Kirkland’s, Inc. (NASDAQ:KIRK) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call September 5, 2024 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Amy Sullivan - President, Chief Executive Officer
Michael Madden - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Caitlin Churchill - Director of Investor Relations

Conference Call Participants

Jeremy Hamblin - Craig Hallum
John Lawrence - Benchmark

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in today’s conference call to discuss Kirkland’s Financial Results for the Second Quarter Ended August 3, 2024.

Joining us today are Kirkland Home CEO, Amy Sullivan, EVP and CFO Mike Madden, and the company’s external Director of Investor Relations, Caitlin Churchill. Following their remarks, we’ll open the call for your questions.

Before we go further, I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Churchill as she reads the company’s Safe Harbor statement within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that provides important cautions regarding forward-looking statements.

Caitlin, please go ahead.

Caitlin Churchill

Thank you. Except for historical information discussed during this conference call, the statements made by company management are forward-looking and made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may cause Kirkland’s actual results in future periods to differ materially from forecasted results. Those risks and uncertainties are more fully described in Kirkland’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A webcast replay will also be available via the link provided in today’s press release, as well as on the company’s website at Kirkland.com.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Kirkland CEO, Amy Sullivan. Amy?

Amy Sullivan

Thank you, Caitlin, and good morning, everyone. I will begin today’s discussion with a review of highlights from our second quarter performance and will then provide an update on the progress we are making against our strategic initiatives, before turning the call over to Mike to review our financial results in more detail.

Our second quarter comparable sales performance reflects the sequential improvement from the first quarter as we continue re-engaging our core customer, re-focusing our product assortment, and strengthening our omnichannel capabilities.

For the quarter, total comparable sales declined 1.7%, reflecting a 1.8% increase in comparable store sales growth which was offset by a 10.6% sales decline in ecommerce. While we continued to see year-over-year declines in average ticket given our ongoing work to rebalance our assortment and reduce penetration in higher ticket, slower turning categories, overall units sold were up approximately 20% compared to last year.