Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE:JWN) Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call November 22, 2022 4:45 PM ET

Company Participants

Heather Hollander - Head of Investor Relations

Erik Nordstrom - Chief Executive Officer

Pete Nordstrom - President & Chief Brand Officer

Anne Bramman - Chief Financial Officer

Michael Maher - Chief Accounting Officer

Conference Call Participants

Blake Anderson - Jefferies

Matthew Boss - JPMorgan

Chuck Grom - Gordon Haskett

Kimberly Greenberger - Morgan Stanley

Ed Yruma - Piper Sandler

Noah Zatzkin - KeyBanc

Dana Telsey - Telsey Advisory Group

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Nordstrom Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will begin with prepared remarks, followed by a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Heather Hollander, Head of Investor Relations for Nordstrom. You may now begin.

Heather Hollander

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. Before we begin, I want to mention that we'll be referring to slides, which can be viewed in the Investor Relations section on nordstrom.com. Our discussion may include forward-looking statements, so please refer to the slide with our Safe Harbor language.

Participating in today's call are Erik Nordstrom, Chief Executive Officer; Pete Nordstrom, President and Chief Brand Officer; Anne Bramman, Chief Financial Officer, and Michael Maher, Chief Accounting Officer, who will provide a business update and discuss the company's third quarter performance.

And now, I'll turn the call over to Erik.

Erik Nordstrom

Thank you, Heather, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. For the third quarter, we delivered results in line with our expectations with quarterly net sales of $3.4 billion, a loss per share of $0.13 and adjusted earnings per share of $0.20.

As we discussed, while reporting our second quarter results, we saw customer demand begin to soften in late June, mostly in Nordstrom Rack. Across both banners, the softening trend was more significant in customer segments with the lowest income profiles, while we saw greater resilience in the higher income cohorts.

As customer trends shifted, we took action to manage through the short-term macroeconomic uncertainty and position our business for success. This included managing expenses to align with sales expectations and clearing through excess inventory to exit the year with healthy inventory levels and mix.

These actions prepared us well for the third quarter, as macroeconomic pressures impacted all customer segments, with outsized impact in the lowest income groups. Additionally, sales decelerated in late October and early November, particularly in geographies with unseasonably warm weather.