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Industries included in the sector are automotive retail, general merchandisers, internet retail, and specialty retail.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Retailing

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500-2021-435-Williams-Sonoma

The publicly traded consumer retail company sells kitchenware and home furnishings in more than 600 brick-and-mortar stores. It also successfully pivoted to ecommerce during the worst of 2020's pandemic lockdowns, which helped it grow revenue by 15% year-over-year; Williams-Sonoma climbed 64 spots on this year's list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-486-Williams-Sonoma

This speciality retailer sells products for the home through brands including Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm.

As we face unprecedented collective challenges, cooperation has become a business superpower.

25.CTW20.Williams-Sonoma

This furniture and housewares chain closed all 600-plus stores as the pandemic surged this spring. But unlike most of its retail peers, Williams-Sonoma paid staff for the duration of the store closures, and eschewed furloughs. The decision didn’t blunt its momentum: Williams-Sonoma recorded near-record profits in its most recent quarter, helped in part by store veterans who pivoted to e-commerce roles.

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This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

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Specialty retailer Williams-Sonoma sells cooking, dining, and home products from kitchenware to furniture to home decor. Founded in 1956, the company now includes its namesake brand, Williams Sonoma, but its largest is Pottery Barn. It also runs West Elm, Pottery Barn Kids, and Pottery Barn Teen.

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Williams-Sonoma (WSM): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Williams-Sonoma

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Welcome to the Williams Sonoma Inc. First Quarter Fiscal twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the conclusion of the prepared remarks. I would now like to turn the call over to Jeremy Brooks, Chief Accounting Officer and Head of Investor Relations.

Good morning and thank you for joining our first quarter earnings call. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that during this call, we will make forward looking statements with respect to future events and financial performance, including annual guidance for fiscal twenty twenty five and our long term outlook. We believe these statements reflect our best estimates. However, we cannot make any assurances these statements will materialize and actual results may differ significantly from our expectations. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any of these statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after today's call.

Additionally, we will refer to certain non GAAP financial measures. These measures should not be considered replacements for and should be read together with our GAAP results. Also, with respect to year over year comparisons for the first quarter, we will make reference to our Q1 results last year both with and without a benefit of $49,000,000 related to an out of period adjustment we recorded last year. We believe providing these disclosures is useful to understanding our quarterly financial results. This call should also be considered in conjunction with our filings with the SEC.

Finally, a replay of this call will be available on our Investor Relations website. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Laura Albert, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Jeremy. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. I'm excited to talk to you this morning about our first quarter. Before we get into our results, I want to take a minute to recognize our team for their contributions. Their passion, dedication and talent continue to drive our results.

We are proud to deliver strong results in the first quarter of twenty twenty five, driven by a positive top line comp and continued strength in our profitability. In Q1, our comp came in above expectations at positive 3.4% with all brands running positive comps and we exceeded profitability estimates with an operating margin of 16.8% and earnings per share of $1.85 with earnings growth of 8.8%. In the quarter, we saw an acceleration of the positive comp trend coming out of Q4 despite consumer distraction with tariffs, continued geopolitical uncertainty and no material improvement in housing market. And we continue to outperform the industry, which declined 3% in Q1. Our growing outperformance was driven by an improvement in furniture sales, effective collaborations and strong performance in our retail and e commerce channels.

As we continue into 2025, we are confident that we have laid the foundation for growth and profitability. Even though there are significant macro and geopolitical uncertainties, we are focused on our three key priorities: returning to growth, elevating our world class customer service, and driving earnings. Now let's review our strategies to continue our positive momentum from Q1 and deliver growth during the remainder of this year and beyond. First, we remain confident in delivering core brand growth supported by a strong pipeline of newness and compelling innovation. Our ability to differentiate through in house design and a vertically integrated sourcing model continues to be a key advantage, enabling us to offer high quality products at exceptional value.

We recognize that the housing market and therefore the furniture industry may remain soft this year as interest rates are still high. Therefore, our growth strategy emphasizes a broad and inspirational non furniture assortment, including seasonal and decorative accessories, textiles and housewares. Also strategic collaborations are another critical part of our plan. These collaborations continue to expand new customer growth and drive sales. And most importantly, they drive relevance and excitement for our brands and customers.

Our B2B program is also a key growth engine. B2B started the year strong growing 8%, delivering another record breaking quarter. Leveraging our design experience and commercial grade product assortment, we've built a strong and growing client base across multiple industries. Our B2B offering remains a powerful differentiator and we are seeing continued momentum. We're also seeing positive traction and strong comps in our emerging brands, Rejuvenation, Mark and Graham and Greenrow.

With our proven ability to incubate and scale brands in house, we're confident in the continued growth of these concepts and their ability to deliver profitably to our results. Alongside these growth drivers, we're focused on elevating every customer touch point in our channel experiences. One area of continued investment is our next generation of design services. We've introduced new tools, both online and in stores to help customers visualize and plan their spaces. We're also making meaningful progress in integrating AI across our digital platforms.

From personalized emails to tailored home pages, we are enhancing the customer journey with smart data driven experiences. We believe AI will be a transformational force in our business and we will be a leader in the use of AI in our industry. In our retail stores, momentum continues. Our strong Q4 retail comps continued into Q1 and were driven by an improved in store experience with more inventory availability, fresh product assortments, enhanced design services and engaging events. Our omni channel capabilities are another core strength and we are further optimizing them with AI.

This includes improvements in sales performance, cost efficiency and delivery speed. Looking ahead to the balance of the year, we are focused on delivering exceptional customer service with perfect orders that are on time, damage free from start to finish. Our operational metrics are surpassing pre pandemic levels and we are working to optimize these metrics even further. That includes reducing split shipments, lowering returns and damages, and streamlining our fulfillment processes. From a cost perspective, we are committed to staying lean on headcount using AI tools to drive productivity gains in areas that make sense.

And in marketing, our in house teams are finding ways to maximize ROI and deliver a strong impact with less investment. In summary, there is no doubt that existing macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties are a focal point for the market, but volatility is not new in our industry and we are confident in our ability to adapt and navigate whatever lies ahead. Therefore, we are optimistic about 2025. We are planning to gain market share, enhance the customer experience and deliver strong earnings. Our commitment to our three key priorities remains unwavering.

take a moment to walk through our current assumptions. We are reiterating the same outlook that we shared with you last quarter. Our guidance reflects that which we know today and we are not assuming any significant upside or downside from broader macroeconomic factors. As we said last quarter, our guidance incorporates our current initiatives and the existing tariff environment, which includes the tariffs that we discussed in March and now the additional China tariff at 30% and the global reciprocal tariff at 10%. It does not assume any other tariffs.

If there are material changes in future tariffs, we will revisit our guidance. For fiscal twenty twenty five, we continue to guide comp brand revenue growth of flat to positive 3% and operating margin in the range of 17.4% to 17.8%. As it relates to tariffs, we have been actively and aggressively managing through these additional costs with our six point plan, which includes several key actions. First, we are successfully obtaining cost concessions from our strong vendor community. This includes reductions on current product pricing, but also reductions in price on the newness that we are bringing in and developing in the future.

Second, we are actively resourcing goods to lower tariff countries, including further reductions from China. Third, we are identifying further supply chain efficiencies in our network. Fourth, we are reducing SG and A expense through tight cost control and financial discipline. Fifth, we are expanding our Made in The USA assortment, production and partnerships. And lastly, we are carefully taking select price increases on products to offer strong value with a focus on maintaining competitive pricing.

We believe the six point plan will allow us to absorb the additional tariffs since we last spoke and yet still reiterate our annual guidance today. Now let's review our brands. Pottery Barn ran a positive two comp in Q1. And on a five year basis, the brand ran a 46.7% comp. Pottery Barn continues to increase innovation in their product lines and to launch more collaborations.

The brand launched four strategic collaborations in the quarter with partnership with Kravitz, Love Shack Fancy, Monique Lillier and Marc Sykes. We continue to strengthen our proprietary designs with a focus on new and innovative furniture and easy decorating entertaining updates for the home. The Pottery Barn continues to see outside strength in seasonal offerings and we are pleased with the Easter and Valentine's Day results that the brand delivered. We believe we are well positioned for the balance of 2025 due to increased newness, exciting brand collaborations, focus on seasonal decorating and entertaining and strong design services. Now I'd like to talk to you about our Putterbury and Children's business, which ran a 3.8% comp in Q1, representing the fifth straight quarter of positive comps.

And on a five year basis, Putterbury and Kids and Teen together ran 27.8% comp. These life stage businesses continue to show resilience in a tough macro environment. Newness and product introductions from baby to dorm was a key lever in the quarter and drove most of the growth. Customers are responding to newsworthy introductions from our latest collection of modern baby to our best ever Easter baskets and decor and our expanded offering in dorm. Collaborations continue to be an area of growth, and we are pleased to have expanded our collection with Erin Lauder across the kids and teen brands.

Additionally, our Love Shack Fancy collections continue to gain popularity with new styles in nursery and dorm. Innovation for us is more than product. It is in the channel experience too. We have revamped tools that help inspire baby registry online and have increased our Take It Home Today products in our stores. We've also expanded in store and online offerings and services for dorm, including pickup near campus at over four fifty participating Williams Sonoma Inc.

Stores along with a first of its kind concierge service for dorm deliveries. We're encouraged by the customer response to our product and service innovations and have a robust pipeline ahead to fuel continued growth. Now let's review West Elm. The brand ran positive 0.2% in Q1 with a five year comp of 44%. We continue to make progress against the brand's four key pillars product, brand heat, channel excellence and operational efficiencies.

The West Elm brand continues to focus on its non furniture categories as a percent to the total assortment, positive comps in lighting, bath, kids and textiles. The brand continues to see success in new product introductions across all categories with both spring and summer newness driving double digit positive comp to last year. And in March, West Elm launched a very exciting collaboration with award winning designers, Pearson Ward, featuring 165 pieces across furniture, textiles, and decorative accessories. The co design line received widespread acclaim earning top tier press coverage, including an editorial feature in our digest and articles in leading publications such as Vogue, Domino, Better Homes and Garden, and New York Magazine. The line is on track to be one of West Elm's most commercially successful collaborations to date.

Now let's review the Williams Sonoma brand. We're thrilled to report another strong quarter for the brand, which ran a positive 7.3% comp. On a five year basis, the brand ran a 36.9% comp. Our customers at Williams Sonoma continue to respond well to products that are both highly functional and aesthetically pleasing. We're excited to see that our curation and our creation of these items is working.

We saw particular strength in the cookware, entertaining and housewares department, which outperformed. The electric category benefited from the launch of Breville Brass, an exclusive line of kitchen countertop appliances that combine Breville's cutting edge technology with bold brass colored trim and accents. The category also saw success with the launch of KitchenAid's new Butter Yellow Stand Mixer, another Williams Sonoma exclusive. Our in house product design teams developed the new Williams Sonoma Thermoclad Copper Pro Cookware collection,

This best in class high performance cookware combines the heat conduction and control of copper with the durability and easy care of stainless, quickly becoming a best seller. Also, our stores hosted several successful book events for celebrities and celebrity chefs like Alton Brown, Morimoto and Michael Simons. We look forward to continuing to invite our customers to meet their culinary heroes at our retail locations across the country throughout the rest of the year. We're also making progress in our Williams Sonoma home brand. We continued our refresh and integration of our furniture assortment into our Williams Sonoma stores.

Also, we have increased the offer of in house design textile, printed bedding, novelty pillows and occasional furniture pieces. Also, the brand benefited from an expansion of our popular collaboration with Aaron Lauder. We continue to believe we have an opportunity with Williams Sonoma Home to disrupt the high end furniture market. Now I'd like to update you on B2B. We continue to gain momentum in the hospitality space, including an impressive roster of Q1 projects with St.

Regis, Hendrie, Aubert, Sheraton, Hilton, Tapestry, Hyatt House, Weston, Spring Hill Suites and Element Brands. In addition to the wins in the hospitality space, the team is focused on expanding our book of business, including wins in the education space with Tulane University, sports and entertainment with Gaylord Opryland Waterpark and Live Nation, and a wide range of restaurant projects coast to coast, including Bagatelle and Montauk to Regis Ova in Yountville. Now I'd like to update you on our emerging brands, which continue to drive strong growth and profitability. Our Rejuvenation brand continues to exceed our expectations with another quarter of double digit comp. Growth was fueled by continued strength in our core categories, cabinet hardware, lighting and bath, all supported by our commitment to design forward high quality products that meet the needs of home renovation and refresh projects.

At Rejuvenation, product innovation continues to drive results. In Q1, we introduced heritage brass, a new finish inspired by the warmth of naturally aged metal across lighting, hardware and bath generating a strong customer response. We also expanded into new categories including closet hardware and outdoor pillows, while vanities and seasonal textiles delivered double digit comps. As we look to the rest of 2025, we're confident in Rejuvenation's continued momentum and long term potential. At Mark and Graham, the brand is leaning into more frequent gifting occasions and milestones as a key strategy.

And the brand's two newest incremental businesses, Pet and Baby, have been very successful and are driving new customer acquisition. Turning to our newest brand, Green Row. The brand delivered strong growth in Q1 driven by demand for vintage inspired beautiful colorful products. This year, we're excited to watch Green Row continue to grow through new and innovative products and materials as well as some exciting partnerships. Last, I'd like to talk about our global business.

We continue to see strong growth across our strategic global markets. In Canada, we are driving growth through our compelling product offerings, complemented by our design and trade services. In Mexico, we are expanding our footprint with four new store openings this quarter, West Elm in Puerto Vallarta and Pottery Barn Kids in West Elm in MetaPack. We're also seeing continued growth across both existing retail and e commerce channels. Our U.

K. Business is gaining momentum, particularly in the trade segment, and we're excited to have announced the upcoming launch of the Pottery Barn brand this fall online. In summary, we are proud of our strong execution and outperformance in the first quarter. There's no doubt that uncertainty is top of mind for all of us, but we at Williams Sonoma Inc. Have been and will continue to be focused on our industry leading channel experiences and our cultivation of a strong portfolio of brands.

We are a house of innovation, fueling a product development machine that positions us as an industry leader with strong financial results. With our focus on our three key priorities, returning to growth, enhancing our world class customer service and driving earnings, we are set up well to continue executing in 2025. Before I hand it over to Jeff, I also want to take a minute to thank you again, our associates, but also to thank our vendors and our shareholders whose partnerships are very much appreciated. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jeff to walk you through the numbers and our outlook in more detail.

Thank you, Laura, and good morning, everyone. We are proud to have delivered Q1 results exceeding expectations on both the top and bottom lines. Our results reflect the three key priorities we outlined for 2025. First, returning to growth. Our top line accelerated to a positive 3.4% comp in Q1, driven by innovation and newness across our core brands, double digit comps in our emerging brands and strong growth in business to business.

Second, elevating our world class customer service. Our supply chain team yet again produced efficiencies and most importantly improved customer service. And third, our focus on driving earnings. We tightly managed SG and A to deliver strong operating margin and EPS growth. Our results this quarter demonstrate the flexibility, strength and durability of our operating model to drive market share gains and deliver highly profitable earnings in almost any environment.

Now, let's dive into the numbers. I'll start with our Q1 results and then touch on guidance for '25. Q1 net revenues finished at $1,730,000,000 at a positive 3.4% comp with all brands delivering positive comps in the quarter. Our revenue comps came in above the high end of our expectations, driven by positive comps in our Furniture business and continued strength in our non Furniture categories. With the home furnishings industry contracting approximately 3% in Q1, we gained market share even as we maintained our penetration of full price selling.

From a channel perspective, both the retail and e commerce channels delivered positive comps with retail up 6.2% comp and e commerce up 2.1% comp. As we move down the income statement to gross margin, I'd like to remind everyone that last year in the first quarter of fiscal year twenty twenty four, we recorded a $49,000,000 out of period adjustment related to prior year's freight accruals. This benefited margin results by approximately 300 basis points in Q1 twenty twenty four. Q1 '20 '20 five's gross margin of 44.3% was three sixty basis points lower than last year when including last year's 300 basis point out of period adjustment. Without last year's out of period adjustment, our gross margin was 60 basis points lower than last year.

There were three main drivers behind the 60 basis point decline: merchandise margins, supply chain efficiencies and occupancy. First, merchandise margins declined two twenty basis points due to higher year over year input costs, including higher ocean freight and tariff mitigation costs. Second, supply chain efficiencies delivered 120 basis points of savings in Q1. We continue to realize expense savings across manufacturing, warehousing and delivery from our focus on customer experience and efficiency. Key metrics, including returns, accommodations, damages, replacements and outbound shipping expense continued to improve year over year.

And third, occupancy costs were essentially flat year over year in dollars and leveraged 40 basis points from our revenue growth. Overall, our gross margin this quarter was in line with our expectations. Turning now to SG and A. Our Q1 SG and A ran at 27.5% of revenues, 130 basis points lower than last year as we kept a tight lid on expenses. Employment expense leveraged 60 basis points due to higher revenues and lower incentive compensation.

Q1 advertising expense was 60 basis points lower year over year. Our in house marketing team is finding ways to drive more with less spend and is delivering a strong impact while leveraging ad cost. Moving to the bottom line, we delivered earnings exceeding expectations. Including last year's 300 basis point out of period adjustment, Q1's operating margin of 16.8% came in two thirty basis points below last year with EPS of $1.85 0 point 1 4 dollars lower than last year. Without last year's out of period adjustment, Q1's '16 point '8 percent operating margin finished 70 basis points higher than last year with earnings per share of 8.8% year over year.

On the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with a cash balance of $1,000,000,000 with no outstanding debt. This was after we invested $58,000,000 in capital expenditures supporting our long term growth and returned $165,000,000 to our shareholders through share repurchases and quarterly dividends. Merchandise inventories stood at $1,300,000,000 up 10% to last year. Included in our inventory levels is a strategic pull forward of receipts to reduce the potential impact of higher tariffs in fiscal year twenty twenty five. Without this pull forward, our inventory levels would have been materially in line with revenue growth.

Summing up our Q1 results. We've once again delivered strong earnings for our shareholders. I'd like to thank our talented, dedicated and nimble team at Williams Sonoma Inc. For delivering these outstanding results in a remarkably uncertain environment. Now let's turn to our 2025 outlook.

First, some housekeeping. 2024 was a fifty three week year for William Snowman Inc. In fiscal year twenty twenty five, we will report comp on a fifty two week versus fifty two week comparable basis. All other year over year compares will be fifty two weeks versus fifty three weeks. The additional week contributed 150 basis points to revenue growth and 20 basis points to operating margin to full year 2024 results.

Additionally, in the first quarter of fiscal year twenty twenty four, we recorded a $49,000,000 out of period adjustment related to prior year's freight accruals. This benefited operating margin results by approximately 300 basis points in Q1 and 70 basis points for the full year. Our guidance for fiscal year twenty twenty five will use fiscal year twenty twenty four results without the out of period adjustment as a comparable basis. As we turn to guidance for fiscal year twenty twenty five, our message is the same as last quarter. The tariff policy and macroeconomic environment is uncertain.

Our focus is on what we can control, executing our three key priorities: returning to growth, elevating our world class customer service and driving earnings. We're confident in our growth strategies and we see opportunity to drive earnings from additional supply chain efficiencies and savings across SG and A. Our guidance assumes no meaningful changes in the macroeconomic environment or interest rates or housing turnover. As a result, we are reiterating our guidance for fiscal year twenty twenty five. We expect 2025 net revenue comps to be in the range of flat to positive 3%, with total net revenues in the range of down 1.5% to positive 1.5% due to the fifty third week impact from '24.

We anticipate operating margins will be between 17.417.8%, which is materially flat excluding the 20 basis points impact from the fifty third week in fiscal year twenty twenty four. Regarding tariffs, we are reiterating our guidance even with absorbing incremental costs from the existing tariff environment. These in costs include the new tariffs in China of 30% and the reciprocal tariffs of 10%, along with the tariffs we spoke about in March, including the 25% tariff on steel and aluminum and the 25% tariffs in Mexico and Canada. It does not assume any other tariffs. The strength of our operating model, combined with our six point tariff mitigation plan, enables us to maintain our guidance despite the addition of the reciprocal tariffs.

Our guidance reflects our best estimates of the tariff impact based upon the tariff outlook as of this call. The current tariff policy is uncertain and has been subject to multiple surprises and revisions. If tariff policy changes, we may need to revisit our guidance estimates. Turning now to capital allocation. Our plans for 2025 prioritize funding our business operations and investing in long term growth.

We expect to spend between $250,000,000 and $275,000,000 in capital expenditures in fiscal year twenty twenty five. This represents a decrease of approximately 10% from prior guidance as we keep a tight rein on all expenditures due to the tariff and macroeconomic uncertainty. We intend to invest 85% of this capital spend in our e commerce channel, retail optimization and supply chain efficiency. We remain committed to returning excess cash to our shareholders in the form of increased quarterly dividend payouts and ongoing share repurchases. For dividends, we will continue to pay our quarterly dividend of $0.56 per share, which is a 16% increase year over year.

We are proud to say that fiscal year twenty twenty five is the sixteenth consecutive year of increased dividend payouts. For share repurchases, we have $1,100,000,000 available under our share repurchase authorizations through which we will opportunistically repurchase our stock to deliver returns to our shareholders. Looking further into the future beyond 2025, we are reiterating our long term guidance of mid to high single digit revenue growth with operating margins in the mid to high teens. Wrapping up Laura's and my comments, we're proud to have delivered another quarter of strong results for our shareholders that exceeded expectations. While tariff policy has produced uncertainty, we are encouraged by the momentum we see in our business.

Our focus remains on our three key priorities: returning to growth, elevating our world class customer service and driving earnings. We are confident we will continue to outperform our peers and deliver shareholder growth for these five reasons that I've articulated before: our ability to gain market share in the fragmented home furnishings industry the strength of our in house proprietary design the competitive advantage of our digital first, but not digital only channel strategy, the ongoing strength of our growth initiatives and the resilience of our fortress balance sheet. With that, I'll open the call for questions.

Our first question comes from Brad Thomas from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning and congratulations on the strong quarter in a tough environment. I wanted to ask about merchandise margins, and I was hoping you could just address the decline from last year. And for one, just clarify that there has been no change in your high level promotional strategy, and then perhaps talk a little bit more about how you think about promotions and clearance going forward. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Brad. Yeah. Good morning. Yeah. Let's zoom out and let's talk about MMU, but really gross margin as a whole, and I'll do that, and then I'll turn it over to Laura to talk about pricing.

Our gross margin in Q1 was 60 basis points lower than last year, but it was in line with our expectations. Our MMU itself was lower from higher input costs, but it was largely offset by supply chain savings and occupancy leverage. Two things I'd like to point out regarding the merchandise margin this quarter. First, we continue to see a very high level of full price selling. Our promotional stance has not changed.

We do not do site wide promotions. In fact, our penetration of full price selling slightly increased in the quarter. Second, our input costs were higher year over year from higher ocean freight and tariff mitigation costs. On ocean freight, we did not see a quarter over quarter increase in those costs. Q1 costs were basically the same as Q4, but what we were up against was lapping a very low period in Q1 of twenty twenty four.

On tariff mitigation costs, when the reciprocal tariffs were announced on fourtwo, we took extremely aggressive action to get ahead of the tariff impact and those actions impacted us in the quarter. We will start to see the impact of our six point mitigation plan later this year. Offsetting this merchandise margin pressure were supply chain efficiencies and occupancy leverage. Supply chain efficiencies delivered 120 basis points of savings in Q1. We continue to realize expense savings across manufacturing, warehousing and delivery.

As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, key metrics including returns, accommodations, damages, replacements and outbound shipping expense continued to improve year over year. Occupancy costs of $198,000,000 were essentially flat and leveraged 40 basis points from our revenue growth. Here's the key point Brad. Our Q1 results are why we believe we will be able to withstand the margin pressure from the current tariff policy that's ahead of us, especially given that our six point tariff mitigation plan won't yield savings until future quarters. And it's why we are reiterating our guidance.

I think Jeff more than covered it. If you're waiting for me, thank you for answering the question, Jeff. What's the next question, please?

Our next question comes from Peter Benedict from Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey guys, good morning. Thank you for taking the question. I guess first question would just be on when you are taking price, obviously recognizing it's kind of the last resort here, but how are you what's the philosophy? Is it you try to cover and maintain kind of gross profit dollars on the item? Is there a view on gross margin rate?

Just kind of trying to understand the philosophy when you and how you're gonna deal with tariffs from a pricing perspective. That's my first question.

Yeah. I think as we think about pricing, it's it's not really only about tariffs. You know that over the last five years, we've had a really big change in the way we think about pricing, and we've substantially reduced the amount of promotional activity in our company, which has been important on a lot of levels both for margin, but also for the customer because they can count on the price being the same and not have to try to time their purchases based on different, you know, seasonal promotions. When we think about value value to the consumer, It isn't just about price. It's about design.

It's about quality. It's about the brand. It's about the service in that brand. And price is a factor, but it is not the only factor. And because of our our innovation machine, as you will, our design prowess, our vertically integrated structure, we are able to bring unique and exclusive market products to market that no one else has.

And we also are able to get better pricing from our vendors because we're going direct. We don't have an agent. We go direct to our vendors, and we buy usually in larger quantities than a lot of people, which also gives us a lot of opportunity. As we look at where we are today, it's no different than last year. We're always looking at our tire storms to see where we are actually too high in price and too low in price.

And we make adjustments item by item. We don't make large sweeping margin target adjustments. We don't price based on cost. We we price based on the environment. And what we're seeing today is we're seeing our newness, which has been a big strategy as you know, Peter, has been really selling.

And that product is coming in at margins that, you know, in most cases are really good. In some cases, there's more opportunity because we priced it too low and we're overselling. And so we've taken some very carefully selected price increases on those things. Now in addition to that, we still see an opportunity to improve our margins over time because we can improve our markdown margin. The the rate at which our markdowns are sold, the the margin rate where our clearance and promotions are sold can improve and a percent of that bucket to the total can also improve.

In other words, what I'm saying is even more right price business and even higher margin on the sale bucket. Really excited that we're going into this year very clean on seasonal inventory. So that's a really good thing as we head into this year.

Our next question comes from Max Ryklenko from TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks a lot and congrats on the next quarter. So can you just provide more color on how we should think about merch margins for the rest of the year? Should we assume that the two twenty basis point headwind was a high watermark and then it should ease as some of these tailwinds get going? Or is this the right run rate for us to consider ahead?

Yes. Good morning, Max. As you know, we do not guide the top we do not guide the specific lines. We guide the top and bottom line because it gives us flexibility to respond to changes in the business. And you've seen us know the levers to pull to deliver results.

We are reiterating our guidance for fiscal year twenty twenty five, which has operating margins materially flat on the full year, excluding the impact of the 50 week from last year. What we have said, and I said this on the last call, is with inside of this, we do believe that we will see some lower gross margin from headwinds from the tariffs, but that will be offset by SG and A. But here's the thing. We have a lot of levers to pull. We have a very effective tariff mitigation plan, and we feel confident in our ability to be able to offset the tariff impact as we execute that plan, which is why we are reiterating guidance today, including absorbing the incremental tariffs from the last time we gave guidance in March.

And that includes the 30% tariff on China and the 10% global reciprocal tariffs that now apply to almost every country across the globe. So given our Q1 results and how we were able to expand EBIT margins by 70 basis points, it's given us confidence in what we're seeing in the business that we believe we can maintain our guidance while absorbing these incremental tariff costs.

Our next question comes from Jonathan Matuszewski from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Great. Good morning. Nice quarter and thanks for taking my question. I was hoping if you could add some more context for how demand trended throughout the quarter. I think demand for some peers in the industry was down as much as double digits in April.

So curious how your exit rate looked and if you're willing to share any color in terms of how the first few weeks of May are shaping up? Thanks.

Yes, Jonathan. I think everyone knows we don't go into the puts and takes of how our comps what the comp cadence was across the quarter. What we will say is we saw really strong results across all our brands during the quarter. In fact, every brand positive comped. And a really important nugget is Furniture comped for the first time since Q4 twenty twenty two, so the first time in nine quarters.

And what we're seeing is our consumer is responding to our products, our assortments, our marketing and our strategies. And we are taking market share because of this positive consumer response. And there's a lot of headlines out there. There's a lot of uncertainty. But at Williamson, Inc, we're focused on what we can control, which is on executing our three key priorities, which is what is allowing us to deliver these excellent results and exceed expectations.

Those three key priorities are: number one, returning to growth, which you saw on the top line this quarter number two, elevating our world class customer service, which you saw through what we once again delivered supply chain efficiencies and three, driving earnings, which we can do by tightly managing SG and A.

Our next question comes from Cristina Fernandez from Telsey Advisory Group. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good morning and congratulations on the strong results. I wanted to see if you can talk about resourcing. So China was 23% of your goods last year. How are you thinking about reducing that exposures? I mean, is there any targets you have by year end or by next year?

Can you share what that product's going? And did you expect any changes to your assortment as a result of resourcing?

Yeah. Thanks, Christina. You know, we've been very focused on being proactive and responding to changes in the trade environment forever. And, you know, even before the tariffs, we'd already significantly reduced our time to source goods from 50 to 23% over the last few years. And, you know, since even then when we said that, we've made significant reductions.

I think, you know, there are some categories China does really well. And, you know, what is going to happen with the trade environment is yet to be seen. But what's good news for us is we have the flexibility now because we've resourced, double sourced, triple sourced many of our products to move depending on what is the long term, you know, what what the long term tariff environment becomes. So there's a lot of things that are, you know, still up in the air, think, for all of us to know. But yes, we've already reduced it from the 23 substantially and where it settles will depend on what other announcements are made.

Our next question comes from Seth Sigman from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning everyone. Thanks for taking the question. So I wanted to ask again about the inventory position up 10%. It sounds like some of that is strategic pulling some of the orders in early. Can you talk a little bit more about the complexion of that today?

And I guess more importantly, to what extent do you think that may be helping drive conversion and sales? Obviously, in stock can be pretty important to the consumer here given typical lag time. So just any color on that would be helpful.

Absolutely. Good morning, Seth. Yes, our inventory ended the quarter at $1,300,000,000 up 10% to last year. And as I mentioned in our prepared remarks, included in our inventory levels is a strategic pull forward of receipts to reduce the potential impact of higher tariffs in fiscal year twenty twenty five. To quantify that, it's about 60,000,000 to $70,000,000 that we pulled forward.

If you back up that out, our inventory levels would have been materially in line with revenue growth. And without divulging our playbook, we were very aggressive when we saw the impact of the tariffs, particularly after the reciprocal tariffs, and we gave our inventory teams the authority to go out and grab whatever they could, and that's both foreign goods and domestic goods. So what we could ship early from overseas that had already been produced, but maybe if we intended to flow later in the year, we brought in. And then domestically, where we could obtain goods, we aggressively pursued that. And we think that will give us a benefit later in the year as those goods are now on our books tariff free.

I think it's important to note, if you take a step back, even with this 10% increase, our inventory levels are only up 23% versus 2019, and our revenue growth is up 40% over that time. And I'll also point out to everyone that unlike the fashion brands, unlike apparel, unlike footwear, the majority of what we sell is core, not seasonal. So we don't have the same markdown risk as many other retailers. Now sales go down, we can pull some levers elsewhere. But we think by pulling this forward, it will really help us over the year help mitigate the tariffs.

It's almost Laura and I were debating, it's almost at the seven point to our tariff mitigation plan. So let me Yeah.

So just to Seth, you nailed it. Being in stock is really important to the consumer right now. People don't wanna wait. They don't have to wait. Our in stocks are great.

And even more importantly, our on time deliveries are great. So when you have the right inventory in the right place, you're able to reduce costs. It's all part of the supply chain excellence that we're driving through the p and l that you see in the in the margin line. It's part of because the inventory is in much better shape and is in the right places and we're able to deliver full orders. Customers are happy.

In fact, the on time numbers are at an all time high right now, which is wonderful. That's a customer metric. But customer metrics are the most important metrics to us. On time delivery is is a is a key part. And then as it relates to in store, we've been stocking more take at home today product in all of our brands, and it's driving substantial comp.

So we're very pleased with that initiative. We thought it would work. It's working even better than expected. And, you know, as we said earlier, at the same time, our regular price business is strong and our clearance inventory is low. So we're sitting in a good place from an inventory perspective as a summary.

Our next question comes from Simeon Gutman from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning guys. Good quarter. I guess I'll make it two parts. The first, the shape of the year with comps even before this quarter is three, four. Did you always did you expect it to improve throughout the year?

That's the first question. And the second, tariff mitigation costs, maybe paraphrase or try to interpret this, so you're paying higher today for product because of the tariff. Has that product sold? Or it's just capitalized cost that's affecting the cost of goods base and and therefore, you know, it actually doesn't get any worse from from here depending on where tariffs go, if you can just explain that? Thank you.

Williams-Sonoma (WSM) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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