Good morning. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Buckle's Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Release Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Members of Buckle's management on the call today are Dennis Nelson, President and CEO; Tom Heacock, Senior Vice President of Finance, Treasurer and CFO; Adam Akerson, Vice President of Finance and Corporate Controller; and Brady Fritz, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. As they review operating results, they would like to reiterate their policy of not giving future sales or earnings guidance and have the following safe harbor statement. Safe harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 -- all forward-looking statements made by the company involve material risks and uncertainties and are subject to change based on factors, which may be beyond the company's control. Accordingly, the company's future performance and financial results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in any such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to, those described in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not undertake to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, even if experience or future changes make it clear that any projected results expressed or implied therein will not be realized. Additionally, the company does not authorize the reproduction or dissemination of transcripts or audio recordings of the company's quarterly conference calls without its expressed written consent. Any unauthorized reproductions or recordings of the calls should not be relied upon as the information may be inaccurate. As a reminder, today's webcast is being recorded. And now I'd like to turn the conference over to your host, Tom Heacock.

Good morning, and thanks for joining us this morning. Our March 15, 2024, press release reported that net income for the 14-week fourth quarter ended February 3, 2024, was $79.6 million or $1.59 per share on a diluted basis compared to net income of $87.8 million or $1.76 per share on a diluted basis for the prior year 13-week fourth quarter ended January 28, 2023. Net income for the 53-week fiscal year ended February 3, 2024, was $219.9 million or $4.40 per share on a diluted basis compared to net income of $254.6 million or $5.13 per share on a diluted basis for the prior year 52-week fiscal year ended January 28, 2023. Net sales for the 14-week fourth quarter decreased 4.8% to $382.4 million compared to net sales of $401.8 million for the prior year 13-week fourth quarter. Comparable store sales for the 14-week fiscal quarter decreased 9.6% in comparison to the same 14-week period in the prior year, and online sales decreased 12.4% to $65.5 million for the 14-week fiscal period, which compares to $74.8 million for the prior year 13-week fiscal period. Compared to the same 14-week period a year ago, online sales were down 16.6%. Net sales for the 53-week fiscal year decreased 6.3% to $1.261 billion compared to net sales of $1.345 billion for the prior year 52-week fiscal year. Comparable store sales for the 53-week fiscal year ended February 3, 2024, decreased 8% from the prior year 53-week period ended February 4, 2023. Our online sales were down 10.3% to $206.5 million for the 53-week fiscal year compared to $230.4 million for the prior year 52-week fiscal year and compared to the same 53-week period a year ago, online sales were down 11.8%. For the quarter, UPTs increased approximately 0.5%, the average unit retail…

Thanks, Tom. Women's merchandise sales for the quarter were down about 8% against the prior year fiscal quarter and represented approximately 41% of sales compared to 42.5% in the prior year. On a 14-week comparable basis, women's merchandise sales were down approximately 12.5%. Average denim price points increased from $79.75 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 to $81.25 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. While the average -- overall average women's price point increased about 1.5% from $50.30 to $51. On the men's side, merchandise sales for the quarter were down about 2% against the prior year fiscal quarter, representing approximately 59% of total sales compared to 57.5% in the prior year. On a 14-week comparable basis, men's merchandise sales were down approximately 5.5%. Average denim price points increased from $86.25 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 to $87.15 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. For the quarter, overall average men's price points increased approximately 3% from $54.50 to $56.05. On a combined basis, accessory sales for the 14-week quarter were down approximately 7.5% against the prior year 14-week comparable period, while footwear sales were down about 41%. These 2 categories accounted for approximately 11% and 6%, respectively, of fourth quarter net sales, which compares to 10.5% and 9% for each in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022. For the quarter, average accessory price points were up approximately 1.5%, and average footwear price points were up 10.5%. Denim accounted for approximately 44% of sales and tops accounted for approximately 29.5% which compares to 41.5% and 30% for each in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022. Our women's denim business for the quarter was down about 6.5% compared to the same 14-week period a year ago. While the overall women's denim business was down, we were excited…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Mauricio Serna.

Great. I just wanted to like -- maybe you could talk about a little bit about what happened in February with the 11.5% console decline. What were the main drivers behind that? And how are you thinking about it for the rest of the quarter? And then maybe on the merchandise margin, it's nice to see the mild expansion in Q4, maybe you could talk about what was the driver becoming that and how are you thinking about it for '24. And then just lastly, I just wanted to check the numbers that you said, talked about the store openings. I think you called out 18 new stores and closing 4 stores, so a net opening of 14. It just appears like to be like a very nice acceleration compared to previous year. So I just was wondering what is driving that?

Okay. Thank you, Mauricio, for the questions. If I could take a quick moment before answering to just thank our Buckle teammates for a very successful 2023. I appreciate our team's great work in creating an enjoyable shopping experience for our guests, and I'm very much looking forward to working with our Buckle talent in 2024. Now in regards to the questions, February business, I think we saw less excitement on the new spring product, shorts selling, which was very strong a year ago was down. We brought probably some of our gal's top selection for spring. We brought that in a little bit later. So we had an effect there, still saw pretty good denim selling and a good reaction. But just I think the traffic patterns were down some as well. On the increase of new stores locations, A few years ago, we did not do outlet situations. And a year or 2 ago, we did a store in an outlet with Tanger that is our regular store even though it's in an outlet, and that worked pretty well. And so we have a good relationship with Tanger and Simon on reviewing the -- what was used to be strictly outlet to do our stores as a typical store, and that's worked well. So it's given us more options as well as we've seen some changes in some smaller markets in the past couple of years that has given us opportunities as we looked outside to locations and power centers and such, which we did not before. So like a Poplar Bluff last year that we opened in Missouri was an example of that. And that has worked well. So that's given us new opportunities there. And did I miss a question?

Mauricio, this is Tom. I'll just clarify. I think you were asking about 2024 new store plans and remodel plans. What we said was 8 new stores for 2024 is all we have planned, 15 to 19 full remodels, with half of the remodels being relocations to new outdoor centers. And then for now, we've already closed 2 stores so far this year, and one of those is a used store moving back into the full-line store, so it's all under one roof, and then we have 2 more planned early in April. And then I think the last question was on merchandise margin drivers for the fourth quarter and merchandise margins for all of 2023 hung in really strong and improved as we went through the year. The team did a great job of managing inventory, I mean managing markdowns. And so part of that is mix shift. Some of that -- I mean, private label at 50%. I think that's an all-time high of private label. That's been accretive to margins, a little bit of benefit from freight costs coming down and then partially offset by a slight increase in shrink during the year. So those are the main drivers for Q4 margins, which are pretty consistent with Q3.

There are no further questions in queue. [Operator Instructions] Looks like we have another question from Mauricio.

Just a couple of follow-ups. Maybe if you could elaborate a little bit more on what you're seeing in footwear. It seems in the category, it seems to continue to be challenged despite lapping maybe like already that some impact last year from Hey Dude being soft. Maybe you could elaborate on that. And then you talked about how you have been doing a lot of remodelings and repositions of the stores. A lot of these to off-mall locations. Maybe could you remind us at this point like roughly what is your off-mall versus mall exposure?

Yes, off-mall exposure.

I think -- I mean, again, we've had a large number of remodels and broke that out, how many we've moved off malls. We're still primarily mall-based and in a lot of lifestyle centers. I think still 70% mall-based. And so Brad and Dennis do a great job of reviewing that situation by situation to, again, make sure we're in the best shopping center. So there's probably still more opportunities to continue that trend.

Yes. And on the Hey Dude, last year, $40 million of our business was -- that's close -- was down in Hey Dude footwear, was close to half of our total loss for the year. And I think the team did a good job of managing inventories to the right level. We still have some good sell-throughs there, but at much different inventory levels. As far as new footwear going forward, we're starting to see a little bit of excitement in the Gal's product and stuff, but nothing that's going to replace the Hey Dude volume at the present time.

Our next question is from Nancy Frohna.

This is Nancy Frohna with 1492 Capital Management. Just a quick question. Have you seen any meaningful change in the way your customers are paying for their purchases, whether it's sort of the buy now, pay later mode or any meaningful differences over time?

Nancy, thanks for the question. I don't think we've seen real meaningful shifts. I think it's been pretty consistent. We do offer buy now, pay later services, which we have for several years, and it's really small in store and obviously much bigger online, but I don't think that we've seen meaningful shifts in payment methods this year.

Our next question is from Alan Glenn.

Congratulations on another excellent quarter. My question relates to the store refreshes that are ongoing. And can you share with us the kind of success that the refresh store generates in terms of maybe average sales increase?

Well, thank you, Alan, for the question. It's a little difficult to say because we come off such record years, but we're finding that the outdoor centers we're going to is about 30% larger, and we're finding the guest is staying longer in the store, enjoying the ability to see more presentations and such there. So -- and in cases where stores maybe have been in an older mall that has not kept up, when we move it, we're seeing some very nice gains on those locations. Other locations might be a very solid store, but we're improving the location and the future set-up. And so you don't see as big a gain, but as I mentioned, we're coming off a couple of record years and doing these changes, we feel very good that this is the path to take, but I can't give you a clear growth number to put down.

There are no further questions in queue. [Operator Instructions] It looks like there's no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Buckle for any closing remarks.

Thank you, everybody, for your participation and joining us today. We hope you have a wonderful day, and enjoy your weekend. Thank you.