Vince Holding sees robust Q3 sales, driven by e-commerce strength and successful store openings, while navigating inventory challenges and freight costs.

With other key fashion brands to kind of help both of you.

Yeah, that's something that we're going to continue to explore and prioritize. Very happy with the Citizens of Humanity collab. You know, it also highlights the opportunity we have in denim. So whether we do that in house, although that's a long haul, or continue to do partnerships in denim with Citizens of Humanity and look for other categories that perhaps Authentic Brands Group (ABG) isn't licensing at this point and we can bring to kind of round out our assortment. So that was another good win for Vince. Great. And you opened up two new stores in new markets. I know it's very short. Could you give us a little bit of thought process on that and kind of what should be thinking about? I know that we pulled back on that a little bit this year just because of things going on this year, but given the results here, what is the store opportunity? Kind of back on full swing for next year and going forward. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. I mean, you know, we're pleased with it. The way the Nashville and Sacramento stores have been received within the community. You know, it's still early days. Also, we'll be monitoring what it does to our eCommerce business. You know, I think we have 60 stores. Stores now between the outlets and full price, and I wouldn't expect that number to move much. Maybe a couple more, a couple less, depending on opportunities. We continue to be really pleased with our Marylebone store in London. So going to see if there's opportunities in other parts of Europe both to do business where we can be profitable like a Marlebone and also provide. Some visibility for us in regions where we have a wholesale business and stores can just reinforce that. So, you know, we'll continue to monitor the direct to consumer opportunity led by eCommerce. But, you know, as I've always said, it's not an either or with direct to consumer and our wholesale business. It's. It's both. It's an And. And I think they. They just reinforce each other. And. And we've. We saw that in Q3 and continue to see that in Q4. Great. Congrats and good luck for the rest of the holiday season. Thank you.

The next question comes from Michael Kopinski from Noble Capital Markets. Michael, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. And I'd like to offer my congratulations as well. Sales were obviously much better than what we were looking for. Were there any particular bottlenecks or limitations that could have delivered even better sales? And I'm thinking, you know, any inventory constraints for particular items, for instance.

I. Mean, you know, there's never a crystal ball so you always, you know, there's certain things you wish you had a little bit more of. But I think overall we were in a good inventory position, you know, really working through the first half of the year. Disruption from tariffs as we discussed. So as I'm doing my store tours, I'm not getting too much pushback from the stores about where they need more inventory. I think Vince Holding also. Since I was here last, is doing a much better job with our logistics and operations, refilling the stores on a timely basis. So I think we have a good handle on that. You know, again, not to harp on it, but I am so excited about it. This drop ship opportunity which allows us to take full advantage of Caleres' shoe inventory, I mean that's a big deal because that's where we did have some holes in our inventory assortment because it's a little bit more difficult with our third party partners to properly procure ahead of time. So this, this opens up a really big opportunity for us going forward, as I've been saying. But overall the inventories, I think we're in a good position and help fuel the growth we saw.

Thank you for that. And how much of this strong revenue growth was driven by price versus product volume? I know that you touched on that in your comments, but I was wondering if you could just expand on that.

Yeah, well, I mean we were really pleased that the units held steady and actually grew at the higher price point. So you know, we had anticipated given the price changes that we would see a little bit of erosion in our unit velocity. But you know, so far we haven't seen that, you know, and the customer seems to be trading up with us. I don't know if that's because they're trading down from other luxury brands and as those prices skyrocket, but our core customer continues to see us as a value. And as I said in my comments, women's was where we had to take the largest price changes and the units held strong. So you know, it was a win win. And that's continued into holiday. So. We'Ll continue to monitor that, continue to see if there's even a little bit more opportunity to, to push up price, you know, where we think the customer will react positively. But definitely a driver was the strength in the, in the units.

And then given that wholesale and direct to consumer look like, you know, revenues were, the revenue growth were pretty much similar. But I was wondering if there was any divergence between the two channels in terms of product Sales and particularly as you go into the fourth quarter.

No, I mean we. You know, eCommerce, our eCommerce was clearly the big winner and driver when you look across all the channels. But overall saw strength at the register at. With our wholesale partners. You know, we continue to work with Saks Global to make sure that we're able to properly service their business while they go through their transformation. So that, that creates a little bit of noise. But you know, overall, as we start December, the product's checking at, you know, at the register, everywhere.

Gotcha. My final question is, can you just talk a little bit about trends in freight costs? I know that I was just wondering if you negotiate annual contracts and if you could just talk a little bit about what you're seeing there.

Yeah, certainly. So, yeah, we are seeing freight cost increases. That's also partially due to the fact that we are changing sources as well of where we're sourcing our products. So it's really more the product of depending on the shift in timing, we're airing more stuff or certain, certain pieces are taking longer in terms of distance wise to get here. So it's not so much of actual inherent sort of freight contract and the pricing related to that. It's really more along the lines of the timing of when we want to bring in the product, which, which method we're using to bring in the product.

Gotcha. Okay, thank you. That's all. I have.

No further questions at this time. But as a final reminder, press star followed by one. We have no further questions. So I'll hand back to the management team for any closing comments.

Okay, well, thank you all again for your participation today and we look forward to updating you on our year end results in the spring. And happy holidays to all. Thank you.

This concludes today's call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your lines.