Zumiez Inc. (NASDAQ:ZUMZ) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call June 6, 2024 5:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Rick Brooks - CEO
Chris Work - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Mitch Kummetz - Seaport
Richard Magnusen - B. Riley
Operator
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Zumiez Inc. First Quarter Fiscal 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference.
Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone of the company's Safe Harbor language. Today's conference call includes comments concerning Zumiez Inc. business outlook and contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements and all other statements that may be made on this call that are not based on historical facts are subject to risk and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially.
Additional information concerning a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the information that will be discussed is available in Zumiez' filings with the SEC.
At this time, I will turn the call over to Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Brooks?
Rick Brooks
Hello, and thank you everyone for joining us on today's call. With me today is Chris Work, our Chief Financial Officer. I'll begin with a few remarks about our first quarter performance before touching on our strategic priorities for 2024. Chris will then take you through the financials and our outlook for the balance of the year. After that, we'll open the call to your questions.
Our first quarter performance represented an encouraging start to 2024. While total sales of $177 million were down 3% from the same quarter last year, both sales and earnings per share were above the high-end of our guidance range showing continued improvement in year-over-year trends and demonstrating our progress in positioning the business for growth.
First quarter top-line results were driven by North America as comparable sales for the region inflected positive. This performance was led by our men's business, which was up year-over-year for the second consecutive quarter after accelerating from its positive finish to fiscal 2023. Our women's business also contributed to sales performance turning positive for the quarter. As expected, hardgoods remained under pressure. Giving back some on Quarter 4's improvement, as we exited the snow season.
Overall, we experienced increases in both average unit retail and units per transaction for the first three months of fiscal 2024, which was offset by a decline in transactions. Meanwhile, merchandise margins were higher than a year ago and ahead of quarterly guidance as our heightened focus on driving full price selling in Europe fueled our consolidated core product margin growth. This helped drive the overall improvement on our bottom-line results despite our sales decline to a loss of $0.86 per share compared to a loss of $0.96 per share last year. This is meaningfully better than our guidance of a loss of $1.09 to $1.19 per share.