid part of April until we go up against the first stimulus That was introduced last year, so we'll have some headwinds at that point in time. But I think we have some pretty good runway from now until the middle of April. In terms of long-term, I think that no different than we saw in 2008, 2009, I think people who try us like us, and they like the discounts, they like the brand names, they like the closeouts that we offer and the value we present. So I think that we will have some stickiness with those folks, and that should be a benefit for us on a long-term basis.

Great. And then maybe just to follow up, what does the overall product availability picture look like right now in the marketplace for you today? I'm curious how you're – my guess is you're probably chasing inventory now, but then as we think about going up against some of these tougher compares, just how are you planning inventory between near term and back half of the year? And last, just on that point, As we think about your back-end model from a merchandise margin opportunity on the buying front, does this provide you some level of insulation as we think about the freight headwind that I know you're facing as well?

Yeah, Matt, I would tell you we are having no problems whatsoever securing product in great brands and great names at great prices. It's actually been better than I would have expected at this point in time. And it's very broad-based. It's not one category or two categories. We're seeing it in every single category, which is a little earlier than I would have expected. Our merchants are appropriately bought up, and they're in great shape from an open-to-buy perspective, but we are not in any way, shape, or form having problems getting the inventory purchased from our manufacturers and our relationships. So from that perspective, I'm very excited, and I think it's only going to get better the remainder part of the year. I think as some of the retailers and manufacturers lapse some numbers from last year, they're going to probably overproduce, and we're going to have more opportunity as well as we continue to go forward. I think you had one other question, Matt, that I might not have answered.

Yeah, it was more just the merchandise. With the plentiful availability out there, how best to think about the merchandise margin opportunity that historically you're able to offset some of these headwinds that are more transitory. Could that be an opportunity if things come in better?

Yeah, I would tell you the answer on that is we always are going to give back to the consumer. where we can and try to maintain our 40-point gross margin. As Jay said, we're probably shooting for a 37 or 38 today with what we're seeing in the marketplace. Sorry, 39.7, 39.8 from where we're at today. If we can get more and there's more availability on the price, we'll take it. But more likely than not, if we can get back to the consumer and maintain the 40 points, that's what we would shoot for. Great.

Best of luck, guys.

Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Peter Keith from Piper Sandler. Your question, please.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. John, you had mentioned some digital initiatives for 2021. I was hoping you could tease that out a little bit more, and maybe on that note, wondering if there's any consideration to your go-to-market strategy with advertising, which has been heavily print dominant in the past, and you've been asked about this a lot, but with consumer behavior shifting online while you don't have a website, perhaps some of your advertising could also be shifting to be more digital?

Yeah, Peter, we're in the initial stages, and we've talked about it a few times. So we're definitely planning to move some of our dollars from print to what I call mass media or digital. We're working on that for 2021 as well, and I think that's just another means to attract a new consumer and speak to people in different fashions. But we're definitely working on that, and the marketing team is very focused on doing more card-linked offers, working through Facebook, Instagram. We just hired Sasha as a firm out there to help us with Google and really looking at that. We're not going to go 100% digital ever. But the print will be augmented with our digital campaigns. So we'll move some of that dollars around. But I think we're not going to become an e-comm business, but we're looking to refine our website and looking to refine all the digital means that are out there and continue to augment what we have. So I think we're well positioned to do that this year and going forward.

And, Peter, this is Jay. Just to tack on a little bit to that, I mean, obviously the consumer has shifted a little bit. And, you know, because we can't advertise, we really can't do our closeout business online. But given the strength in the numbers and the trends that we've seen, you know, it's almost reinforced the fact that there is room for brick and mortar, you know, especially when there's a value and there's a treasure hunt. And, you know, so that still resonates with the consumer. And we have got a lot of white space, a lot of growth ahead of us. So, obviously, that's our focus.

Okay. That sounds interesting. And maybe, Jay, to follow up with you on a financial question, you and I talked about the strong comps you saw back in the 2008-2009 recession. I think 2009 you comped an eighth, and then 2010 was a flat, so two-year stack of plus eight. Is that maybe some type of framework we could think about for this year, or do you just see too many differences with what's going on now versus back then?

Yeah, Peter, I mean, we're not giving guidance. But, yeah, we've talked about that framework before, and that's a reasonable way to look at it from a you know, kind of a base plan, base case modeling, right? We obviously had a heck of a year last year, so we wouldn't expect to comp that. And right, that negative eight is a rational way to think about it. The other way, from a framework standpoint, you know, how we think about it a little bit is if we look at 2019, You know, our normal top line growth rate is call it 14 to 15 percent. So if we have two years of that from 19, you know, grow top line 30 percent, and that might get you in the ballpark. But, again, you know, we're not giving guidance, but trying to just give a framework for kind of a base model. Okay.

All right. Thanks so much, and good luck. Thanks, Peter. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line there, Chaudhany Luthra from Goldman Sachs. Your question, please.

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Hope everybody is well. I wanted to talk about the loyalty member new sign-ups that you guys have seen. Very impressive stats. Perhaps you could give us some sense of how the new members within your All Ease Army are looking versus traditional members. How are the demographics? What are they looking to buy? And how has that buying shifted, you know, now that a lot of these members are six months into the program, perhaps? Thank you.

Sure. We don't necessarily have the demographic profile of the customers as the onboard, so I'm not able to answer that question to you right now. But I can tell you we have had nice sign-up and nice activity within the overall new membership for 2020. We're excited what we're seeing. Their behavior is are not much different than the overall Ollie's Army membership that we've had. I can tell you the overall spend in the Army, they're averaging about $40 per basket versus a non-Ollie's Army member of about $30. So they're spending about 37% more per average basket, which is much larger than it used to be. So we're getting a nice traction with the customer base that we're seeing in the stores. Definitely have seen some additional velocity from the folks that have signed up during Q2 of 2020 and what their purchasing habits were in Q4 compared to the prior year. So we did see some nice increase in spend and additional new members that signed up and came in the store. So I think we attracted some new individuals and saw them come back to our store multiple times. So we're excited what we're seeing there, and we hope to continue to see that trend as we go forward.

Great. And if I could quickly follow that up with the high single-digit comps that you are seeing quarter to date. I know you don't have a lot of stores in Texas, but I just wanted to quickly check, was there any negative impact that you saw from the region, generally from the cold snap that we saw in the country in February, or perhaps, you know, any aftermath of that that resulted in increased demand for products? Thank you.

Yeah, we definitely saw a direct impact to not only Texas. It impacted Louisiana and went up through Tennessee and to Kentucky. So it was more widespread than just Texas. Texas got the brunt of it. And as you know, one of our distribution centers is right outside of Dallas, and that was impacted and shut down for an entire week. So we definitely had some impacts on the businesses. And to your point, I believe all it was was timing-wise. I think we got that back and we'll get that back. But it definitely caused some headwinds in the first month. But I think that came back to us with additional purchases and people buying more stuff they need for the home. But as you know, that's not a big part of our overall comp base, but it definitely had an impact in February. But I think we're getting that back.

Great.

Thank you. Our next question comes in the line of Brad Thomas from KeyBank Capital. Your question, please.

Hey, good afternoon, John and Jay. My first question was around trends in traffic and ticket. If you could just give us a little more color about how those trended in the quarter and how you're thinking about those for 2021.

Yeah, Brad, this is Jay. And in the quarter, the transactions were down low single digits. And then the average basket was up in double digits to get to the comp that we had of an 8.8. So not inconsistent with what we've seen during this pandemic. Fewer shopping trips, but people are buying more when they're here. And the average basket was really driven by the units per transaction versus any change in the quarter, at least on AUR. So And then looking forward, we are in the closeout business, so we don't really plan the business around those metrics. We don't know if a deal is going to drive traffic or drive the basket, but we know we're going to react. And like John has said, our deal flow is strong, and we expect to have good deals. I mean, obviously, with the stimulus, most recently we've seen very strong trends tied to that. So we'll see how that goes. It's going to be different, I think, the stimulus flow this year versus last year. But we'll just do what we do best, which is react to the business and get what the customer wants.

Great. And, Jay, in your prepared remarks, you referenced the current port congestion and how it could lead to some opportunities, of course, as we've seen in years past when you've gotten port issues. But just to be clear, are there any issues on the negative side that you all are seeing right now because of the port issues?

Sure, Brad. This is John. With regards to the port issues, the only issues that we see is there's twofold. There's a lot of congestion coming out of Asia and a lot of lack of containers. And then obviously the cost of moving containers is much higher than it was previously. But getting into the overall marketplace, Long Beach is definitely a challenge. But we definitely have some delays that we're working through, but we believe we're going to be in good shape and not have any real risk for the season. So that's the main takeaway from my perspective. But we're definitely working diligently at that piece, and we're moving our products as fast as we can. And that's just seasonal. I'm talking the summer furniture, lawn and garden, and air conditioners. Not all of our products challenge.

That's very helpful, John. And one more for you, John, just in terms of thinking about you know, how you're leading the buying team and some of the decisions right now. You know, the company over many years has been a well-oiled machine where the merchants, you know, own the deal and control the markdowns, you know, if an item's not selling. Could you just talk a little bit about how you make sure that the team is operating as efficiently as possible as you go up against these difficult comparisons where you may not have inventory where items may end up sitting on the shelves a little bit longer than usual? and how you just make sure you optimize the organization during this, you know, couple quarters you're going to be up against.

Yeah, Brad, I would tell you nothing has changed with our merchant team. Everybody has been trained according to how Mark would have wanted it to be done, and that's still happening each and every day. There's no change in how our markets, our merchants are managing the business. So there's nothing that we're implementing differently. They own the product from the time they write the purchase order until it goes out the door. With regards to how we've managed the business, Brad, one of my big pieces were to maintain dry powder and maintain lower inventory levels in the stores than what we historically have done. That's led to us having a lot easier operational activities in the stores, and we're not having and don't see any problems. slow down in the inventory in the stores. The challenges are actually less than what they used to be because we're a lot cleaner. We don't have the challenges of top stocking goods being stuck on the shelves for an extended period of time. So we're actually in a very good position to where the merchants have a lot of open to buy ready to go and the stores can take it. We're not pushing the stores that hard at all. We're clean, ready to go.

Very helpful. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rick Nelson from Stevens. Your question, please.

Thanks. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. So the cash position for $447 million in cash, I'm interested in the priorities there. Is there a minimum level you need to run the business and You've got a buyback program in place. Is there any potential here for dividend for shareholders?

Yeah, Rick, this is Jay, and I'll speak to that. I mean, I think, you know, obviously the board just authorized the increase in the stock buyback program by another $100 million. So we've got about 260 out there. Sixty of that expires today. in the relative near term. So depending what happens there, we've really got $200 million that we're focused on. I think from a cash standpoint to run the business, we still do want to maintain some flexibility and liquidity. So maybe $200 million is kind of the amount on the balance sheet that we would target to keep. And then we would look to, as I said in the prepared remarks, we want to deploy the rest and we want to invest in ourselves and do a stock buyback program. We don't have the details around that or the amounts or the timing just yet, but it's something we're going to be talking about and focusing on once we get past this call and get into an open trading window. But we would expect to use that excess cash in a stock buyback program and not for a dividend or a special dividend and be more consistent with that going forward because we expect the business – to continue to fund its internal growth, to fund our growth with internal cash, and continue to generate cash beyond that. Great.

Thanks for that color check. So, John, you spoke to the categories of strength in the quarter. Can you talk about some of the products that may have lagged the chain?

Sure. With regards to, you know, obviously we always have that occur, but our slower departments during the quarter would have been the toy category, candy, luggage. So from my perspective, toys was understandable. We actually had a real nice comp in Q3, so I think there was a pull forward of some of our toy sales during the year. People were shopping earlier. So toys did just fine, but they were up double digit in Q3 and just didn't perform quite as well as we – would have seen from last year. But overall, we were very pleased and came out of the toy season very, very clean. Candy was really related to the timing of deal flow. Candy deal flows weren't real strong during fourth quarter. But oddly enough, came January and the candy deals came right to us. And we've been having a great candy season so far, so we're very excited about it, and that was just timing of deal flow and luggage. People aren't traveling and buying luggage, so that one totally makes sense to us. Other than that, we had some real strong performance with all the stay-at-home categories, bed and bath, housewares, flooring, food, and HBA were really, really, really strong during the quarter, and seasonal as well. Seasonal was off the charts for us.

As you look at the closeout pipeline, What categories are showing the most promise or the most opportunities?

I would tell you right now most all of our categories are showing a lot of promise. I'm seeing a lot of deal flow in the HBA front, a lot of deal flow in the housewares front. Bed and bath is real strong. Sporting goods has been real good. The only area I would tell you if you had to say where is there a shortage or a challenge is It's one item. It's pool chlorine. Pool chlorine is not easy to get, and there's a chlorine shortage nationally that we're all going to have to deal with. Other than that, we don't feel any pressure in any other category in the entire business.

That's very interesting. Thanks, and good luck.

Thanks, Rick. Thank you. Our next question comes in line of Simeon Goodman from Morgan Stanley. Your question, please.

Hi, this is actually Hannah Pitock on for Simeon. Thanks for taking the question. You mentioned given the strong sales, you're chasing the business in some cases. And I'm wondering, does that create a wider range of gross margin than you would usually see? Are you expecting any volatility there? Is that built into your 39.7 to 38, 39.8 gross margin expectation? So if there's any other risk factors that you can talk about that are embedded in that gross margin, that would be helpful.

No, Morgan, I think the closeout business in its nature is called chasing the businesses, chasing the deals. That's what we do each and every day. That's not anything different from our merchants. They chase it all the time. What we have right now is a little more flexibility and a little more dry powder where they can collapse on deals faster. But, you know, our model is... to try to maintain a 40% gross margin and get back to the consumer and build loyalty. So we're not trying to use that as a margin driver. We're always trying to shoot for the 40% gross margin. There's a lot of cake mix to that, but that's what we try to do. And I think we're poised to continue to deliver consistent margin, as Jay had called out earlier.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Ciccarelli from RBC Capital Markets. Your question, please.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Two questions. First, a follow-up on I think it might have been Peter's question. Jay, you suggested to your stacks maybe a framework for people to kind of think about for 21, but I think when you start dealing with really large nominal numbers using stacks, it starts to distort the numbers a bit. So could sales per store or sales per square foot potentially be a better framework for us for 21?

Yeah, I mean, it's fair. We've had that discussion, Scott, after the last call a little bit. And to your point, right, there is a certain level of when you look at stacks that the buy store productivity maybe gets too low, especially when we're looking at certain quarters like a Q2 where we're going up against a 43.3 comp. I mean, that is still a huge comp to go against, and, you know, we're not going to – be able to match that. That's why we have gone to the 2019 basis. That's the last actual known that we have that's true. If we grow that 30%, you're going to get in the ballpark. We're not giving guidance. We started to think of it for our base model kind of against 19 and expanding that top line by 30%. And, you know, we've got the margin at the 39.7 to 38. The SG&A, we would expect to be more normalized, which is call it 25%, maybe a little bit north of there. And then you drop that through and you get down to adjusting that income growth, which is really in line with our long-term algorithm, you know, on a two-year basis, which would be 36%, 37%.

Got it. Very helpful. And then thanks for all the deal flow commentary, but I guess one of the questions I think people are struggling with, John, is just how is it you guys are seeing strong deal flow in categories, whether it's some of the home-related stuff you mentioned, sporting goods, et cetera, when most of us are hearing about product shortages in those categories? If you can just kind of connect those dots for people, I think it would be really helpful for the investor base.

Yeah, Scott, I think this is the number one area that even Mark and I have been challenged ever since we've gone public to get people to understand how we make a living. We've been doing this for 38 years. We have longstanding relationships with a lot of vendors, well over 1,000 different vendors. There's always going to be closeouts regardless of what people think and how they view the world. There's package change. There's obsolescence that happens. There's shelf pulls. I mentioned this a few calls ago that closeouts could create in many different ways. Just as there might be shortages of the inline product, it doesn't mean there's not closeout availability, right? Closeout availability will exist all the time, good times and bad times. It's just the way it works. Stuff that may be short-dated, short-dated for Target and Walmart might be 18 months. Short-dated for us is probably 90 days. So there's a big difference in terms of where that product can go from the CPG company. So there's a gamut of reasons things become available. People cancel orders. But I can tell you with 100% confidence, our buyers are – flush with goods, they are not having a hard time finding product, and we're not having any type of misses. We're not changing category mix to make things work better for us. We're buying the categories that we have always bought, and we'll continue what we're doing. We have not changed our business strategy one bit. Okay. Really helpful. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Scott.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Lusowitz from Citigroup. Your question, please.

Hey, guys. This is Brandon Cheatham on for Paul. Sorry to, like, keep going back to the inventory side, but, you know, when we look at a per-store basis, you know, it seems pretty lean. Could you just talk about is that where you want it, you know, with plenty of open-to-buy, or is there more opportunity there to lean down inventory? And then just on the competition side for product, you know, anything different in the puts and takes there? Thanks.

I don't think the inventory, the word lean would be necessarily what I would be thinking. Our inventory turned three times this year. So from a retail perspective, I'd say you probably think we're a slow turner. We're lean from what we used to do, but I think we're right where we are. So I think reducing the levels from where we were previously is we're spot on where we'd like to be. And we need to continue to maintain where we're sitting today. And on a long-term basis, I think that This makes for a great shopping experience for the consumer, and it makes the model work very efficiently. So I would tell you we're very satisfied with where we're at on an average inventory per square foot basis in the stores. And, you know, a three-turn for us is great. We've moved up from a two-two to a three. So I think that's probably about as fast as Ollie's can turn, but we're excited about it. So what was your other question? I forgot that. Competition. Yeah, competition for goods. I don't know. Yeah, we're not seeing a huge change in competition. Closeouts are a different animal. We don't see a lot of people who are able to buy nearly as much as we can buy. Most people don't like to deal with closeouts. A lot of the bigger retailers, it's not easy. They're not set up to deal with it. So we're probably one of the first choices you're going to see from a closeout perspective in the marketplace. So we're not having a lot of competition getting the goods we get. Got it. Thanks.

Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Edward Kelly from Wells Fargo. Your question, please.

Hey, guys. I wanted to ask you just a question about product mix and how mix is looking like currently closeout versus sort of direct source product. Has that changed at all, you know, over the past year? And then as you sort of think about, like, where trends are going, is there opportunity in direct source? Just curious as to how you're, you know, sort of thinking about, like, that traditional sort of 70% mix and how that has inflowed, if at all.

Yeah, Ed, I would tell you this year we were basically flat with our normal closeout mix to the total. We were close to 70. The only caveat to that is we did buy a ton of PPE. Some of them might have been closeout, but most of it was not closeout. So that would have impacted our overall closeout mix somewhere down close to 66% of our overall purchase is the PPE that we purchased. But we believe we'll be back to the 70% here in 2021. And that is something that's not a problem for us. I don't foresee us buying nearly as much PPE this year as we did last year, but the overall mix of 70% closeouts, I believe, is a good number for us. And then 18% on the everyday value goods and 12% on the imports is about where we think we'll be.

Okay. And then as you think about this second quarter lap, I'm just kind of curious as to whether there's any more color you could provide in terms of how you're thinking about it. I'm just curious. I mean, it was so unusual, you know, of a time period. And I'm curious also, right, like how product availability was at that time. Is this lab harder or easier than it looks? Just any thoughts there would be helpful.

On Q2, Ed?

Yes.

Yeah, Q2 is a mountain. Q2, no matter how you want to slice it, a 43.3% comp. for anybody is I think that was the largest comp number of any retailer that reported. And I would tell you that we worked very hard to do that. But keeping in mind, I think that at that time, most all retail that were non-essential were closed. So that was a very different time than we're in today. All retail are back open now. So everyone's competing for the dollar. So there's definitely a very large disparity this year versus last year in terms of where Q2 is going to be for those of us that were open during the pandemic and for those of us that generated a 43% comp, that number is a big number to even dream about comping. So we definitely don't expect to comp that number, but we're setting up to do the best we can and do the largest sales and profit to our shareholders, and we'll continue to do that. But we don't expect to be positive.

Understood. Thank you.

Thanks, Ed.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jason Haas from Bank of America. Your question, please.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So I saw you recently did a buy of professional and workwear clothing, so I'm curious to know how that performed and if you could potentially do more in the apparel category.

Yeah, Jason, as we would always tell you, we do buys every day, and the workwear category is a buy we do each and every year. The one that you're talking about was a special buyout from a bankruptcy that occurred. So we do it each and every year, just like the wedding dresses was a bankruptcy buyout. We do a ton of this. This is just our model. So we're working on another deal right now that's related to that same organization that will come in here probably in the next month into our stores that's more of on the professional workwear, not necessarily the rugged workwear. So you'll see that come in our store, and that's just how we make a living. With regards to changing our overall strategy to more clothing, absolutely not. That is of low interest to us. We're going to buy clothes out to put them in the stores and and the workwear is in our sweet spot. That's what we do. That's how we make a living. Wedding dresses were not how we make a living, and that was something that we had to figure out how to work through. The rugged wear is great, and when we got it, it was a great deal for us to have. So we expect to see additional clothing deals, as we did last year with the C9 deal that we saw in Q2, and we see clothing deals all the time that come across our desk. But we see deals come in every single category, and we'll continue to see those, and I don't expect any monumental change. We're not getting into fashion. We don't like fashion risk, and that's not what we do. We're really more of a hard-line retailer. I think Chloe makes up 2% or 3% of our overall sales, and that's not going to change.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeremy Hamblin from Craig Hallam. Your question, please.

Yeah, thanks, and great quarter results. I wanted to just ask and see if we can get even a little bit more granularity. Actually, I wanted to ask more about Q1 than Q2. I know you don't normally disclose cadence around the months within a quarter, but because we had the end of March, I think was really, really tough. I think you've given a little more color on that. I did want to see those last two weeks or the second half of April, I did want to get a sense for, you know, if you could quantify the magnitude of the comps that you saw in those weeks. I just think from a modeling perspective, that would go a long way in helping, especially with you guys are off to a pretty strong start here in Q1.

Jeremy, I can't give too much color, but I can give you directionally where we saw last year. Obviously, when the economy closed down, I think it was March 11th of last year, we saw significant decreases in our model for about a four-week period, almost a five-week period, but closer to like four and a half weeks, which took us to the last two weeks of our fiscal calendar of April. And the stimulus came in about April 15th, April 13th. And we were a rocket ship from that point forward all the way through Q2. So there were some big numbers on the back half of the last two weeks of April. But we've got probably another three plus weeks of pretty good sailing, I think, here with the way the timing of the stimulus came in on stimulus number three versus the economy being shut down last year.

Okay, we'll go with that.

I don't know if that helps you, but that's kind of direction. No, it gives us a sense.

Okay, so the second question I wanted to ask was, you know, Ollie's Army week versus a single night in Q4. And, you know, just wanted to see if you could provide some additional color on how you felt that performed. You know, obviously, I think this was an unusual holiday season where a lot of buying was pulled forward. But you clearly saw pretty good performance, obviously, in January, but maybe December turned out better than November was. So I wanted to see if you could provide some color on that week. And then as we think forward to Q4 this year, is that something where maybe it's going to be Ali's Army Week going forward instead of a single mic?

Right. Jeremy, this is Jay. And, yeah, we were pleased with our holiday season. Like you said, you know, we didn't participate in a lot of the early sales that were happening in November. It seems like people really started Black Friday early. But our November, you know, at the time we announced low single digits, and December was stronger than that. Our holiday period, you know, for those two months together was in the mid single digits. So we were pleased with that. And then to your point, January was very strong with the stimulus that came in that month. And as far as Ollie's Army Week versus Ollie's Army Night, the week itself was probably flattish a little bit down to the year-ago period. And part of that was because in the prior year, we actually ran a 25% off toys promotion for the public, not only the Army, but anybody that came in the store. So from a top-line standpoint, we were actually a little bit negative on the week. From a margin standpoint, because we were less promotional, it was beneficial. So that is the week. Next year, or this year, I guess, looking forward to Ollie's Army Night, our leaning is that we would go back to the one night. We kind of like the excitement and the buzz that it generates for the customer to come in, and it's just kind of a tradition and a longstanding event that creates a lot of excitement, both for our stores and our shoppers, most importantly. So we're leaning towards the one night, going back to that.

Yeah, Jeremy, the only caveat to that is if there's still issues with COVID and restrictions on the number of people in the store and whatnot, we'd have to adjust accordingly. But we'll see where we're at. We'll have time to make that decision.

Let's hope not. Thanks for taking the questions. Hope not. Great job and good luck.

Thanks. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Chukumba from Loop Capital Markets. Your question, please.

Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on a strong finish to a strong year. I guess my question, in terms of the new store openings, just any sense for how much, you know, just roughly what percentage of those are going to be in existing markets versus new markets? Thank you.

Yeah, Anthony, we're going to open up in three new states this year, as I said earlier, with Kansas, Missouri, and Vermont. In terms of backfilling in existing versus new markets, I would tell you we're probably going to do 30% or 40% in existing markets, and the rest comes in the newer markets. I wouldn't say new markets, but we're still infants in the state of Texas. We're still infants in Oklahoma. We're still backfilling some of the newer states. But overall, literally speaking, if you want to look at Kansas, Vermont, and Missouri, That's probably only a handful of stores, so most of that would come in existing states that we're in. But we view Texas as new and Oklahoma as new, but we're predominantly focused on the new markets, but we're still backfilling the existing markets as well.

Got it. And then just a related follow-up. I guess how is your – I mean, obviously, given this COVID-19 dystopia, I mean, how have you sort of changed your new store? I'm assuming, you know, you can't – you just can't, you know, sort of advertise the way that you did and get big crowds in the stores. So how has that changed, if at all?

Yeah, definitely. Good question, Anthony. Last year, once COVID hit, we never ran any grand opening campaigns in the stores. during the heavy period of the pandemic. So we basically just did regular flyers and opened the stores very quietly. We never called them grand openings because we couldn't afford to have that many people in the stores at one time. But what we did see, which was interesting, is we still got the traction in the stores. It may not have happened that one day, but it still happened pretty quickly where the stores still performed very, very well. And I think we learned a little bit about how we can open stores and we don't have to spend as much in advertising as we may have done historically.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you, Anthony. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian McNamara from Berenberg Capital. Your question, please.

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I know you don't typically comment on intra-quarter trends, but you did mention a low single-digit start to the quarter three months ago and a stimulus impact on January benefiting the quarter in your prepared remarks. Can you give us an idea how meaningful that stimulus impact was relative to December's trend? Clearly it was an improving trend throughout the quarter. Thanks.

Yeah, I don't think the stimulus had anything to do with December whatsoever. The stimulus checks didn't come out until after the first of January. So the December results were on their own. They stood on their own.

That's what I meant in terms of how meaningful stimulus was in January relative to December.

Sorry, can you say it again?

What I'm trying to get is, right, so presumably the quarterly trend, it improved as the quarter went on. I'm just trying to kind of tease out how impactful the stimulus was to January's trend relative to December.

Yeah, it was pretty significant, relatively speaking, as we reported the 8.8% comp for January. For the quarter, January was definitely in the double digits from your perspective. So we definitely saw a big acceleration. The holiday period itself, being November and December, we were close to a 5% comp.

Got it. Thank you. And then secondly, given the massive Q2 comp you guys are going to have to cycle in and the strong H2 that you'll be cycling, is it Would it surprise you if 12 months from now we're talking about maybe a minus low single-digit comp that you just reported? Can you talk about kind of how you're preparing internally, you know, both from a cost standpoint and just an overall business perspective standpoint as you're obviously just going to be lapping just an unprecedented year this year? Thanks.

Yeah, for sure. And like we said on the call, we would have never, you know, in a normal environment, kind of a base case, we would never expect to lap these numbers. So again, we're kind of, from a base framework, we're going back to the 2019 actuals and growing the top line, you know, two years' worth of growth. So call it 30%. And, you know, so that gives you a top line. You can kind of back into probably the split between comp and non-comp. We've got the margin of 39.7 to 39.8 SG&A levels of More normalized, call it 25% a little bit north of there. So that's the model, and that results in a base model of adjusted net income of close to 36%, 37%, which is right in line with our long-term algorithm. And, of course, we're going to work hard to do the best we can, not turn off the registers like Mark would say. And we've been pretty successful at that. But, again, trying to comp a year like last year is just not something that always is built for.

Great. Thank you. Best of luck.

Thank you. Thank you. This does conclude the question and answer session of today's program. I'd like to hand the program back to John Swagger for any further remarks.

Thank you, Operator. Thanks, everyone, for your participation and continued support. We look forward to sharing our first quarter results with you on the next earnings call. Stay safe.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.