Tractor Supply Co (TSCO) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Tractor Supply Company's conference call to discuss first quarter 2026 results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time. We ask that all participants limit themselves to one question and return to the queue for additional questions. Please note that the queue for our question and answer session did not open until the start of this call. Please be advised that reproduction of this call in whole or in part is not permitted without written authorization of Tractor Supply Company. And as a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's call, Mary Wynn Pilkington, Senior Vice President of Investor and Public Relations for Tractor Supply Company. Mary Wynn, please go ahead.

Thank you, Victoria. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate your time and participation in today's call. On the call today, participating in our prepared remarks are Hal Lawton, our CEO, Kurt Barton, our CFO, and Seth Estep, our Chief Merchandising Officer. In addition to Seth, we will also have Rob Mills, John Ortis, and Colin Yankee join the call for the question and answer portion.

Following our prepared remarks, we will open the floor for questions.

Now let me reference the Safe Harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This call may contain certain forward-looking statements that are subject to significant risk and uncertainties, including the future operating and financial performance of the company. In many cases, these risks and uncertainties are beyond our control. Although the company believes the expectations reflected in its forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations or any of its forward-looking statements will prove to be correct and actual results may differ materially from expectations. Important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements are included at the end of the press release issued today and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The information contained in this call is accurate only as of the date discussed. Investors should not assume that statements will remain operative at a later time. Tractor Supply undertakes no obligation to update any information discussed in this call. As we move into the Q&A session, please limit yourself to one question to ensure everyone has the opportunity to participate. If you have additional questions, please feel free to rejoin the queue.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation. we will also be available after the call for any further discussions now let me turn the call over to how thank you mary win and good morning everyone before we begin i want to thank our more than 52 000 tractor supply team members their commitment and passion for life out here continue to set us apart and their dedication to delivering legendary service remains the foundation of our leadership in rural retail the retail environment remains cautious but stable with spending focused on needs and small indulgences, with some evidence of trip consolidation. Within farm and ranch, the broader market has slowed, though we continue to gain share. In fact, we estimate we had one of our best share performances in Q1. In PET, the category remains pressured, and while we are holding our share, our performance is below our expectations. a good example of the consumer spending is around their taxed refund behavior while refunds did come through and we captured our fair share customers are using these dollars more cautiously a significant portion is going towards essentials savings and debt reduction rather than discretionary spending consistent with the broader environment we're seeing our needs-based model continues to performance expected in this environment, demonstrating its resiliency. We are seeing that in consistent demand across our core categories and continued engagement from our customers. In the first quarter, that played out in distinct phases driven by weather timing. We enter the year lapping two years of significant storms, which created a slower start, followed by a major storm event that drove a pickup in demand. Trends then normalized through the middle of the quarter before a mixed finish with a good start to spring in the south more than offset by continued weather pressure in the north overall weather was neutral to our performance in the quarter against that backdrop i'm very pleased with our execution in the quarter the team responded well to winter storms activated strong events and around holidays and regionalized our marketing based on weather patterns, and we executed a clean transition into spring and chick days with encouraging early results. We remained focused on executing across the business, advancing new store growth, expanding exclusive brands, and maintaining disciplined SG&A control while continuing to make progress on our strategic initiatives. Gross margin remained in line with our expectations with ongoing pressure from tariffs, cost inflation, and freight, which we continue to actively manage turning to our customers growth was driven by new stores and our existing customer base with store traffic increasing in low single digits and conversion in their stores roughly flat active customer accounts grew though visit frequency declined modestly we saw continued strength in our high value customers with solid retention and engagement supported by continued growth in neighbors club penetration and higher engagement from our most valuable members while new customer acquisition remained softer and was most reliant on new stores turning to our first quarter results net sales increased 3.6 percent to 3.59 billion dollars driven by new store openings we opened a record 40 tracks of supply stores in the quarter and new store productivity remained in the 65 to 70 percent range new stores remain a hallmark of our performance diluted earnings per share were 31 cents comparable store sales increased 0.5 percent with average ticket up 1.6 percent and transactions down one percent four by five product categories were positive and six of our seven geographic regions delivered positive results reflecting the broad-based strength of the business with the exception of companion animal our consumable usable and edible categories deliver consistent performance in line with our expectations led by poultry feed bedding livestock feed and equine feed companion animal performance reflects a number of structural headwinds sales were below the chain average reflecting these dynamics dog ownership particularly in larger breeds has come under pressure and our mix remains heavily weighted towards dog where we over index by roughly 20 points cat ownership is growing and gaining share and that's where we under index both species are also shifting towards fresh and premium nutrition where again we are under indexed and our pace of share gains in both dog and cat has slowed all this said we are taking clear and decisive actions to strengthen our position include expanding our fresh pet offering increasing cat assortment and enhancing our services and rx capabilities and seth will walk through these and more in detail seasonal categories developed more gradually early in the quarter with spring category strengthening as the season progressed overall we saw solid performance across both our winter and spring assortments big ticket categories performed above the chain average with strengthened tractors and riders generators and welding partially offset by softness in chicken coops trailers and recreational vehicles our digital business also continues to perform at a very high level with strong double-digit growth in the quarter and we saw meaningful increases in traffic along with improved conversion reflecting the strength of our omni-channel experience we've made targeted enhancements across our platform including improvements to how customers shop and navigate our assortment as well as upgrades to our subscription offering as well as our order management and checkout experiences these efforts are driving a more seamless and efficient experience and supporting continued momentum in the business as we look beyond the quarter we continue to make progress on our life out here 2030 priorities on localization results are encouraging as we tailor assortments to local needs with more than 200 stores now localized and delivering improved performance and stronger customer engagement in direct sales momentum continues to build as we expand our sales force and deepen relationships with our higher value customers and this is driving increased productivity larger basket sizes and repeat engagement in final mile we're scaling our delivery network adding hubs and increasing delivery volume supporting the continued strength in our digital business while improving efficiency and reducing our cost to serve. Within Pet and Animal Rx, we're seeing encouraging progress across both Alavet and TractorSupply.com as we expand our offering and enhance convenience for customers while driving engagement with new and reoccurring purchases. As we look ahead, we're seeing our typical seasonal ramp take hold as we build towards Memorial Day. With stronger seasonal penetration and improving trends in the north, we expect sequential improvement in comparable sales relative to the first quarter. We continue to see strength across our customer base and in the majority of our business. We're taking targeted actions in areas of opportunity while continuing to execute on our strategic priorities. We remain focused on what we can control, investing with discipline, managing costs, and most importantly, as always, serving our customers. That approach continues to position us to drive market share gains and long-term value. Lastly, we are reaffirming our full-year outlook. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Kurt. Thank you, Hal.

And good morning, everyone. Let me compliment Hal's top-line commentary by briefly covering the underlying drivers. Overall, our net sales performance was modestly below our expectations for the quarter. New store sales outperformed expectations in both timing and the number of new stores opened. This was offset by comp store sales performance below our expectations as we planned for Q1 comp sales to be at the low end of our 2026 guidance range. The primary driver of this performance was the softness and companion animal, which represented just over 100 basis point drag on our comparable store sales. To further break down comp sales performance, average ticket increased 1.6%, driven primarily by a higher average unit retail, reflecting a combination of inflation and category mix. Retail price inflation was the primary driver to the average ticket increase at approximately 150 basis points contribution, along with a category mix benefit, principally from big ticket sales growth. This was partially offset by a modest decline in units per transaction. The mid-single-digit growth in big-ticket categories was generally in line with our expectations. The growth in average ticket was partially offset by a 1% decline in transactions, reflecting customers' continued focus on value and prioritization of spending, as Hal mentioned earlier, leading to reduced shopping frequency and trip consolidation. As expected, ticket outpaced transactions in the quarter. Turning to gross margin in SG&A. Gross margin was 36.2%, flat to prior year. The gross margin rate was generally in line with our expectations and reflects supply chain efficiencies and continued execution of our everyday low-price strategy, offset by a higher mix of digital and other delivery-related sales, along with the continued pressure of tariff costs. This stability reflects the team's continued focus and cost management in a dynamic environment. And on tariffs, the impacts remained in line with our expectations, with pressure largely contained and mitigated through our ongoing cost management efforts. SG&A increased 6.1% to $1.07 billion, and as a percent of sales was 29.7%, an increase of 70 basis points. There were three primary drivers of the deleverage. First, fixed cost de-leverage given the level of comparable store sales below our 2% breakeven threshold. Second, continued investment in strategic initiatives across the business as we do not begin to cycle the step up in investments for direct sales and final mile until Q2. And third, an accelerated new store opening cadence with 40 stores opened in the quarter. These were partially offset by ongoing productivity initiatives and cost management. As we shared last quarter, we expected Q1 to carry a heavier SG&A burden, and that played out in line with our expectations. Our inventory remains in good shape, with the average inventory per store increase principally reflecting inflation, inclusive of tariff costs, and the timing of spring seasonal purchases. We continue to manage inventory effectively, supporting in-stock levels in key categories while maintaining overall quality and balance across the network. We also remain committed to returning capital to shareholders. Our dividend increase in February marked our 17th consecutive year of dividend increases. Turning to our outlook, we are reaffirming our full year 2026 guidance as outlined in this morning's earnings release. We continue to target comp sales growth in the range of 1% to 3% for each of the remaining quarters. Please keep in mind that we manage the business on the halves and not the quarter. From a margin standpoint, we expect gross margin to strengthen in the second half as comparisons ease and benefits from our new distribution center begin to flow through. S&AD leverage will be higher in the first half, driven by the timing of new store openings, more normalized incentive compensation, and the lapping of prior strategic investments. Our 11th distribution center remains on schedule, with shipping expected to begin in early Q4, and we expect approximately $10 million of incremental expense this year, primarily in the second half. Consistent with our outlook as we entered the year, we expect stronger EPS growth in Q2 and Q4, given the prior year's compares. On tariffs, the current environment remains fluid. We are managing the business based on what we know today and have not assumed any incremental benefit from refunds in our outlook. In closing, the quarter reflects a resilient business with consistent performance across the majority of our categories. We remain confident in our ability to deliver on our full-year expectations and drive long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Seth.

Thanks, Kurt, and good morning, everyone. Tractor Supply's merchandising strategy is focused on meeting customers where they are today while positioning the business for where demand is going. We are taking deliberate actions to drive relevance, expand our reach, and strengthen our position as the dependable supplier for life out here. I'll start with our pet business, where we have a focused, structured plan to accelerate performance and capture growth, then followed by key merchandising initiatives across the broader portfolio. As Hal mentioned, the category is evolving. With macro trends in dog ownership, growth in cat, and a continued shift toward premium, fresh, and more digitally enabled solutions. While our assortment has historically been well aligned to our core customer, particularly in dry kibble and larger dog formats, incremental growth is increasingly being driven by adjacent segments as we actively expand our presence. To address this, our plan is centered on four key areas. First, assortment transformation. Second, exclusive brand innovation. Third, digital capabilities. And fourth, customer engagement, all supported by continued investment in talent and category leadership. Starting with assortment, we are expanding into the fastest growing segments of the category. We are aggressively scaling fresh and frozen pet, moving from approximately 80 stores today to more than 250 stores by the end of May, with a path to 700 stores by year end. While still early, we are encouraged that approximately one-third of customers purchasing Fresh Pet in our pilots are either new or reactivated to the category at TSC, demonstrating the traffic driving potential of this segment. In parallel, we are expanding our presence in CAT, increasing space across our Fusion stores, expanding both dry and wet assortments, and improving presentation to better capture the opportunity in this rapidly growing segment. In Dog, a comprehensive chain-wide upgrade of our food business in Q2 extends into key adjacencies, such as shreds, treats, and meal enhancers, while introducing new brands like Stella and Chewy, and broadening the assortment of leading national and differentiated brands like Prina ProPlan, Hill Science Diet, Victor, and SportsMix. We are also incorporating more localized assortment decisions to ensure relevance by market and customer. A second key pillar is accelerating innovation across our exclusive brands. 4Health remains a cornerstone of our strategy with strong scale and continued share gains. We're expanding the brand across multiple formats, including the launch of new 4Health shreds formulas and extending into higher growth segments such as Ambient Fresh and Mill Enhancers with differentiated offerings. In addition, the Retriever portfolio will be relaunched in Q3 with enhanced formulations, expanded SKUs, and updated packaging, further strengthening our value proposition across good, better, and best tiers. Moving to our third pillar, we are accelerating our digital capabilities to better serve pet customers and capture reoccurring demand. Our online pet business grew mid-teens in Q1, led by subscription, which grew by triple digits, driving new customer acquisition, strong retention, and increasing repeat purchase behavior in core consumables. In addition, we've expanded our PetRx offerings across both AllyVet and TractorSupply.com, while leveraging our last mile delivery network to improve the fulfillment experience and lower cost, particularly for large format pet food. fourth customer engagement is a key priority with enhanced engagement through neighbors club and continued leverage of our pet services ecosystem to drive higher frequency and lifetime value through neighbors club we have the opportunity to deliver more personalized experiences reactivate customers and acquire new customers through targeted outreach we also see a meaningful opportunity to convert our large animal customers into pet customers leveraging our highly engaged base. Our services offerings continue to play an important role. In PetWash, we have more than 1,200 locations with strong growth in usage, including double-digit increases in comparable units. This reflects the value customers are placing on this offering. In PetVet Mobile Clinics, performance remains solid, with sales growth building on strong prior year trends with a two-year stack of nearly 25%. We see continued opportunity to expand access and scale this offering with additional clinics planned in the near term these services help us drive frequency attract new customers and strengthen long-term relationships reinforcing our competitive position in the pet category we expect to continue expanding these capabilities over time in supporting all these efforts we are investing in talent leadership across the pet category ensuring we have the right expertise focus and execution capabilities to drive sustained improvement. All these actions in Companion Animal are designed to accelerate performance and position the pet business for improved growth and share gains. Importantly, beyond pet, we're very excited about our broader portfolio, which continues to perform with strength and building momentum. We are leaning into our seasonal moments, particularly as we transition into spring and summer. Chick Days is off to an encouraging start with strong engagement from both new and existing customers, and we are on track to sell a record number of birds this This event continues to serve as a powerful traffic driver and a key entry point into our broader animal care ecosystem, driving demand across feed, coops, and accessories. In our seasonal and big ticket categories, performance is exceeding expectations, led by live goods and our zero-turn mower lineup. This lineup, featuring brands such as Bad Boy, Cub Cadet, Toro, and Husqvarna, is performing well and our new flagship stores are driving improved presentation attachment and overall productivity our stores are ready for the spring planting season as we have nearly 50 of our stores with either a garden center or a live goods tent we're well positioned for the season with the right assortment the right presentation and the right momentum to capture the seasonal opportunity moving to livestock feed we recently completed a comprehensive private label network review to ensure consistent quality at the lowest cost to serve, strengthening both our retail and our direct sales capabilities within one of our most important heritage categories. We're also expanding our assortment with key regional brands, such as Total Equine, Blue Bonnet, and Buckeye, allowing us to better localize our offering and meet customer needs across different geographies. We also continue to invest in our exclusive brand portfolio, a key differentiator for tractor supply. A great example of this is Field & Stream, where our new product introductions are performing well. The brand is on track to hit over $100 million in sales this year, joining the ranks of 13 other exclusive brands at this sales milestone. We're excited about the continued launch of new programs across our wildlife and recreation department, where the Field & Stream brand is helping anchor this strategy. Our in-store conversions of our dedicated wildlife and rec department are off and running, and we are pleased with the early results. As such, we are increasing our outlook from around 500 to approximately 700 store conversions by year end. Together, all these initiatives are designed to drive near-term performance and strengthen our long-term position, ensuring that we continue to meet our customers where they are and support the way they live and work. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Hal.

Thanks, Seth. Stepping back, what you're hearing is a clear and focused approach. the fundamentals of our business remain strong with consistent customer engagement and continued strength across our needs-based categories at the same time we're operating with discipline in a dynamic cost environment and taking decisive actions to improve performance to companion animal and accelerate growth across our strategic initiatives we're moving with urgency in areas where we see opportunity as part of our life out here 2030 strategy we're making meaningful progress and building capabilities to support long-term growth. We're strengthening what we do best while continuing to scale new initiatives that expand how we serve our customers and grow our share of wallet. As we look ahead, we expect to build momentum through the year, supported by these actions and continued execution across the business. With that, we'll open the line for your questions.

Thank you. We will now begin our question and answer session. We ask that all participants limit themselves to one question and return to the queue for any additional questions if you would like to ask a question please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad if for any reason you would like to remove that question please press star followed by two again to ask a question press star one as a reminder if you're using a speaker phone please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question we will pause here briefly to compile our roster our first question comes from the line of peter keith with piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Okay, thanks. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I think I'm just going to kick it off with companion animal since that was a focus here. Is that category getting worse? I guess we could talk about the trend through the quarter and you've got a bunch of initiatives to help stabilize it. Do you think those are starting to kick in now or could things get worse before they get better.

Yeah, hey, Peter, it's Hal, and thanks for joining the call this morning, and I appreciate your question. You know, on PET, first off, I'd say a few things. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, and Seth did as well, we view our share performance in PET to be stable, and it's been in that kind of stable run rate, really, for the last four or five quarters albeit it's below our expectations uh the overall structure dynamics in the industry continue to be under pressure as both seth and i articulated and then we also have some additional pressures given the mix and the structure in the industry given our weight on uh towards dog and also our weight outside of the fresh and frozen but as seth mentioned we're taking actions on both of those dimensions expanding our assortment and cat uh and then also aggressively getting into the fresh and frozen frozen market uh more broadly on on and so i'd say our our comp trends uh have been stable for really the better part of uh six seven uh uh months now in that category uh and as we roll into q2 are stable in that in that range and then also our share performance stable as we look As we look forward, while PET is a kind of headwind in the moment for us, a couple of things I'd just comment. First off, you know, I'd really first off articulate that we have a kind of broad portfolio inside of the business that we play against. You know, whether it's Q, seasonal, big ticket, and certainly is our digital business, as we mentioned, exceeded expectations in Q1. So we do see multiple offsets throughout the balance of the year. The other thing I just want to highlight is that PET over-indexes in Q1 by nearly five points relative to the average through the balance of the year, and it under-indexes in Q2 before kind of moderating in the back half. So there is a kind of mixed impact that we had in Q1 on that as well. But the guidance, and we reiterated guidance today, our plan and forecast assumes that we'll have continued pressure for some time in that category, and then we'll kind of see gradual improvement as those initiatives take hold. But again, a portfolio of categories that we play in, CES laid out a number of the actions we're taking in PET, but also a number of the actions we're taking more broadly. We're midway into Q2 now and feeling good about the sequential improvement we've seen in the business as the season ramps. Thanks so much, Peter. Thank you.

Thank you for your question. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Lasser with UBS. Michael, your line is now open. Good morning.

Good morning. Thank you so much for taking my question. It comes on the heels of your comments just now, Hal, which is how long do you think it will take to effectuate an improvement within the pet category? And if we assume that tractor supply, the updated algorithm may be more like 2% to 3% comp growth rather than the expected range of 3% to 5%, what does that do to the earnings outlook for the business over the longer run? Thank you very much.

Hey, Michael, and good to hear from you, and thanks for joining the call today. um on the how long of the improvement as that as i mentioned earlier our plan for the balance of this year assumes continued pressure in that category as i mentioned we see a number of offsets and a variety of ways that you know will continue to operate in the context of our full year guidance you know we are very much operating in that the middle of our got full year guidance range here uh you know kind of almost four weeks into q2 so feel good about our trends so far into Q2, you know, remind that no less than two quarters ago, we delivered a 4% comp and our seasonal ramp and execution are building momentum. And so certainly we, you know, we have actions and plans around PET, but, you know, the performance, I think, will be both dictated by our actions, but also how the overall market continues to evolve. You know, there was 96 million dogs in the market in 2023 that dropped down to about 94 million in 2024 uh and then i think you know most folks thought it would kind of stabilize around there and then in 2025 you had a couple million more more dogs of decline going down to approximately 92 so you know that will dictate uh some of the performance that will dictate equally the performance as well as our actions as we look forward to the the balance of the year and then you know as it relates to our our our overall growth algorithm. You know, we're certainly not addressing that today, but I just say our business is need-based. We do not see this as a structurally lower growth business. You know, right now our customers are, they're playing the macro, they're stable, they're performing. We continue to have strong share gains in farm and ranch and our customers are shopping to their need now. And we certainly don't see it as a structurally low growth business. We just see our business and customer shopping as they need right now. And, you know, it's certainly a little bit more of a tepid, you know, consumer environment in the moment.

Thank you.

Thank you for your question. Our next question comes from the line of Peter Benedict with Baird. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, guys. This is Zach back on for Peter. Thanks for taking our question. Maybe one on the macro kind of in two parts. Hal, I know you mentioned seeing consumers kind of use those tax refunds more cautiously. Just curious, any changes in behavior from your core customer? Maybe observe since the start of the Iran conflict about six or seven weeks ago. And then secondly, just on oil prices, can you give us a sense of what level of oil prices are embedded in guidance? Maybe what is the sensitivity around this? And how should we think about the impact on margins if oil would stay kind of in that higher range of around 100 bucks a barrel?

Thanks, guys. yeah hey zach and uh thanks for joining our call this morning you know i'll hit i'll hit both of those those topics uh first on the macro you know i'd start by a little bit building off of the answer that i just had with michael our our customer remains very stable they're focused on needs-based spending in the moment we have continued strength in queue uh more broadly across the business in our essential categories i'd highlight our our high value customers as remaining very engaged and retained. I think you're hearing that, you know, broadly across retail. Our active customer accounts are growing, albeit there's a modest reduction in their frequency and also in their basket at this time. And I think that really just reflects a focus on value and not really demand deterioration when you look at the, you know, the underlying fundamentals there.

So we feel good about our customer.

You know, as I said, they're shopping to need uh they're engaged uh and we're retaining them uh and as the as the you know their their spending habits improve we expect our comps to to uh moderate as well um on oil our current forecast their guidance we've updated our internal numbers to reflect you know kind of the latest outlook on on on fuel pricing uh and so kind of i would say you know we're very conservative on that front in terms of having the higher fuel costs kind of forecasted, certainly for the foreseeable future in the business Q2 and into Q3. And then we'll update more so as we get into the back half of the year. But we certainly have been cautious and conservative, and that's incorporated overall guidance, which we reiterated today and feel very comfortable in our ability to manage gross margin in that context.

Thank you for your question, Peter. Our next question comes from the line of Kate McShane with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking our question. We wanted to specifically ask about new customer acquisition remaining softer and that it's being mainly driven by new stores.

Could you maybe double click on that a little bit more and then just kind of in the same vein, what kind of comp performance are you seeing in the localized stores, which you highlighted is about 200 stores at this point, and can you remind us for the rollout of this initiative yeah hey kate and uh thanks for the question today on new customers as we mentioned on the in their prepared remarks our new customer growth is really right now predominantly relying on on new stores not uncommon in retail but certainly we would like to be driving new store new customer growth in our existing stores as well uh but and in our existing stores right now it's mostly active customers that we're retaining uh you know and driving uh the business with um more broadly if we uh step back well the second part of the question was on that's right localization sorry if we if we step back more broadly on on localization i'd start really more with our store base so we're about 60 of our stores now are in the fusion format um you know about 400 to 500 of those are new stores that have been built in the last five years. Those stores, as you can see in our new store performance curves, are having outstanding comp results. Then you look at the balance of the remaining of our 60% of our stores that are in the Fusion format. Those stores are performing at or above the comp average. Certainly the ones that we've done the localization treatment on in the last year to year and a half are now at 200 stores of localization are outperforming the rest of the Fusion store base. And then you take the remaining 40% of stores that are not in Fusion and not new stores. And those are the ones that are underperforming relative to our overall comp base. So not uncommon in what you see in a store base where you're kind of older stores that have not been remodeled are kind of dragging the comp. Your Fusion remodel stores are slightly above the overall comp and helping pull it up with the localization, meaning they're outperforming, as we've talked about, by that low to mid-single digit comp run rate. And then you get the balance of that performance coming from our new stores. So feeling great about our Fusion format, feeling very good about the benefits of localization. And obviously, our focus over the next few years is continuing to move about 175 to 200 stores a year into the Fusion format and continue to drive that improvement in our store base.

Thank you for your question, Kate. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Horvors with J.P. Morgan. Chris, your line is now open.

Thanks. Good morning, everybody. So I want to follow up on companion pet to make sure I got the math right. You talked about the category being 100 base point headwind to comps in the first quarter. That would suggest it was down three, and that's been a consistent trend over the past six, seven months. I guess more fundamentally, how do you think about the headwinds in the category between sort of like structural versus a mix sort of headwind related to what you're assorting and, you know, on the dog cat side and versus like online penetration? So think about, you know, Amazon pushing deeper into rural markets versus not assorting fresh. And then on the cat side, appreciate that you're expanding an effort to focus more on cat.

Do you think your core customer simply under indexes to the cat category and over indexes to the large dog? and sort of so you know perhaps the effort around cat faces some just inherent headwinds relative to who your customer is thanks so much yeah hey chris and just just to reiterate maybe some of the points we've made made earlier so we're about 80 percent dog uh 20 cat versus the market that's 60 40. uh we've always talked about our our customers owns about 75 of our customers own a dog over 50 of our customers own a cat uh um and over 50 of our customers own more than one dog uh so we have heavy population count pet population counts in our in our customer base um you know as we expand into cat and we've been doing that now for about six eight months we started talking with you all about that mid middle of last year we are seeing performance improvement in the stores that we that we expand our cat in uh and as we roll out uh more fresh uh um and kind of air dried and nutrition heavy nutritional products on the dog side we're seeing improved performance in that as well we have no reason to believe that as we expand cat moving forward that we won't uh continue to to drive performance there to your point it's a very competitive industry You see grocery channels starting to pick back up. Certainly, you see pet specialty trying to recover share, although they continue to lose share at a pretty decent clip. And as you said, you see the balance of the share shifting into online. But the category overall right now is kind of flat to negative in total growth. and certainly that's the case when you exclude the services piece of it uh grooming and uh uh and the vet element of uh of the pet category thank you for your question chris our next question comes from the line of spencer heinous with wolf research since your line is now open great thanks for the question just on new store growth um i'm curious what you're seeing from the cannibalization effect have you seen any step up in that and that driving any of this office here and how are you thinking me about that longer term and then just one more on companion animal you gave us some interesting

stats on the dog population do you embed that continuing to decline as we look out here or do you expect that to stabilize spencer this is kurt uh i'll take the first question on new stores and cannibalization i'll flip it over to seth on your follow-up question on dog population our new stores are performing really strong. You heard that in Hal's prepared remarks. We continue to see even when we opened up 40 stores this year, averaging over 100 in the last four quarters, that the new store productivity is performing at the high end of that range of 65 to 70%. Part of that, by the way, I'll just follow up on the earlier question. Localization is also helping the new stores come out the gates strong as we ensure we're offering the right best product assortment in those new markets and those new stores. Now, in regards to your question on cannibalization, cannibalization continues to be modest. In many cases, we look at some of that to be healthy cannibalization as we put a second store in a market that's really strong. We look at and review and approve our new stores based on the IRR and incremental benefit net of cannibalization. And our cannibalization level is pretty consistent with the last few years. And we measure our performance on our stores as to the net increment to comp sales net of any level of cannibalization. And we continue to just have a modest and manageable level of cannibalization indicating our new store growth is still in a very healthy position. Seth, maybe turning it over to you on the follow-up question on dog.

Yeah, just on the follow-up question on the dog, you know, just in general, would you say that we're not currently assuming really any changes in the trend at this point? Obviously, it's macro-based a little bit, but obviously we're staying very close to where those trends are going. But more importantly, it's more about the actions we're taking to make sure that we can make sure that we're not only like remaining and keeping our share, but returning to share growth and that does go back to again our assortment transformation initiatives our exclusive brand growth our digital acceleration and all the things that we're doing to work through our customer engagement whether that be through pet services rx neighbors club etc you know we've continued to evolve with this category over time and we're very confident in what we've been piloting and we believe that as these continue to roll out a little bit later here in q2 and into q3 and start to build all these initiatives to scale that at that point we'll start to see some kind of incremental and sequential improvement as we close the year

and kind of move into next year thank you for your questions spencer our next question comes from the line of simon gutman with morgan stanley your line is now open morning morning everyone It's Simeon.

How are you? Hey, back to companion animal. Are you willing to share what level of comp growth you're targeting? Should it be within the middle of this year's comp range or is it in the long-term range or is it above the range? Curious what you're targeting. If you're willing to share how far off you are, I know someone offered a level of which you might be growing or shrinking at this point. And then any more on what's gotten better thus far in Q2?

Is it that mix effect on the total business is it some outdoor categories can you share some of those details thank you hey simian it's kurt uh i can offer up some color on your question regards to uh the expectation on companion animal and our guidance and then you know how we see that playing out i'll i'll go back to q1 and we made commentary in in our q4 call on the guidance that on our one to three comp some of the stronger categories and some of the weaker categories we said companion animal being under pressure in general at that time would lag the chain average and so for the year we expected flat and you know slightly positive comps in companion animal uh to the point that we made that 100 basis point pressure on the quarter definitely showed that we were running a negative comp in there we anticipate that to be additionally pressured um throughout this year. So companion animal going forward, we believe there's ability to see growth in that performance as the year progresses and our actions take hold. But we anticipate that companion animal will be under some modest pressure and likely to be at a flat or slight negative comp throughout this year. And that's embedded in our expectation for the rest of this year. And part of our consideration when we say that we still believe we can run the future quarters within our guidance range of one to three percent.

Hey, Simeon, this is the second question on Q2 and whether some improvements. Just to recall some of the commentary we had on Q1 as well, four of our five merchandise categories were positive. And as Hal mentioned as well, mix in Q1 is much heavier part of that mix. And it is as we go into Q2. With that, we are very encouraged with the strength that we're seeing right now in our seasonal business. Mentioned earlier around live goods is performing very strong. Our big ticket categories in seasonal, like with our zero turn lineup assortment continues to perform. And also like digital continues to be incredibly strong as well. So we're leaning into the categories of strength. You know, we talked about our wildlife and recreation area, some of our men's and women's apparel that we continue to evolve are doing well and obviously as well things like our traditional businesses like in ag sprayers and chemicals our core areas are well continuing to perform as we go into q2 and our we see those really being in that range and give us confidence in that one to three range for comp guidance thank you thank you the next question comes from chuck grom with gordon haskett research advisors you may proceed hey good morning thanks a lot um question for for seth and maybe

rob too can we zoom in on neighbors club garden centers and direct mile and maybe double click on the opportunities on each of these fronts and then my thoughts for kurt can you remind us any mixed implications as you lean into the cat cat sorry the cat category more and should we be mindful of um any investment in price that you may want to take across the pet business to stimulate demand hey chuck do you want to kind of narrow down maybe that first part of the question and just said that we get it because it was kind of mixed in there yeah just just maybe just you know zoom in on neighbors club garden centers and indirect mile just just a little bit of an update on each of those fronts and then just on the margin side for kurt uh any mixed implications

from the expansion into cat that we should be mindful of hey thanks chuck um i'll hit real quickly neighbors club garden center pricing and then i'm going to turn it over to colin to talk about about final mile uh neighbors club continues to perform very well uh we you know have not been disclosing as of recent our neighbors club membership i think it continues to grow at about the same paces as it has the last uh handful of quarters uh so uh really straightforward there retention remains strong uh spend per member remains strong as we commented several times our active customer base remains uh uh very uh core and engaged in our in our business uh on Garden centers, our garden centers are performing very well. Seth highlighted Live Goods as a off to an excellent start for us this year. We are over a thousand stores now collectively with garden centers and or Live Good tents and both both concepts performing very well. And then on pricing, really nothing of that I would call out from a mixed difference between cat and dog. You know, the margin structures are reasonably comparable in the food side of things, reasonably comparable on the snack side of things. So as we make assortment shifts there, it's very manageable within the department. I'm going to shift it over to Colin now to talk about Final Mile, which is having had a great first quarter and really is kind of one of the core underlying levers that's driving that, you know, 20% plus digital growth in the first quarter and continuing here into the second quarter.

Thanks, Hal. And Chuck, good to hear from you. As Hal mentioned, our Final Mile program is exceeding our expectations. programs really resonating with our customers as they're choosing to have more of their needs delivered, especially for those larger order quantities. And we're lowering the cost per delivery across the entire portfolio as we roll out this program. Reminder, two big unlocks for final mile. First is enabling demand, whether that's for direct sales or digital. And then the second is that more efficient and lower cost per delivery. We saw it in the volume in Q1, delivery volume was up double digits compared to last year. And I think what's really unique about what we're doing is how we're orchestrating our inventory upstream so we're making choices about how we deploy inventory whether it flows through a dc to a store or resource that delivery through the store and then the partners we're using to get that product from the store out to the customer's property for those small and medium type items we're using a series of trusted delivery partners where we really want to get our team members delivering is in those large extra large and huge kind of deliveries and it's amazing we'll go put a final mile delivery hub in and all of a sudden we'll see 250 uh bags of of shavings get ordered 75 16 foot fence panels just these big orders that nobody else can deliver at scale nationally like we can and some we've never been able to do and our customers are really responding to it last year we stood up about 200 final mile hubs this year we're on plan to open up 176 more and those hubs are trending ahead on our utilization our expectations so really pleased we know we have a lot of work to do still as we build out this program but all signs point to this being a massive enabler for for us digitally and on direct sales thank you for your question chuck our next question comes from the line of Seth Sigmund with Barclays.

Seth, your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, everyone. I wanted to ask about pricing. So inflation was 150 basis points in Q1. I think that's actually down from where it was in the fourth quarter. Did you guys actually lower prices or is that just a mixed dynamic this quarter versus last quarter? And then can you also speak to elasticity, the experience that you've had to date? And then just finally on pricing, you know, a lot of the inflation has been tariff related up until this point. What is your view on commodity related inflation? How does that play out from here? Thanks so much.

Hey, Seth, this is Seth. Thanks for the question. Hey, you know, as always, you know, when you think about pricing, you know, we've got a very experienced team. We've got all the tools in place that for years that we've been able to really have a good grasp on the costs that are coming at us and flowing through the system, as well as being able to monitor, kind of call it the competitive index in our categories out there to ensure that we are priced right in the market. Our strategy on that has not changed. EDLP is our true north. We're going to make sure that we are competitive and in a position to drive share. Relative to the current environment, I'll tell you though, like there's a lot of dynamics that obviously are flowing through, you know, whether that be to your point around some of the IEPA tariffs and how that a little bit had put some pressure on the inflationary environment. But obviously now we're shifting and flowing into some other potential cost pressures relative to fuel, oil, some other inputs, et cetera. And we're just monitoring those closely. I mean, there's a lot of uncertainty as we look ahead. But as of right now, we're in a position to continue to operate within kind of our guided range and the expectation of that inflation, call it in that kind of one to two percent.

And a lot of that would come from price relative to some of the cost pressures that had been there and there's no change to that kind of expectation at that time thank you for your question set our next question comes from the line of scott cicerelli with truest your line is now open uh good morning guys scotch acorelli um i believe pet is about 25 percent of total sales and it's also your highest frequency segment so assuming those statements are both correct contractors comp transactions turn positive if PET stays negative, just given the frequency related to that category? And then secondly, just a clarification, was overall Q above or below company average?

Hey, Scott. This is Kurt. A couple of clarifications on that. PET is a traffic driver in some cases. It is a add-on in other cases. To just kind of set the expectation on or at least give clarification on the biggest frequency in traffic driver. It's really the large animal. It's the feed category that is the by far the biggest traffic driver. So just clarification on that. And then to your point on companion animal and the mix, as it was mentioned earlier, Q1 being a smaller sales quarter, that's really more the routine. It over indexes in feed and pet food in those and lesser in other quarters. And so while it being not the primary traffic driver, and while it's still a solid business for us with a lot of our strategic initiatives, in Q2, with it being a heavy seasonal type category, and as a reference point, you see this in our disclosures, companion animals roughly like 21% in Q2 versus 27, 28% in Q1. We've got the right drivers. And as Hal mentioned, a majority of our categories are solid in performing. A majority of the markets are performing well. So I wouldn't over-index. We're not over-indexing. We're managing to the haves. We believe the customer is still engaged. And to your question, we can comp positive and expect to be able to target that in future quarters, even if there's some softness and headwind in the pet companion animal category.

Thank you for your question. Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Forbes with Guggenheim. Your line is now open.

Good morning, everyone. Hal, maybe a two-part question on companion animal trends to hit this topic again. The first is, I'd be curious just to hear you speak to how you think rural migration, household formation existing housing uh turnover trends have impacted the outlook for pet as a whole you know as you see it today and then secondarily as you think about your member base if you comment you commented that 50 of members have a dog and cat so i'm curious you can just maybe help explain to the group here what you're seeing as it pertains to you know wallet share of movement across those key customer cohorts where you maybe don't serve them to the level you need to be serving them, you know, how long does it take to onboard them post-localization? Like, what gives you really the conviction that you can pull them back?

Yeah, hey, Stephen, appreciate the question. On rural migration, I'd say two things there. One, certainly the, you know, post-COVID, so since 2020, when you look at mobility stats, there's been a, you know, a strong reversal of trends kind of versus pre-COVID. So kind of pre-COVID, you saw urban mobility increasing at the expense of ex-urban, rural, and even to some degree suburban. You know, post-COVID, you've seen the exact opposite with urban exodus. I would say through 21, 22, and 23, that was the exodus was much stronger in ex-urban. I think now you're seeing it more balanced between suburban and ex-urban but you're still seeing mobility out of urban markets uh uh into suburban ex-urban and rural i'd also just add that when we look at our store base uh you know versus those sorts of geographic cuts the more rural the store the stronger the stronger the comp is uh so a little insight there on our on our overall customer trends on our on our member base um uh you know i'd say that not what we see with them on their on their pet uh purchases is is very much a natural just ongoing uh um evolution of the structure that's out there right now you're seeing pet pet populations decline on dog you're seeing pet populations modestly increase on cat and you're seeing that play out in our in our business So more broadly, like if you look at dog food, we were up somewhere in the mid to high single basis points of comp share gain in Q1. If you look at cat, similarly, we were up mid to high single basis points in share gain in that category in the quarter. But because of mix, because we have such a much lower share in cat versus dog, our overall share and overall food between dog and cat was flat. So share is stable. Actually, when you look at it by species, modestly growing. Now, what we're doing, we were growing at about 20 basis points of overall share gain collectively across those categories back in 23 and in 22. So that's the actions that we're taking now to kind of step back into that overall share gain. But to be very clear, we are gaining share in dog food by itself, in cat food by itself. But when it mixes, it mixes to a flat share on food in total.

Thanks, Stephen, for the question. Victoria, I think we've got time for one more question.

I think we've got time for one more question. Our next question comes from the line of Chuck Chiarosky with North Coast Research. Your line is now open.

Your line is now open.

Good morning, everybody. You mentioned that weather was neutral for the quarter, but we had some very distinct national weather trends. For example, lack of snow and warm in the Rockies and cold and snowy in the Northeast. How is that set up for the second quarter as we move into spring? And what might it do to your salesman?

Yeah. Appreciate the question. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, Q1 really unfolded in phases. and as we exited in March, you had an anomaly where you had kind of a cooler-ish north going and you had kind of a south warming up. As we mentioned, we saw strong spring sales in the south as we were exiting Q1, but kind of not yet the demand kicking in in the north as we knew would happen. Now, as we've turned into April and kind of gotten past Easter and the lapping of Easter last year you now see the north with the weather having improved really kicking in the south is is holding and you know we're in the midst of that seasonal ramp right now as Seth commented we've seen strength in almost all of our garden businesses and all the related garden businesses so whether it's things like agriculture ag fencing even some of the hard lines that are out in the agriculture space certainly things like sprayers and chemicals lawn and garden tools live goods riding lawnmowers, which is a critically important business for us right now, is having an excellent year to date. So, you know, we feel really good about our business as we've turned the corner here into Q2, kind of three and a half weeks in. As we mentioned, the business is running very much solidly in the range of our overall comp guidance for the year. And that's our expectation for the quarter as well. Thanks so much, Chuck, for the question.

So, Victoria, that will wrap our call today. We will plan to release our earnings tentatively on Thursday, July the 23rd for our second quarter earnings. So please join us then. If you need anything, please don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you very much.

Thank you. That will conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.