Good morning!
Good morning.
Morning. Welcome to the 2023 Caleres Investor Day. I'm Logan Bonacorsi, Vice President of Investor Relations. Before we get started, please take a moment to read our safe harbor statement, as we will be discussing forward-looking statements. Additionally, we'll be providing and referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures. You can find additional information regarding these measures, as well as others in today's presentation, on the investor section of our website. We have a great lineup for you this morning. You'll hear from the leadership team on how we've transformed the earnings power of the organization, as well as detail our strategic growth plan, and of course, discuss our outlook for the next three years. Now I'd like to welcome to the stage, President and CEO, Jay Schmidt.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Logan, for that nice introduction, and, I'm so glad for all of you to join us today, both in person and virtually. So I'll start by saying, when I became CEO of Caleres in January 2023, I have to admit, I had a significant advantage. I grew up as a merchant in footwear, and I've touched about almost every part of the shoe business, and some of the team members in the audience might take issue with this. But from brand management, product creation, assortment planning, marketing, buying, store selling, it's a business I love, and I'm energized by the people, the process, and the passion involved in running a successful footwear company. And that's a very good thing, because I need that energy every day from everyone as I navigate the opportunities and challenges that we encounter.
Over the last 15 years at Caleres, I've worked side by side with a talented team of footwear experts, many who are in the room today, and new team members with new competencies that have joined us, and they're in the room today, to strengthen our portfolio of brands and accelerate our learning and our progress. Today, you will see a new Caleres, one that we have spent the last few years engineering and implementing. We are a brand and product-driven company with exceptional capabilities, and we are producing results that have set us on a fundamentally new and extremely positive course. Today, you will hear about our new vision and our strategies for the future. Before I get too far ahead of myself, I'd like to honor our long history and legacy, which many of you know.
But Caleres is 145 years old this year, and it has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange for 109 years. Our founder, George Brown, that handsome man with the mustache up there, was an entrepreneur and an innovator, and he is widely credited for creating the first pair of shoes built on a separate last for a left and a right foot. It's really incredible. With that spirit and a commitment to quality and fit, our company has always been about innovation, reinvention, and creating trust with the consumer. We're constantly thinking about how to make things better for her or him, and today you will hear more about how we do that and how it has guided our evolution and our success.
So when I stand back here and look at Caleres today, I have to say with great pride that we are a leading force in footwear. Our brands have deep meaning and purpose to consumers. We operate profitably in all channels and categories. Our competitive advantages and core competencies put us in a unique position to build brands, to deliver products that consumers want, and to drive value for our shareholders. With over $2.7 billion in revenue and producing an 8% operating margin, as expected this year, we hold over 6% market share in the U.S., and we drive over 70% of our business through our own retail and digital channels. So the last few years have positioned us exceptionally well for our next chapter.
Since 2019, we have transformed the company's performance by implementing a number of structural changes across our organization and building significant momentum in our lead brands, which include Sam Edelman, Allen Edmonds, Naturalizer, and Vionic. We did a lot over the last four years. We've taken significant action. We have elevated our entire portfolio. We closed over 100 Famous Footwear stores and approximately 150 Naturalizer stores. We exited four unprofitable brands, and we upgraded the brand portfolio's channel strategy to create more premium experiences for many of our brands. We have restructured the organization to align with the greatest opportunities for growth and returns, and these efforts have freed up capital to invest in areas that set us up to accelerate growth. We invested in our capabilities, including marketing, analytics, digital and omnichannel, consumer experience, design and innovation, and our supply chain...
of course, in the people that we needed to drive them. We've edited assortments, we've reduced inventory, and at the same time, we increased speed. We reduced debt, and we returned cash to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. The transformation is there, and it's been powerful, and it's paid off financially, resulting in a step change in the earnings power of our company, which is more than double the earnings per share that Caleres has generated just 4 years ago. These structural changes have resulted in a new baseline earnings of $4 per share. While I am enormously proud of our recent accomplishments, we have even more opportunity in our next chapter. Beginning with 2024, Caleres will return to growth by leveraging our competitive advantages to drive business expansion across our brands.
Our competitive advantages are threefold: We build powerful brands, we deliver innovative products across multiple categories of footwear, and we showcase our brands through compelling experiences across channels and geographies. We apply these competitive advantages to our powerful brand assets and employ our One Caleres capabilities to accelerate growth. Our One Caleres platform is built on a continuously strengthening foundation that supports and fuels us. Our platform works to create a virtuous circle of growth. So I like simple messages, so I'm gonna say this is one, two, three, four, okay? I have four messages to deliver today. First, we will accelerate growth in our brand portfolio segment, which will deliver an outsized contribution to the company's earnings. Second, we are executing strategies to fuel Famous Footwear's growth by strengthening its position with kids and the Millennial family, while maintaining strong profitability.
Third, in addition to our brand assets, our unique structure is an asset that provides scale and stability, and it allows us to leverage our capabilities synergistically. Fourth, our successful execution of these operational initiatives will deliver strong, long-term financial performance and generate value for our shareholders. Let's begin with the brand portfolio. We're now at an inflection point. During the first half of 2023, the brand portfolio delivered the majority of the operating profit. We expect the contribution from the brand portfolio will be about half of our operating profit full year 2023. We also expect the brand portfolio's revenue growth to lead revenue growth over the next three years, with the four lead brands growing 10% on average during that period.
By 2026, we see the brand portfolio generating about half of our company revenue and 60% of our operating profit. Within the brand portfolio, we have outsized expectations for our lead brands, and we are investing accordingly in their growth. These brands, Sam Edelman, Allen Edmonds, Naturalizer, and Vionic, have significant runway to gain market share and to grow across channels, product categories, and geographies. These four currently represent half of the brand portfolio and over a quarter of our total company revenue, with more growth to come. In addition to the lead brands, we have a number of other brands in the portfolio that reach unique customer segments while generating profit and cash flow. As active brand managers, we will continue to nurture and invest in these brands at an appropriate level relative to their size and growth profiles.
Each of our lead brands have been transformed and readied for accelerated growth, with clear strategies to optimize our ongoing investment. Here's how we'll grow: We will continue to leverage our competitive advantages in brand building, superior product and innovation, and compelling consumer experiences. For example, we are using marketing and analytics to acquire new customers while retaining and driving lifetime value of existing customers. Keith will talk about later how inclusivity is helping Naturalizer engage with a broader audience of Millennial women. We will expand product categories using our capabilities in design and innovation, like Sam Edelman really exploding his sneaker category, Vionic growing athleisure, and Allen Edmonds expanding casual. We will accelerate growth from our own e-commerce and retail, where we have a direct relationship with the consumer and with select strategic wholesale partners.
We'll expand across geographies, with faster growth coming from our international business. You'll get to hear today from each of our lead brands about their strategic growth initiatives... Now let's turn to our retail brand, Famous Footwear. We expect Famous Footwear will drive profitable growth and generate significant cash flow. We've developed an ambitious and yet achievable plan for the future of Famous. We believe our current position as the retailer of choice for the Millennial family, and our unparalleled position in kids' footwear, sets us up to win going forward. Let's walk through some numbers. We have 22% and growing market share in the shoe chains at Famous Footwear. When you look at kids, that goes up to 28% of kids in shoe chains. Our leadership in kids is powerful. It represents about 20% of our business in kids' styles.
Plus, if you think about it this way, according to Circana, when you account for kids who wear adult sizes, and I'm sure some people can relate to this very well, the penetration of kids under 18, their estimate is that it's a full 30% of our business. We have the best brands for the Millennial family, and our national footprint of mostly off-mall stores positions us as the most convenient as well. So becoming the best footwear retailer for the Millennial family means we will build upon the competitive advantages I've mentioned across brand, product, and experience. Specifically, we will amplify Famous Footwear's brand messaging so that it remains top of mind and highly relevant. We will elevate our product assortment to better meet the needs of the entire family with a more balanced assortment of fashion and athletic.
We will enhance the consumer experience, which includes a more personalized and inspiring shopping environment, both in-store and online. Mike will take you through later how this is all coming to life at Famous Footwear. Our third message today is that our unique and synergistic structure sets us apart from our peers. The competitive advantages and capabilities that we have built over the last 145 years, and which we have strengthened through our recent transformation process, enables us to build brands profitably and accelerate growth. As I've said before, and this is a great slide that I think shows how Caleres all works together, the whole, when you look at it from the inside, is really greater than the sum of the parts. Our unique structure and our foundational elements support and fuel our growth.
So there are three key accelerants: our capabilities, our synergies, and our team and culture. So our scale today allows us to support our brands and Famous Footwear with best-in-class capabilities that might not be possible otherwise. I'll begin with sourcing and logistics, which our capability here is strong and getting stronger. We not only managed well through a period of unprecedented disruption, but we also significantly improved speed. We are now closing in on our goal of 20% of our receipts coming from speed programs, and we're now able to get back into best-selling styles in 90 days or less, with quality and scale across all brands in our portfolio. On the digital marketing and analytics front, we are driving deep connections with our consumers, and we are investing in new technologies to broaden and deepen our consumer reach.
We have also positioned our company and team for global growth. We have built a network of both new and existing partners, as well as new and existing team members, to drive a strong, stronger result. While this is a smaller portion of Caleres today, it offers one of the greatest potentials. You'll be hearing more from us in the coming months on this front. Finally, what powers all of this is our technology platform. From our own e-commerce, to our recent launch of our CDP, to our common platform integration and planning and forecasting tools, all of these allow us to operate with confidence and deliver with excellence. These best-in-class capabilities reflect investments made over many years, and still being made, that many of our brands would not be able to afford on a standalone basis, but they benefit from them significantly.
So we also have significant synergies in our organization. First, our large consumer file. Jenny will talk to you today, but the headline of that is that we have about 56 million consumers in our file. And she will tell us how we have built a cross-portfolio marketing ecosystem to take advantage of this powerful asset. Second is our investment leverage. Our business benefits from investments in our capabilities and our shared services. Third, our structure allows us to deliver strong financial results and reduces volatility, and we deliver more consistent performance from it. And finally, vertical integration, a topic that I'm very close to, I'll go into in detail in a little bit more detail right now.
It kind of bears taking a moment to look at the unique synergies between our brand portfolio and Famous Footwear, and these synergies are only going greater as we move forward. Vertical integration provides Famous with greater access to fashion products from brands that resonate with their consumer, as well as greater ability to flex with trends, differentiate versus competitors, and provide superior profit potential. The brands we're kind of focused on, like Dr. Scholl's, Naturalizer, Blowfish Malibu, and LifeStride, gain more than just distribution and profit from Famous. They actually gain more consumers, brand awareness, and an ability to test and learn. Perhaps one of the examples of this synergy, maybe one of the best ones, will be the launch of Sam & Libby, first of Famous, which we'll hear more about from Sam himself later on in today's presentation.
At an enterprise level, Caleres captures a high gross margin on brands sold vertically, which will expand our vertical penetration. So none of this would be possible without our passionate and driven team and our value-driving culture. We benefit significantly from our merchant-led, design-focused organization, which gives us enhanced visibility across many channels and categories. Our people are agile, smart, and possess great expertise, which they share openly. Caring and learning are values our teams prioritize. Our portfolio structure provides our team with opportunities to advance other brands or functions and to share their knowledge with teammates. We have invested and will continue to invest in people. Ambition to Action is one of our mantras. Perhaps it's really my mantra, but and it's something that's really circulating through the building really nicely at Caleres, and it infuses every part of our culture.
We like to say that we don't manage to budget, we manage to ambition. And what that means is that we're constantly reading, reacting, in order to seize new opportunities and using speed to fuel them. Natelle will share a great example of this in Vionic. Edit to Win is another one of our mantras, and it simply means taking fewer, bigger bets. It applies across the organization to assortments, to brands, to inventory buying, to marketing campaigns, or simply prioritizing where we focus our energies and our resources. So the net results of our operational strategies and investments will be strong financial performance. The brand portfolio is not only achieving record earnings this year, but will also comprise 50% of total company earnings this year and 60% by 2026.
Famous Footwear will continue to grow, but its earnings contribution will be lower than the brand portfolio going forward. This is a game changer for Caleres, earnings driven more by our brands than by Famous Footwear, and it really represents solid proof that we have planned and executed a transformation of our company's performance. We have plenty of runway left for our brands to grow, and Jack will walk you through the financial expectations and three-year outlook in more detail. I hope we will walk away today with a new appreciation for our brands, our structure, and our future growth potential. Now I get to leave the stage, but as I said, we'll hear from each of the lead brands and their strategies and their growth ideas. The first up today, you will hear from the Allen Edmonds team.
Last year, they celebrated the brand's 100th anniversary, and last quarter, they delivered their 10th consecutive quarter of growth. So I'll repeat what I said then: There's a lot to be excited about at Allen Edmonds.
Tradition is a word we embrace, 'cause the traditional way of making a shoe is the best way. Over 48 pairs of skilled hands go into making an Allen Edmonds shoe. I'm Eduardo Nieuwenhuyzen. I'm a father, a cyclist, and the creative director for Allen Edmonds. The most important word for the Allen Edmonds brand is quality. Quality is the original sustainability, possessions that are made not to wear out, but instead to wear in... Disposability is the antithesis of what makes something meaningful. Luxury is buying quality classics from brands steeped in heritage. A classic doesn't set out to become one, it earns it over time. American luxury is rooted around things that are made well, made from quality materials without taking shortcuts, just made right. We know that there's a quality revival happening. We were there first, and we never stopped.
Allen Edmonds, founded on craft and quality in making classics.
Our founder left us an amazing blueprint, paving the way for the next hundred years. Allen Edmonds is directly aligned with quality-seeking men, who value craftsmanship and premium materials from brands steeped in heritage. Hi, I am David Law, General Manager, Head of the Allen Edmonds brand. Inspired by tradition, founded on exquisite craftsmanship and quality, Allen Edmonds is the apex of American heritage luxury in creating modern classics.
As you heard from Eduardo, we view our quality as the original form of sustainability. Hi, I'm Ryan Stowe. I'm the Head of Stores for Allen Edmonds, and I've been with the brand for over a decade. Extensive consumer research that we've performed really reinforced the importance of domestic manufacturing to our customer, and how U.S. manufacturing is really synonymous with quality and craft to this consumer. The Allen Edmonds customer is really hard to define by any demographic data. Generally, he is appreciative of quality and craft. That's what kind of unites this group of guys. At Allen Edmonds, we are extremely proud of our domestic manufacturing, and in 2023, that's a bigger point of differentiation than it's ever been. With that in mind, we've invested in our Port Washington factory, enabling us to manufacture new styles that we would have otherwise produced overseas.
At this point, 60% of our shoes are produced domestically in Allen Edmonds-owned facilities. Allen Edmonds customization services allows a customer to build the shoe the way they want it. We continue to invest in enhancing this capability, which will soon come to life in a brand-new custom configurator on our website and in additional custom capabilities in our stores. Recrafting allows our customers to have their shoes refurbished, which means they never have to say goodbye to them. Our store teams are extremely knowledgeable about shoe construction, styling, and getting the right fit. Fitting can be an overwhelmingly new experience for men who haven't shopped a brand with such an extensive size offering. We know we have the best in the business when it comes to creating an enjoyable experience for a customer and finding the best fit for them.
We know the consumer today is much more casual than they were in the past. Because of this evolution in their lifestyle, Allen Edmonds is also focused on evolving with them. Back in 2019, total sport made up less than 5% of our shoe sales. Now, it's reached over 20%.
Treating icons as annuities has enabled us to tell bolder and deeper stories, which has led to a 50% increase over the last several years.
In 2019, our icons represented about 19% of sales. Now, they've reached over 30%. A lot of that growth has come from focusing on ways to take our icons and help them meet the needs of our evolving customer. In 2022, we invested heavily in our e-commerce platform. This investment has enhanced the omnichannel customer experience.
We have significantly reduced the number of promotions. As an American heritage luxury brand, we are focused on sustainable long-term growth and profitability. We will attract new consumers by following a clear blueprint. We are perpetuating our icons, from Park Avenue, to Randolph, to the Strand, to Higgins Mill. The Legends Series is bringing new customers into the brand. We are developing new footwear categories and collaborations in 2024 to attract the next generation of consumers. There is significant runway for brick-and-mortar growth in the Allen Edmonds brand.
The Port Washington studio experience has now been brought to life in six stores. The immediate sales increase we've seen in these stores gives us the confidence to roll this experience out to more key locations within the fleet. Part of this includes opening 20 or more stores over the coming years in key markets where we know our customer is, and we are not.
United in Craft is the story we will tell. Words that set up our actions to drive growth for the next hundred years.
I'm back. Let's thank the Allen Edmonds team for that great overview of their brand. I think that was fantastic. The next lead brand we're going to hear from today is Naturalizer. I'd like to welcome Keith Duplain. He's the President of our brand portfolio in St. Louis. Keith?
Naturalizer put women first, first. They were the first to design a woman's shoe based off of her contours of her foot, and to me, that's very revolutionary. It tells me that the brand was all about inclusivity at a time when women were not thought of first. It inspires me every day to be able to think about that innovation and really putting women first. For every woman, it's our message of inclusivity. We are designing for all women. We're being inclusive when we're putting pen to paper, and that's what makes Naturalizer. Nude is not one shade that fits all. Personally, being a woman of color, you always want to feel included. You want to feel included when you walk in the room. You want to feel included because of the way you look.
So I created the True Colors collection because recognizing that we are not all the same, my nude is not your nude. I wanted to create a collection that says, "I see you. I see you." Working on the collaboration with Pnina Tornai was really inspiring. It allowed us to reach a totally different audience and be a part of that bridal collection. Comfort without boundaries is our goal. Reimagining it beyond our five-star fit of every shoe we created, to fostering a more comfortable world for every woman, in every size, of every age, and every ethnicity. It's our promise for every woman everywhere. Our vision is to have every woman in our shoes, and that's what we're here to do.
It's amazing to work with Angelique. She inspires all of us in her passion for this brand. Hey, I'm Keith Duplain. I'm the President of the Brand Portfolio. A lot of brands talk about being purpose-driven. Naturalizer has its origins in purpose. Our purpose is putting women first. One of the ways that we've done this is by delivering comfort. We have a great saying: "Comfort, it's why we exist." For nearly 100 years, it's been our privilege to be stewards of this great brand. We are now introducing Naturalizer to a new generation of women through product, innovation, brand messaging, experiences, and points of distribution. Over the last 4 years, we have fundamentally transformed the Naturalizer business, and it all started with the consumer.
Our research identified an opportunity with a consumer two generations younger than our current, and our comfort proposition resonated as much with this younger consumer as with the consumer we already have. We call this younger consumer the Confident Explorer, and she's our muse. Defining our consumer was only the beginning. We upgraded and improved our product, our consumer shopping experiences. We closed 150 Naturalizer stores, prioritized premium wholesale distribution, and invested in e-commerce. We created collaborations and marketing experiences to reach new and younger consumers. To share a couple of the success metrics since 2019, we've gained market share, and we improved gross margins by 900 basis points. Our product strategy focuses on three pillars: inclusivity, icons, innovation, and culture. These pillars drive relevance, discovery, engagement, brand advocacy, and of course, sales. Inclusivity.
Inclusivity is a critical element in the Naturalizer DNA. Putting women first means that we strive to be the most inclusive women's fashion footwear brand. We offer more of the latest fashions in wide calf, narrow calf, smaller and larger sizes, and mediums and wides than our competitors. In fact, 30% of our wholesale volume comes from extended sizes and widths. We offer varying shades of nude. In 2024, we'll be expanding our True Colors collection, offering 29 style color combinations in a broad range of skin tones. Our pillar of inclusivity has broadened our appeal, driven consumer loyalty, and created additional opportunities for growth. A key part of our strategy is also our brand icons. We define these as shoes that are proven at retail, have strong consumer engagement, a star rating above four, and are top sellers.
We invest in marketing and inventory to support these, building them into franchises for the brand. This merchandising approach is part of that Caleres Edit to Win, where we make fewer and bigger bets with the goal of product relevancy and conversion. Naturalizer icons represent 31% of the volume in premium distribution. Talk about Gen N. Gen N is our platform for innovation and culture. It's how we stay relevant. It helps us reach new consumers. It extends our brand into new occasions and provides content to tell bolder stories. To highlight a few of the innovations with meaningful commercial outcomes, Contour+, it uses the shape of the woman's foot in designing shoes that work with her natural movement. Wide calf boots, we completely redesigned our tall boot last to deliver the perfect fit for women.
We created beautiful fashion boots that were also waterproof, at the request of our consumers, and she absolutely loves the functionality. Gen N is also a platform for cultural engagement. It's our platform in partnering with other purpose-driven brands. These partnerships are an accelerant to our business, enabling us to reach new consumers. Pnina Tornai, she helped us reach an entirely new audience with the social occasion and wedding footwear. Universal Standard has given us access to extended size consumers. Coming in spring of 2024, Live Tinted will expand the reach of our True Colors collection. We showcase all these great stories through our D2C and wholesale channel experiences. The most robust expression of this work comes together on naturalizer.com.
Leveraging the Caleres digital capabilities, we bring the brand to life to engage consumers more deeply and drive sales. Naturalizer.com is in fact up 6% in the first half of 2023, and we're additionally seeing strong repeat purchases, especially among Millennials. In September, we'll be, in September, we launched our loyalty program, Naturalizer Insider, and in 2024, we'll begin leveraging the Caleres consumer data platform, which Jenny will tell you more about in a little bit. While we're pleased with the progress, we know there's a lot more opportunity ahead for the brand. The brand's getting noticed. This is a small sample of the press clippings that show our brand and products and how they're resonating with both media and consumers alike.
This is my favorite from Vogue: "Naturalizer, sleeper shoe of the summer." We're incredibly proud of what we've achieved at Naturalizer over the last 4 years, and as you can see by these metrics, the business is fundamentally changed. We've reduced promotions, we've increased AUR, we've improved gross profit, we've achieved star rating, consumer ratings of 4.1, we've shifted the store consumer to our website and other premium outlets, and we are now the number 12 women's fashion footwear brand on Circana. We're up 6 spots from 2019. The next chapter we want to grow. As we extend our reach across consumers, products, channels, and geographies, we have opportunities with inside our own D2C to continue to grow, opportunities with inside of our existing and new wholesale partnerships.
We have international customers in existing countries and in new markets yet to develop, and of course, by doubling down our efforts to reach more Confident Explorer s. For nearly 100 years, Naturalizer has been a purpose-driven brand. Today, that same purpose and mission drives us. We put women first and strive to be the most inclusive women's fashion footwear brand. Thank you.
Thanks, Keith. Next, you're going to hear from Natelle Baddeley. She was recently named Chief Design and Product Officer for Caleres, a new role within the organization, and she's going to walk us through the Vionic brand. Natelle?
Thank you, Logan. I'm happy to be here today to talk to you about Vionic, the brand where science sets you in motion. Vionic has always been about wearable well-being for your feet. Vionic meets the consumer's desire for solution-oriented products. We spent the last two years readying Vionic for growth, using our legacy technology and bringing it forward across product and content. ... Mesmerizing. What you just saw was how science sets you in motion. But first, let's talk about our origin story. Every once in a while, a product comes along that changes everything. That's exactly what happened the day an athlete walked into our founding partner's podiatrist office wearing this shoe, his custom orthotic duct-taped to a regular sandal. This was our first prototype. This was our aha moment.
We went from revolutionizing medical orthotics to begin engineering a more dynamic shoe, and a more aesthetically pleasing shoe. Today, that science continues to lead us. Vionic is unrivaled as a technology, technology-first fashion footwear brand. Our founding mission of science-infused shoes that improve your every day remains Vionic's unique authority. We're delivering wearable wellness to the modern consumer, and we're exceptionally well-positioned to capture the outsized growth in the wellbeing movement. We're fortunate that our original idea, which was revolutionary in 1991, is every bit as relevant now. Vionic has always been about delivering product at the intersection of performance and prevention, which we're now packaging with style. Our footwear is designed to promote balance alignment, injury prevention, improved performance, and recovery aid. But our unique difference is that we meet the wellness seeker through motion. Our shoes are made to move and keep you balanced.
As we transform this great brand for the future, our responsibility is taking its wearable tech and interpreting it to meet the lifestyle needs of the modern consumer. As a result, we established Vitals, our iconic styles, customer favorites, and essentials for their shoe closet. We franchised VRX, our recovery collection, and more to come on that in a moment. We began maximizing the performance walk category, a category often recommended by podiatrists, and the first point of contact frequently for the brand. We introduced new casual athleisure hybrids. Let's talk briefly about Vitals and why they are a priority for our brand strategy. Vitals are big breakthrough, sales-driving items, curated to lead, given marketing prominence and inventory depth. Year-round essentials offered in season-right colors and materials. The Vitals collection captures a greater share of her shoe closet and supports her lifestyle. The Uptown Moc.
This showcases Caleres, One Caleres at its best: design, sourcing, speed, marketing, working in unison. From a design and construction standpoint, this is what it looks like to really put science first. We invented 360 Flex, a technology to uniquely combine with our Vio-Motion System to provide outstanding support and alignment. We added a glove-like deconstructed soft upper, which molds to your foot. When you take all of those things together, you have the ultimate travel shoe, and while it's lightweight and flexible, it's uncompromising in delivering superior functional benefits, and it's also our most sustainable shoe to date. The Uptown Moc is Caleres' number one shoe in weekly retail volume, and it got there fast because we expedited it through our speed-to-market process. Early reads on this shoe were so strong that we sped up production to bring it to market a full season early.
In addition, we are continuing to use Caleres Speed Program to react quickly to the strong consumer demand. We're creating extension styles, expanding the choice into new categories and across men's. This type of fast success didn't happen a few years ago at Vionic. We are talking about a brand-new shoe in at number one in five months. To amplify the Uptown, we're pushing our communications and multiplying our ability to be seen, and to drive velocity, we're utilizing impactful PR, targeting direct mail, email, paid social, and point of sale. Another great example of our product innovation is in the recovery category. And this is our VRX technology, and it's unlike any other recovery slide, which provides just cushioning. It is what we call a dynamic system.
We made a leapfrog product in the recovery space, which is smarter than any other recovery shoe. It fits the shape of your foot accurately, has adjustability, and the textured footbeds massage for improved circulation. It provides alignment support with dual density zoned cushioning, and this delivers what the foot actually requires to truly recover, something cushioning alone does not do, and it's a dream to wear. VRX is available in casual and sport styles for both men and women. Additionally, this sport focus moves us into new channels of specialty distribution. It's our goal to develop new technology, to bring breakthrough product creation, is about continuous innovation, never standing still. Vionic is transformed for growth. The power of Caleres has delivered a new proven leadership and design team. We've completed a rebranding, modernizing product aesthetic and marketing tone.
Our new campaigns evoke the Northern California way of life: effortlessly casual, basking in that Northern California golden hour glow. Our powerful message is resonating with consumers. Our customer file is growing, brand awareness is up. Vionic is acquiring a younger audience and purchaser, while retaining our existing loyal consumer. We've aged the consumer down five years since acquisition. Our AUR is increasing, proving that we are commanding more for our authoritative product. As we think about our growth strategies, our aim is to apply our winning formula and expand into the men's market. We will continue to disrupt the wellness space with breakthrough product innovation, and we'll use our marketing to drive hype and sales momentum. We will be optimizing our wholesale distribution. We see growth in independents and strategic wholesale partners, and we'll be driving new business opportunities internationally.
Imagine a shoe that can infinitely enhance your day. Science-infused shoes that can improve your every day just by wearing them. Now, that's life-changing! And for Vionic, it's the launchpad for growth. Thank you.
We'll now hear from Jay Schmidt and Sam Edelman for a fireside chat. Welcome, guys.
So I have to say that becoming CEO, one of my greatest privileges is now I get to work with Sam really closely, and in addition to getting to work with him, I'm also a huge fan, so it works in all different ways. So-
Thank you, Jay. The feeling's completely mutual.
So, and again, it's so much fun to ask the questions actually, than something else. So I'm really enjoying this one. But anyway, Sam, in a world full of fashion trends, how do you continually break through year after year and find something unique every season?
You know, it's funny because I was talking to Keith earlier and telling him how tired I am right this minute, because we just came back from Europe, and we're working on new trends for fall 2024. I think something that we do that's very unique and very special is the team of people that we've built. And with very, very little turnover, people stay a long time, but people start with us right out of school. And I make, with Libby and with my team, two or three trips a year to Savannah, Georgia, to meet with young design students and tell them about Sam Edelman, and wind up bringing them to New York to work with us. I just came back from Europe, and I had a fascinating group with me in London.
A 23-year-old person who just started right out of school, and a couple of other more experienced and mature people. For Libby and I, I think our greatest pleasure and one of the great things that draws us to work is working with young people. Young people keeping the company, fashion right, trend right, and hopefully that's the future of the brand.
So you're often defined as aspirational, modern luxury, and so probably hearing, what is that to you, and who is the customer from your perspective?
Yeah, I think that we, we don't kid ourselves. We understand luxury, we study luxury, real luxury, which is top-end designer. But we don't believe that everybody has access, financial access to top-end luxury. Our strength is to bring the feeling of luxury to our customer, and our customer is a department store customer across America. We know her, we live with her. We understand how often she takes her Pilates, how she does her hair, her makeup, how many kids she has, and we really study it. We travel across the country. We do a lot of personal appearances, we do fashion shows, and we really get to meet her and understand her.
So thinking about that and thinking about really how you spent your time during the pandemic, 'cause each of our brand teams were, you know, not as together as they could be, but I know it was a great time of actually reinvention in a way, and just really new learning for you. What did that really mean to you, and what do you think were the greatest learnings coming out?
That's a great story because, obviously, we had to close our offices for a while. I opened a regional design office near our home in Northern Westchester, and I invited two young people to work with us. It was just four or five people in that office, Libby and I, and we were kind of like old workhorses. You know, we still went to work at 8:30, and we still left at 5:30. We were just in a little, little office. I think that is where the maturity that we have as leaders really came in, and that was to put blinders on our eyes. Not to look left, not to look right, but, you know, not to get scared.
During the pandemic, in a sense, I think we reinvented a lot of the brand. We believed that we could upgrade. We believed that we could raise our prices 20%. We believed we could go from paper boxes to boxes that are made like luxury with silk, and we did all sorts of things. We reinvented new logos. We thought a lot about our customer and what was gonna happen when she came out of the pandemic. We were convinced the first thing she was going to want to do was get rid of her sweats and her stretch, and go out and have drinks, and go to parties, and get married, and do things like that. So we concentrated on upgrading our logos.
And I remember sitting there in this barn, thinking about her coming out of the pandemic and being at a wedding, when women often will drop the heels of their shoes. In other words, they're sitting there, and they sort of bring the, the They just drop the heel to get a break. What do you want to see? So we changed some of our logos and our dress areas to something much more chic, and it's been, it's been well-accepted.
Yeah. I think the, you know, I was amazed, really, coming back into it, being away and then coming back and seeing it. It was so powerful. And one of the other things, just thinking about it, is, you know, what you did with your icons during that time frame in terms of upgrading. And I always think that, when I first met Sam, it was really this important about really this iconic shoe that was really representative to you. And what do you think goes into building an icon? Do you design them, or do they just emerge, or what? Tell everyone what your process is, really.
Yeah, I remember when I came out of retirement, and Libby and I started Sam Edelman, and somebody said to me, "Why don't you just design another Bow Ballet?" The Bow Ballet was the biggest shoe we'd ever had and one of the biggest shoes in the industry. And I remember being very upset with that person because I thought that: How do you, how do you say that? You know, that's just... you wouldn't say that to Michael Jordan. "Just find another athlete like you." It's rude. Libby and I have had a lot of what we call big shoes, and big shoes is what I have to say, that number one is working with my family and with young people, but number two in my life, really, it really is developing big shoes.
I think we've had today 17 shoes that are above a million pairs each, which is. It's a very big number in our industry. You don't design a big shoe, the same way you don't go to the gym and just work on your biceps. You have to go to the gym and work on your core. Your core supports everything else that you're doing. It's as important for us to be in Milan as it is to be in Soho. It's as important for us to look at beauty and fashion and really understand what's happening. We always go back to our basics. We always go back to fashion. Fashion leads us. We develop big lines every season. But of course, we always have a focus, and quite honestly, I think we know...
I think we do know what's going to be the big shoes historically, and I think the advantage that both Jay and I have with our backgrounds as shoemen is we know what to do when we have a big one. We know that fit, quality, and comfort, we know that the factory is so, so important, and we know that we have to get ahead of the shoe before the competition before the competition gets us. And I would say that we are- that's what we do the best. And I've worked with my teams, my teams understand it. I'm, I'm very, very fortunate that Libby and I have our son running all the operations of the company.
He's 40, and if you stop him and ask him how long he's been in the shoe business, he'll give you the greatest answer you've ever heard, which is 40 years. He started as a stock boy, and went from being a stock boy to a salesman at Nordstrom, time with Kenneth Cole, and he knows what to do, as does the rest of our team.
Absolutely. I always say I love when Sam and I talk about how many we should buy of something. I said, "Maybe I don't know if we're feeding each other," but the number always goes up, is what I would say. So your international business is starting to really gain traction, and it feels and looks really good. How do you envision that business continuing to grow, and do you do anything special to service the global consumer?
We were introduced to a terrific team of people in China about 2 or 3 years ago. And today we have, I don't know, 55 stores in China. I think we'll have 150 stores in China in the next couple of years. We have a team of people. Really what we have is a partnership with our Chinese joint venture, and we've duplicated our American stores to a T. They're identical. We're working very, very closely with the merchandising teams in Asia to be sure that we have the right product mix all the time. We've opened in Israel, Mexico City, and many other places across the world. Freestanding stores, we're opening in Dubai. I believe that the global expansion of Sam Edelman is huge.
I never dreamed that I would hear people talking about the American designer, Sam Edelman. I am an American designer, and the... It's really working globally.
Great. Well, we knew you were the first that would go faster and further in this, and it's really been great that you've led toward that. There's also been a huge swing toward digital, and your digital business in particular has grown dramatically, is what I would say. So as someone who's been in the industry for 45 years, how do you envision the experiential story of Sam Edelman going forward?
Yeah, the experiential story goes. Quite honestly, it includes direct-to-consumer, it includes retail, but it also includes many, many other things. If you walk into our office, which is, by the way, made totally with recycled materials, it's totally sustainable product, and that office is 10 years old, it's not 6 months old. And in that, in the surrounding, the average age is 27, 28 years old. We have access to young people, telling us what's happening on TikTok, Instagram, and what they're seeing and believing in. Not only has our direct-to-consumer business risen dramatically, we've got a fabulous team of people on that. We've now expanded our direct-to-consumer to Canada, which is a wide open opportunity for us, and we're working very closely with our direct-to-consumer team in China.
But we also do many, many other experiential things. So point of sale, which means the opportunity to reach our customer through the department store environment, and we're opening Sam Edelman shop-in-shops across the country. Our increase in, specifically with our, with our biggest customer, is between 20% and 50% when we go to a shop-in-shop, and we now have them in, oh, I don't know, maybe 25-30 locations in America and going to at least 100.
Thirty-Fourth Street is one of the great examples, North Park is another one in Dallas, and the list goes on and on. In addition, we're doing wonderful experiential pop-ups, where we introduce the brand to people that maybe don't know us, know us that well, or in strategic locations where we want to continue the aspirational journey of the product.
Your first eponymous brand, Sam & Libby, is relaunching this spring at Famous and other retailers. Talk about your concept and your approach for Sam & Libby and what the opportunity is.
Yeah. Sam & Libby is a once in a lifetime experience. It started in December of 1987, and it's just been, it's been incredible. The brand has been the number one junior moderate brand in America. It's expanded, and it's been in many, many different retail partnerships. And I really felt it was time to reinvent Sam & Libby. Very, very different than Sam Edelman, our main brand, very different than Circus, our younger, more aggressive brand. I thought there was a place where Sam & Libby really began, which is the family shoe channel. I think that there's this je ne sais quoi quality to the name Sam & Libby. People just love it, and they're very, they're always excited about Sam & Libby.
You never hear someone say, "I saw it on sale," they just say how much they love the product and they just love the brand. We reinvented it, and I think the thing I'm most excited about, about Sam & Libby is not only did we reinvent it, but we had a home for it, to launch it, which is Famous Footwear. But it's not the first time that Sam & Libby has been in Famous Footwear. It was a huge brand in Famous Footwear in the past. And working closely with Jay and the rest of the team, we put a very, very strong organization in Sam & Libby. Fabulous product people, great sellers, and yeah, I'm very excited about the relaunch of that brand this spring.
Well, I'm obviously biased, but I think it's gonna be great.
Yeah, thank you.
I'm really excited, and I can't wait for it to come. I can't believe it, but Sam Edelman is celebrating 20 years in 2024, and 16 of those which have been with Caleres. I remember s- I actually joined Caleres at the same year that Sam came into the company. I don't know where the time went... but it's here, okay? What has your partnership meant to you? I'd love you to tell everyone, because I've obviously... you know, have a little more vision into what you're doing and how you're celebrating it, but I think it's gonna be so exciting. I'll let you just run with it.
I remember when we were first exposed to Brown Shoe Company, at that time, Caleres, and we were invited to visit the China office. Sam Edelman had just started with five or six key people, key founders, and we were in China, and we were working almost in garages with the original product development. We were invited to the Brown Shoe headquarters in China. We walked in, and within three minutes, I'm standing in the most high-tech room I'd ever seen, and there's robots wearing shoes, walking, testing how the heel hits the ground and how they wear and how the fit is, et cetera. I looked, and I said, "This is the future for us." Because we will hit the trends. We will know... We'll hit the trends.
We have the relationships. But if you can have the best product in the world, the best fit, the best quality, and opportunity to get in the best factories, this business could really explode. Caleres, under the tutelage and leadership now of three CEOs that we've worked with, has given us the opportunity to truly manifest our vision, our creativity. We have a replenishment program, which means that of our 12 key icon shoes, we carry those shoes in warehouses, and we're able to take reorders, and keep the levels of the shoes consistent in the stores. This is something that would be impossible to do, without the power of Caleres. When we have new ideas, we're able to execute them in three to six weeks, seven weeks.
When we wanted to get in the sneaker business, we were able to move into it in a period of months, not years. All of these things we take advantage of all the time. Head of sourcing has become one of my closest friends, and we work, we work hand-in-hand now for almost 20 years, developing what we, what we've done. We have our 20th anniversary. It's a very, very exciting time. I just think green when I think about Sam Edelman. I think about the original green color. I think about how I- Libby and I really believed in saving the planet and all the kinds of things that today everybody's talking about, and we founded the company with the green, the green color.
Our plan is to go across the country and celebrate our anniversary with our consumer. Our plan is to celebrate it in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and other cities in China. Our plan is to launch one of the most exciting ad campaigns that we've ever had, to establish a new face for Sam Edelman. I think one thing I wanted to mention earlier is I have the greatest respect for my competition, of course. However, I believe that there's more void and more opportunity today than there's ever been for our brand.
So I think you can see, first of all, I'm, you know, why I'm so excited, not only to work with you, but I'm so positive about the growth and ideas coming through here, and, I could go on forever. Every time I go to the Sam office, I come back and think, "Oh, my God, it can just be even bigger." So Sam, I just wanted to say thank you for coming over and really, being my partner. Appreciate it.
Thanks. Well .
Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Jay. So after a 10-minute break, so a quick break, we will come back with Mike Edwards from Famous Footwear, and then we'll also hear from Jenny Olsen and Jack Calandra. So be back in 10 minutes, and we will get started. Thank you.
Let's just wait a while.
... 'Cause I can't make my mind up right now. So let's just wait a while. The one I need is tied up right- I will be the first in line to open up, so I don't mind. I will be the first in line to open up, so I don't mind to give you all. So let's get down to wire. The one I need is tied up right now. So let's just wait a while. The one I need is tied up right now. So let's not draw the line, 'cause I can't make my mind up right now. So let's just wait a while. The one I need is tied up right- It's unintended, but all in vain. It's what I found on my side. Ooh, you knew I'd pass through, it's all the same. So let's get down to wire.
The one I need is tied up right now. So let's just wait a while. The one I need is tied up right. Girl, you think you got it bad. Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo. Girl, you think you got it bad. Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo. Girl, you think you got it bad. Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo. Got all different ways with the same old payout. Had all the dreams with the same old outcome. Had it by a string with the same old breakdown. Worked it to the bone with the same old habit. Girl, you think you got it bad. Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo. Girl, you think you got it bad. Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo. Girl, you think you got it bad. Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo. Got all different ways with the same old payout. Worked it to the bone with the same old habit. You're acting like a soldier, and I need to wait.
You're acting like a soldier, and I need to wait. Girl, you think you got it bad. Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo. Girl, you think you got it bad. Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo. Girl, you think you got it bad. Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo.
... Steady grooving. Got a lover on my mind that keeps me warm, steady warm, oh. There's a fire, call the fireman. If you're in pain, baby, call the doctor. Don't be afraid to say, "I need you," I will understand. Baby love, pretty woman, walking down the way. If you get tired, use your soul pie, and you'll find the way. And if there's a fire, call the fireman. If you're in pain, baby, call the doctor. Don't be afraid to say, "I need you," I will understand. Mm-hmm, help me understand. Oh, I- Oh, I long for your loving, I can't get enough. When you tell me, I can be there when we love again. When there's a fire, call the fireman. If there is pain, baby, call the doctor. Don't be afraid to say, "I need you," I will understand. So help me understand.
Oh, I, help me understand you. Smooth, smooth sailing, when I understand. Smooth, smooth sailing on the other side. If there's a fire, call the fireman. If you're in pain, baby, call the doctor. Don't be afraid to say, "I need you," I will understand.
Hard times, I was having. Lonely nights, I was leaving. Meeting girls, no intention to settle down. Meeting friends for drinks until the break of dawn. No one could get in, I was hanging out. Feeling like an infinity, the world was a clear part. My mind was spinning round and round, until you came and rescued me from the ground.
You bring out the best in me. Before I met you, I was looking for a chill.
You got, make me believe-
That love was more than just a thrill.
No more heartaches, just you who wakes me up from a long night's sleep. I can hardly stand up on my feet.
You bring out the best in me. Before I met you, I was looking for a chill.
Make me believe-
That love was more than just a thrill.
You can always count on me.
Count on me.
Now that you're here, I start to believe. We've got our lives to be free.
Lives to be free.
I wanna thank you, girl, like I finally see.
... chill. You've got to make me believe that love was more than just a thrill. You bring out the best in me. Before I met you, I was looking for a chill. You've got to make me believe that love was more than just a thrill. Our hearts are free, so tell me what's wrong with feeling? I'm a flower, you're the bee. It's much older than you and me. I'm in love, I'm alive. I belong to the stars and sky. Let's forget who we are for one night. We're like animals, baby, let's sleep all night. I want real love, baby. Ooh, don't leave me waiting. I want real love, baby. Wait until you taste me. I want real love, baby. There's a world inside me. Got the key, just use it. Just here for a minute.
Our hearts are free, so tell me what's wrong with feeling? I'm a flower, you're the bee. It's much older than you and me. I'm in love, I'm alive. I belong to the stars and sky. Let's forget who we are for one night. We're like animals, baby, let's sleep all night. I want real love, baby. Ooh, don't leave me waiting. I want real love, baby. Wait until you taste me. I want real love, baby. There's a world inside me. Got the key, just use it. Just here for a minute. I want real love, baby. Ooh, don't leave me waiting. I want real love, baby. Wait until you taste me. I want real love, baby. There's a world inside me. Got the key, just use it. Just here for a minute. I want real love, baby. Ooh, don't leave me waiting.
So tell me what's wrong with feeling? I want real love, baby. Wait until you taste me. I want real love, baby. There's a world inside me. Got the key, just use it. Just here for a minute. I want real love, baby. Ooh, don't leave me waiting. I want real love, baby. Wait until you taste me. I want real love, baby. There's a world inside me. Got the key, just use it. Just here for a minute.
Okay, welcome back. We're gonna start our second session with a review and overview of our retail brand, Famous Footwear. So I'd like to welcome Mike Edwards, President of Famous Footwear.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody. It's great to be with you today. Before we get started, just wanna talk about how excited and proud I am of all the work that the Famous team has put in over the last couple of years to really set us up in a great position as we look forward in the next three years. We have a short video that we've pulled together that'll give you an overview of our brand, our consumer, our strategic efforts, and our wins. And above all, you'll see what we're doing to champion everyone in the family, with an emphasis on kids. So if you could play the video. Thank you.
At Famous Footwear, we're all about being the best shoe store for the family, and we wanna be famous for you. But who is you? Meet Christina. She's a Millennial mom. Christina knows that when her family shops at Famous Footwear, everyone will find something that they love. We're famous for kids and making sure they each have just the right fit. We're famous for having all the hottest styles from iconic brands. We deliver an easy and fun shopping experience, no matter how you shop: in our stores, with the most knowledgeable and friendly associates in retail, who have a passion for our customers, brands, and shoes. Famous for convenience, with more than 800 stores just around the corner. Or no matter where you are, on famous.com and on our five-star app.
We're famous for value, with shoes the family wants at the right price, plus the most famous perks. We're famous for fashion, with all the right trends for her. We're famous for individuality, with styles to fit every personality in the family... and culture, because we know Christina is dialed in, and so are we. Famous Footwear, famous for you.
We continue to focus our strategies and resources on making Famous the destination for the Millennial family, and the numbers tell the story of our success over the last few years. Since 2019, sales increased 7%, with 9% fewer stores. Our brick-and-mortar business is up 3%, and with the lower store count, driving sales per square foot and sales per store up 13%. Our digital business has increased 47% over that same period and represents 14% of our total sales. While this has moderated since 2020 in the impact of the pandemic, it's still meaningfully above pre-pandemic levels and has become an essential component of our valuable omni business. We currently own 22% of the shoe chain market, up 1.2 percentage points from 2019.
We're extremely proud of this market share growth, but perhaps even more notably, we've delivered exceptional performance in kids, with market share up 1.9 percentage points over that same period. In fact, we've captured 28% of the market share of kids within the shoe chain category, and we have plans in place to build on this strength and cement our leadership further. While sales have improved $117 million since 2019, our gross profit dollars are up $114 million, driven by a 500 basis point improvement in our margin rate. This improvement has been driven by less reliance on lower-margin promo offers like BOGO, better inventory management to reduce the penetration of clearance product, and an increase in assortment that is excluded from offers. Today, more than 50% of our brands and styles are excluded from promotions.
We've delivered significant growth in our operating earnings, up 144%, and operating margin, which was 11.5% in 2022. We expect another strong operating margin performance in 2023 and believe we can sustain high single-digit operating margins over the next few years. As you know, at Caleres, we've focused on sharpening our approach to inventory buys and driving improvement in inventory turns across the organization, and this is no different at Famous Footwear. Our inventory turn has improved 7% versus pre-COVID levels. At the same time, we're getting behind key trends and brands in a big way, using Edit to Win to make fewer, bigger bets on the right items and brands.
As an example, this back-to-school season, we increased our kids' inventory by 24% compared to a year ago, ensuring we could capitalize on this important demand season with the right brands and styles for our youngest consumers. The success we have had improving the performance at Famous goes back to our relentless focus on our target consumer, Christina. You met that Millennial mom in our video. She wants to be able to shop anywhere, at any time, and she approaches every interaction with retailers and brands with the assumption that she'll find relevant content and an easy shopping experience. Consumers like Christina spend more, they shop more often, and they remain loyal over a longer period of time. When she shops at Famous for herself and her family, her value to us increases.
Get her to shop both in-store and online, we see yet another escalation in her spend and her lifetime value. Christina's primary purchase motivation is her kids. Even when the family budget is under pressure, she prioritizes shopping for her kids, and it's a dynamic we are clearly seeing this year. At Famous, our kids' business, sorry, currently represents 21% of our total, and that penetration grows by 10 percentage points during the key back-to-school season. It's important to note, and I think Jay mentioned this earlier, that that 21% penetration only includes sales of kids' shoes and doesn't represent consumers that are under 18 but already in adult sizes. Circana estimates that when you include this important consumer cohort, our kids' business is actually 30% of our total sales.
This year, our kids' business is outperforming the total business by 10% compared to a year ago and continues to be a key differentiator and a top priority for us all year long. We are placing a great focus on this important business by making outsize investments in inventory to support the hottest brands and items and make sure we have exactly what our family shoppers are looking for. Beyond the inventory investment, we are making the kids' business a critical component of how our associates connect with our customers, including ensuring every child finds the perfect fit. Our investments in new and remodeled stores over the last few years prioritize an elevated experience within our kids' department. Our charitable partnerships with Ticket to Dream and Soles4Souls shine a light on kids in need.
Christina and her family love brands, and Famous Footwear is known for our strategically cultivated assortment of iconic national brands. Put it another way, there are no private label brands at Famous. We curate the best brands across athletic and fashion categories that still let each member of the family show off their unique style. We've distorted top brands in our assortment to enhance our appeal to the Millennial family. Today, our top brands represent 78% per sales, or 64% in 2019. Our top brands connect across the family, from key athletic resources like Nike and Converse to premium fashion brands like Birkenstock and Dr. Martens. We reach Christina through our stores, our website, and our omnichannel capabilities, all of which make shopping at Famous convenient and engaging. Our nationwide store fleet is primarily off-mall and aligned with consumer shopping trends.
About 55% of the U.S. population, or 70 million households, live within 10 miles of a Famous Footwear. We've invested in our store footprint, reimagining the space beyond the notion of functional, reframing how the experience can not only be shoppable, but also enjoyable. Our newest Flair format has oversized, immersive pinwheel displays that showcase newness, emerging trends, seasonal offerings, or high-demand brands and products. In addition, new digital displays deliver energy and inspiration through sight, sound, and motion, and tech-enabled set touchscreens allow consumers to browse more styles online and trigger an online purchase. We've tested this new prototype in a variety of different centers and different formats to determine which formula drove the highest impact. We now have a blueprint for what works and have seen a 5% lift in the go-forward format.
We've invested to improve our consumer experience on our website, providing a personalized and relevant experience to those that transact online or shop before visiting their local store. According to a recent survey by Google Ipsos Connect, 66% of U.S. consumers say they prefer a mix of online and in-store shopping. Christina's searching online for both inspiration and to find the right shoe at the right price nearby, and she's often heading into the store to make that final purchase. We understand and encourage that behavior, because at Famous, our omni shoppers spend 2 times more than those who shop only online or only in-store. As we look ahead, we are focused on and committed to four key brand strategies to continue to build on our wins and drive market share growth.
First, kids has become a key differentiator for Famous and a way in with our target, Christina. Not just at back to school, but 12 months a year. Our opportunity is to drive higher annual and lifetime value by getting more of her self-purchase. We will drive this through product and content that connects with her emotionally, and at the same time, balancing for her and for her family. Second, we're leaning into our best brands and most iconic styles from an inventory, a marketing, and a store presence perspective. And we continue to work with our current partners to drive more premium product, as well as building relationships with and bringing in new in-demand brands to our assortment. Third, we are balancing our assortment, as Jay mentioned earlier, by increasing the mix of fashion to achieve a 50/50 balance between athletic and non-athletic.
This allows us to flex into different categories, so we are poised and ready to respond to what's trending. It also positions us to capture more of Christina's self-purchase spend by offering her a broader assortment in categories like casual, dress, and seasonal. Our fashion strategy also ties directly into our One Caleres strategy to increase the vertical penetration at Famous. Caleres brands represent about 6% of our total sales today. We expect outsized growth from vertical brands going forward and are supporting the effort with a new team, including a dedicated buyer, to lead the vision for Caleres brands across women's. This also will include, as Sam and Jay talked a little bit earlier, a new launch of the Sam & Libby brand reimagined at Famous, coming to the Famous stores in February 2024.
Our target is to achieve 10% of total Famous sales by 2026. More meaningful than the sales impact, though, is the margin. Sales of our own brands have an all-in-brand margin rate of 66% when compared to non-Caleres brands at less than 50%. And finally, we are investing to deliver a more engaging and inspiring experience across the omnichannel. As I outlined earlier, we have and are continuing to invest in big changes to enhance our in-store experience through our new Flair format, with 11 open today and another 20 coming later this year. These investments also support our efforts to continue to attract new and in-demand brands. Going forward, we are confident in the health of our fleet and expect openings to approximate closures. We proactively manage our leases and continuously look to upgrade locations within our top DMAs.
Nearly 50% of our store openings over the last three years have been relocations to improve our positioning in these key markets. We also believe we have opportunity in under-penetrated markets like the Southeast and small urban markets or suburban and rural markets, where we typically see higher profitability. We will continue to serve our consumers, however she chooses to shop with us, through our convenient and easy omnichannel and digital offerings. In summary, we're excited about and encouraged by the opportunities we see for sustained growth at Famous. We have made significant progress since 2019, and this strong foundation will enable us to further our strategic efforts, grow market share amongst our competitive set, and be the number one destination for the Millennial family. Thank you.
Thanks, Mike. Now we'll hear from Jenny Olsen, Caleres' Chief Marketing Officer, and she's going to talk to us about the One Caleres marketing ecosystem and our 56 million consumer file.
Hi, I'm Jenny Olsen, and I'm so pleased to be here today to talk to you about One Caleres marketing.
...Over the last several years, we've been building out a marketing ecosystem. At its heart is a massive amount of consumer data, 56 million consumers. We believe robust, actionable, first-party consumer data is gonna be a true source of competitive advantage, especially at a time when marketers can no longer rely on cookies for targeting and personalization. So we see these consumers as an asset, and we're focused on maximizing the value of that asset. As part of that effort, we've surrounded these 56 million consumers with deep competencies in digital marketing, loyalty, data and analytics, consumer insight, and brand marketing. By centralizing some of these functions, we've concentrated and deepened our expertise, and we've attracted great talent. We're leveraging these competencies in a highly effective manner across the portfolio.
These integrated functions now partner closely with their brand marketing counterparts, so we're bringing these competencies to bear in ways that are aligned with each brand's unique ethos. Now, I wanna go deeper on two competencies in particular: digital marketing and loyalty. We're especially strong at digital marketing, and that's helped propel our significant growth in D2C. Our brand portfolio's owned direct-to-consumer businesses are up 50% since 2019. As Mike mentioned, famousfootwear.com is up 47% in that same period. This D2C growth is one of the reasons we have so much consumer data. The other reason is our strength in loyalty. We have about 860 Famous Footwear stores, and we are very good at capturing consumer data in those stores through our Famously You Rewards program, a program that's been around since 1996.
Now, 78% of Famous sales come from our Famously You Rewards members. We've taken that loyalty muscle at Famous Footwear, and we're leveraging it across the portfolio into programs at Vionic and Allen Edmonds, and just in recent weeks, we've launched entirely new loyalty programs at Naturalizer and Sam Edelman. All in, these digital marketing and loyalty competencies have helped drive this 56 million consumer asset that sits at the heart of this marketing ecosystem. While we had a lot of first-party data, it was all sitting in separate silos. In May of this year, we implemented a customer data platform, a CDP. CDP combines our transaction data, website browse behavior, loyalty information, email, and social engagement to give us one unified view of the consumer, all 56 million of them.
This First-Party Data is now clean, it's structured, and it can be used in combination with predictive models powered by AI to do entirely new things, like finding the next generation of high-value consumers, while simultaneously decreasing our customer acquisition costs. Reliably predicting which consumers are likely to take a specific action, like buying from a new brand or a new category at Famous Footwear. And identifying the window in which a specific consumer is most likely to make another purchase or lapse, so that we can intervene and take action and keep them shopping with us. To show you how all this comes together, not just in theory, but in practice, I wanna zoom in to a very specific example at Famous Footwear. As you heard from Mike, we have a very clear strategy at Famous Footwear, focused on Christina, our Millennial mom.
She's shopping for herself and for her family. We place Christina at the center of everything we do. We're leveraging our very strong consumer insight muscle to really understand what makes Christina tick, to get a sense of how she connects with Famous, and make sure we're always delivering exactly what she needs. Using our expertise in media and analytics, we also figured out that we could use kids' product in paid digital to find new Christinas more efficiently. So we went after that opportunity, and this back-to-school season, we used our own data, data in our CDP, to power those campaigns and make them more effective. Now, it's still early days, but we're pleased to see improved media efficiency. On Meta, our kids' campaigns using CDP audiences generated 2x the click-through rate and 2x the return on ad spend versus past methods of targeting moms with kids.
On Google, we layered our CDP audiences into our kids' search campaigns, and those campaigns resulted in higher conversion and sales improvements of 14% plus. While we're encouraged by these early reads and results, we're just getting started. We are in learning mode. In fact, we are continually testing and learning. You heard from Mike that we maximize Christina's value when we get her shopping for herself and her family, and when we get her shopping online and in stores. This will be a very big push as we go into 2024. We've already begun using the CDP and AI-driven predictive models to inspire her to shop for more members of the family, increase her purchase frequency, and keep her engaged with us over the longer term. We are on a path to personalization with Christina.
As we hone our ability to serve up product and messaging that aligns with her needs, we expect our frequency and retention metrics to continue to improve. As we look ahead, we're implementing the CDP for our lead brands in Q4 2024, and we'll be applying what we are learning right now at Famous Footwear. We believe there is real opportunity at the intersection of our new competencies and the brand strategies you've heard today. At Naturalizer, we'll be better able to find extended size consumers who've proven to be more loyal. At Sam Edelman, our CDP will help us acquire and retain the valuable trend seeker. At Vionic, we'll be able to reach the next generation of younger wellness seekers. And at Allen Edmonds, we'll be better able to target personalized messages to our collectors and find new consumers who will behave like them.
To conclude, we are actively nurturing our powerful brands and this incredible asset, our 56 million consumers. We have leveraged our scale to build a One Caleres marketing ecosystem that includes competencies in digital marketing, in loyalty, data and analytics, in consumer insight, and brand marketing. All of this is underpinned by best-in-class technology, including a new customer data platform, a CDP, and a powerful personalization layer. We will soon be announcing a new partnership with Bluecore that will further enhance our ability to deliver personalized emails to our consumers. We're evolving our tech stack, we're strengthening our competencies, and we are constantly testing and learning. This One Caleres marketing muscle positions us to drive outside growth. We look forward to sharing the progress with you in the months to come. Thank you.
Thanks, Jenny. Now let's welcome Jack Calandra, Caleres' CFO, to the stage. He's going to go through the financial review. Jack?
Three more days. Girl, you know I will become unfaithful.
Well, thanks, Logan, and good morning, everyone. From the presentations this morning, you've heard from our different leaders about the brands, strategies, and initiatives that will drive the business to new heights. When married with rigorous financial discipline, a strong balance sheet, and a commitment to return cash to shareholders, we have a three-year plan that delivers an attractive return to investors. Today, I'll walk you through the structural changes made over the last several years to double the baseline earnings of the company, the investments we've made and are making, and the strategies that will provide continued profitable growth over the next three years. Before we dive in, a quick update on our guidance for the third quarter and full year that we announced this morning.
We are reiterating our third quarter and full year guidance, although based on September sales, which came in below expectation, we now expect sales to be on the low end of the existing range for both the third quarter and full year. Specifically, for the third quarter, we still expect consolidated net sales down low single digits versus last year, and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.30-$1.35. For the full year, we still expect consolidated net sales down 3%-5% versus last year, including the 53rd week, adjusted diluted earnings per share of $4.10-$4.30, consolidated operating margin of 7.3%-7.5%, interest expense of $17 million-$19 million, an effective tax rate of about 25%, and capital expenditures of $50 million-$60 million.
Before we look ahead to the next three years, it's important to take a moment to recognize what's been accomplished over the past few years, and to understand the structural, operating, and financial changes we've made to the business. These changes have resulted in a $4 EPS baseline and provide a strong foundation for our plan. Summarizing some of the key financial accomplishments, you can see we've made significant progress since 2019. Specifically, we grew sales to $3 billion. We expanded gross margin 250 basis points, with both segments contributing to that improvement. We increased operating margin almost 300 basis points to 7.3%, again, with both segments contributing to that margin expansion. We more than doubled EPS to $4.52.
We reduced debt by $228 million, including eliminating the long-term debt, and we returned $180 million cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Now, let's turn to the structural changes that resulted in this doubling of EPS. Here you can see that before the pandemic-driven loss in 2020, the business averaged about $2 EPS in the preceding 5-year period. With the structural changes made in the business, we are forecasting our third consecutive year of EPS above $4. Some have questioned whether the new baseline EPS was the result of pent-up demand after the pandemic. While there was certainly some benefit in 2021, that benefit was short-lived.
But let me walk you through the specific operating changes we made in both the brand portfolio and Famous, as well as changes to the company's financial structure, and how those each contributed to this higher earnings baseline. Comparing the $2.10 EPS in 2019 to the midpoint of our guidance for 2023, you can see how much of the improvement was driven by operational changes and financial changes. Over this period, operational changes drove about 75% of that increase. In addition to the improved earnings, these changes allowed us to make critical investments in the business, the benefits from which we continue to realize. I'll unpack the specific operational and financial changes, as well as the investments in the next slides.
Starting with the operational changes, which drove $125 million of operating profit and $2.40 of EPS improvement versus 2019. In brand portfolio, first, we structurally improved the margin profile of the business through the Edit to Win initiative, which drives more volume through fewer SKUs. The Speed Program, about 20% of receipts are sourced through Speed Programs, which reduce inventory risks and markdowns, and the distribution model, where we grew more profitable D2C sales and exited low-margin makeup business. Second, we closed about 150 retail stores for Naturalizer, which was a dilutive channel for the brand. Next, we exited four brands that were dilutive to earnings. Finally, we streamlined the organizational structure of our smaller brands to drive efficiencies and improve profitability.
In Famous Footwear, we closed over 100 underperforming stores, and we improved the margin profile of the business by increasing the number of exclusions from from promotions. We now exclude about 50% of product from promotions. We've also made a number of financial improvements in the business. First, in terms of debt, in fiscal 2021, we eliminated our long-term debt, and since then have been working to reduce borrowings on our asset-based revolver. These actions have reduced interest expense by $10 million, adding $0.20 to EPS. The contribution from this action would have been much higher, but for the 500 basis point increase in interest rates. We continue to focus on debt reduction, given the higher cost of borrowing and the desire to maintain ample liquidity.
Over this period, we also returned over $150 million to shareholders through the repurchase of 8.7 million shares. These share repurchases provided the remainder of that 75-cent EPS improvement, and given an average price per share of $17.86, these repurchases have delivered an attractive return. In addition to doubling the baseline EPS of the company, these changes have enabled $300 million of critical investments that will drive continued profitable growth. Highlighting just a few. In design and innovation, we invested in greater consumer insights and launched Cal Lab, which formalizes a process around trend research and translates the market trends into an application for each of our brands. In consumer experience, we made significant investments in both our physical and digital environments. We re-platformed our websites, delivering a more personalized, immersive shopping experience for customers....
We invested in our Famous stores through both refreshes and more impactful remodels with our Flair design, and we invested in marketing technology and analytics. In logistics and distribution, we completed the insourcing and automation of wholesale logistics, which provided improved processing speed and a hedge against expense increases. We also expanded retail DC and drop ship capabilities, which have driven sales and profits through more efficient store replenishment and our ability to better service a more profitable channel within wholesale. In IT, we're migrating to a cloud-based SAP architecture to bring our retail and wholesale systems onto a common platform, which will improve business processes and provide efficiencies. With a solid understanding of the structural changes we've made to the business, the new earnings baseline, and the investments we've made, I'm now going to turn to our financial plan for the next three years.
Highlighting a few of the key metrics, at its midpoint, our plan provides for a 4% sales CAGR and adds $360 million to the top line. We expect the bulk of this sales and operating profit growth to come from the brand portfolio. Powered by our lead brands, Sam Edelman, Vionic, Allen Edmonds, and Naturalizer, we expect about a 7% sales CAGR and operating margin expansion in this segment. We expect more modest growth in Famous, about a 2% CAGR, excluding the impact of the 53rd week on 2023. Regarding operating margin, we expect continued expansion in brand portfolio to 14%, up from this year's forecast of about 11%. This is driven by about 50 basis points of further gross margin expansion, with the remaining improvement from SG&A leverage.
For Famous, we expect operating margin to hold flat versus this year's forecast of about 8%. Our plan delivers strong EPS growth, a 13% CAGR, and a $6 EPS by 2026. In a few slides, I'll show the algorithm that gets us there. Looking deeper at segment contribution to total Caleres sales and operating profit, our three-year plan increases the sales contribution of Brand Portfolio by 400 basis points and brings the two segments into a more balanced position. Both businesses grow, but Brand Portfolio grows faster. With regard to operating profit, by 2026, we expect Brand Portfolio to contribute 60% of the company's operating profit. This is as a result of a higher sales growth rate and greater penetration of the direct-to-consumer channels in that business, which are more profitable than traditional wholesale.
Earlier, Jay and the leaders in brand portfolio and Famous shared with you their key growth strategies. In our three-year plan, we've included the following: in brand portfolio, we will grow our wholesale business with deeper penetration in the channel. This is a sizable opportunity for brands where we are under-penetrated, such as Allen Edmonds, and where we see brand extension opportunities like Sam Edelman. We will accelerate direct-to-consumer through owned retail and e-commerce. In addition to driving higher sales, these channels also drive higher operating margin. We will drive international growth for brands that have awareness and relevance. We believe Sam Edelman has a big opportunity to build on its relatively small international business. We will drive select category expansion, which is an opportunity for all four of our lead brands.
Finally, we will grow our own brand sales in Famous, and these intercompany sales provide higher margins to our company. We expect these strategies to drive $275 million incremental sales by 2026. In Famous, we will grow sales by increasing store productivity. With the actions we have taken on the fleet in recent years, we think our current fleet of about 860 stores is the right number. To accomplish this productivity improvement, we will lean into our best brands and styles from an inventory, marketing, and visual merchandising perspective, achieve a 50/50 mix of fashion and athletic. In general, fashion offers higher margin than athletic. We will continue to build our engaging customer experience in both the physical and digital channels.
This includes a disciplined and fiscally responsible rollout of Flair store remodels, and we will capitalize on the CDP opportunities Jenny shared with you earlier, and we will grow our leadership position in kids and capture the whole family. We expect these strategies to drive $75 million of incremental sales by 2026. In corporate, we will continue to rigorously manage inventory to maintain higher margins and unlock cash. To be conservative, our plan does not assume increased turns, but we believe there is additional opportunity here. We will manage our SG&A expenses to about 36% of sales. We will be higher than that this year due to the inflationary pressures and lower sales, but we believe that this is the right level of expense for the business and have been there before, as recently as last year.
Finally, we will continue to explore opportunities to maximize asset utilization. This includes our owned manufacturing for Allen Edmonds and our leased DCs, showrooms, and office space. We expect these initiatives, along with the higher top line, to drive 100 basis points of SG&A leverage by 2026. Our three-year plan, which we believe is balanced and achievable, and grounded in identified and quantified strategies, delivers strong EPS growth and an attractive return to shareholders. Here are the levers. We expect only very modest market growth, about 1% per year per Circana's latest outlook. We expect to continue to grow market share in both segments, just as we have been doing. In Famous, we believe our strategies will enable us to outpace market growth by about 1%. In Brand Portfolio, we expect more significant market share growth driven by our lead brands.
We expect to expand total company operating margin by about 100 basis points. We've considered all the headwinds and tailwinds to gross margin, including segment mix, channel mix, category mix, and sourcing mix. The impact of all of these factors is nominal improvement in consolidated gross margin. As such, we expect the majority of the operating margin improvement to come from SG&A leverage, facilitated by greater top-line growth and continued discipline on our expense base, while allowing for the necessary investments to support our strategies. We expect a lower interest expense as we continue to reduce borrowings and have assumed interest rates remain at current elevated levels. These levers drive an EPS CAGR of 11%-13% over the plan period. With the addition of our dividend, which we have held flat in the plan, we deliver a low to mid-teens annual TSR.
Important to note that there are additional levers which could drive further TSR upside and are not built into our base case. They are potential multiple expansion. With the company currently trading at about 6.5x this year's expected earnings and about 4.5x trailing twelve-month EBITDA, executing this plan should reward the company with a higher multiple. Additional share buybacks. As I'll show you in the next few slides, this plan generates significant free cash flow that can be used to buy back shares and/or a higher dividend. The current dividend costs only $10 million per year. We could significantly raise the yield without a large cash commitment. And lastly, accretive M&A. The emphasis here is on accretive. We have significantly raised the bar in terms of profitability of the brand portfolio and are planning for continued margin expansion.
Any M&A would need to support that objective and be of sufficient scale to make a difference. Turning to cash, we have a history of generating strong operating cash flow, nearly $600 million over the past 4 years, including 2020, which was below average because of the pandemic, and putting that cash to use effectively. Over this period, we invested $160 million in CapEx, and the remaining $400 million plus was allocated to grow shareholder value through the reduction of debt, share repurchases, and the dividend payment. Looking ahead, we expect to generate nearly $900 million or 50% more operating cash flow over the next 4 years and $600 million of free cash flow.
Our plan assumes $270 million for CapEx, maintaining the dividend, reducing borrowings to less than $100 million, and repurchasing shares to offset the impact of stock-based compensation. This leaves over $200 million of unallocated discretionary cash flow that can be used to further enhance shareholder returns. We recognize that executing our plan will require a stepped-up investment in CapEx to deliver on our initiatives and maintain our asset base. As such, we are planning to increase CapEx from an average of $40 million per year to approximately $70 million per year. Going forward, CapEx will run about 2% of sales, and we think this is appropriate. With regard to our capital structure, we have focused on reducing our borrowings.
In fiscal 2021, we eliminated our long-term debt, and our borrowings since then have been made on our revolver, which was refinanced in October 2021 at favorable rates. Our plan continues to reduce debt given the higher interest rates and the desire to maintain ample liquidity. By 2026, borrowings will be less than $100 million and less than 0.5x EBITDA. Our capital allocation priorities remain consistent with what we've communicated previously. First, invest for organic growth, with investments prioritized on lead brands and key initiatives that will deliver profitable growth. Second, pay the dividend. We've paid a quarterly dividend for over 100 consecutive years and will continue to do so. Third, reduce debt. Based on today's interest rates and economic environment, we think reducing debt and maximizing liquidity is prudent. Fourth, share repurchases.
We believe our stock is undervalued, and this is an efficient way to return cash to shareholders. And lastly, M&A. We will consider if accretive, opportunistic, and focused on the white spaces in the portfolio, specifically men's, Gen Z consumers, or international. In conclusion, there are five things I hope you take away. First, baseline EPS of $4 is sustainable based on the structural, operating, and financial changes we've made to the business. Second, the three-year plan we've presented is balanced and achievable, building on previous investments we've made and grounded in identified and quantified strategies. Third, the plan delivers strong EPS growth and an attractive TSR, with several growth vectors for additional upside, including multiple expansion, share buybacks, dividend yield, and accretive M&A, and supported by over $200 million of unallocated free cash flow.
Fourth, our capital priorities are unchanged, with a focus on organic growth, a strong balance sheet, and returning free cash flow to shareholders. Finally, with this balanced and achievable plan and our stock trading at bargain multiples of earnings and EBITDA, we believe our stock is a compelling investment opportunity. Thank you.
Before I bring the rest of the management team up for Q&A, I'm gonna turn it over to Jay for some closing remarks.
Back again. You've heard now about our vision and our strategies for growth and about our brands and our capabilities. Hopefully, you're hearing our key message, that Caleres is delivering results. None of this would be possible without our dedicated people and a culture that turns ambition into action and action into results. Just for a minute, our need to focus on culture really became apparent during the pandemic. We've always been focused on it, but we were really concerned about engagement during that period, and understandably so. We recommitted to building our culture to support our new strategies and drive results. We also needed to demonstrate our caring culture in how we interacted with our consumers and our partners, our environment, and our people. We also needed to lean into change and evolve to be a learning organization.
Over the last two years, we strengthened programs for our associates and, in some cases, created new programs. The result is Caleres today, and this is super important because we want to be this place where people want to work and where we're able to find great talent. Our culture is about learning and caring, and we'll continue to prioritize this focus as we go forward. The Cal Lab that was mentioned briefly a couple of times was a great example of this, and it was born out of the need to find new ways to connect and be inspired. Cal Lab is an internal communication platform at Caleres, and it was envisioned and led by Natelle. It highlights new trends and innovations to spark learning and ideation across the organization, and to communicate more easily, as many of us were in different places during that time.
It continues to this day to be a source of inspiration. For many years, Caleres has focused on gender inclusivity, and our work has paid off, with women well represented at every level of our organization, including 70% of our leadership and over 50% of our board. We are also focusing on BIPOC inclusivity, and we're making some good progress here, attracting, retaining, and supporting these associates and leaders in our organization. Currently, about 38% of our corporate associates are BIPOC, and the work does continue. We offer a number of associate resources, including education, mentorship, and groups that encourage leadership skills and are designed to create a sense of belonging among all of our associates. This helps attract new talent, while at the same time supporting the engagement of our current team. We are committed to building a diverse and engaged workplace.
We also ensure that we act as a good corporate citizen. Through our Caleres Cares Charitable Trust and employee volunteerism, we are continuously working to strengthen our communities and provide support for those in the footwear industry. In addition, we have committed to clear and ambitious 2025 ESG targets. We continue to execute on and make significant progress against these goals. We published our inaugural ESG report in 2021 for year-end 2020, and we provide updates on our progress every year. We have been proud to see Caleres recognized as one of America's most responsible companies by Newsweek and one of America's climate leaders by USA Today. So in closing, we are one Caleres. Our structure and our brand assets, our capabilities, our culture, and our people are all value-driving.
As we look ahead, our brands are strong and enduring, our strategies are clear and actionable, and our teams are dedicated to exceeding the expectations of our consumers in this dynamic marketplace. We believe our solid financial foundation has set the stage for us to deliver long-term sales and EPS targets, while at the same time generating strong levels of free cash flow and creating long-term value for you, our shareholders. I'd like to thank you for your attention and your interest in Caleres. And with that, I'll ask our team members to come up, and we're happy to take questions. Thank you.
I'll try to move it over a little bit.
What?
I'll try to move this over-
Okay
... so you have time.
Okay. Have a seat.
You and I are standing?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. Any questions, we'll go over there.
It's right here.
As long as we stand on the stage, I think everyone can hear us. Okay. Are we good?
So any questions? And we, we have some mic runners. Oh, okay. Let's start with Dana. Oh, yeah, please say your name and firm.
Yep. Thank you. Dana Telsey, Telsey Advisory Group. Thank you for a great presentation and presenting the overview. On near term and the long term, on the near term, with September sales being challenging, is it both brands? Is it all regions? Is it traffic or conversion? Anything different in terms of the mix?
Yeah. So, you know, in general, I would say, we're seeing a little bit sluggishness on some of the seasonal categories, I would say, coming out of early fall, which has been, you know, not all that surprising, considering as most of you walked here today, it was probably a little warmer than you expect in October. And that's probably, I would say, the major piece. And looking at other categories, we're still seeing, you know, good interest in the sneaker fashion sneaker business. As we've reported on, there is still great interest in the ballet and flat category.
We also are excited about that, because as we build on those and react to those, we see those as really going from fourth quarter into spring, and we think that that shoe business coming back will serve us really nicely there.
Then on the long-term questions, too: 20-- you mentioned that 20% of the goods come from speed programs, and is there an opportunity for greater there, and what impact does it have on margins? Then just on the Famous Footwear, with 6% of the brands now from Caleres brands-
Yeah
... that has a higher margin going to 10, what would drive that higher? Is there a category, is there an acquisitive nature that would drive it higher?
Yeah.
How do you see that complexion? Thank you.
Well, I always think that we can do more.
So, you know, I think that the 20%... I would say somewhere between 20% and 25% is a really healthy number, and what I love about that is that assumes that 20%-25% of our receipts are exactly what the consumer wants, in exactly the way they want them, the sizes they want them, in the area of that. So that's very exciting, and that also helps us really flow our inventory much better as we work all the way through. So that's a really exciting piece that takes a lot of planning that we do, and a lot of the people here are all involved in that, and working really closely with our factory partners.
But I think it's something that works across our company, and it's one of our biggest accelerants, and it pays off in lots of ways. As Jack alluded to, also, the markdowns coming off that, both from an inventory and then honestly, allowances, if it was to go into the wholesale channel, come way down because of that, because of the rightness of the product. So then, secondarily... The next question?
Famous footwear.
So in Famous Footwear, yes, this is something I really I'm so glad you asked this 'cause I really wanted to answer this. I really should start with Famous and say it really does start on the consumer, okay? We didn't come up with six or 10 or 11 just because we picked a number. We really thought about who's the consumer, and then how can we really meet that gap in there? So as we look at the type of businesses as we're growing there, we're making a lot of investments, first off, in, as we discussed, in our Sam & Libby business, which we think will be a nice growth that we have not really had a large business from that particular brand, and that feels perfectly aligned for that Millennial family, Millennial mom in particular. If we look at Dr.
Scholl's, we're actually making investments that go across the family and developing out the product categories in men's, women's, and kids. So we really see that on its way, I would say, Mike, growing to be the number one-
One brand. Yep.
... brand in Famous Footwear. And again, it comes back from really looking at that consumer and really working through the product offerings that that has for them. And then, as our consumer, they love brands at Famous. So as some of our brands grow, like Naturalizer, well, that's become more important to the Famous Footwear consumer. And then one of our more recent acquisitions, Blowfish Malibu, we think is really has been and is aligned with this Millennial family and really that younger fashion piece of the business. So I would say those are all the reasons, and it really is about us understanding more about the consumer and really working to that. And while I, before I go on, one more time, I will say, just thinking of what Jenny talked about, we're really understanding a lot more about our Famous consumer than ever before.
That learning from that obviously allows us to build more product and better product for the consumer.
Thank you.
Okay.
Hi, it's Laura Champine, am I on? I don't know. It's Laura Champine from Loop Capital. First question on the... If I triangulate the sales guidance and the SG&A guidance, looks like you're looking for very little SG&A expense growth over the next three years. Are there incremental cost cuts that you plan to make, or how do you hold SG&A to that dollar level?
Yeah, it's, it's a good question, Laura. So actually, when we look at the plan over the three years, there's about $100 million of incremental SG&A versus this year. So with the higher sales growth, even getting some leverage there, the dollars are actually quite incremental. It's about $100 million. That on top of the fact that we're stepping up our capital investments as well, which are also critical to some of the growth initiatives. So between the stepped-up capital and another $100 million of SG&A investments, we feel like we've got the initiatives that we've talked about appropriately funded.
Okay. Let's dig into that a little bit more. So the incremental costs on CapEx, if your store units are flat, you've made a lot of IT investments, including the common platform, loyalty programs for Naturalizer, et cetera, what's left to spend? Like, what do you get for those incremental, call it $10-$20 million?
Yeah. So in the plan, we've got about $30-ish million a year allocated to Famous. And then we've got... Obviously, there's always money. I mean, IT is something we are always investing in. Obviously, a big investment with our going to a common platform on SAP, but you know, there are DC investments that we need to continue to make. And then actually, in our $270 million dollar capital plan, right now, we have a $40 million dollar open to buy. So there's $40 million right now that is not earmarked for any specific project or initiative, but again, gives us the fuel to direct that money as we feel is a good investment.
Got it. And last one for me. The expectation that you get very small gross margin improvements, what does that assume from a macro promotional environment where gross margins, you can model them out, but you are small market share in a highly volatile, promotional market?
Do you want me to start with that? Yeah. So I mean, in terms of gross margin, so on the Famous business, really there's no improvement in gross margin over the plan, so that's basically flat. On brand portfolio, where we're seeing gross margin improvement is really from the mix of the businesses. It's the channel mix. So as we grow more into D2C, owned retail, owned e-commerce, that's where we get the benefit. We actually did also assume that some of the ocean benefit that we've gotten this year, that we give some of that back next year. So that's been a nice tailwind this year, but we expect that we'll probably get to a more normalized level. So it's really on the brand portfolio side is gonna be more around the channel mix.
Thank you.
Yep.
Mitch?
Yes, thank you. Mitch Kummetz with Seaport Research Partners. Just getting back to Dana's first question about September, how does that inform your thinking going into October and then kind of the fourth quarter? Because the weakness was more seasonal, do you sort of assume that once the weather turns, that business will pick up, or are you taking kind of a more cautious view on the consumer than kind of what was maybe in the prior guidance?
You wanna talk about the total trend, and then I'll fill in the gaps there.
Yeah. So, you know, what we saw in both segments was that September was weaker than August. You know, we think there are a couple of things going on there. One is, we have read a lot about the lag effect of some of the interest rate increases, and some of those are starting to come through. We also know that the student loan repayment program restarted in September, with payments coming out in October. But as we look at some of the things that we're comping, some of the things that, you know, the initiatives that we have in place, we felt like, at this time, the right thing was to guide to the low end of our guidance on both the quarter and the full year.
Do you wanna add to that?
Then I would just say that, yes, we do expect that, to a, but more to a moderated degree, I would say.
That's reflected in our guidance, too, that as we get into season, things will get, you know, on the seasonal category, obviously a little bit better.
And then on the 2026 plan, on brand portfolio, I think you said that the lead brands are 55% of BP, and I think you—well, let's, let's start there. Is there any way to kinda break out those four brands? I mean, I know you're, you're—in terms of volumes, like, you're kinda lumping them into sort of one big piece, but can you kinda rank order them or give us more color on the volumes of those four brands? And then, I think you said that in terms of sales growth, I think it was about $275 million of incremental sales?
In total
Total brand.
In total, Brand Portfolio.
In total Brand Portfolio.
Can you just talk about, like, the runway on that, on that volume growth and brand portfolio? Like, is it—do you see it skewed to any one of the four brands, or kinda, you know, just kinda color there?
Well, I think we're gonna say, first of all, we're just giving guidance on the four lead brands. I think, you know, just even reflecting back, you've kind of heard it different, you know, from each person where we think the growth opportunities are, and quite frankly, they all have growth opportunities. So we're really gonna manage that in real time. And my guess is, is that no matter how I think exactly how 2026 goes within each of the four brands-
... we'll be a little bit off by the time we get there. But what I'm excited about is that, as Jack pointed out, they have really identified very specific growth opportunities that are measurable and actionable. So we're gonna continue to focus on that. And then really within that, this is, you know, new, a new time for us to give color on the four lead brands and what they represent, and we'll continue to update everyone as we go along.
Yeah. Mitch, I would just add that, you know, as we model the brand portfolio and that 6.8% CAGR over the three-year period, we are expecting a little bit that to be a little bit more modest in 2024 and a little bit higher in 2026. It is by no means a hockey stick plan, but there certainly is some build-
Yeah
... as some of those initiatives that we've talked about start to bear fruit.
I do have a couple more. I don't know if somebody else wants to take it first or?
Oh, we have one in the back.
Hi, sorry. Mauricio Serna from UBS. I wanted to ask about, you know, the 3-year sales guidance. I mean, does that imply—what kind of growth does that imply? You know, if I think about over the next 3 years, is that, like, fairly split throughout the years? Like, or do you think it's more weighted towards a specific year, where, like, you know, the things recover faster just because macro turns?
Yeah.
Then, on the long term, it seems that, you know, the Brand Portfolio is generating, you know, stronger growth and stronger margins. You know, is the idea here in the long term that the company could actually become, like, fully or closely more like Brand Portfolio driven and just very low, very minimal share related to the, you know, Famous Footwear-
Yeah
-banner?
Well, I'll start-
Yeah
... and then, Jay, you can add. So, we've modeled the growth rates different by segments. So in the case of Famous, the 2% CAGR, again, excluding the 53rd week this year, is basically, is basically consistent each year. So we didn't assume any sort of, differences by year in, in Famous. In brand portfolio, that's where over that, that 6.8% CAGR, it is a little bit lower than that in 2024, and then kinda gets to that midpoint, and then a little bit better than that as we get to 2026. You know, as we talked about in the presentation, Famous is gonna continue to be a very important part of the company and the portfolio.
By 2026, we expect revenue basically to be split 50/50 between the two, but a little bit more weighted on the operating profit, with 60% of the operating profit coming from the brand portfolio.
Okay.
And then on the, it's Mitch Kummetz again with Seaport. On the brand portfolio growth, it sounds like it's skewed maybe a little bit more towards DTC, and it sounds like there's some brick-and-mortar in there. I think from the presentation, I heard that, you know, you're gonna open some Sam stores, some Allen Edmonds stores. Can you talk about sort of what unit growth is embedded in the, the B&M, the brick-and-mortar or I'm sorry, just the overall sales plan for BP and kind of where you see those stores, like, you know, by brand?
You wanna start?
Yeah, well, I mean, maybe we could start. I mean, David, I think talked about in his presentation, I think we were targeting about 20, David?
He's over here.
David?
Yeah.
David, there you are. About 20 stores for Allen Edmonds, I think was in the plan.
Sam is where we think there's more opportunity both, both because of there's the domestic piece, as well as the international piece.
And then on Famous, you talked about Flair , and I think you said there's like a 5% lift on Flair . Kinda where does that stand today, and how do you see that rolling out over the next few years?
Okay, Mike?
Yeah. Yeah, so as I mentioned earlier, we've have 11 stores. And, you know, we had our first store was in St. Louis, kind of as a test lab. We learned a lot. We did some things with the next group of 10, different centers, different configurations. And so what we've learned is, there was a group that outperformed the balance. That 5% lift came from them, and then as we identified the 20 that we're targeting later this year, we kind of used those inputs of what worked, what didn't work, to drive the decision on where and how we were gonna build each of those stores.
I would just say, you know, as we kind of look in the next year, you know, we're, we're gonna be very thoughtful about where the investments go and making sure that we're seeing the returns that we saw in that group that outperformed.
Okay.
I do have one from the web I can, butt in here, Mitch. So how do you determine shelf space between Caleres brands versus non-Caleres brands at Famous stores and on the website?
Well-
Well-
... I would say, yes, that's for Mike, and I'm happy to jump in and play judge and jury on that one, you know, 'cause we really are focusing on getting the best shoes-
Yes
... for the consumer, and that's really our driving force, and it will always be that way. So I think I've said this before, when, you know, that's how we make our decisions, and, when, you know, Caleres brands win, we win big. But if for some reason, you know, someone else is trending better, then we have to be focused on the consumer 'cause that's our lens, and we really feel like, you know, I'm happy to really weigh in when that happens. But I know Mike has a hard job with that one because he has to work with a lot of the brands, but they manage it very well there.
Yeah, and I think it goes back a little bit to what Jay touched on earlier.
We let the consumer kinda drive that decision. We have a planning and an allocation team in St. Louis that really optimizes each store assortment for where that local customer's demands are by brand and by category. So, the shelf space decision really is a decision that our teams make based on who that local customer is-
and what the demands by category and brand are in their local store.
Okay, one more I have here. So there was a mention of loyalty programs at the brands. Any early reads from those new loyalty programs that have been introduced?
Jenny Olsen, this sounds like it's coming your way.
Yeah, sure. So, as I mentioned, Famous is a big winner, Famously You Rewards program, 78% of our sales are through that. So that has been a big win for us. We relaunched the Allen Edmonds program about a year ago. I cannot disclose specific numbers, but suffice it to say, we're very pleased with the results there. The Sam program and the Naturalizer program are just a few weeks in, so it's too early there. But, very pleased with loyalty overall, and especially at Famous and at Allen Edmonds.
Any more from the room? Oh, we have one right here.
Hi, I'm Rafael Maia with Primecap. I just wanted to dig in into the collecting and leveraging data that you guys mentioned during the presentation. One question that I have is you mentioned omnichannel shoppers spend usually 2 times more than people who only shop either online or in person. What kind of initiatives are you doing to sort of convert people from just one to both of them? If you can just share a little bit about what percentage of your customers are omnichannel shoppers.
This is really a CDP-
Yeah.
Yeah, you want to take that?
I think both Mike and I-
Yeah.
We-
Yeah
... Mike and I are a great tag team. But I think a lot of the strategies I talked about in terms of 2024 were Famous. So we're very focused on getting Christina to shop not only for her kids, but for herself, right? And driving her frequency as well. And so that's pulling through, and you'll see it more again in 2024 in personalized emails, in targeted messaging and product, and even website experiences. So we'll come back. Again, that's a forward-looking initiative, but the CDP really does position us well to do that, as well as what I mentioned, our personalization layer and Bluecore, this new technology that we have already at Famous, and we're extending across all of our portfolio.
Just-
Oh.
Could I do one follow-up?
This is in terms of data collection on your stores. You've mentioned, I think, 21% of the stores are kids, and then if you include kids who shop adult sizes, that increases to 28%, so there's a 7% increase there. How are you collecting that? How can you estimate that number?
Well, the 21% is where the... like, you know, customers buying in true kid sizes, that's where the penetration is today. And then, if you basically take that teenage customer cohort out of the adult sizes, it adds basically about another 10%, so we get to about 30% of the total. And that data really comes through Circana, through some of, you know, the old NPD, through some of the customer research that they do on each of the brands, including Famous.
Thank you.
Hi, Scott Hoina at Neuberger Berman. Just sort of a follow-up on that. I guess if you have 56 million, is it active customers, or is it just-
Unique-
... total customers?
Consumers. Yes, active within the last four years.
Okay, within the last four years.
Yeah, it's how we define them.
So, I can't just take that number and divide it by $2.8 billion to see what they spend. I'm just curious, like, what's sort of the average customer, what are they spending on you per year, and how does that compare to their total potential spend when you look at your addressable categories? And then on the data, like, what kind of real data do you have to target these people to get a higher share of wallet? Is it just their email addresses, or do you know, like, I've got two kids, and my wife likes certain styles of shoes in her size and stuff like that?
So two big questions. Let me, let me address both of them. Let me start with the second part of your question, which is: what is the data you have? We have postal, we have email, we have SMS, we have web browsing behavior, we have social engagement, we have what's called zero-party data, so things like loyalty information. That's when we ask for consumers to give us direct information, and then we're also bringing third-party data from Experian, and we're overlaying that. So we have a lot of information, and I can share that 90% of that 56 million consumer number is contactable, which is a very high number. Can you restate maybe the first part of your question, so I make sure I'm getting that too?
Well, yeah. Just initially, I was thinking if it was 56 million people and you have $2.8 billion in sales, and they spend $50, you know, per year per average, but if you're saying it's 56 million over 4 years, the number doesn't work. So I'm just curious, what's sort of the average spend per year from your customer? They may come once or twice a year and spend $50 or $100 dollars, and how does that compare to their total spending on shoes? Is it $300, $400 dollars?
Yeah. So it's sort of hard for us to talk about averages because our businesses are so diverse. So for example, at an Allen Edmonds, our AURs there are so much higher than they are at Famous Footwear. And remember that 56 million consumer number is across the totality of Caleres.
And then the $2.8 billion, right, is the whole company. Just total, yeah.
-or so.
We'd have to break it out a little differently then.
Yeah. Yep. And I think, you know, understand the act-
Yeah.
Obviously, the 12-month actives.
I think, I think Mitch has probably one more over here.
Yeah, thanks. It's Mitch Kummetz again. Jay, I just want to clarify, 'cause you talked about the trajectory on the sales side, that BP, it kinda ramps in 2025 and 2026 versus 2024. When you look at Caleres on an EBIT standpoint, is there also kind of a ramp that's more sorta back of the plan weighted, that kind of follows the trajectory of the BP sales or...?
Yeah, I think that's fair. It's not. The trajectory from $4.20-$6 won't be completely linear, but it's also not a hockey stick.
And then, and then on the, just to follow up on Scott's question about the 56 million kind of individuals in that consumer file. You mentioned that, you know, the goal in 2024 is to kinda get Christina to shop for herself. But I'm also curious, I would assume that most of these sort of 56 million individuals really came from the, the Famous loyalty side. And, like, what's the opportunity to kind of really leverage them to buy some of the own brands within the portfolio? And I don't know to what extent you've already been doing that, and is that something that really ramps, starting next year and going forward?
We're already doing that. So as you might expect, of that 56 million consumer number, a large majority of that is from Famous, owing to how robust that loyalty program is, as well as our significant store footprint. But we are actively marketing to that Famous consumer to get her to buy from our BP brands. That started a while ago, but with the benefit of CDP as well as this personalization layer, all of which is pretty new, we should be much better able to target product and messages to that Famous customer file and get her buying, to Jay's point, with whatever brand she wants, but especially with our BP brands.
That launch of the CDP working for the brands does not begin until 2024. So they're, you know, we're really at the beginning of this journey-
Yeah
... of really unlocking all of this, but certainly, there's... I'll just close and say there's a lot to work with, for sure.
Absolutely.
One more from the web: How does the Cal Lab Trend Office ensure that brands across the portfolio stay distinct or move to relevance?
Great question.
I know, Natelle, that's another, you have, you have a hard, hard job with that one. Go ahead.
So yeah, the great thing about working with Caleres' brand portfolio is we have the flexibility to flex to the trends through each brand's DNA, and I like to call it as, you know, describe it as being the product police. When we see the big trends, we're able to identify which brands they are most appropriate for. And right now, we're seeing some, you know, key trends that are very lifestyle-led. There's a new vanguard with lower heels. You know, the sneaker trend is testament to that.
And what we're able to do is to rank those trends appropriately using some of our data analytics that we have at our disposal and some trend service external platforms, and layer that with our internal sales knowledge and expertise and forecast accurately which trends are gonna have, you know, immediate success that we would react to quickly, which trends, you know, would be appropriately timed later. And then we can phase the trends accurately so that it gives us the flexibility to use our Speed Program, we can test and react quicker, and then plan things for the appropriate seasonal peak of selling.
Yeah. And I'd just say, add, it's a good question because in Natelle's role, you would think possibly the opposite, but it really is that when one person is overseeing this, they actually can edit all the way through, as opposed to having lots of people act independently and, you know, become closer together. So, we're really pleased with the results so far, but good question, and one we did think about, too.
Yeah.
... Thank you, everyone. We do have lunch out in the lunch area, if you'd like to stay with us. Oh, sorry. Did you have a question? I apologize.
Yeah.
Hi, Mantero Moreno Cheek from Jefferies. Quick question just about how your traffic trends are at Famous Footwear, and then anything about the wholesale market and the availability of your top brands at Famous Footwear?
Traffic trends, I don't think we're really-
We have,
Speaking-
Yeah, we don't really speak to the individual, individual metrics within there. I would say, you know, in terms of, in terms of the performance of Famous, I think traffic has been the lever that has been most challenged.
So that's probably been driving the majority of the declines that we've seen to date. And I'm sorry, I didn't hear the second part of the question.
It's about Caleres brands at Famous and which ones are working, I think, right?
I think availability of top brands at Famous, and then just how the summer has been working for, like, sandal and other brands.
Yeah. So, so just at Famous, we really said, you know, Dr. Scholl's, Naturalizer, LifeStride, Blowfish were some of the key ones at, at Famous in terms of just representing to the total right now. But we do have, some other styles that are working well, and then in some cases, we will have some brands that are working well on their website, and if they do better, they'll go into stores.
Absolutely.
Yep.
Okay.
And then, in terms of what's working in wholesale right now, well, we did say that flats and sneakers are working really well, and the shoes that are versatile, that actually, I think Natelle said it well, low-heeled. And then we also talked about ballet, so I'm looking at my friend down at the other end and saying, if there's ever a moment, you know, we've got, we've got it there. But certainly, I would say, Sam, some of those categories are working really well. Your loafer business is nice, too, and-
Yeah, a little bit of return to dress also.
Yeah, and that's true. We have seen closed-toe dress come back, right? And more on a lower heel, but obviously just overall... And I do think that speaks a little bit to how the consumer is still prioritizing newness right now, right? And things they don't currently own right now.
A lot of that going on keeps us on our toes.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.