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should require assistance during the conference, please press the star zero on your touchstone pad at any time. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Ms. Lisa Byrne, Vice President of Investor Relations for the Clarks Company. Ms. Byrne, you may begin your conference.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. On the call today with me are Linda Rendell, our chair and CEO, and Kevin Jacobson, our CFO. I hope everyone has had a chance to review our earnings release and prepared remarks. Both are available on our website. In just a moment, Linda will share a few opening comments, and then we'll take your questions. During this call, we may make forward-looking statements, including about our fiscal 2024 outlook. These statements are based on management's current expectations but may differ from actual results or outcomes. In addition, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the forward-looking statements section, which identifies various factors that could affect such forward-looking statements, which has been filed with the SEC. In addition, please refer to the non-GAAP financial information section of our earnings release and the supplemental financial schedules in the investor relations section of our website for reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable gap measures. Now I'll turn it over to Linda.

Thank you for joining us today. During the third quarter, we continued to progress our recovery from the August cyber attack while advancing our Ignite strategy to build a stronger, more resilient company. For the most part, our progress in the third quarter was in line with our expectations. Sales came in lower, as a few businesses experienced slower supply recovery than we planned. Gross margin came in higher, benefiting from our margin transformation program environment. Despite lower sales and strong investments in our brands, we finished the quarter ahead of our expectations on adjusted earnings per share. Before we turn to questions, I think stepping back and putting these results in context is important. Given the magnitude of disruption from the cyber attack, we knew our plans to restore the fundamentals of our business would be complex and a recovery path would not be linear. We have made tremendous progress and are laser focused on finishing the job. We tracked well ahead of our expectations in the second quarter and knew we had more work to do as we entered the back half of the year to return our business to the strong trajectory it was on at the start of fiscal year 24. This included fully rebuilding inventories, restoring normalized service levels, and rebuilding commercial plans for each of our businesses, which we accomplished by the end of the third quarter. These actions unlock our ability to fully restore lost distribution due to the cyber attack and return to normalized merchandising levels as planned in the fourth quarter. Through Q3, we regained nearly 90% of the market share we lost and expect to make further progress in Q4. With service levels now normalized and strong investment levels behind our brands, we're confident we can rebuild household penetration and return to volume growth over time. Despite the significant disruption and lost sales we've experienced and based on our team's strong work, we are now positioned to exceed our original gross margin target and meet or exceed our adjusted EPS guidance we provided at the beginning of the year before the cyber attack. Importantly, our recovery progress to date puts us in a good position to exit fiscal 2024 with strong fundamentals. In addition, we continue to execute well against our IGNITE strategic priorities throughout our recovery. We made substantial progress rebuilding growth margins, continuing to target returning to pre-pandemic levels over time. We launched innovation, invested in our brands and capabilities, progressed our streamlined operating model and digital transformation, and completed the divestiture of our Argentina business, which supports our goal of evolving our portfolio to deliver more consistent and profitable growth. In closing, we're taking the right steps to navigate the near term and continuing to advance our Ignite strategy. I'm confident we have the right investments and plans to deliver against our strategic and financial objectives and enhance long-term shareholder value. With that, Kevin and I will take your questions.