Five Below, Inc. (FIVE) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending April 29, 2023

June 1, 2023 4:30 p.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Five Below First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Christiane Pelz, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Christiane Pelz

Thanks, Sarah and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today for Five Below's first quarter 2023 financial results conference call. On today's call are Joel Anderson, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Ken Bull, Chief Operating Officer; Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer.

After management has made their formal remarks, we will open the call to questions. I need to remind you that certain comments made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements and are made pursuant to and within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 as amended. Such forward-looking statements are subject to both known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. Those risks and uncertainties are described in the press release and our SEC filings. The forward-looking statements made today are as of the date of this call and we do not undertake any obligation to update our forward-looking statements. If you do not have a copy of today's press release, you may obtain 1 by visiting the Investor Relations page of our website at fivebelow.com.

I will now turn the call over to Joel.

Joel Anderson

Thank you, Christiane and thanks, everyone, for joining us for our first quarter 2023 earnings call. We were pleased to achieve first quarter results in line with our guidance, with sales growth of approximately 14% to $726 million and a transaction-driven 2.7% comp sales increase. It continues to be a challenging time for consumers with persistent inflation, lower tax refunds and fewer government-sponsored benefits compared to the stimulus fueled periods of the pandemic. However, being an extreme value trend-right retailer, we continue to attract and retain more customers and grow our comparable transactions in both converted and non-converted stores.

Our transaction increase of 3.9% was the highest since 2017, excluding the stimulus fuel period during the pandemic and is a strong indicator that Five Below is a destination customers rely on even in tougher economic times. We are a resilient retailer with a flexible model and we continue to play offense, opening new stores and quickly reacting to customer needs to bring them the WOW products that they want at amazing values, while also executing against our strategic pillars to achieve our triple double growth.