With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

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. fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in 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. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our fourth 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 our annual guidance for fiscal 2026 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. 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 to Laura Alber, 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 today about our fourth quarter and our full-year 2025 results. In 2025, we delivered sustainable, profitable growth in a dynamic environment. This performance is a testament to strong consumer demand for our distinctive products and brands and our world-class team. In Q4, our comp came in at 3.2%. We drove an operating margin of 20.3% with earnings per share of $3.04. We delivered these results despite no material changes in the macro environment and continued unpredictability around geopolitics and tariffs. Normalizing for the 53rd week last year and the tariff impact this year, we delivered substantial operating margin improvements versus last year.

As we look forward to 2026 and beyond, we are confident in our competitive advantages that have allowed us to take market share, and our focus is on widening that advantage. Just a few things on Q4 before we spend more time on the year and our outlook for 2026. In Q4 of 2025, we saw strength and momentum across our strong portfolio of brands and in our channels. Our retail teams drove a 4.3% comp in the quarter, and there was a continued acceleration in our gift-giving brands. Both Williams Sonoma and our Pottery Barn Kids business outperformed, with Williams Sonoma driving a 7.2% comp and our children's business driving a 4% comp. West Elm continued to pick up the pace with a 4.8% comp.

Finally, our DTC channel was strong due to an improved customer experience, continued personalization, and incredible service. Thank you to our teams. They continue to define leadership in our industry across product, service, and disciplined execution. Turning to the full year, we outperformed the industry with a comp of 3.5%. We delivered an operating margin of 18.1%, and full-year earnings per share increased 1% to a record $8.84. We beat internal and external expectations on both the top and bottom lines, and in fact, we raised our guidance twice during the year. Before we get into the year, let's talk about tariffs. The tariff landscape was uncertain and unpredictable in 2025, and we expect it will remain that way in 2026. As we all know, policy can shift quickly.

As you saw in 2025, we have proven that we are resilient and capable of mitigation. As we look to 2026, we will continue to execute our mitigation strategies, which include vendor negotiations, resourcing where it makes sense, supply chain efficiencies, cost improvements, and select pricing actions. We will stay flexible and continue to adjust quickly as the tariff environment evolves. We entered 2025 with a focus on three key priorities. Returning to growth, elevating our world-class customer service, and driving earnings. Let me highlight the progress we made on each of these priorities in 2025. Starting with growth. We have been focused on building growth strategies across our portfolio of brands. In 2025, we drove positive top-line comps in all of our brands, and even as full price selling increased, we gained market share.

We focused on newness and innovation in product and brand development. We are not just competing on price. We are really competing on, and winning on, authority, aspiration, quality, design, exclusivity, and service. Collaborations were also an important part of our growth strategy in 2025. These partnerships drove relevance and excitement. They continue to bring in new customers while increasing engagement with our existing customers. B2B was another standout for the year. In 2025, B2B grew 10%. We continued to win because we paired design expertise with commercial-grade products and end-to-end service. That combination is a clear market differentiator in the B2B space. Our emerging brands also delivered strong performance in 2025 with double-digit comps all year. We've invested in the growth of our emerging brands with expansion in categories and new product development.

Our ability to incubate and develop brands in a portfolio approach is one of our long-term advantages. Our second priority for 2025 is customer service, and we are very proud of our progress. Our goal stayed simple, to deliver the perfect order on time and damage-free every time. Our supply chain team focused on operational excellence every day. They made industry-leading progress again on supply chain delivery and customer service metrics. Also, we are pleased with our improved customer handling by both our teams and our AI capabilities. That brings me to our third priority, driving earnings. Our profitability in 2025 reflected strong execution across the company. We maintained tight control on SG&A. We also stayed lean on employment with a focus on productivity. The implementation of AI helps by automating work and allowing our teams to do more with the same resources.

We also extended AI more deeply across our e-commerce and operations platforms. For example, we extended personalization, deepened product discovery and ranking, and increased the influence of data-driven recommendations. These enhancements are improving relevance, engagement, and monetization efficiency across our brands. AI is also embedded in friction reduction, from smarter product discovery to accelerated checkout experiences, supporting stronger conversion and a more intuitive shopping journey. Beyond digital e-commerce, AI and advanced analytics continue to improve forecasting, routing logic, and customer service workflows, driving operational efficiency across our supply chain and care operations. What differentiates Williams-Sonoma is how AI amplifies our proprietary data, vertical integration, and deep brand expertise. Because we control the full ecosystem, we can apply AI in tightly integrated and scalable ways. In summary, AI is delivering measurable impact today and strengthening our long-term competitive advantages.

Looking ahead, we are confident in our competitive advantages, and as I said earlier, we plan to further widen our moat. We have a powerful portfolio of brands, an in-house design team that drives exclusive product and newness, a vertically integrated sourcing and supply chain model, and leading omni-channel capabilities. Underpinning all of this is our experienced leadership team who knows how to execute. In 2026, our plan is centered on the same three priorities we laid out last year. We just changed the word Returning to Growth to Accelerating Growth. We're going to accelerate growth, deliver world-class customer service, and drive earnings. These priorities all relate to one another. Growth creates leverage in our operating model, and improved customer service drives loyal and satisfied customers. When the customer is happy, our costs go down, driving earnings. Let's start with growth.

We're focused on four areas, brand growth, product pipeline, brand heat, and channel experience. First, brand growth. In 2026, we're focused on comp growth throughout the company, specifically accelerating the Pottery Barn comp and building on the momentum of the West Elm comp. We expect Williams Sonoma to continue performing well, supported by premium quality, authority in the kitchen, and strong seasonal storytelling. We're planning for growth in the children's business with baby and dorm as highlights. Our emerging brands will contribute meaningfully, led by Rejuvenation. Finally, B2B remains a major opportunity for growth. Second, product pipeline. In 2026, our product pipeline will include an increased level of product newness. We will increase newness by offering new collections, finishes, and design details that are timely, on-trend, and unique.

We will expand into proven collections that are built around newness that performed well last year, adding SKUs to add sales. We will also lean into advantage growth categories that expand our reach and create new reasons for customers to shop with us. A great example is West Elm Office, our new collection of modern and flexible office furniture made with high-quality materials with endless configurations. We see other outsized opportunities for growth in dorm, baby, and certain Pottery Barn categories. At Williams Sonoma, we will continue to expand our successful branded and exclusive assortment. This strategy increases differentiation and supports value and margin. Third, brand heat. We'll continue to create excitement and buzz for our brands. First, collaborations will be a key driver, with all brands delivering double-digit sales growth in collabs.

Second, we will increase our social and influencer partnerships, and we will improve our storytelling across our websites, emails, and catalogs. Our fourth growth initiative is channel experience. We will continue to improve how customers discover and shop our brands, and we will build on the momentum we've seen in both DTC and retail. In DTC, our plan is to accelerate growth with elevated discovery, both on-site and externally. We will also drive DTC advantage categories, and we will continue to use AI to create more personalized shopping journeys that improve engagement and conversion. In retail, we will build on our momentum by expanding Take It Home Today, scaling Design Services 3.0, and investing in new stores, repositions, and relocations where the returns are compelling. Now turning to delivering world-class customer service.

We have always been a leader here and will continue to raise the bar as we keep pursuing the perfect order on time and damage-free every time. We believe we have continued opportunity from supply chain efficiencies across distribution centers, shipping costs, returns, replacements, and damages. AI is a key enabler here. Our AI service initiatives are expected to further reduce call center escalations and accommodations while also improving inventory in stocks and accuracy for customers. We are expanding AI tools to enhance supply chain intelligence, including better visibility into inventory and shipping. Finally, driving earnings. In addition to regular price testing, we will continue emphasizing full price selling and improving product margin by reducing markdown depth. We will also continue to drive sourcing efficiencies through vendor cost reductions, resourcing, and organizational productivity.

We will stay disciplined in controlling variable costs, including employment and ad spend, and we will drive AI-enabled efficiencies, including savings and engineering costs, care center payroll, and creative costs. Turning to our outlook for 2026, our assumptions reflect what we know today. We are not building into our assumptions a meaningful housing recovery. Allowing for all the uncertainties we know are out there and that we've discussed, we are guiding comp brand revenue growth of 2%-6% with a midpoint of 4%, and an operating margin in the range of 17.5%-18.1% with a midpoint of 17.8%. This outlook reflects our current initiatives and the tariff environment in place today. Now let's review our brands. Pottery Barn ran a -2.3% comp in Q4 after delivering positive comp in each of the first three quarters.

While Q4 was disappointing, Pottery Barn ran a positive 0.4% comp on the year, and Pottery Barn's two-year comp improved over the year. Different than other quarters, the percentage of our decorating assortment is larger in the fourth quarter, and that assortment relied heavily on last year's programs and sales did not meet our expectations. While furniture was better, it was not enough to offset the softness in non-furniture. A highlight was our retail performance, which was strong in Pottery Barn, with customers responding to our inspirational stores and the in-person shopping experience. DTC lagged retail, hence the lower comp. As we look at 2026, we are focused on driving stronger growth in Pottery Barn, and we are working as a team on quarter-by-quarter strategy and execution. Pottery Barn is refocusing on its heritage aesthetic and strengthening its product pipeline.

We are also optimizing the core assortment, rebuilding proprietary collections, and creating more brand heat through collaborations, influencers, storytelling, and store events. We are investing in both digital and retail with a focus on conversion and personalization. The good news is that we are seeing better comp performance quarter to date. Now I'd like to talk about our Pottery Barn Kids business, which delivered a strong fourth quarter, running a positive 4% comp. For the full year, Kids and Teens delivered a positive 4.4% comp with strength across both furniture and non-furniture. Collaborations and licensing remained key drivers, led by fashion favorite LoveShackFancy and the launch of the NHL collection. Innovation was strong and holiday gifting outperformed, driven by high-quality personalized gifts across life stages. As the largest specialty retailer of home furnishings for children, we see significant growth ahead.

Our pipeline of new product introductions and continued collaboration growth is strong. We are excited to launch Dormify in late April, which expands our reach in the college and dorm market and strengthens our position with the next generation of customers. Now let's talk about West Elm. West Elm ran a positive 4.8 comp in Q4, accelerating from Q3, and delivered a positive 2.9% comp for the full year. I'm proud to say that West Elm is officially on a roll. West Elm made improvements across products, brand heat, and channel excellence. New introductions in both furniture and non-furniture drove results, and the brand's mix shifted meaningfully towards new products. In Q4, the brand delivered positive comps across the board. Retail also performed well in West Elm.

When customers walked the stores, they saw more newness and better availability, and that showed up in the results. The strength in the brand and at retail gives us confidence to return to store count growth with five openings planned in 2026. Finally, collaborations have been a big part of the strategy at West Elm, and we could not be more excited than right now when we are launching our collaboration with Emma Chamberlain, a leading Gen Z voice known for authenticity and unique style. With over 14 million Instagram followers, her collaboration with West Elm marks her first venture into the home space. If you haven't seen it, be sure to check out the exciting personality-driven assortment, which launched yesterday. Now let's review the Williams Sonoma brand.

Williams-Sonoma finished 2025 strong with a positive 7.2% comp in Q4 and a positive 6.9% comp for the year. The Williams-Sonoma brand continued to outperform across the board. 2026 marks our 70th anniversary. At 70 years, this brand is not mature, it is gaining momentum. The core of our kitchen business is accelerating, and our pipeline of proprietary in-house design products and market exclusives continue to separate us from the competition. In Q4, our customers came to us for holiday gifting, cooking, and entertaining. Also, Williams-Sonoma benefited from a strong gift assortment with products that perform, design that is distinctive, and assortments that reflect both who our customer is and who they aspire to be. 2025 was our biggest year ever for in-store events at Sonoma.

We held skill series, classes on Sundays, and we hosted 120 celebrity chef and influencer book signings. Highlights from the events in Q4 included signings with Martha Stewart, Trisha Yearwood, and Wishbone Kitchen. We look forward to welcoming customers into our stores throughout 2026 with even more opportunities to learn, engage, and be inspired. Now I'd like to update you on B2B. B2B had another record-breaking quarter at 13.7%, anchored by our largest contract quarter in our history. Both contract and trade delivered double-digit growth, and corporate gifting had its best quarter ever. We saw strength in our core hospitality and residential designer businesses, and we gained momentum in emerging verticals like higher education, sports, and entertainment.

We also delivered several marquee projects, including the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, the Hilton Canopy New York City, the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, multiple locations for WeWork, and corporate gifting for several premier clients, including the New York Yankees. For the full year, B2B grew 10%, and we exited the year with a strong pipeline heading into 2026. We remain excited about B2B as a growth engine. Now I'd like to update you on our emerging brands, which continued to deliver strong growth and profitability. Rejuvenation had another quarter of double-digit comp growth, exceeding both our top-line and bottom-line expectations. Performance was driven by momentum in cabinet hardware, bath, and lighting, as customers remained highly engaged in project-driven purchases. Product innovation continued to build with high-quality, design-driven products, distinctive details, and customizable options.

With only 13 stores and great online growth, we are thrilled with the progress in Rejuvenation, and we continue to believe in the potential for Rejuvenation to be our next billion-dollar brand. Mark and Graham finished 2025 also with solid momentum, driven by a record-breaking holiday season and positive comps. We entered 2026 well-positioned with a focused pipeline of launches across key gifting occasions, reinforcing the brand's growth opportunity ahead. I can't forget our newest brand, GreenRow. We're thrilled that on March 6, GreenRow opened the brand's first store in Soho, New York. If you're in New York, I'd encourage you to stop by and see it in person. The store truly captures the entrepreneurial spirit that exists in our company that allows us to bring new concepts to life and scale them profitably.

We look forward to building the business of GreenRow in 2026 and beyond. Finally, I'd like to talk about our global business. We continue to see strong performance across our strategic global markets, including Canada, Mexico, and the U.K., through the differentiated product, omni-channel enhancements, and growth in our design and trade businesses. We're particularly encouraged by the customer response to the launch of Pottery Barn in the U.K. As we reflect on the year, oh, what a year it was. We had many highlights, and we had a lot of things coming our way that we didn't expect. However, at Williams-Sonoma, Inc., we delivered. We delivered a strong operating margin and record EPS. Our powerful portfolio of brands, strong channel execution, and growth strategies drove our results in 2025.

As we look to 2026, we are focused on accelerating this growth. We are focused on delivering world-class customer service, and we are focused on driving earnings. We are confident in our future growth strategy and our profit profile. Our company is competitively distinct with advantages that set us apart and a team that delivers. With that, I want to thank our teams again for their hard work and their commitment, and I also want to thank our vendors and our shareholders for their partnership and support. With that, we'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 another quarter of growth with strong earnings despite the headwinds from tariffs and anemic housing turnover. In fact, we've generated consistently strong earnings for several years, and now top-line growth for five consecutive quarters. That execution and momentum gives us confidence as we transition into fiscal year 2026. Our ability to perform quarter after quarter reflects Williams-Sonoma, Inc.'s competitive advantages in the home furnishings industry, including a powerful multi-brand portfolio spanning categories, aesthetics, and price points to meet customers where they are. Meaningful size and scale, enabling us to capture market share and capitalize on attractive white space opportunities. A differentiated multi-channel platform that serves customers seamlessly across e-commerce, stores, and business to business. A relentless focus on customer service, which drives efficiency and cost savings across our supply chain.

Finally, a proven operating model that consistently delivers highly profitable earnings. Now, let's turn to the numbers and see how our competitive advantages and strong execution produce results. I'll begin with our fourth quarter performance, then review our full year fiscal year 2025 results, and finish with our outlook for fiscal year 2026. As a reminder, fiscal year 2024 was a 53-week year for Williams-Sonoma, Inc. For Q4 fiscal year 2025, we are reporting comps on a comparable 13-week versus 13-week basis. All other quarter-over-quarter comparisons are 13 weeks versus 14 weeks. We estimate the additional week in Q4 fiscal year 2024 contributed 510 basis points to revenue growth and 60 basis points to operating margin. Q4 net revenues finished at $2.36 billion for a positive 3.2% comp.

Positive comps in both our furniture and non-furniture categories drove our results, with our furniture trends accelerating from Q3. With the industry declining in the quarter, we gained market share, even as we increased our penetration of full-price selling. From a channel perspective, both retail and e-commerce posted positive comps, with retail up 4.3% and e-commerce up 2.6%. Moving down the income statement, Q4 gross margin was 46.9%, down 40 basis points versus last year. The main driver of our lower gross margin was a 170 basis point decline in merchandise margins as the impact of higher tariffs flowed through our weighted average cost of goods sold. Occupancy costs contributed another 80 basis points to the deleverage, largely related to the 53rd week. Partially offsetting these headwinds were shrinks and supply chain efficiencies.

Shrink added 160 basis points due to favorable year-end physical inventory results. Supply chain efficiencies added an additional 50 basis points. Our relentless focus on customer service continued to produce margin benefits from reduced returns, accommodations, damages, replacements, and shipping expense. Continuing down the income statement, Q4 SG&A was 26.6% of revenues, up 80 basis points versus last year. The main driver of the 80 basis points deleverage was general expense, which was up 120 basis points from last year. This increase was due to our lapping of an indirect tax resolution and a favorable insurance settlement in last year's results. Employment and advertising expense leverage partially offset the impact from general expense. Employment expense leveraged 30 basis points, primarily due to lower variable labor costs across our distribution and customer care centers. Advertising expense was 10 basis points lower.

Our in-house marketing team optimized spend while driving a quarter-over-quarter acceleration in e-commerce comps. On the bottom line, Q4 operating margin was 20.3%, down 120 basis points versus last year. Diluted earnings per share were $3.04 per share. Turning now to our full-year fiscal year 2025 results. There are two items in fiscal year 2024 that I want to remind you about. First, in the first quarter of fiscal year 2024, we recorded a $49 million out of period adjustment related to freight accruals from prior years. This benefited fiscal year 2024 operating margin by approximately 70 basis points. Second, the fifty-third week in fiscal year 2024. For the full year, we are reporting comps on a comparable 52-week versus 52-week basis. All other year-over-year comparisons are 52 weeks versus 53 weeks.

We estimate the additional week in fiscal year 2024 contributed approximately 150 basis points to revenue growth and 20 basis points to operating margin on full-year results. Full year 2025 net revenues were $7.8 billion at a positive 3.5% comp. All brands posted positive comps for the full year, driven by growth across both our furniture and non-furniture categories. From a channel perspective, both channels contributed to the strength, with retail up 6.4% and e-commerce up 2.2%. E-commerce was more than 65% of total revenues for the year. Full year gross margin was 46.2%, a 30 basis point decline versus the prior year.

The decrease was primarily driven by the 70 basis point impact from the prior year audit period freight adjustment, a 40 basis point reduction in merchandise margins related to tariffs, and 20 basis points of occupancy deleverage. These pressures were partially offset by 50 basis points of supply chain efficiencies and 50 basis points of benefit from favorable shrink results. Full year SG&A expense increased 10 basis points to 28%. Advertising expense leveraged by 30 basis points, partially offset by deleverage in employment and general expense. Employment deleveraged by 20 basis points due to higher performance-based incentive compensation, while general expense deleveraged by 20 basis points as we lapped the prior year indirect tax resolution and the favorable insurance settlement mentioned previously. On the bottom line, full year operating margin finished at 18.1%, 50 basis points lower year-over-year.

Diluted earnings per share achieved a record $8.84, up 1% year-over-year. Turning to the balance sheet, we entered the quarter with over $1 billion in cash and no outstanding debt. Merchandise inventories were $1.5 billion, up 9.8% year-over-year. Included in year-end inventory is approximately $80 million of embedded incremental tariff costs. Excluding these tariff-related costs, inventories would have been in line with sales growth. Overall, we believe our ending inventory levels and composition are well positioned to support our fiscal year 2026 guidance. Turning to cash flow and capital expenditures, we generated over $1.3 billion in operating cash flow in fiscal year 2025.

We reinvested $259 million in capital expenditures to support our long-term growth and delivered an industry-leading 51.6% return on invested capital on that spend. This resulted in $1.1 billion of free cash flow, and we returned nearly $1.2 billion to shareholders in fiscal year 2025. That return included share repurchases of $854 million or 4% of shares outstanding at an average price of $174.70. Additionally, we delivered $316 million in dividends to our shareholders, reflecting a 13% year-over-year increase. Wrapping up my fiscal year 2025 remarks, we are proud to have delivered growth and strong earnings for our shareholders despite the headwinds from tariff policy and anemic housing turnover.

These results are a direct reflection of the exceptional talent and dedication of our team at Williams-Sonoma, Inc. I want to thank our team for their hard work and for delivering such strong performance. Now, let's turn to fiscal year 2026. The macroeconomic, geopolitical, and tariff environment remains uncertain. As we've demonstrated, we know how to navigate uncertainty and deliver consistently strong earnings. As we look ahead to fiscal year 2026, we see significant opportunity to not only deliver strong earnings, but more importantly, accelerate top-line growth. Our guidance assumes no meaningful changes in the macroeconomic environment or housing turnover, and does not include any benefit from the OB3 tax legislation. Our focus remains on what we can control, accelerating growth, delivering world-class customer service, and driving earnings.

We expect fiscal year 2026 net revenue comps to be in the range of 2%-6%, with total net revenue growth of 2.7%-6.7%. We expect operating margin to be in the range of 17.5%-18.1%. On the top line, our guidance reflects our confidence in our strategies. We remain focused on accelerating growth through our compelling product lineup, continued investment in collaborations, and disciplined execution across our growth initiatives, including Dormify, Rejuvenation, and B2B. If there are more favorable macro conditions, we see potential upside to that growth. On operating margin, our guidance reflects our best estimate of the tariff impact on fiscal year 2026 results based on three key assumptions.

First, it reflects our estimate of how tariffs already paid and those we expect to pay in fiscal year 2026 will flow through our weighted average cost of goods sold. As higher tariff costs are embedded in our inventory, we expect the impact on operating margin to be front-half weighted and then moderate over the balance of the year. Second, our guidance assumes that all tariff rates currently in effect remain in place for the balance of fiscal year 2026. This includes the Section 232 tariffs, the current Section 301 tariffs, and the Section 122 tariffs at the announced rate of 15%. While the Section 122 tariffs are currently set to expire in July, our guidance assumes they will be replaced with tariffs at a similar rate.

Third, our guidance does not contemplate any refund of IEEPA tariffs given the uncertainty around both timing and process. It's important to recognize that tariff policy has been volatile and subject to multiple revisions. Given the ongoing uncertainty, it's impossible to say where tariffs will ultimately land and difficult to determine what impact they will have on our business. Our guidance reflects our best estimates based upon the tariffs in place as of this call. As tariff policy changes, we may need to update our guidance. Turning now to capital allocation. Our fiscal year 2026 plans prioritize funding our business operations while continuing to invest in long-term growth. We expect to spend approximately $275 million in capital expenditures in fiscal year 2026. About 95% of that investment will be focused on strengthening our e-commerce capabilities, optimizing our retail fleet, and driving supply chain efficiency.

A key shift in the plan is a near doubling of capital investment in retail, reflecting the meaningful opportunity we see to accelerate growth through retail stores. Our stores are a competitive advantage, powerful brand billboards that drive profitable sales. Our free interior design services continue to differentiate us. More than half of retail sales involve a design appointment, helping drive the 6.4% retail comp we delivered in fiscal year 2025. We will remain disciplined, continuing to close underperforming stores that don't meet our profitability thresholds. In fact, since 2019, we've closed about 18% of our fleet. Starting in fiscal year 2026, we're investing to drive more retail growth in two ways. First, we'll continue repositioning stores from older malls into more vibrant lifestyle centers. We expect to complete 19 repositions in fiscal year 2026, more than we've done in any single prior year.

Second, we expect to open 20 new stores in fiscal year 2026, primarily across West Elm, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn Kids, Rejuvenation, and our first two GreenRow locations. These expected 20 store openings represent our most openings in a decade. Every project meets our strict profitability and return on investment criteria. We expect to end fiscal year 2026 with approximately the same store count as we ended fiscal year 2025 due to store closures. After fiscal year 2026, we anticipate store count growth in the years that follow of approximately 1%-3% per year. Embedded in our fiscal year 2026 guidance is approximately 70 basis points of non-comp growth from this real estate activity. Turning now to our commitment to returning excess cash to shareholders through a combination of increased dividends and ongoing share repurchases.

On dividends, today we announced that our board of directors authorized a 15% increase in our quarterly dividend to $0.76 per share. Fiscal year 2026 will mark our seventeenth consecutive year of dividend increases, an achievement we're proud of and remain committed to sustaining. On share repurchases, we have $1.3 billion remaining under our current authorizations, and we will continue to repurchase shares opportunistically as part of our disciplined approach to delivering shareholder returns. Looking beyond fiscal year 2026, we are reiterating our long-term outlook for mid- to high single-digit revenue growth and operating margins in the mid- to high teens. It's worth noting that the high end of our 2026 guidance falls within our long-term outlook. Wrapping up our comments, we are proud to have delivered strong results for our shareholders.

As we look ahead, we are focused on accelerating growth, delivering world-class customer service, and driving earnings. We're confident we'll continue to outperform our peers and deliver shareholder returns for these five reasons that remain consistent. 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 resiliency of our fortress balance sheet. Before we open the line for questions, I'd like to mention that our 2026 investor presentation has been released and is available on our investor relations website. I encourage everyone to have a look. With that, I'll open the call for questions.

Thank you, Jeff Howie. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you please limit your questions to one and one follow-up. Our first question will come from the line of Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Congrats on a great year. Laura, can you talk about the opportunities for store growth in 2026 and beyond, particularly as you incubate new concepts, especially Rejuvenation? Also, how are you thinking about expanding B2B over the next few years? Then Jeff, any hand-holding on margins and phasing throughout the year in addition to the tariff commentary?

Thanks, Jeff Howie. Good morning. Good morning.

Yeah, I've had plenty. Thank you. I love this sort of question because it's a big pivot for us. We, you know, have been talking about our optimization strategy at retail and focusing on, you know, more profitable stores and all the moves we've made, and we've been reducing our fleet. Now as we look forward, we don't see that as what our future holds. We see store growth. We actually this year is an inflection point, and we're gonna be net neutral at the end of the year. We have the most new store openings that we have had in how many years, Jeff? Three?

Even better than that. We're opening this year, 20 new stores, 18 repositions, net flat. When we see growth in West Elm, we have growth in Pottery Barn. We have embedded opportunity in Rejuvenation. We shall see about GreenRow. We opened our first store, like two weeks. We'll see how that works. We have another one on the docket that we'll open later this year.

You know, there's more kids stores open now. We're excited about that change in trend and how profitable our stores are and how good they look. It's a big deal for us in terms of our growth algorithm. The second question on B2B, you know, as you look at the macro and think about all the different opportunities, it is one that's continuing to be the outlier opportunity. We had great growth last year, as you saw, and you heard in our prepared remarks. I think it could even be better this year, frankly. You know, I love seeing the contracts, you know, outpace the trade because it's more repeat business. You know, the combination of all the things that we do together gives us a competitive advantage.

I just think we have the best sales team in retail selling our B2B. I'll hand it back to Jeff on margin. If you wanna make a comment on the other two, that's great too.

Well, I think, Laura, both Rejuvenation retail as well as B2B, they're all good examples of how we're really focused on accelerating growth. We see a meaningful opportunity to do so in fiscal year 2026 as we've guided. I think Laura touched on those high points. I'll say, Chuck, I'm impressed you got three questions in one. Diving right into the operating margin guidance for next year, we're guiding operating margins to be in the range of 17.5%-18.1%. Really, tariffs are the big story here. I think everyone knows that. There's three things to consider when we think about how tariffs are going to impact our operating margin in 2026. The first is the tariffs we've already paid that are embedded in our inventory costs.

Those will take a little while to flow through into our weighted average cost. The second thing to consider is the tariffs we're gonna pay at the newer rates that have been announced. Finally, it's just the uncertainty of the environment. There's really three key assumptions that we've shared about how all these tariffs are gonna flow through our operating margin. The first and most important thing to understand is it's not about a blended tariff rate. It's about how the tariffs flow through our weighted average cost of goods. That's, you know, really a function of the cost that we end of the year with that are embedded in our inventory.

As we said in our prepared remarks, we expect the impact on our operating margin will be front half weighted, heavily front half weighted, and then moderate over the balance of the year as we start to comp the impact of tariffs in last year. Second, our guidance assumes all tariff rates currently in effect remain in place for the balance of fiscal year 2026. Just to be clear, this includes the Section 232 tariffs, the current Section 301 tariffs, and Section 122 at what the administration has announced is 15%. While we know that Section 122 tariffs expire in July, our guidance assumes it will be replaced with tariffs at a similar rate when they expire.

The third piece, and I'll just say this, I think it's a given, but our guidance reflects our best estimates of the tariff impact based upon the tariff in place as of this call. As we all know, tariffs have been subject to multiple revisions, and it's impossible to say where tariffs will ultimately land and what impact it will have on our business. You know, taking a step back, I think what we would observe is, you know, in 2025, we demonstrated we could navigate the tariff uncertainty and deliver consistently strong earnings. We're guiding that we believe we can do so again in fiscal year 2026.

Our next question will come from the line of Peter Benedict with Baird. Please go ahead.

Oh, hey, guys. Thanks. Thanks for taking the question. I guess one question would just be around the pivot to retail growth. You mentioned Design Services 3.0. I was curious if you could maybe expand on that. What's changing? What's different there? That's my first question. Yeah, sure. You know, we've been really building our design services as a percent of total. We've told you how big that has been in Pottery Barn. The other brands have continued to have opportunity as a percent of total.

In addition to furnishing homes with the big pieces like furniture, we have been adding the second layer of accessories, and that was really 2.0 for us and all the accessories that go with, and then all the holidays that go with.

The biggest opportunity that we see in the future for design services is how we're gonna use AI and how we're gonna put it in the hands of our sales associates to better decorate their homes. There's so much that we're doing with content and design services and outward and the combination of all of it together with our people. I'll let Yasir, who's here, mention a few things about that.

Yeah. Thanks, Laura. It's just really exciting the progress that we're seeing on the AI front. You heard Laura talk earlier in the prepared remarks about our strategies, and we're only starting to see it accelerate. What's really exciting about what we're seeing with the evolution of AI and how customers are using it and how they're engaging with it is that it really starts to play to our strengths as a business. AI works well when you have category authority. AI works well when you have expertise.

As customers are using it to find where there is value, where there is quality, where there are designs that meet their goals, both off our sites, within these LLM engines, but also now on our site as we are building these AI tools to help guide them through product discovery, to guide them through interior design. You probably have seen what we've launched with Olive on the Williams Sonoma site as a culinary authority to help customers with real problems and connect the dots between inspiration, between guidance, and ultimately towards shopping. We're really excited about the progress we've made on the AI front, and we're really excited about what's yet to come.

Our next question will come from the line of Oliver Wintermantel with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks, and good morning. Could you maybe talk a little about quarter to date trends if you've seen any disruptions from the winter storms? We heard some other retailers said that there was a disruption. Laura, I think you said Pottery Barn is actually off to a good start quarter to date. Maybe some details on that, please.

Yeah. Good morning, Oli. Yes, of course, there's been some disruption from the winter, but, you know, it didn't really materially impact our results. You know, there's always some weather someplace that always impacts us in one way or another, particularly this time of year, but it's not a big factor. In terms of what we're seeing quarter to date, as you know, we don't provide a lot of quarter to date commentary. We're not seeing any big impacts from anything. You know, our consumer continues to be resilient. It's hard to say exactly where we're gonna be there. You know, Easter is ahead of us. There's another Easter shift this year. Everything that we know today is embedded in our guidance.

Our next question comes from the line of Kate McShane with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking our question. We wanted to ask about the real estate strategy, just in terms of the two strategies of moving to more vibrant locations and the opening of 20 new doors, just what it means for your occupancy costs in 2026, and will you be able to leverage a higher occupancy cost at that 4% comp at the midpoint?

Good morning, Kate. Good question. You know, I think, as you know, we don't guide individual lines like occupancy or even gross margin or SG&A. I think the story on retail is one really about growth, and we're seeing a meaningful opportunity to drive growth through our retail stores. Look, we delivered a 6.4% comp in retail in fiscal year 2025, and we did so very profitably. That's really because of what we talked about. You know, first, our design services are a competitive advantage, and our customers are telling us that they love it, and they're responding with opening up their pocketbooks. The second thing is the product we're delivering.

We have really added the newness that we've been talking about in the past several calls to those stores, and we've improved the inventory position in those stores, so they're really performing very well. The third part of why we're delivering such strong comps and why we're confident in investing in the future is just the performance. I mean, the performance is delivered, and it's really a function of the retail repositioning strategy that we've been through. Although this is a pivot, we're still gonna be very disciplined. We'll continue to close underperforming stores that don't meet our profitability thresholds. We do see a meaningful opportunity to expand from here.

Stores that we have repositioned from tired, older indoor malls to these more vibrant, high traffic lifestyle centers have all seen substantial top line comp improvements over their prior locations, as well as bottom line improvements from less occupancy at that individual location. That's why we're looking to do the most repositions this year that we've ever done. New stores. We're seeing meaningful opportunity there as well to go into white spaces in markets we're not in for certain stores. There's a big opportunity there for us to continue that in the years ahead. Overall, we don't think it'll have a major impact on our operating margin. It's embedded in our guidance that we've given today. It's really a story about growth.

As we mentioned, you know, we'll be flat at the end of this year in terms of store count. As we look beyond 2026, we're guiding that we will increase our store count by 1%-3% per year each year.

Our next question will come from the line of Cristina Fernandez with Telsey Advisory Group. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, and congratulations on a good quarter and finish to the year. I had two questions. The first one is on Pottery Barn. As you look at the fourth quarter performance, I guess how much of the disappointment was perhaps a lack of newness or the need to expand prices, and what changed in the first quarter to turn that from negative to positive? Then the second question is a follow-up on the tariff impact for the first half. Should we think about the fourth quarter pressure, the 170 basis points on the merchandise margin as a good

Guidepost for the first half, or could it be higher given the mix of sales in the first half versus the fourth quarter?

Great. Thank you. Same thing. Pottery Barn, as you know, is a very strong, profitable, loved brand. As I said in my prepared remarks, we are really happy to see their comps improving and in particular stabilization in the furniture trends. As you all know, Q4 has a higher percentage of decor in Pottery Barn substantially than other quarters. Let's remember that, you know, post-COVID and housing slump, we were focused on decorating, as a growth vehicle instead of furniture because people weren't buying much furniture. Probably over-rotated a bit, to be honest with you. It, you know, reached an all-time high and saw a little bit of a give back. We also, you know, in retrospect, we're self-critical.

We're always looking for room, places to improve, and we probably had too much reliance on bestsellers from last year, and we ordered it. As we go into the first quarter and into the year, obviously the complexion of the categories changes back to being more balanced and that's why I'm seeing the improvement, we believe.

All right. Now transitioning to your second question on what we should think about in terms of operating margin in 2026. As you know, Cristina, we don't guide the individual quarters, but I will help you with the shape of the year. The big factor in the first half of the year is going to be embedded tariff costs we've already paid. We're on weighted average cost accounting, so it takes a little while for that to work through with our operating margin. As we've guided, the impact will be heavily weighted to the front half and then slowly moderate across the back half as the impact starts to wear off and we start to comp tariffs we paid last year.

Our next question will come from the line of Jonathan Matuszewski with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Oh, great. Good morning and nice quarter. Laura, last quarter you remarked that there were pockets of your assortment that remained underpriced. How should we think about the magnitude of pricing that's embedded at the midpoint of 4% comps for the year? Thanks so much.

Well, I don't really think about it like that. I mean, I don't think about the midpoint of range with pricing. I will comment about pricing and then, Jeff, I don't know if you want to make a comment. On the pricing, you know, whether it's, you know, because of tariffs or just all the time, we are constantly looking for the best price value relationship and how to give our customers the winning combination that makes them buy from us. The best thing we can ever do is give them a design they can't resist at a fair price, right? They can count on us for quality. They know that they're going to get great service.

We've made such improvements with service, and we're also going to really help them put it together with everything else in their house, which is a big deal because a lot of the other players, especially the online players, it's one and done, and you're not decorating. You're just buying an item maybe for your garage. In terms of pricing, there are pockets always where, gosh, we put something out and it blows out, and we say, "Oh, it could have been a little higher," and, you know, think about that for next time, and make adjustments. There are some items in categories that are, we still think, undervalued. It's a very competitive landscape, so I don't really want to go through them all because I don't want to give that list of things to our competition to look at.

We do see some opportunity. You know, at the same time, you know, we look at the opposite too, which is, you know, where are we sitting overpriced? If we get cost concessions, should we drive more units, and take the price down slightly? It's a pricing testing mindset in the company, and we share it across brands and how pricing affects demand.

Yeah. I would just say, you know, Laura talked about, you know, when we think about pricing, it's category by category, SKU by SKU, really looking at each one of those categories, each SKU, and how is it compared to its competition. It's a little divorced from how we think about growth and how we think about our guidance. That, you know, from that standpoint, what we're really thinking about when we look at guidance is we're looking at our trends, and last year we delivered a 3.5% comp. In fact, if you look at our Q4 results, our two-year comp accelerated, which we see as a positive indicator. We look at the confidence we have and momentum we have with our growth strategies.

You know, things like our white space opportunities that you've heard us talk a lot about, which, you know, includes like things like West Elm Office, which we launched in January, things like Dormify, things like Baby. We have white space opportunities that are going to be additive to our results. We have emerging brands. You know, we talked a lot about Rejuvenation. This is a brand that's been double-digit comps for over two years, and that we just see continued opportunity to grow that. We think over the long term, that can be a billion-dollar brand. We touched on B2B. It just delivered another double-digit quarter. It was up 14% comp.

It had its largest quarter of contract volume to date, and we exited the quarter with a very, very strong book of business and leads going into fiscal year 2026. There's retail. We've talked a lot on the call about retail, that it delivered a 6.4% comp in 2025, and we see meaningful opportunity to expand that. When we think about our comp range and the midpoint of our comp guidance was at 4.0%, it's really about our strategies and how we think that we have momentum behind our business. The fact of the matter is we are taking market share in this industry, and we see an advantage to an ability to leverage our competitive advantages and take even more market share.

Our next question will come from the line of Max Rakhlenko with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks a lot. First, Laura, can you speak to the health of the consumer and their willingness to stomach tariffs in the category? Just what's your take on the industry's ability to maintain higher prices if tariff pressure does end up easing? Jeff, just quickly, any more color on the shrink benefit that you saw in the quarter. Should that continue into next year, and just how to think about that?

Great, Max. In terms of the consumer, I can only comment about what we're seeing. You know, I'm reading and hearing that other people are seeing very different things, and you can see a lot of stepped-up promos in the competition. A lot of, like, site wides with 20 off here and 20 off there. That's typically for a lot of the kind of smaller companies that are trying to be sold or that are they're trying to, you know, establish themselves. They're playing the stepped-up promo game. There's no sizable new entrants that we're seeing in the market. I can comment that our customers are responding to our aesthetic, our newness, our collabs. They love them. I don't know if you got a chance, Max, to look at what we did with Emma Chamberlain and West Elm.

That's the kind of thing that they are delighted by. I mean, she's got 14 million followers, so fun. She's such a great marketer, and the product's really, really easy to buy. That's how we're making the magic happen in our brand. It's stuff like that. Furniture is central to us. I said that. B2B is growing. You know, we're seeing nice response from our consumers, but with, you know, it's nothing to take for granted, right? Every quarter, every brand, we have strategies to improve the product line, to improve the mix, to improve our value equation, to improve our service, and to drive brand heat. That is a big part of who we are and why we continue to deliver.

You know, the second part of your question on shrink, you know, it's simple. After completing physical inventory and reconciling all the inventory accounts, we had minimal shrink. The thing is, you've been doing retail for a long time, you simply never know until you take physical inventory and reconcile everything. You know, we attribute the favorable shrink results for ongoing supply chain improvements. When you have fewer returns, you know, fewer damages, fewer replacements, less out-of-market shipping, you have, you know, better sight line inventory. We think that's finally coming through in terms of physical inventory results. In terms of what it means for 2026, it's not a material driver, and any impact of shrink is embedded in our guidance.

Our next question will come from the line of Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Nice quarter. Congratulations. A nice year. Congratulations.

I have two questions. I guess one's kinda short-term and then maybe a longer-term one. Jeff, on the short-term side, you know, going back to prepared comments, I mean, it seemed like there were a lot of. If you look at gross margin, you know, there were a lot of kind of one-off items here, in the fourth quarter. I guess the question I want to ask is, I mean, how should we think about as we look at that fourth quarter gross margin. Is there a way to frame kind of a what if it was unnormalized, you know, this year-over-year change? And then as we look into 2026, we recognize you don't give specific guidance, but how should we think about kind of the puts and takes on the gross margin side?

Yeah. Good morning, Brian. It goes back to what I've been saying on the call in the prepared remarks. When we think about the drivers of operating margin and, you know, it flows a little bit through the gross margin, it really comes down to how the tariffs are gonna impact us in 2026. Like I said, there's three pieces here. One are the higher tariff costs we've already paid that are sitting on our balance sheet that have to work their way through our weighted average cost. Then there's the tariffs that we're gonna pay in 2026. Then, you know, we do comp somehow later in the year. You know, I mean, as we head into Q3, Q4, we start to comp the tariffs.

When you put all that together, our guidance is that the impact of tariffs on operating margin will be heavily front half weighted and then moderate over the balance of the year, as we start to comp it and the impact of the embedded tariffs work their way through our weighted average cost.

Our final question will come from the line of Zach Fadem with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Williams-Sonoma (WSM) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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