Citi Trends (CTRN) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Citi Trends (NASDAQ: CTRN)
Q3 2024 Earnings Call
Dec 03, 2024, 9:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Citi Trends third quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Cody McAlester, with ICR. Thank you. You may begin.

Cody McAlester -- Investor Relations

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Citi Trends third quarter 2024 earnings call. On our call today is chief executive officer, Sir Ken Seipel; and chief financial officer, Heather Plutino. Our earnings release was sent out this morning at 6:45 a.m.

Eastern Time. If you have not received a copy of the release, it's available on the company's website under the investor relations section at www.cititrends.com. You should be aware that prepared remarks today made during this call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions.

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These statements do not guarantee future performance. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on these statements. We refer you to the company's most recent report on Form 10-K and other subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed discussion of the factors that can cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to our chief executive officer, Ken Seipel.

Ken.

Ken Seipel -- Interim Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Cody. Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our Q3 earnings call today. Since we last spoke, as most of you have seen, I've been honored to accept the permanent role as CEO here at Citi Trends, and I'm really pleased to continue leading the company in this capacity, which will allow us to continue to implement the strategies that we outlined back in last summer that have been aimed at driving business improvement and ultimately increase shareholder value. I also want to acknowledge the board of directors for providing a unique equity compensation structure that ensures my alignment with shareholder interest.

Citi Trends has really unique and exciting growth opportunity. We have nearly 600 stores serving our African American customers directly within their neighborhoods. Our brand familiarity, customer loyalty, neighborhood store locations are really difficult to duplicate, which gives us a defensible moat against our competition. With this solid foundation of differentiation, our future is well within our control and not dependent on external factors.

Implementation and consistent execution of our redefined business strategy, which includes an acute focus on our core African American customer, a strong product value proposition with a balanced offering of good, better, and best products, more extreme value treasure for our treasure hunt experience for our customers, disciplined expense management, and compelling growth plans, will effectively be the driving force for creating significant shareholder value. Our business results in Q3 are really an early indicator that our customers are responsive to our renewed focus and the resulting corrective measures in the business. And notably, we've seen that momentum continue into the fourth quarter with high single-digit comp sales performance to date. The strong customer response and a growing transaction count momentum give me optimism that we're really on the right path and the success that will continue to compound as we more fully execute our strategies.

Let me take you through a few highlights of our third quarter results, starting with our top-line performance. As previously announced, we delivered strong third quarter sales of 179.1 million, achieving positive comparable sales growth of 5.7%. We saw growing strength throughout the period with comparable sales improving each month, culminating in high single-digit growth in October. This performance was broad-based, driven by increased customer traffic, single-digit transaction growth, and a larger basket size.

Shifting to category performance. We saw positive trends across both our apparel and non-apparel categories. Children's apparel was particularly strong in this quarter, benefiting from a combination of our enhanced product assortment and improved allocation tactics, which allow us to capitalize not only on the peak back-to-school selling period but also post-peak period when we strategically allocated inventory into stores with sales demand to fuel the growth throughout the entire selling season. Our non-apparel categories also performed very well, led by continued strength in our home and lifestyle categories, driven by strategic inventory investments and strength in our family basics and sleepwear, fueled by our commitment for better in stocks of family basics like socks and underwear.

These are all areas that also benefited from execution of our allocation tactics anchored on placing inventory in stores based on local demand. During our call in June, I mentioned we were planning to focus on improving product allocation. And after spending some time reviewing the product allocation methods and systems, it became clearer that there were just simply too many variables for an average allocator to manage and included an overwhelming complexity of allocation methods, coupled with a large amount of store choices. In short, we made it very difficult for our allocation team to be successful.

We since reduced the complexity by limiting our store clusters to three groups, simply high-, average-, and low-volume stores. Our allocation accuracy steadily improved during the quarter, and I'd like to acknowledge our allocation team and leadership for their hard work and commitment to improvement. Now that we have established the basics of allocation, we're turning our attention to more advanced techniques, which will include future system enhancements down the road. I expect our work in allocation to have a meaningful impact on our operating results well into 2025 and beyond.

As I mentioned last quarter, we were intently focused on foundational and fundamental internal process improvements. Our success this quarter is a testament to these efforts as our data-driven approach has improved inventory efficiency. And I'd like to acknowledge the work of our finance team for developing methods to track the retail industry standard metric gross margin return on investment, commonly known as GMROI, down to the category level for our own internal use. I was pleased with our merchants team's willingness to embrace the metric and make better product decisions to improve not only our gross margin dollars but also include the cost of handling and the cost of the overall inventory investment in their overall evaluation process.

Again, we're just in the early stages here. We have more work to do, but this benefit will keep on going in the future. And speaking of foundational improvements, our supply chain team has found ways to improve both the transportation and distribution center efficiency, which has resulted in nearly a two-week reduction of time from vendor to store. This is a really big first step in helping us build capacity to quickly chase sales demand trends and improve our inventory turnover.

I also want to emphasize the strong momentum we saw in our full-price selling performance during the quarter. Although we did not see sales benefit -- although we did see a sales benefit from remaining clearance units early on tied to the strategic markdowns we took in Q2, our full-price selling trends sequentially improved as the quarter progressed, which has continued into Q4 and it reflects growing resonance of our product offering and our customers' willingness to pay full price for the increasingly compelling merchandise that we're able to offer. Another key highlight in the third quarter was gross margin expansion of 160 basis points, along with solid gross profit dollar growth that outpaced our top-line expansion. The primary drivers are twofold.

First, we expanded initial markups through improved product cost negotiations, a muscle that we're further developing, combined with growing sales penetration of our higher-margin categories. Second, we registered improved shrinkage rates on stores inventoried in the quarter. With a consulting partner in the quarter, we identified several favorable shrink opportunities and have implemented specific administrative and process actions that enable us to better monitor and manage both internal and external factors. We expect these new tactics to have a meaningful improvement in our shrink measures going forward.

Turning to the drivers of SG&A in the period. We also mentioned in our November 18th pre-announcement, we incurred strategic costs related to a number of efforts aimed at driving future top-line expansion and enhanced profitability. So, first, we initiated a comprehensive customer insights study to gain quantitative and ethnographic insights into the drivers of purchase decisions. The study has delivered a host of new insights that's going to fuel decision-making processes and product and positioning our store experience in 2025 and beyond.

Second, we incurred costs to improve operational processes, including new shrink improvement measures that are driving notable improvement, along with the enhancements related to the effectiveness of our Island Pacific operation system and development of KPIs to drive the business and exception reporting to increase focus on facts that are critical to our business. And third, we engaged consultants to help evaluate customer shopping patterns in our store with the goal of developing improvements in the shopping experience for our customers and to drive new decision-making that will inform both our merchandising and store remodel strategy in the future. In total, we estimate there were approximately about 1.6 million in ancillary expenses incurred in Q3. I consider these costs as one-time in nature and important to stabilizing our foundational operational practices in preparation for long-range growth.

Before passing the call over to Heather to review our financial results in more detail, as well as our upwardly revised outlook, I'd like to take a moment to reiterate the pillars of the foundation that we've laid out for the future and also express how we are executing with clear vision and passion around the organization. So, first, we have redefined our company's focus to our core African American customer who represents the majority of our trade area in around 90% of our stores. This renewed focus will enable our merchandising teams to secure a more refined product assortment that resonates most adeptly with our core demographic. We're beginning to see the results of these efforts, and I'm really encouraged by our early outcomes.

Second, we are reinforcing our product value proposition with a balanced assortment of good, better, and best product categories across all of our categories. For our lower-income customers that are on a tight budget, we're shifting our strategy to offer increased selection of goods priced under $5, with visible signage to emphasize our value proposition. This is driving both traffic and basket size, which were key drivers of our third quarter results. Third, we are offering more treasure by securing branded deals from various sources that represent extreme values.

We've recently strengthened our buying team with an experienced off-price specialist who is actively identifying compelling opportunities in the market. Plus, our entire buying team is now actively sourcing opportunistic deals in the marketplace. Our buyers have secured numerous compelling deals, including an exciting branded footwear buy that is just now hitting the shelves. It is resonating well with our customers today.

It's driving viral word-of-mouth marketing and positioning us well for the remainder of this important holiday season. We've already seen strong and growing trends in November, adding to our confidence in our actions. Longer term, we expect this off-price treasure segment to become a significant growth area for the company and eventually contributing 10% or more of our sales mix at above-average margins. And fourth, we are focused on consistent execution across all areas of the business, from product procurement to logistics to store execution.

While consistency is defined over time, I am pleased with the internal enhancements we've made to date that will allow for more consistent execution of our model in the quarters and years ahead. And lastly, we'll continue to diligently manage expenses, which will provide for good flow-through of sales to profit as we execute our store -- our core strategies. Now, I'll turn the call over to Heather to review financial points from Q3, as well as a few comments related to fourth quarter. Heather.

Heather Plutino -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Ken, and good morning, everyone. First, let me add my congratulations to the many teams across the organization for the hard work that drove our third quarter results. I am encouraged by the positive trends that are beginning to develop across the business, particularly the mid-single-digit comp store sales growth in the quarter and the 160 basis points of gross margin expansion. We continue to implement the strategies Ken laid out, creating new opportunities for top-line expansion by quickly executing a refreshed inventory assortment with high-demand brands and a more balanced good, better, best approach.

While there is still much work ahead, our initiatives, along with our strong balance sheet, are positioning Citi Trends to return to profitable growth. Turning now to the specifics of our third quarter results. Total sales in the quarter were $179.1 million, with comp sales increasing 5.7% compared to the prior-year period. The comp increase was driven largely by improved customer traffic and mid-single-digit transaction growth as we introduced our new more strategic product selection and employed better allocation methods.

Importantly, comparable store sales gained momentum as the quarter progressed, delivering sequential improvement month over month, and that momentum has continued through fourth quarter to date, positioning us well for the holiday season. The markdowns taken in the second quarter certainly helped our Q3 sales results, particularly in September and August, contributing about 2 points of comp sales growth in Q3. That said, it's important to note that full-price sales were up versus last year in each month of the quarter and we delivered our best comp performance in October as we exited our clearance event and delivered freshness to the stores. By the end of the third quarter, the markdown product was significantly sold through.

As discussed in earlier calls, we've updated our processes to support more in-season markdowns, ensuring that our inventory aging is well managed. In fact, inventory aged seven months or older made up only 3% of Q3 end-of-period inventory, a significant decline from prior quarters. During Q3, we closed four stores as part of our ongoing fleet optimization effort, bringing our quarter-end store count to 593, with CTx stores representing approximately 23% of our fleet. Gross margin dollars were 71.2 million, representing an increase of 3.9% compared to the prior-year period.

Gross margin rate was 39.8%, a 160-basis-point expansion compared to third quarter last year. The primary drivers of this year-over-year margin expansion were higher initial markup and lower shrink levels. As a reminder, we implemented several shrink-mitigating tactics in Q1 and Q2, including upgraded store talent, updated equipment, revised policies, increased leverage of exception reporting to quickly identify issues, and a third-party restitution program. And as Ken noted, we are addressing other opportunities called out by a consulting partner.

While we're happy to see some improvement in Q3, we remain focused on improving shrink and driving toward a baseline rate that is more in line with our historic performance. As we've said before, this journey will take time. Moving to SG&A. Adjusted SG&A expenses totaled $74.6 million in the quarter, an increase of $3.7 million versus last year.

About 2 million of that is from the store and corporate merit increases we put in place in Q1. The balance of the increase to last year, as well as the increase to prior quarters, was driven by a number of strategic costs aimed at driving future growth, which Ken detailed in his remarks. To be clear, although considered one-time in nature, those expenses are included in reported SG&A and were not adjusted out. We expect these workstreams and their related expenses to be completed in the fourth quarter.

Now, turning to the balance sheet. We continue to maintain a healthy financial position with a strong balance sheet, including no debt at the end of the quarter, no drawings on our $75 million revolver, and $39 million in cash. With liquidity of approximately $114 million, we can more than sufficiently fund our business initiatives. Our board of directors has recently approved the resumption of our share repurchase program, leveraging our existing $50 million authorization.

We expect to begin repurchasing shares in the fourth quarter, utilizing a modest amount of our cash on hand to do so. Share repurchases will be part of our overall capital allocation strategy, along with funding operations and continuing to make investments to drive future growth. Total inventory dollars at quarter-end decreased 1.7%, made up of a refreshed assortment with new and exciting offerings. The market for quality product remains strong, and our teams are able to source off-price and regular products that excite our core customers and drive traffic.

Many of our newest treasures are arriving in stores now just in time for the peak holiday selling weeks ahead, and they're already creating quite a buzz with our associates and with our customers. Now, turning to our outlook. We are increasing our expectations for the second half of the year as follows. We now expect second half comparable store sales to be up low to mid-single digits year over year compared to our previous guidance of flat to up low single digits.

Total sales for the second half are expected to be flat to down slightly due to the 53rd week last year and store closures. Second half gross margin is expected to be approximately 39%, consistent with our prior outlook. Second half EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $1.5 million to $4 million, above our prior outlook of $0.5 million to $2.5 million. We expect to end fiscal 2024 with approximately 590 stores, consistent with our prior outlook.

Finally, we expect to end the year with $60 million to $65 million of cash, within our prior outlook. Our updated year-end cash includes capital expenditures in the range of $14 million to $18 million, slightly higher than prior outlook, on the pull forward of certain investments to drive 2025 improvement. While we don't provide quarterly guidance, given the significant changes in our business model, the dynamic nature of our growth pattern, plus where we are in the fiscal year, we want to offer some thoughts on our expectations for the fourth quarter. Q4 comps are expected to be up low to mid-single digits, with total sales down mid-single digits due to the 53rd week last year and closed stores.

Q4 gross margin is expected to be in the range of 39% to 40%. SG&A in the quarter is expected to be approximately $76 million, including the final leg of the strategic expenses described earlier, plus store payroll to support higher sales and longer operating hours during the holiday season. Q4 EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $5 million to $7 million. Before I turn the call back to Ken, I want to reiterate how encouraged I am by the positive results we delivered in the third quarter.

There's a renewed sense of focus and energy at Citi Trends as we follow Ken's leadership to make foundational improvements across the organization, addressing processes and creating disciplines, as needed, to pivot the business and position Citi Trends for improved financial performance. As I said earlier, we still have a lot of work to do. We will continue to push forward with our refined strategy, and we look forward to updating you on our progress and update -- in upcoming call. With that, I'll turn the call back to Ken.

Ken.

Ken Seipel -- Interim Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Heather. Well, in closing, I remain energized and optimistic about the future of Citi Trends. Our third quarter results are an indicator of the work that we've done to create a solid foundation and set the company up for long-term success. In my time here, I've really enjoyed working with our talented and highly engaged employees, and I look forward to further progress together as we pave a path to improve business performance and significantly increase shareholder value.

With our acute focus on the core African American customer, intense leverage of competitive advantages, disciplined focus on operational improvements, and strategic investment in growth initiatives, I am confident that we can build on our positive momentum and deliver a strong finish to fiscal 2024 and well beyond. Our holiday season is off to a great start, and I want to extend my thanks to the Citi Trends team for planning and executing such a great start to the holiday period. I want to wish all of our team members and our shareholders a very happy holiday season, and I look forward to updating you on our fourth quarter results in the new year. With that, I'll turn the call over to our operator, Melissa, to facilitate questions.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

Thank you. [Operator instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Jeremy Hamblin with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please proceed with your question.

Jeremy Hamblin -- Analyst

Congratulations, Ken, on the appointment, and congratulations to the team on the improved results. I wanted to start by just coming back to the improved, you know, sales trends. So, I think that I heard that the start of Q4 here in November was up high single digits on comps. So, I wanted to understand just in terms of the guidance for the quarter, you know, if there's an element of conservatism in the low single to mid-single-digit guide for the quarter or if there are some aspects to what you're going to lap in December and January that kind of lead to a bit more conservatism.

Ken Seipel -- Interim Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Thank you, Jeremy. I'll answer a little bit from a high level and certainly let Heather for any details. Yeah, first off, November was really exceptional compared to what we were expecting as we put new product and fresh product out.

I mean, certainly, the business took off, and we were just really pleased with customer response in November. Now, to your point around the conservatism or the potential of that, there is a lot of holiday season ahead yet and certainly through December. You might remember, the company had a reasonably good December last year in terms of comp performance. And so, we also are against a little bit tougher comp, as well as we also appreciate the calendar shifts that are ahead.

So, we're being a little bit more cautious about what December might bring but still very optimistic around the overall Q4 numbers. Heather, would you add anything to that?

Heather Plutino -- Chief Financial Officer

I think you nailed it, Ken. Jeremy, we will not be mad if that winds up being a conservative guide. I don't think you would be either, right? But to Ken's point, November was exceptional. Nothing really to comment on for the compare throughout the quarter.

December, again, to Ken's point, was decent last year. The only thing I would say is that there's probably more opportunity for us than usual in January on a comparison standpoint. The comp last year was particularly soft as we came into a softer-than-expected tax refund season. So, we're set up and we'll be set up to take advantage of all sales opportunities.

But we're pleased with the way we started. A lot of days ahead.

Jeremy Hamblin -- Analyst

Great color. And just to clarify a little bit more color, on December, what portion of your Q4 sales, you know, comes in December? Is that, you know, roughly 40% of the quarter or maybe even slightly more?

Heather Plutino -- Chief Financial Officer

It's slightly more, Jeremy. It's about -- I'd give it about 50.

Jeremy Hamblin -- Analyst

Yeah. OK. Fantastic. And then just want to come back to the investments that you're making, you know, and maybe hone in a little bit more on the shrink portion of those investments as well.

So, it sounds like you've got a plan in place. You're getting a little bit of help from a third party, you know, on some strategy to improve that. Where is shrink, you know, in terms of kind of the impact or the drag on your margin today versus let's say where it might have been five years ago? What's that gap that we're looking to close? Is it 50 basis points? Is it something more like 100 basis points? Any color you might be able to share on that? And then the second part is just kind of the timeline that you think is reasonable to get it back to what you'd consider a normalized level.

Heather Plutino -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Thanks for the question. I'll start, and then, Ken, you can fill in where I may miss here. On your question about what's headwind, on a full year basis, I'd probably assign it somewhere between 50 basis points and 70 basis points of drag compared to historical levels.

On a quarterly basis, it's a little less than Q4, more like a -- you know, compared to last year, it was a 40% drag. I don't think I'm saying that right, Jeremy. Hold on. No, it was actually an improvement to last year, sorry.

So, it depends quarter to quarter. So -- but on the full year, again, you know, a little less than a point. I think the fact that we are mentioning as many initiatives as we are on these calls and have for quarters tells you how maniacal we are on attacking this issue, right? We are leaving no stone unturned. We have teams within the company who have been looking for every opportunity to improve shrink.

And then the addition of this consulting firm is really just to make sure that we aren't missing something. So, we are attacking all levels, whether it's, like I mentioned, teams. Is it using the systems that we have like our Agilent system, which is the exception reporting that we use to be able to identify trends very quickly and address them very quickly? In-store signage, right, to back-door access protocols. So, we're really into the weeds, and it's appropriate because this particular issue, shrink, is going to take being in the weeds to be able to tackle it.

When we expect to see improvement? We're modeling improvement into 2025. Early days yet. Not ready to reveal 2025. But it will be gradual throughout the year because this -- again, this is a journey.

I can tell you, if I think about -- I'm going to keep going, Ken, if you don't mind. If I think about Q3, part of our improvement in Q3 was because of the 211 physical inventory counts that we did in the quarter. And included in that were a number of stores that we were recounting because of higher-than-acceptable shrink rates earlier in the year. Of those stores, a portion of them continued to have higher-than-acceptable shrink rates.

So, we're pleased with the progress, but there's still opportunity. That's why I call that out. There's still opportunity to make sure that we are addressing shrink at every level within the organization. It's a challenge.

Jeremy Hamblin -- Analyst

That's great color. Let me shift gears here and talk about your store fleet. And, you know, Ken, as you've had a chance to really dive into the details a bit more, you had some closures here in Q4, you've still got some conversions to CTx formats that are going to happen over coming years, how should we be thinking about, you know, kind of the store fleet on a go-forward basis? Is this, you know, kind of a -- do we expect the store fleet to continue to shrink until we feel confident that we've kind of scuttled all the, you know, maybe underperforming locations or is there a time where you've got some momentum in the business and we think about kind of reopening the growth, you know, path for this story and potentially adds locations going forward? How are you thinking about the fleet?

Ken Seipel -- Interim Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. For sure. No, good question. As we go forward, Jeremy, I'm really thinking about really the fleet in two ways.

One, and that is in the refresh and the remodel. We've got about -- I think about a third of our stores is roughly not quite remodeled into the new format, but we still have a significant number of our higher-volume stores that need to be remodeled. And so, as we go into 2025, you can expect us to come out with a fairly aggressive remodel and refresh program, bringing our fleet up to standard across. And where we've done so, we've achieved higher-than-average comparable sales.

So, we're confident in the results and our customers' response to a fleet refresh. So, that'll be a big part of our repertoire going forward initially. Simultaneous to that, we are actually behind the scenes right now doing some studies in various markets, and we will be returning to new store growth. Part and parcels, we had to fix our business model and get it to be a little bit more reliable, which is beginning to take shape.

And now, we're taking a look at really going into various key markets and making sure that we can actually command market share where we deserve it. And some of these are existing markets, and some of those will be net new markets for us. But you can expect -- particularly in 2026 and beyond, but even a little bit in 2025, you can expect us to return to a growth pattern. And then in regards to closures, you know, basically, cleaning and closing and relocating stores is kind of a normal part of keeping the fleet healthy.

There will be a little bit of that, but it's certainly not a target. We'll do, you know, lease maintenance where it's required, and we'll move out of bad locations and move into better locations and so forth. That'll certainly happen. But I just want to make sure that you appreciate that we do have a very aggressive growth thought in mind right now.

And as we were stabilizing our business model, you can expect us to get to being a growth company.

Jeremy Hamblin -- Analyst

Yeah, that's great color. Thank you. Just one clarifying question, on the remodels, what's kind of the range of cost in remodeling into the CTx format of store and what's the average?

Heather Plutino -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. The range of costs, you'll recall, Jeremy, that we recently reduced our CTx remodel costs by about half. So, when we first started the program, the remodel was about 250K, on average. And in 2023, we -- through the latter part, we developed a new remodel package, which the range is about 85K to 130K.

So, I'd say the average, you can call it maybe 110.

Jeremy Hamblin -- Analyst

Great. Congratulations and best wishes here during the holiday season.

Ken Seipel -- Interim Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Jeremy.

Heather Plutino -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Jeremy.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Baker with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Mike Baker -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst

Hey. Thanks, guys. A lot of initiatives. I can ask specifically about where you think SG&A is going to go, etc., but maybe I'll encompass it all in one question.

What is the right long-term EBITDA margin for this business? Prior to COVID, it was -- you know, 2017, '18, '19 -- between 5% and 6%. We won't think about the COVID years and post-COVID years, probably not relevant, but obviously much lower than that now. Ken, where do you see long-term EBITDA margins for this business?

Heather Plutino -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Good question, Mike. I think as I join the business and start to kind of think about, you know, putting forth a long-range plan, which we were beginning to work through with our board here shortly, one of the primary goals that we have is to return our EBITDA back to those historical levels that you mentioned. And frankly, we see a little bit of a path even beyond that.

But certainly, you could be thinking those historical levels, 5% to 6% range, for sure, are in our sights and will be a part of our active near-term plans.

Mike Baker -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst

OK. To follow up on that and as part of that, looking at the SG&A specifically, if you pull out the one-time, the 1.6 million that they talked about one-timers, I think you were at about 73 million this quarter. And next quarter, I think you'll be about 76 million. You know, in the past, the quarterly SG&A was usually around 70 million or so.

I get why it might be permanently higher because of inflation, etc. But, you know, is that 73 million -- it sounds like it's probably somewhere in between that 73 million and 76 million. What do you think the long-term, you know, quarterly SG&A should be for this company?

Heather Plutino -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Mike, I'll take that one. So, 70 was our run rate in 2023. Recall that in our Q4 call, we talked about the fact that we were increasing that rate to enact merit increases in stores and corporate. That brought it up to the 72, 73 range.

So, if I think about the go forward, I would say 73 per quarter is feeling like a good earmark, and then flexing up accordingly to account for sales flows quarter to quarter.

Mike Baker -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst

Yup. OK. Perfect.

Ken Seipel -- Interim Chief Executive Officer

Mike, I might add to that, I think you know this about the business already, but one thing about the SG&A base is it's highly, highly fixed, which means that as we start to accelerate our sales and start to grow, we should see some significant leverage. So, just appreciate that that is -- the number that Heather mentioned is directionally correct, but just appreciate there's a good leverage on that as we continue to grow our top line.

Mike Baker -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst

Yeah, no, that's the whole idea, just trying to figure out what that fixed cost number is and then we can figure out the leverage. And so, I guess, you know, to that end, just one -- I guess I'll ask just one. Well, let's ask this. Ken, can you -- you've had a lot of turnaround experience, a lot of different places.

I guess, just bigger picture, can you compare this to some of the other turnarounds you've led? What's different? What's easier? What's harder? What have you learned from past turnarounds that you're applying here? I know that's, you know, a big question that you could probably take an hour to answer, but a couple of bullet points on how you see this turnaround versus others.

Ken Seipel -- Interim Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. For sure. Yeah, I'll give you that -- the CliffsNotes for that. So, what's common here is that I'm getting the company to refocus on core customer and really truly understanding the customer coming through the door and doing a better job of adjusting the assortment, including some of the good, better, best things that I've talked about and treasure and the treasure hunt.

All those things are really about redefining and getting our assortment to match the core consumer, and it started with us first understanding who that customer is. So, that's very much the common theme. When you get into companies and turnaround, oftentimes, they lose track of that. And so, we're getting refocused on that.

What's unique here from places -- two things I'd say are unique. One, we did have a number of operational fundamental and foundational practices that were broken or disconnected more so than I'd seen. We spent a lot of time -- in Q3, we kind of understated, really, how much work has gone into this, getting things fixed and repaired, including shrinkage and some of those other things we mentioned. But the team has just done marvelous work in terms of really getting their arms around the things that we need to do to run a solid and consistently executable business model.

So, that's unique here, as much as work has been required to get that done. And the other thing that's been a positive surprise is the quick response from customers in the changes we've made. Oftentimes, customer traffic is one of the more difficult things to change in a business. It takes time and repetition.

But because of our neighborhood locations and the love affair that our customer has -- excuse me -- with this brand, as we're starting to get things right, we're seeing pretty quick reactions. So, that's why I'm a little bit euphoric about our November. We really delivered a good step forward into our strategies there, and the customers responded quickly. So, yeah.

So, that's it. I could go on, like you said, for an hour, but those are probably the three big differences that I see here. One common thing with the customer, very unique in customer response, positively, and then the opportunity for us to be operational solid. We have work to be done there.

Mike Baker -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst

Awesome. Great. Appreciate the color.

Heather Plutino -- Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Mike.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Seipel for any final comments.

Ken Seipel -- Interim Chief Executive Officer

All right. Well, thank you, everyone. We appreciate your time and interest in Citi Trends today and certainly wish everyone a very happy holiday season. Thank you and goodbye.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

Cody McAlester -- Investor Relations

Ken Seipel -- Interim Chief Executive Officer

Heather Plutino -- Chief Financial Officer

Jeremy Hamblin -- Analyst

Mike Baker -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst

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