Oxford Industries reports mixed Q3 results; anticipates softer holiday season due to tariff impacts and heightened promotional activity

Greetings and welcome to Oxford Industries Third Quarter Fiscal 2025 Earnings Conference Call at this time all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press STAR and the number zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Brian Smith from Oxford. Thank you and you may begin.

Thank you and good afternoon. Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that certain statements made on today's call and in the Q and A session may constitute forward looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward looking statements are not guarantees and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results of operations or our financial condition to differ are discussed in our press release issued earlier today and in documents filed by us with the SEC, including the risk factors contained in our Form 10K. We undertake no duty to update any forward looking statements. During this call we'll be discussing certain non GAAP financial measures. You can find a reconciliation of non GAAP to GAAP financial measures in our press release issued earlier today which is posted under the Investor Relations tab of our website@oxfordinc.com and I'd like to introduce today's call participants. With me today are Tom Chubb, Chairman and CEO, and Scott Grassmeyer, CFO and coo. Thank you for your attention and now I'd like to turn the call over to Tom Chubb.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. As is typical for our third quarter, I'll keep my comments on Q3 relatively brief before turning to what we're seeing in the early weeks of the fourth quarter and how we are approaching the holiday season and the rest of the year. We are pleased with what we were able to accomplish during the third quarter, with our financial results broadly in line with the expectations we set earlier in the year. The environment remained highly competitive and promotional and the consumer continued to be selective with their discretionary spending often requiring new and innovative products to catch our attention. Against that backdrop, our team stayed focused on our long term priorities and executed well on the fundamentals of our strategy. Strong sales growth in both the Emerging Brands Group and Lilly Pulitzer offset declines at Tommy Bahama and Johnny Was. Total company comp sales were slightly positive and while gross margins continue to reflect the pressures we've discussed in prior quarters related to tariffs, our underlying adjusted gross margin, absent that pressure, improved over last year's. Even in a highly promotional environment. In addition to the financial results, we made important progress on a number of key initiatives across the enterprise, starting with people. We were pleased to have realigned and strengthened our teams in Johnny Was and the Emerging Brands Group through a combination of internal promotions and and hiring key executive talent from outside the company. Also at Johnny Was, we made significant progress with the business improvement plan we discussed last quarter in Tommy Bahama. Our bars and restaurants are a distinct competitive advantage and we were pleased to have added two important restaurant openings during the quarter. In Lily Pulitzer we anniversaried last year's very successful Palm beach fashion show with a fashion show in Key West. Last year's event has helped fuel creative content and commercial success throughout 2025 and we expect this year's event to do the same for 2026. We also completed the renovation of our Worth Avenue Lily Pulitzer flagship location in Palm Beach. Finally, we are in the final stages of construction of the new state of the art fulfillment center that will be such an important asset to our direct to consumer businesses. None of these items will have immediate impact on our financial results but are critical parts of the foundation of future success. As I previously mentioned, across the portfolio, performance varied by brand as it has for much of this year. The bright spot continued to be Lilly Pulitzer where the brand again demonstrated a deep connection with its core consumer and delivered healthy growth in the quarter. Our Emerging brands business also posted strong year over year sales gains reflecting growing recognition, relevance, customer engagement and growth potential. Moving to Tommy Bahama While our third quarter results did not meet our goals for the brand, we did see encouraging progress. Comps improved sequentially to down low single digits from down high single digits earlier in the year. We believe we've made meaningful headway in addressing key areas that contributed to softness early in the year, particularly around color assortment and completeness of the line which led to disparate regional performance and softness in Florida, our most important market. There is still work to do but we feel good about the adjustments made so far. At the same time, we continue to invest in the long term health of the brand through thoughtful expansion of our retail and hospitality footprint. During the quarter, we re entered the important St. Armand Circle outside of Sarasota with a beautiful new full service restaurant and retail store which replaced our previous restaurant that was damaged and closed in 2024 due to a hurricane. This new location reinforces the strength of our hospitality model in one of our most important markets. We also opened a new Marlin Bar on the Big island of Hawaii, further deepening our connection to a region that has been central to the Tommy Bahama brand for decades. Both locations are off to encouraging starts and we believe they will be long term assets for the brand. Turning to Jonny Was, we made several important changes during the quarter to strengthen the foundation of the brand and position it for long term success. As we discussed last quarter, Johnny Was is an incredible brand with beautiful product, a loyal and engaged customer base and a hardworking, deeply dedicated team. To ensure the brand can fully capitalize on that potential, we have refreshed key leadership roles including the promotion of Lisa Kaiser, our formal Chief Commercial Officer at Johnny Was, to lead the brand as President of Johnny Was. Lisa is an experienced business leader with over 25 years of leadership roles at Neiman Marcus, including 10 years as SVP General Merchandising Manager of Women's Ready to Wear. We also made changes to the Lead Designer and Head of Retail positions to bring sharper creative focus, strong merchandising discipline and more consistent execution across the business. Earlier in the year we also engaged an outside specialist to help us assess the Johnny Was business and identify the actions needed to meaningfully improve profitability. That comprehensive project has now been largely completed and and we have begun executing against its recommendations with clear priorities around creative direction, merchandising and planning, marketing efficiency and retail performance. While we are still early in the process, we are encouraged by the focus, energy and alignment we are seeing across the team. We believe that a combination of refreshed leadership with a very capable incumbent team and a clear actionable plan will allow us to reinforce the fundamentals of the brand and unlock the substantial long term opportunity we continue to see in Johnny Was. With that backdrop, let me turn to the fourth quarter and our early read on the holiday. As a reminder, our comps in the fourth quarter last year were flat and benefited from a post election bounce. When evaluating the early results of the fourth quarter this year, it is clear that the softer start to the holiday season reflects a combination of tariff related product limitations and a holiday period that has been more promotional across the industry compared with last year. That made for a difficult environment along with the more challenging comps than earlier in the year. Most significantly, our brands have experiences challenges in our product assortments that trace back to the tariff related sourcing decisions made earlier in the year when our brands were building their holiday and resort lines. Last spring the tariff landscape was highly uncertain with the potential for substantial increases on certain China origin categories. As a result, we made difficult but prudent choices to reduce our exposure in categories heavily reliant on China, for example sweaters and other cold weather product that are important at this time of year. Those decisions were appropriate given the information available at the time. However, they left us with assortments that were not as complete or as comprehensive as we would like for the holiday season. Sweaters, and particularly have historically been strong drivers of fourth quarter demand across our portfolio and our reduced presence in this category has been a meaningful headwind. At the same time, the holiday selling period has been more promotional than last year, with consumers showing heightened sensitivity to value and a willingness to wait for deeper discounts. While our promotional cadence and depth were consistent with our brand appropriate approach, many competitors entered the season earlier and more aggressively. That dynamic contributed to a slower start for us in the opening weeks of the quarter. At Lilly Pulitzer, our holiday promotions included curated gift with purchase events and a broader seasonal sale, both of which resonated well with our core consumer and we saw strong engagement with many of our most giftable styles and capsules. Unfortunately, our successful gift with purchase events were somewhat limited due to high Chinese tariffs and the difficulty of shifting the production of these items elsewhere. Similarly, we identified that there were gaps in our assortments related to the tariff environment, particularly in novelty items and certain other seasonal products that could not be quickly moved out of China, which limited our ability to fully serve demand. We also leaned into our core programs to mitigate tariff exposure which reduced the level of newness we might have otherwise offered. At Tommy Bahama, we built on themes introduced earlier in the year, offering a compelling mix of gift ready items and cold weather seasonal product. But as with Lilly, many of the categories that historically carry momentum for us during holiday especially sweaters and other cold weather essentials that are heavily China reliant, were reduced as a result of the tariff uncertainty earlier in the year. Those gaps, coupled with a promotional marketplace that moved earlier and deeper than usual, created incremental pressure. Despite these challenges, we have seen continued encouraging response in our Tommy Bahama boracay pants that we discussed last quarter. While the price point increased from $138 to $158, new product innovation has led to significant sell throughs and the Boracay pant has played meaningfully into the holiday gifting mindset. This success also highlights some of the trends we have seen in the market where consumers are gravitating to versatile products that can be worn to work and casual events and are less discretionary than some other categories. At Johnny Was, the customer continues to connect most strongly with the unique, artful product that defines the brand. Elevated embellished pieces, rich textures and vibrant color stories again resonated with loyalists. But similar to our other brands, limitations in certain seasonal categories due to tariff driven sourcing adjustments along with heightened promotional intensity across the marketplace created a more challenging backdrop for converting that interest at the levels we had anticipated early in the season. While still small in absolute terms, our emerging Brand Group continues to be a meaningful source of energy and growth within the portfolio. Southern Tide,, the Beaufort Bonnet Company and Duckhead have each built strong momentum this year and we are seeing that momentum carry into the holiday season with a stronger start than what we have seen in our three larger brands. These brands benefit from exceptionally loyal customer bases, focused product stories and highly engaged teams and their performance is a testament to the opportunity we believe exists in each of them. As we continue to invest in their capabilities, particularly in product marketing and retail expansion, we remain very encouraged by the role of the Emerging Brands group can play in our long term growth algorithm. Taken together, these early holiday trends reinforce what we observed throughout the year. When we deliver fresh, differentiated product that aligns with our brand heritage, the customer responds. However, given today's promotional climate, achieving that response requires more competitive value proposition. As a result, and as Scott will detail in a few minutes, we now expect our fourth quarter performance to land below our previous guidance and we are revising our outlook for the remainder of the year. And that is our focus across the portfolio, concentrating on what makes each brand special and ensuring that what we put in front of the consumer inspires confidence, joy and a sense of possibility. That same focus has guided our product development and marketing plans throughout the year. It's why we have leaned into newness and innovation across our brands and it's why we continue refining our offerings to match the customer's mindset heading into resort in the early spring period. While the environment remains dynamic, we are approaching the remainder of the year with clear eyed realism. We recognize that the consumer continues to navigate uncertainty and that promotional intensity remains high, but our teams are executing with discipline and we believe we are well positioned to meet the consumer where she is today while investing in the long term strength and potential of our business through initiatives such as those I outlined at the beginning of the call. As we look ahead to fiscal 2026, we are approaching the year with a clear focus on improving profitability and with confidence in the levers we have already begun to put in place. We expect to begin realizing the benefit of cost reduction initiatives that we started during fiscal 2025, including efforts around indirect spend and other SGA related efficiencies across the enterprise at Johnny was. The significant merchandising and marketing work we undertook this year should begin to bear fruit and we also expect to extend the merchandising efficiency product project we piloted at Johnny WAS to the other brands in our portfolio. In addition, we will continue to focus on input cost reductions and tariff mitigation as we refine our sourcing strategies. Capital expenditures will decline significantly as we complete our new fulfillment center in Lyons, Georgia, which will allow us to meaningfully reduce our debt levels. All of these actions position us well to make tangible progress on profitability while continuing to invest with discipline in the long term strength of our brands. As always, I want to express my deep appreciation for our people across the enterprise. Their resilience, creativity and focus on our customer continue to be the foundation of everything we do. With that, I'll turn the call over to Scott for more detailed commentary on our updated financial outlook.

Thank you, Tom. As Tom mentioned, our teams are showing great discipline and resilience and executing our plan against the backdrop of a challenging consumer and macro environment. In the third quarter, our teams were able to deliver top and bottom line results within our previously issued guidance range. In the third quarter of fiscal 2025, consolidated net sales were 307 million compared to sales of 308 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2024 and within our guidance range of 295 million to 310 million. Our direct consumer channels were up in total with a total company comp increase of 2% which was in line with our guidance for the quarter. The direct consumer increase was led by increased e commerce sales of 5% and increased sales in our food and beverage and full price brick and mortar locations of 3% and 1% respectively. The increases in full price brick and mortar were driven primarily by the addition of non comp locations with comps in our restaurant and full price brick and mortar locations down slightly at 2% and 1% respectively. Sales in our outlet locations were comparable to the prior year. Our increased direct to consumer sales were offset by decreased sales in our wholesale channel of 11% driven primarily by decreases in off price business. By brand. Lillypolitzer delivered another strong quarter with total sales increasing year over year driven by double digit growth in retail and high single digit growth in E commerce partially offset by a decline in the wholesale channel. The positive comp sales at Lilly Pulitzer along with positive comp sales and overall sales growth in our emerging brands business businesses helped to offset the low single digit negative comp at Tommy Bahama and high single digit negative comp at JOHNNY was that led to sales decreases in both business adjusted gross margin contracted 200 basis points to 61% driven by approximately $8 million or 260 basis points of increased cost of goods sold from additional tariffs implemented in fiscal 2025 net of mitigation efforts and and a change in sales mix with a higher proportion of net sales occurring during promotional and clearance events at Tommy Bahama and Lilly Pulitzer. These decreases were partially offset by lower freight cost to consumers due to improved carrier rates from contract renegotiations, a change in sales mix with wholesale sales representing a lower proportion of net sales and decreased freight rates associated with shipping shipping our products from our vendors. Adjusted SGA expenses increased 4% to 209 million compared to 201 million last year, approximately 5% or approximately 70% of the increase due to increases in employment cost, occupancy costs and depreciation expenses due to the opening of 16 net new brick and mortar locations since the third quarter of fiscal 2024. This includes the 13 net new stores including three Tommy Bahama Marlin bars and one full service restaurant open in the first nine months of 2025. We also incurred pre opening expenses related to some planned new stores scheduled to open in the fourth quarter. The result of this yielded an 18 million adjusted operating loss or negative 5.8% operating margin compared to a 3% operating operating loss or negative 1.1% in the prior year. The decrease in adjusted operating income reflects the impact of our investments in a challenging consumer and macro environment. Moving beyond operating income, our adjusted effective tax rate was 30.3% was higher than we anticipated due to certain discrete items that were amplified by our operating loss. Interesting expense was a million dollars higher compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2024 resulting from higher average debt levels. With all this, we ended with $0.92 of adjusted net loss per share as a result of interim impairment assessments performed in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. The company recognized non cash impairment charges totaling $61 million primarily related to the Johnny WAS trademark. The impairment charges for JOHNNY was reflect the impact of organizational realignment activities in the third quarter of 2025, including changes to the Johnny WAS executive team that Tom discussed. Revised future projections based on Johnny Was recent negative trends in net sales and operating results and challenges in mitigating elevated tariffs. I'll now move on to our balance sheet beginning with inventory. During the third quarter of fiscal 2025, inventory increased $1 million or 1% on a LIFO basis and 6 million or 3% on a FIFO basis compared to the third quarter of 2024, with inventory increasing primarily as a result of $4 million of additional cost capitalized into inventory related to the U.S. tariff implementation in 2025. We ended the quarter with long term debt of 140 million compared to 81 million at the end of the second quarter and 31 million at the end of fiscal 2024. Our debt historically increases during the third quarter primarily due to seasonal fluctuations in cash flow with lower earnings during the third quarter resulting in increased cash needs. Cash flow from operations provided 70 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2025 compared to 104 million in the first nine months of Fiscal 2024, driven primarily by lower net earnings and changes in working capital needs. We also had $55 million of share repurchases, capital expenditures of 93 million primarily related to Lyons, Georgia distribution center project which remains on track for completion and go live in early 2026 and the addition of new brick and mortar locations and $32 million of dividends that led to an increase in our long term debt balance since the beginning of the year. I'll now spend some time on our Updated outlook for 2025 comp sales figures in the fourth quarter to date are negative in the mid single digit range which is lower than our previous expectations of flat to low single digit pop positive comps. While our average order value has increased nicely, traffic has been mixed but mostly down and conversion has been very challenging across our portfolio due to the slow start to the holiday season. We are revising our guidance for the remainder of the year with the expectation that the mid single digit comp will continue for the remainder of the year. For the full year, net sales are expected to be between 1.47 billion and 1.49 billion reflecting a decline of 2 to 3% compared to sales of 1.52 billion in fiscal 2024. Our revised sales plan for the full year of 25 includes decreases in our Tanya Bahama and Johnny Webb segments driven primarily by negative comps partially offset by growth in our Lilly Pulitzer and emerging brand segments driven by positive comps and new store locations by distribution channel. The sales plan consists of a low single digit decrease in most channels including wholesale full price, retail, e commerce and outlets, partially offset by a low to mid single digit increase in our food and beverage channel that is benefiting from the addition of three new Marlin Bar locations. One new full service restaurant open during the year for fiscal 2025. Our current annual guidance reflects a net tariff impact of approximately 25 million to 30 million or approximately $1.25 to $1.50 per share. While tariffs represent the primary driver of margin contraction this year, we also expect continued promotional activity across our brands and away in margins as consumers remain highly responsive to value and deal oriented shopping. In the current macroeconomic environment, we expect our gross margins for the year to contract by approximately 200 basis points. In addition to lower sales and gross margins, we expect SG and A to grow in the mid single digit range primarily due to the impact of our recent continued investments in our businesses including the annualization of incremental SGA from the 30 net new locations added during fiscal 2024. Incremental SGA related to the addition of approximately 15 net new locations this year including three new Tommy Bahama Marlin bars and a new full service restaurant. Also within operating income, we expect lower royalties and other income of approximately 3 million in fiscal 2025. Additionally, our fiscal 2025 guidance includes the unfavorable impact of non operating items including $7 million of interest expense compared to 2 million in 2024 or an approximate 20 to 25 cent incremental EPS impact. Increased debt levels in fiscal 2025 are due to our continued capital expenditures on the Lyons Georgia Distribution center, technology investments and return of capital to shareholders exceeding cash flow from operations. We also expect a higher adjusted effective tax rate of approximately 25% compared to 20.9% in 2024. The higher tax rate is primarily a result of a significant change in the impact that our annual stock vesting had on income tax expense in 2025 compared to 2024. We anticipate the higher tax rate will result in approximate 15 to 20 cent per share impact. Considering all these items including the $25 to $.50 per share impact from tariffs, higher interest expense and a higher tax rate. We have revised our guidance and expect 2025 adjusted EPS to be between $2.00 and $0.20 and $2.40 versus adjusted EPS of $6.68 last year. The biggest drivers of the decrease in EPS guidance includes a reduction of our fourth quarter comp assumption from low single digit positive comps to a mid single digit negative comp, a decrease in royalty and other income from lower order expectations from key licensing partners who customers have eligible anticipated inventory levels that will lead to a shift in orders from Q4 to Q1 of next year, an increase in SGA primarily resulting from increased consulting costs related to our ongoing projects to improve operating results and some additional costs related to our new Lions Georgia distribution center in the fourth quarter of 2025 we expect sales of 365 to 385 million compared to sales of 391 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. This primarily reflects our mid single digit negative comp assumption and decreased wholesale sales in the low single digit range partially offset by the impact from non comp stores. We also expect gross margin to contract approximately 300 basis points primarily driven by increased tariffs and a higher proportion of of net sales occurring during promotional and clearance events. SGA to grow in the low to mid single digit range primarily related to the new store locations, increased interest expense of a million dollars, decreased royalty and other income of a million dollars and an effective tax rate of approximately 26%. We expect this to result in fourth quarter adjusted EPS between 0 and 20 cents compared to $1.37 last year. I will now discuss our CAPEX outlook for the remainder of the year. Consistent with our prior guidance, we expect capital expenditures for the year to be approximately $120 million compared to a total of 134 million in fiscal 2024. The remaining capital expenditures relate to completing the new distribution center and the execution of our current pipeline of new stores at Tommy Bahama and Lily Pulitzer. We expect this elevated capital expenditure level to Moderate significantly in 2026 and beyond after completion of the Lions Georgia project. Consistent with the seasonal nature of our business, we expect a modest decrease in outstanding borrowings in the fourth quarter. Thank you for your time today and we will now turn the call over for questions. Von.

Bon, we're ready for questions. Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and the number two. If you would like to remove your question from the queue. For any participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question comes from Ashley Owens with Keybank Capital Markets. You may proceed with your question.

Hi, Great. Thanks so much and good afternoon. So just first and foremost I appreciate all the color on what was exactly a gap within each of the banners in terms of assortment for the holiday. But just moving forward as we navigate the quarter, how meaningful would you expect this to be for the upcoming season? Is it something that's been corrected or are you observing some disruption still just want to understand how much of holiday is now fully aligned versus where you originally planned and then maybe on That I know China's complex right now, and it might be ironing out a little bit, but would ask if this gap, is this shifting your viewpoint or sourcing strategy moving forward? Would you try to diversify further, Place orders further in advance? Just any color there. Thanks.

Yeah, I think the big thing, and while we did give a lot of detail, one thing that we didn't really call out specifically was that it's really what's on the floor right now that most impacted some of our sourcing decisions. And the reason is at the time that we were placing the buys for what's on the floor right now corresponded with that brief period of time where the duty or the tariff on China was going to be 145%. You know, when it's been 20% or 27 or whatever, that's something that, you know, we could make a conscious decision to just stay in China with a particular product if we needed to and just try to take various routes to mitigate that tariff. When we were looking at 150, 45%, which, you know, that's off the table at this point. But that was right when we were placing the buys for what's on the floor now. Lots of stuff we were able to move out of China. Tommy and Lily are mostly out of China, if not completely. But sweaters are the one category, and there are a couple other ones. Sweater is the big one that they're just not a lot of haven't historically been great resources that we could go to outside of China. So what we decided to do, Ashley, and at the time, I think it was the right call. We knew we couldn't bear that much tariff. So we really cut back the sweater assortment and tried to fill it in with other products. You know, you look at our assortment right now and, you know, you wish you had the sweaters. And that's really what we were talking about. So by the time you get to spring, that had settled down a lot. The tariff stuff is still a little bit up in the air, but it settled down a lot. And we were able to either move the stuff or, you know, know that it was going to come in at a tariff rate that we could deal with otherwise. So for spring, I don't think we have the same kind of impacts. We still have tariff issues that we have to deal with, but they're not going to impact the assortment the way that they have for this season.

Does that help? Yeah, that's super helpful. Just a couple other questions really quickly. So I think you mentioned earlier that competitors were more aggressive with promotions for Holiday and also earlier, which created that tougher backdrop. Any insight as to what you're seeing in the marketplace now in terms of that and if the intensity is moderated, but also how that's helping to inform your promo strategy for the balance of the year? And then additionally, just following your leadership refresh and then the external assessment on Johnny was would be curious as to what emerged as the key priorities you're now focused on. And then also as you look out to 2026, key objectives for the brand and should we be thinking of this as another period of stabilization or any color you could provide us on the roadmap or some of the key building blocks for stabilizing Johnny, thank you.

Okay, so with respect to the promotional sort of intensity out there, I would say right now it still feels quite high, but we're a little bit. In. That in between time between the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend and the final stretch. And those are usually the most promotional times. I don't think it's really retracted, but I'm not sure it's taken another step up yet. But wouldn't be surprised to, you know, to see that happen. And, you know, we're going to try to be responsive to that in brand appropriate ways. I think the catch word in all the brands is to stay nimble. We do, you know, want to make sure that we're not totally selling out our brands, but we're also. Thinking about things that we can do to, you know, to respond to the marketplace. The one other thing I'll point out, and this is this calendar that we have this year where there are 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and Christmas falls on a Thursday. The last time we had that calendar was in 2014. And that year the business sort of came very late. If you looked at the sales build through the Thanksgiving to Christmas selling period, it really came on late. Last year, if you remember, you had Christmas on Wednesday. So this year they've got an additional week day to shop, which could be meaningful. And also it allows us to cut off E. Com shipments probably on Saturday or in some cases even Sunday, and still have people feeling good that they're going to get them by Christmas. While last year that was mostly on Friday that we were cutting off. So there's some things there that, you know, we kind of built the current trajectory into our, you know, our forecast. But I think there's, you know, some reason to hope that it could, the season could rally a bit. Don't think it's going to Be a great one. But there are some differences there that are worth noting. And then on the Johnny Was. Plan, I will say a couple of things, that the. Game plan was developed by the team. At Johnny Was with some outside assistance, but it's very much the team's plan. Lisa Kayser, who's now the president of Johnny Was, was part of that team. She's relatively new to Johnny Was, but she's been been with us for several months. She was the chief commercial officer before. And she was very, very much central to the development of that plan. So the refreshment of the leadership does not entail, I would say, any change in the direction of the plan that we've been working on. And as we talked about last call quarter, the keys to that are merchandising effectiveness, which is about having better assortments that hit have the right level of investment and the right price points, the right product categories, getting that to the stores at the right time and in the right, you know, store level assortments. And all of that will drive, we believe, some incremental sales versus what we would otherwise had and also improve the margins, improve full price, sell through and ultimately gross margin. And then the other two other big areas of focus by the team. And again, it's the team's plan, really the same team, we've just added a few more people and elevated a few people including Lisa, who we're very excited about. But the second element is about marketing efficiency and that's really just more effectively spending the dollars that we spend to drive better results. And you know, some of that we've already started to kick in. And I will say what we're seeing today is encouraging in that we're actually getting. I would call it better efficiency out of the spend that we've done in the last month or so, maybe a little longer than that. And then the last thing is about improving the, the go to market process and calendar. And that's something that a whole team led by Lisa is, you know, they're very bought into that. Lisa is a big believer in that kind of discipline. So I think this, the refreshment of the leadership team and the elevation doesn't change the plan because they all developed the plan, but it enhances our, you know, our ability to execute it well.

Okay, great. Thank you for clarifying. Appreciate all the information. I'll pass it along, but best of luck.

Okay, thank you.

Our next question comes from Janine Stichter with btig. You may proceed with your question.

Hi, good afternoon. Wanted to dig into wholesale A little bit. I know it's a relatively smaller piece. Of the business, but just curious if. You can share what's going on there. It sounds like your wholesale partners are being a bit more cautious with orders, that there's maybe a little bit more inventory in the channel. And then I think you mentioned that off price was going to be down. Is that a strategic plan or maybe just elaborate on what's going on there. Thank you.

I think on the. Overall, on the wholesale, I think it is a level of concern and caution. By the retailers and I would say most especially the specialty retailers that are a big part of our wholesale base and during uncertain times, they tend to pull back a bit and I think we're seeing that now. And Scott, I don't know if you want to elaborate on the off price situation a bit.

Yeah, yeah. We did have less inventory that needed to be liquidated through those channels. So we are, you know, trying to keep our owner inventory and. Hopefully we'll continue to have less that we have to put through the channels.

Got it. And then just thinking through the tariffs, as you're just now seeing the impact of the product that you were planning, I guess in April or May when the China tariffs were 145%. Is the Q4 what we should think of as the peak headwind from tariffs or how much should we think about continuing into the first quarter of next year?

Well, I think in terms of its, you know, the impact it had on our product assortment, I think it is peak. I think as we get into spring, we were able to, you know, make the product that we wanted to make it somewhere that was, you know, a manageable level of tariff in terms of the impact, the financial impact of tariffs. Remember we didn't have them during the first quarter of last year really. They didn't really kick in until later in the year. So first quarter you're not going, you know, apples to apples and then as you get later in the year you start to lap the tariffs. And I don't know if you want to add.

Yeah, yeah, we accelerated a lot of products so, you know, early in the year knowing that tariffs were going to be coming or fearful they were going to be coming. So we were able to, most of the first quarter had very, very minimal. Now we go into first quarter next year, everything will have some tariff on it, but we will have some price increases to at least help mitigate that impact. As we get later in the year. You will be going apples, apples with tariffs and hopefully have a little bit more mitigation price wise as the year moves on.

Okay, thank you very much. I can pass it on.

Thank you, Janine.

Our next question comes from Joseph Suzello with Truist Securities. You may proceed with your question.

Hey guys, thanks so much for taking my questions. Following up on wholesale a bit, understand the general cautious tone from retail partners, but can you give any incremental color on your sort of competitive positioning within the channel and maybe as we get past the tariff pressures on inventory and stuff like that that you're facing right now?

Well, I think through third quarter our relative performance to the extent we know and we don't always have perfect information, but I think we performed well. And I don't think we, you know, for the overall, I would say, well, there were small pockets where maybe that was not the case. But I would say overall our performance was quite good on the retail floor for the fourth quarter and the holiday. I think it's, you know, it's too early to know for sure. We don't have enough data. But my hunch is that we're going to continue to perform well relative to the rest of the floor and it's more about the general caution.

Got it. Makes sense. And then if we could also just get a little bit more color on thoughts around price increases as we go through the spring, which I believe was like the original trajectory we were looking at.

Yeah, we do have some price increases in for the fall holiday period, but there'll be more in the spring. But again we'll have the full tariff load coming in that inventory and then we're looking at next fall pricing on are there any additional adjustments we need to make? So I think there'll be once we have the early part of next year pricing should, you know, the goal is to have it mitigate the tariff dollars. I don't think we'll get the percentage quite mitigated, but the dollars, you know, once we get out of the early part of the year, the goal is to have the pricing mitigate the tariff dollars.

Got it. Makes sense. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Joe.

Our next question comes from Paul Legue with Citigroup. You may proceed with your question.

Hi, it's Tracy Kogan filling in for Paul. I had a question about what you're seeing quarter to date and outside of the key sweater category. Can you talk about the trends there in some of those other categories and also talk about trends by brand quarter to date? Is it pretty. Pretty broad based weakness you're seeing across the brands or is there a big deviation of One brand or the other. Thank you, guys.

Sure. Thank you, Tracy. Well, I would say that, and we talked about this in the prepared remarks, but the big three brands are all relatively weak at the moment, you know, and the smaller brands are still sort of humming along. They were plus 17% in the third quarter and they're continuing to have a strong fourth, fourth quarter. While the big brands are where we're really seeing the softness. And then in terms of product, we also talked about that a little bit. And I think in, you know, Lilly, we're, because of the China tariff situation and the threat of 145% China is where we make a lot of our more embellished kind of, you know, novelty type stuff, things with, you know, sparkles and rhinestones and bows and that kind of stuff. And so we've just got less of that stuff. And so the consumer's almost being forced into some things that, I mean, Lilly is never basic product, but that within the Lilly spectrum are a little more tame. And then in Tommy Bahama, we've actually seen very good performance in things like the Boracay pant, which is basically a Chino. It's a really great one, really nice one, but it's a Chino pant. And that as we talked about third quarter and again this quarter we introduced a new one, or I say third quarter, second quarter, we introduced it earlier in the year. It's at 158 versus 138. It does have some new features and benefits, but it's sold just incredibly well. And actually we're selling a lot more of them than we sold the old one last year. And then also things like long sleeve wovens are performing well, some of the second layer knits. And I think that the kind of theme to a lot of those things is versatility. You know, things that can be worn on a lot of different use occasions. But, you know, we'll see more as the season develops. Tracie.

Great. Thank you guys. Good luck at the holidays.

Okay, thank you.

Our next question comes from Mauricio Cerna with ubs. You may proceed with your question.

Great. Thanks for taking my question. I guess, you know, I understand now in this fourth quarter you're experiencing some assortment issues that's related to, you know, the sweaters and the move out of China for that for this particular season. But as you think about the spring 2026 season, how are you thinking about your assortment? You know, how, how ready you are in terms of different, you know, the three big brands, I guess, and the potential for maybe, you know, after getting through this bit of a hiccup in Q4, maybe having stronger results in the first half of next year. Thank you.

I think the challenges to the assortment were really mostly. For what's on the floor right now. I think as we get into spring, by the time we were placing those buys, the 145% tariff was off the table and or we had found other places to make things. So I don't think we'll have that challenge so much in the spring. As Scott mentioned a minute ago, the tariff issue for the spring will just be that this year we will have tariffs, whereas in spring of last year we didn't really have them yet because that hadn't been implemented and. Or we were at, you know, pulled in inventory ahead of them.

And just a reminder, what kind of price increases are you planning for spring 26 to offset the tariffs?

Yeah, it's kind of varying, but it's ranging from 4 to say, 8%. But some of it, the ones that are more in the 8% or more, the, it's more of a, a little more elevated in mix. So I think for the, for the tariff piece of it around 4, which kind of offsets the dollar impact. The dollar. Yeah. Yeah. Not quite the margin impact, but the dollar impact.

Understood. Okay, thank you very much and good luck in the rest of the holiday season.

All right, thank you, Mauricio.

This now concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to Tom Chubb for closing comments.

Thanks to all of you very much for your interest. We look forward to talking to you again in March. And until then, hope you have a happy holiday season.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's conference. Please disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.