Five Below Inc. Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Five Below Inc. (NASDAQ: FIVE) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated Mar. 18, 2026

Presentation

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Five Below Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Christiane Pelz, VP, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Christiane Pelz — Vice President, Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us today for Five Below’s fourth quarter 2025 financial results conference call. On today’s call are Winnie Park, Chief Executive Officer; and Dan Sullivan, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. After management has made their formal remarks, we will open the call to questions.

I need to remind you that certain comments made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements and are made pursuant to and within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 as amended. Such forward-looking statements are subject to both known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. Those risks and uncertainties are described in the press release and our SEC filings. The forward-looking statements today are as of the date of this call, and we do not undertake any obligation to update our forward-looking statements.

In this presentation, we will refer to our SG&A expenses. For us, SG&A means selling, general and administrative expenses, including payroll and other compensation, marketing and advertising expense, depreciation and amortization expense and other selling and administrative expense. Additionally, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these items to U.S. GAAP are included in today’s press release. If you do not have a copy of today’s press release, you may obtain one by visiting the Investor Relations page of our website at fivebelow.com.

I will now turn the call over to Winnie.

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Christiane. Hello, and thank you all for joining us this afternoon.

We’re excited to share our outstanding fourth quarter results that capped off a transformational year for Five Below, one that reaffirmed that Five Below is the destination for the kid and the kid in all of us. We are a unique brand and our incredible financial results in 2025 tell only part of the story because what made this year truly exceptional is how we achieved the results. We made a fundamental shift in how we operate, how we engage with our customers and how we strategize and deliver growth of the business and the brand. And our maniacal focus on our target customer has pushed us to be more agile in delivering newness at great value and, as importantly, communicating with our customers in the social media channels they live in.

In 2025, we invested in curated product stories bought with authority, better in-stock position supported by a store labor model focused on replenishing product and serving customers during peak periods led to a better experience for our customers and drove sales. For the year, we delivered sales growth of 23% to over $4.7 billion, a comp of 12.8%, operating margin expansion of 70 bps to nearly 10% and adjusted EPS growth of 32%. We grow our store count by 8.5%, opening 150 net new stores with strong results capped by eight record-breaking brand openings in the Pacific Northwest in the fourth quarter. This performance was achieved during a challenging macro environment that required tremendous urgency and agility from our incredible crew, who are the real secret to our success in 2025. These results incorporate a better-than-expected end to the year, with our strongest holiday performance since becoming a public company.

We delivered fourth quarter sales growth of 24%, including a 15.4% comparable sales increase. Importantly, this growth was both broad and balanced as we further strengthened our position as a portfolio-driven product business. We saw strength across all our merchandising worlds and we grew in all 170 districts, all vintages of stores and across all income cohorts. We drove both traffic and ticket growth, resulting from improved marketing, amazing new product packed with compelling value, better in-store execution and positive customer response to our simplified pricing strategy. I’m so proud of our crew for their focus and dedication in producing these results. I’m equally grateful for their hard work and commitment as we united and embraced change.

It was a year of transformation as we successfully delivered six pertinent moments with a new go-to-market process focused on storytelling and product newness tackled tariffs, overhauled our marketing to focus on social media, expanded our omnichannel capabilities with third-party delivery service, and bolstered the executive team with new leaders in marketing, finance and merchandising, all of which has laid the foundation for continued growth. And most importantly, over the past year, we defined and executed our new strategy, which is underpinned by three pillars: a maniacal focus on the target customer, delivering a connected customer journey from social to in-store, and collaborating cross-functionally to enhance execution throughout the year.

Our strategy reinforces our position as the true destination for the kid and the kid in all of us. First, we further defined our target customers, sharpening our focus on Gen Alpha, Gen Z and millennial moms and ensuring our product, marketing and store experience resonate with their needs and, more importantly, what is trending and what they are following. Second, we met our customers where they are, namely in social, where we can dynamically engage with creator content and amplify viral moments like the current squishy dumpling craze. Speaking to our customers in social channels and following-up through targeted content and direct communications by capturing customer records will drive even more resonance and repeat visits as we develop our CRM capabilities.

And third, changing how we work. We aligned merchandising, marketing, supply chain, IT and store teams around six curtain-up moments, operating with urgency and discipline to ensure a seamless flow of content and newness to our stores. This structural change through a disciplined cross-functional go-to-market process has activated our flywheel of delivering timely newness, compelling storytelling, and great in-store experiences like events and curtain-up floor sets. The result is an improved customer experience, generating more visits from new and existing customers.

On merchandise, we have systematically delivered relevant newness throughout our worlds with curated assortments at great value. We continue to focus on differentiating our offer through amazing price value for the quality we provide from the hottest license lines to viral trends in beauty, fashion, candy and collectibles. We’ve also launched exclusive licensed products for our old favorites like Stitch as well as newer franchises like Wicked. This holiday, we aspire to be the greatest little toy store in America, and to this end, we offered everything from Legos to crafting kits and remote control cars, all at amazing value. In addition to compelling gifts from toys to beauty sets and yummy holiday PJs to gingerbread house kits, we offer customers a one-stop shop for holiday decor, gift wrap and party essentials.

Value remains a critical linchpin for our offering and we demonstrated that we can effectively provide exceptional value at $5 and below, as well as at $7, $10, $15 and beyond. Customers recognize the compelling value across the assortment and at all price points and their receptivity to our expanded offering above $5 reinforces our belief in the tremendous relative value that our products provide. Moving to more rounded price points also help simplify and improve the shopping experience for our customers and the crew.

In terms of marketing, we redirected spend towards social and creator content so that we could be faster and more agile in communicating newness and amplifying viral moments that customers were generating on their own. We have just begun building a customer database, which will sharpen our ability to direct personalized social and direct marketing content to better engage with our customers and develop a relationship with them. While we’re still in very early innings with this strategy, we are very pleased with how it drove traffic and sales growth, both online and in-stores throughout the year.

On to the store experience, we bought into newness and trend with conviction, delivering improved in-stock levels. We also invested in labor at peak periods to ensure that our shelves were restocked and customers’ needs were met. We met — we made our stores easier to shop for our customers by beginning to move Five Beyond products in line with the categories where they logically belonged. As we simplified operations and improved communication and collaboration, our crew was even more engaged, leading to better execution and attentiveness to our customer, the boss. Providing a terrific experience for our customers while also driving greater productivity in our stores remains a priority. We also became more planful in our approach to new stores. We dialed back the pace of unit expansion to sharpen focus on the quality of locations and ensure that grand openings were brilliantly executed. With our customer centric strategy well underway, strong comp performance and accelerating new store productivity, we’re confident in the long runway of growth ahead.

The results of 2025 offer clear proof points that our transformation is gaining traction and we have more runway. As we enter 2026, we believe the business is well-positioned for consistent, durable top- and bottom-line growth. Continuing to execute on our customer-centric strategy provides us great opportunity to further strengthen the Five Below brand and deepen the competitive moat that our unique retail concept provides. With our growing scale, we are focused on expanding our brand and customer reach across our communities, bringing joy to kids, adults and parents as we help them to play, live, give and celebrate. As we evolve, I’m confident that we will retain our strong customer focus and entrepreneurial culture and remain unrelenting in our commitment to provide unmatched value to our customers.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Dan.

Dan Sullivan — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Thanks, Winnie. Good afternoon, everyone. I’ll begin my remarks with a review of our fourth quarter and fiscal 2025 results and then discuss our outlook for the first quarter and full year of fiscal 2026. My comments will refer to the results on an adjusted or non-GAAP basis.

As Winnie mentioned, we were very pleased to end the year on a strong note, with sales and profit exceeding our expectations. In January, we saw stronger-than-expected traffic growth, which converted well and broad basket growth that was fueled by AUR expansion. For the fourth quarter, net sales increased 24% to $1.7 billion, supported by a strong comparable sales increase of just over 15%, which was driven by growth in comparable ticket of 8% and comparable transactions of 7%. Importantly, operating profit grew ahead of comp sales growth, further evidencing the strength and efficiency of our business model. We are operating in a highly dynamic environment and the end-to-end execution of our crew was noteworthy.

In the fourth quarter, we opened 14 net new stores across eight states compared to 22 net new stores in the fourth quarter last year. In 2025, we grew our store count by 8.5% and ended the year with 1,921 stores in 46 states, including the two new states of Oregon and Washington. Adjusted gross profit increased 24% to $697 million or 40.3% in rate of sale, a decrease of approximately 20 basis points compared to the fourth quarter last year. This was primarily driven by transitory tariff costs of 160 basis points, which were mostly mitigated by fixed cost leverage on the strong comp sales and improved shrink results. For shrink, the results of the physical inventory counts we conducted in January were actualized and trued up for all stores for a total benefit of 50 basis points year-over-year.

Adjusted SG&A expenses totaled $385 million in Q4 or 22.3% in rate of sale, which was consistent to last year’s fourth quarter rate. The benefit of fixed cost leverage fully offset increased incentive costs and the incremental investment in labor hours that we made in the stores during the peak holiday period.

Adjusted operating income grew 23% in the fourth quarter to $313 million and adjusted operating margin decreased approximately 10 basis points to 18.1%. Net interest income was about $6 million for the fourth quarter or approximately $2 million higher than last year due primarily to a higher average cash balance throughout the quarter. Adjusted net income grew 25% to $240 million and adjusted earnings per share increased 24% to $4.31 per share.

For the full year, net sales increased 23% to $4.8 billion, driven by a strong comparable sales increase of nearly 13% that was largely equally driven by both transactions and ticket growth. Adjusted gross profit for the year increased 25% to $1.7 billion or 36.1% in rate of sale, an increase of approximately 50 basis points compared to last year. Adjusted gross margin accretion was primarily driven by fixed cost leverage and improved shrink results, partially offset by the net impact of unmitigated transitory tariff costs. Adjusted SG&A totaled $1.2 billion in fiscal ’25 or 26% in rate of sale, which represented a 20 basis-point decrease compared to last fiscal year. This was driven by fixed cost leverage on the strong comp sales, largely offset by higher incentive costs and investments in store labor during the holiday.

Adjusted operating income grew 33% for the year to $472 million and adjusted operating margin increased 70 basis points to approximately 10%. Net interest income was about $23 million for fiscal 2025 or approximately $8 million above last year due mostly to a higher average cash balance throughout the year. Adjusted net income for fiscal 2025 grew 33% to $370 million and adjusted earnings per share increased 32% to $6.67 per share.

We ended the year in a strong cash position with approximately $932 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments. Inventory was approximately $847 million at the end of the year, an increase of 28% with a commensurate 18% increase in units versus last year. The increase in inventory reflects both the higher store count and the impact of tariffs on average unit costs. Average per store units were up about 9% at year end, reflecting the pull forward of inventory and our commitment to driving higher in-stock positions in store in support of our growth objectives.

Capital expenditures, excluding the impact of tenant allowances, were approximately $175 million or 3.7% of net sales, which includes 150 net new store openings and investments in technology and infrastructure. We continue to allocate capital in support of growth with a clear view towards delivering the best return on that investment and with each dollar we deploy competing for the highest return. We generated strong free cash flow and plan to continue to focus on reducing our working capital in fiscal 2026 as we cycle the impact of tariffs.

Overall, 2025 proved to be a year of transformation for our business and the successful execution of our strategy delivered outsized top- and bottom-line growth. In a challenging and dynamic macro environment, we operated with both urgency and discipline and with maniacal focus on the needs of our customers.

Now, on to our outlook for fiscal 2026. We’re operating in a highly dynamic and increasingly complex macro environment with significant geopolitical uncertainties and difficult to predict implications for the consumer. We believe this backdrop provides the rationale for a measured, prudent outlook. This year also has a few nuances, primarily related to the cadence of sales and the impact of tariffs. With respect to tariff rates specifically, for 2026, we have assumed that the global tariff rates that were in place as we entered this fiscal year will remain in place all year. Our outlook therefore does not contemplate the impact of the recently enacted Section 122 tariffs, which are only in place for 150 days.

Now, with respect to our outlook for the year. Sales are expected to be in the range of $5.2 billion to $5.3 billion, an increase of 10% at the midpoint, and comparable sales growth is expected to be between 3% and 5% or approximately 17% on a two-year stack basis at the midpoint. Adjusted operating margin at the midpoint is expected to increase 100 basis points to 10.9%, driven by gross margin expansion net of increased marketing investments. Adjusted diluted earnings per share is expected to be $8 at the midpoint or a growth of 20% versus 2025 on 55.7 million shares outstanding. As a reminder, our outlook does not include the impact of share repurchases. We expect net interest income of approximately $26 million and a full-year effective tax rate of approximately 26%. Capital expenditures are expected to be between $230 million and $250 million, excluding the impact of tenant allowances, which reflects approximately 150 net new store openings and increased investments in technology and infrastructure.

On to the guidance for the first quarter of 2026. We expect total sales in the range of $1.18 billion to $1.2 billion or growth of 23% at the midpoint versus last year’s first quarter, with comparable sales growth of between 14% and 16%. The first quarter is expected to be our highest comping quarter of the year, in part due to the unanniversary benefits of the rounded price simplification strategy that we implemented last year. We expect to open approximately 45 net-new stores across 24 states in the quarter. Gross margin in the first quarter is benefiting primarily from fixed cost leverage on the strong comps, higher merchandise margins related to the net benefit of pricing and lower shrink. Adjusted operating margin at the midpoint is expected to be 9.7% versus 6.1% in the first quarter last year, with the majority of the 360 basis-point increase driven by gross margin expansion and, to a lesser degree, leverage over SG&A expenses. Adjusted diluted earnings per share at the midpoint is expected to be $1.63 per share or growth of 90% versus last year.

In summary, we’re very pleased with the underlying performance of the business and the continued execution of our customer-centric strategy underpins our confidence in this outlook for 2026. We remain focused on executing at a high level and continuing to deliver on our top- and bottom-line growth for the business.

With that, I’ll hand the call back over to the operator to start the Q&A session.

Question & Answers

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

The first question will come from Matthew Boss with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Matthew Boss

Thanks and congrats on a great quarter and the continued momentum. So, Winnie, could you help by breaking down the drivers behind the magnitude of comps that you’re seeing near term, mid-teens comps the last two quarters? And if you could speak to the acceleration that you’ve seen in the first quarter, or maybe even larger picture, if you could just walk through the structural changes to the organization and maybe some of the new customer acquisition metrics that support this as durable or drivers off of a higher revenue base from here?

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks so much, Matt. It has been a tremendous quarter and we’re excited to see that momentum continue. And really, I would say that there is one word that characterizes our success and that is our crew. And I say that because what we’ve done is we have basically taken a year of pretty significant change and driven amazing results of that change and that transformation. The change started with a real focus on the customer and getting back to our roots and focusing on the kid and specifically Gen Alpha, Gen Z and millennial parents, who love to reward their kids with a trip to Five Below.

The second piece is really focusing in on how our customers basically become aware of us and how they get to us and how we announce newness to them and creating what we’re calling a connected customer journey. And we’re meeting our customers where they live, which is in social media. So, we redirected our marketing to focus on social media. We’ve also just begun the journey of actually capturing their records so that we can continue a dialogue with them and invite them back, which we think is going to be a major lever for growth in the future, just driven off of repeat visits and, again, engagement on new content.

The last piece is the team pulled together and executed brilliantly. And I call this the flywheel effect and it really was about cross-functional collaboration across the organization. We honed in on the six curtain-up moments or new floor sets, but instead of just passing the baton between the merchants and marketers and stores, we basically start the season together, really hind-sighting together what just happened. And then, as we move forward through the season being connected throughout, and that culminates in a call with our 1,900 stores to really tell them what is, number one, the newness that we’re bringing forth; two, what is the marketing message, what are we going to be activating in-stores and beyond, and then seeing really connected in terms of how we drive the product into the stores and ensuring that they’ve got honestly good in stock position.

So, it is a bit of retail 101, but executed really, really well. And I think that moving forward, this is early innings. I joined a year ago. So, we’ve just started executing against the strategy and the team has executed very well. But we’ve got more growth ahead of us that I think is incredibly durable. And one of the things that makes it so relevant is the fact that we’ve got a unique retail concept. So, we were operating as a differentiated specialty store for kids, but with the discipline of an extreme value retailer. So, all very good. Thank you so much, Matt.

Operator

The next question will come from Edward Kelly with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Edward Kelly

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. I’d like to add my congratulations. I would like to ask you about just the comp momentum and there’s a lot of excitement about what you’ve been seeing so far in Q1. And I was hoping that you could maybe talk about what you think is driving that, particularly from a trend standpoint. And then, as you take a step back and think about the Q1 comp guidance versus the full year comp guidance, can you just sort of help us bridge the way you’re thinking about full year given the robust start out of the gate?

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks so much, Ed. I’m going to kick us off and talk to you about, like, the business that we’re seeing now and then also have Dan lean-in and talk about how we’re going to bridge quarter-to-quarter. So, we’re really excited. I think what we saw in consecutive quarters last year continues this year. We really do have right now in Q1 broad-based growth. And it’s across our entire assortment. We’re excited that our worlds are all comping and we have been very intentional to take more of an assortment approach as opposed to relying on a single item.

So, what you do is you take that growth across all of our worlds that’s being kind of driven by great traffic, great transactions, also AUR, but then you layer on top of that some compelling trends that are happening right now. And in the past, when those trends happened, we weren’t communicating directly with a customer vis-a-vis the channels that they live in like social. Today, we can engage directly. We see something pop on social, like the squishy trend. And what’s really nice is that we can amplify that through, honestly, what we say and do, but also watch it carefully. And we’ve got a whole community of stores that’s also engaging as well as brands. So, it’s been really nice to see that. And we’re enjoying that in this quarter in particular.

I’m going to let Dan step in and just help us bridge a bit.

Dan Sullivan — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, and thanks for the question. You’re right, we’re off to a good start here in the quarter that we’re in, and I think you all see the same data that we see. There’s great momentum coming out of the holiday, which we’re super excited about. And the midpoint of our Q1 guide on comps puts us right smack in line with run rate trend, which we think is appropriate.

As we go to sort of the balance of year and to give you a little bit of the thinking on how we constructed the guide. I think the most important thing that I would highlight is what we’re up against as we think about Q2, Q3 and Q4. We’re going to start comping some really, really tough growth quarters. And I think just pure math, when you think about a Q2 last year at plus 12%, all the way up to plus 14% in Q3 and plus 16% in Q4, that’s real, right? That’s math and that matters. And so, that obviously factors in.

I think the second thing I would highlight is just the state of the consumer and the macro environment in which we’re operating. And we just don’t think it gets easier from here, whether it’s the prices at the pump or this sticky inflation that seems to be hanging around or a job market that is somewhat sluggish. We think the environment here is going to continue to be to be challenging. And so, we sort of factored that in as we as we thought about the plans that we have, the execution and the newness and the strategy that Winnie referred to and then ultimately what we’re up against in terms of back half of the year and trend.

The last thing I’ll say is when you look at Q2, Q3 and Q4 of our business on a two-year stack, which is I think really important because it takes the noise out of a moment in time. Over those quarters, you’re seeing mid-double-digit growth consistently Q2, Q3, Q4. So, that tells us we’re still in a real strong growth position and I think we’ve put the guide together in a pretty constructive way. Thanks, Ed.

Operator

The next question will come from Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Pedro Gil

Good afternoon. This is Pedro Gil on for Simeon. Great quarter. Fantastic momentum. Congratulations. My first question is for Winnie. In your prior roles, have you experienced a period of such strong growth as you’re seeing right now? And what are the learnings that you take from those positions, from those roles that you can apply to comp to comp here into 2026? And then, I have a follow-up.

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks so much for the question. So, I actually have seen strong growth in my past life, especially when I was engaged in international and in international luxury. What’s nice though about Five Below is that we really think we’ve got, I guess, a toolkit for durable growth as we move forward. And we think the strategy is compelling. I mean, you really start with the fact that we have a unique retail concept that’s focused on kids, and I think that, that’s compelling here and in other places.

The second piece of this is our execution is really, really strong. And I think you can have a brilliant strategy, but if you can’t execute, and with our teams and our crew, the execution is about collaboration and being really one team, one dream, being very close in terms of the trends that we’re seeing and reacting quickly.

And I would say the last piece of this is, we’re just really excited to be able to engage directly with the customer. The customers are responding well, I think in part because we’re talking to them. And it’s not a one way dialog, traditional advertising where you just put it out there. We’re engaging with them constantly. And through our new marketing efforts through social media, we can be incredibly agile. If something is popping, we can immediately react. And the other piece of it is, we’ve got a rich source of information because we can see what’s trending out there and again react.

So, I would say that all of those things give us a lot of confidence and I do think this growth is special, but it’s also durable. Thanks so much for your question.

Operator

The next question will come from Michael Lasser with UBS. Please go ahead.

Michael Lasser

Good evening. Thank you so much for taking my question. It’s really on investments that you can make in order to sustain this momentum moving forward and it comes in two-parts. First, Dan, you mentioned that you’re expecting 100 basis points of gross margin expansion this year. How would you break that down from factors that are unique to this year versus letting more of the goodness flow to the bottom-line rather than reinvesting it? And does that create some tension over the long term if Five Below is not reinvesting all of the scale and other benefits it gets from being a bigger organization?

And then, as part of that, if you could just talk about how we should be modeling the contribution margin if indeed you are able to sustain this comp momentum above and beyond your guidance, would you choose to reinvest some of this outperformance back to be able to sustain this comp beyond 2026? Thank you so much.

Dan Sullivan — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Hey, Michael, thank you very much for the thoughtful question. So, look, if you look at 2026 as a whole, we’ve got actually 130 basis points of gross margin accretion year-over-year and about 100 basis points of operating profit accretion. That’s the model that we’ve built and that’s on the 3% to 5% comp that we put together.

The way we get there, to answer your first question on, sort of, what’s driving that margin, taking away sort of the leverage point and the shrink point, I think you’ve got three fundamental drivers. You’ve got price, which we won’t anniversary until late in 2Q. You’ve got the cycling of the transitory tariff headwinds of a year ago and you’ve got a structurally lower tariff rate versus a year ago, mostly related to the reduction in the fentanyl tariff in China. Those are the predominant drivers of the gross margin accretion and they’ll play differently between half one and half two.

I think to your second question on the investment stance of this business, look, we feel really good that we are remaining committed to a growth stance for the business. That growth stance shows up in my opinion in a few different ways. We are incrementally investing in marketing this year, and you’ve heard Winnie talk a lot about the vision for how we want to engage, how we want to build awareness for this beautiful brand and talk to our customers in a different way. That’s about 20 basis points to 25 basis points of incremental year-over-year investment. We are continuing to invest in labor. We have seen the benefit of what happens when we put the right profile on the shop floor at our busiest times. And so, we’re committed to getting that model continued to be optimized.

And then, thirdly, we’re going to continue to lean-in on capital and support the growth of this business, both in new stores, but also in capacity within our distribution network to make sure that we’re ready not only for 2026 but beyond. So, I think we’ve got the right balance here of fueling and funding this growth, but also being thoughtful about what flows to the bottom-line.

Look, to your second question, what happens if we outperform this? That’s a long way away for us. We would love to entertain that. We’re certainly thinking about that every day, but we’ll have more to say about that should that situation arise.

Operator

The next question will come from Scot Ciccarelli with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Scot Ciccarelli

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for the time. Dan, I think you mentioned you’re seeing the same data that we’re seeing on the outside, but I think what we’re seeing on the outside would suggest you’re providing a relatively conservative guide at least at this point for the first quarter. Is that based on just conservatism? Is it because you still have Easter ahead, etc.? If you just could provide more clarity around kind of the thinking on that. Thanks.

Dan Sullivan — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Absolutely, Scot. Thanks for the question. Look, we’re seeing the same data you’re seeing. We’re thrilled with what’s happening out there. I think we’ve got to put context here though as well. We’re seven, eight weeks into the quarter. These are relatively low volume weeks and I think that’s important to note. It doesn’t take away from the performance. But I think this quarter is going to be delivered based on what’s in front of us, not what’s behind us. Easter is a big deal. Those are two really important selling weeks for us. It’s an early Easter this year, which is not ideal, but survivable. And we’ve got to get that right and we know we will.

I think the second thing I’ll go back to and Winnie and I both talked about it is, look, the state of the consumer is not as strong as when we exited the year. And I think we have to be thoughtful about that as well. There’s a threshold here in terms of wallet and the consumer is under a lot of pressure. And so, I don’t think we’re trying to be conservative. It’s not our intent. I think we’re trying to be thoughtful halfway through the quarter, knowing we’ve got a lot left to do, particularly around Easter to land the quarter. So, hopefully, that answers your question. Thanks, Scot.

Operator

The next question will come from Paul Lejuez with Citi. Please go ahead.

Paul Lejuez

Hey, thanks guys. Can you talk about your AUR and ticket assumptions for the first quarter versus transactions? And then, I’m curious as we think about 2Q to 4Q, are you looking at those quarters as being consistent on a one-year basis as you move throughout the year? Or are you looking at them as being consistent on a two-year basis, or are you building in a stronger second quarter coming down a little bit, decelerating as we move throughout? Anything you could share on that second quarter to fourth quarter cadence, any AUR, ticket and transaction assumptions?

Dan Sullivan — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Great. Thanks for the question, Paul. Yeah, look, let’s start at the macro level. We’ve got a comp growth built into every quarter in the year. So, I want to reinforce that point. I think we made it in the opening remarks, but I think that’s important to note. Obviously, yes, you’re right, the sequential growth will slow as the cycling effect is more pronounced. And ’25 got stronger as the year went on, which means the cycling challenge is harder in ’26 as the year goes on.

In terms of how we thought about sort of ticket and AUR, I would sort of maybe ladder up and just think about it in terms of half one and half two. We’ve modeled very consistent trends that we saw coming out of the year, particularly in Q1 around ticket growth and AUR-driven ticket growth. It’s what we saw in the fourth quarter, it’s what we expect to see in Q1. That will obviously moderate as we move into Q2 and we anniversary the price increase. And then, over the back-half of the year, yeah, you’re going to see a little bit more balanced, a little bit more moderated growth between both ticket and transaction. We do expect growth in both, but it will be more modest given what we’re cycling against. Thanks, Paul.

Operator

The next question will come from Robbie Ohmes with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Robert Ohmes

Hey, thanks for taking my question. I was just curious on the first quarter and the strength you have there and it might be hard to see behind it, but is there any — was there any storm impact coming in the first quarter, does early Easter mean anything for you guys? And maybe to call out, historically, how has tax refunds helped or not helped Five Below’s business and are they helping right now?

Dan Sullivan — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah. So, all that certainly went into how we thought about the first quarter. There is certainly tax proceeds in the market that came a bit earlier than what we’ve seen previously. We think that’s a bit behind what we’re seeing in the early results in the quarter. That’s been favorable. Look, I think in general, an early Easter is less advantageous than a late Easter. It sets up that post-Easter timeline where it’s still unfortunately a bit cold and you don’t get the full spring/summer sets going. But that’s de minimis, that’s probably on the rounding.

I think at the end of the day, Easter is still a pronounced piece of the quarter for us early or later. It’s a big piece of how we think about the quarter. And so, yeah, you’ve got a bit of tax funding that’s worked its way through earlier than maybe we would have expected. You’ve got Easter out there. I think all of that has factored into how we constructed the first quarter comp guide.

Operator

The next question will come from Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett. Please go ahead.

Chuck Grom

Hey, thanks very much. Can you guys unpack the traffic between new and existing customers? And then, separately on store growth, what it would take to accelerate unit expansion from here in ’26 — I’m sorry, in ’27 and ’28? I guess, what are you guys looking for given how strong NSP has been over the past year? Thanks.

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Hey, Chuck. So, we’ve seen growth in both new and existing at equivalent levels and actually at really, really great levels that we haven’t seen in the past. As I mentioned before, I think that the marketing strategies that we’ve deployed are — they’re very effective, they’re working. And as we gather customer records, I think that we’ll be able to see further growth, especially with our existing customer base and hopefully growth in that customer lifetime value, especially as kids enter and they grow up, see us through college and maybe one day become parents and come back to us. So, really, really good potential out there.

In terms of store growth, I think, overall, we’ve taken a position of being incredibly disciplined. I think that’s the difference in the past year. And that discipline means evaluating the best locations and more importantly opening with maximum impact, so ensuring that we’ve got the right level of inventory, ensuring that we’ve got a crew who are well trained and really, I think, bringing back brand opening marketing and shouting to the community that we’re there has worked. And so, we really want to focus on the number of stores. I think there’s a lot of white space out there for us, but it’s more important that we get the right ones and the right level of execution against them. Thanks so much, Chuck.

Operator

The next question will come from Zhihan Ma with Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Zhihan Ma

Hey, thank you. Winnie, I wanted to follow-up on your comment about pricing and various price points, above $5 to $7, $10, $15. Now, it’s not the first time that Five Below is going beyond the $5 price point. What do you think has changed in terms of you seeing the customers giving you the permission to realize more pricing power this time around beyond the $5 point? Thank you.

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks so much, Zhihan. So, a couple of things have changed fundamentally. One thing remains the same. We remain very committed to delivering as much value and as much assortment at $5 and below. It’s — it represents about 80% of our business in terms of units sold, and we’re very excited about that number. We’re proud of it. We want to be a resource for customers where the price of entry is a buck. And so, building in great value is always going to be central to what we do.

We took a very different approach to pricing above $5. A couple of things. One, we evaluated every single product and really looked at if you’re going to bring in a price point above $5, does it deserve to be at $7, $10 or $15? And so, an example over holiday was really compelling gift sets and bundled products that were at $10. That makes a big difference. And again, focus on relative value and also making sure that we are honestly priced better than competition. So, that all goes in the mix.

The other aspect of how we think we’ve gotten permission from the customer is we basically merchandise the store the way they shop. In the past, all of these goods would be in the back of store, in the Five Beyond area. And we worked very hard to actually try and disband that and actually put these really compelling wow value items in the zones where the customer is shopping. So, I’ll give you the example of a great speaker and a speaker table. You don’t need that to be in the back of store. If you put it in the text section with the other speakers, the customer sees the value in it. And so, I think really leaning into how the customer shops, ensuring that they’re getting great relative value and remaining very, very focused on what the competition is pricing at versus what we price at has been tremendous.

The last thing I’ll say about Five Below that’s really great is we’re about newness. And so, as we introduce new products at higher price points, they’re not comp to old products that were in the price — in the line. So, we can really step out and do something unique. And the customer has responded well and is giving us permission to do more at different price points. Thanks for your question.

Operator

The next question will come from Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Brian Nagel

Hi, good afternoon. Great quarter. Congratulations. So, the question I want to ask, focusing on sales and, look, we have laid out the guidance and you talked about continued strength through the year, but really in the first quarter. But as we think about 2026, how should we — are there factors that are beyond what you’re already doing, new factors that should amount to key sales drivers for the year that we maybe did not see in 2025?

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

So, Brian, thanks so much for your question. Honestly, I would say that in 2025, we planted a lot of future growth and we see a lot of green shoots. And so, our intention during the course of the year is actually to amplify what we’ve already planted and started to read. And I will give you the example of our ability to actually react to trends as one of those ideas. So, in the past, there could be trends that were really hot, especially for kids. And we were passive. We were able to provide the product, but we weren’t able to engage with the customer and amplify those trends. Today, we’ve got a different toolkit. So, we really can actually build community and engage with the customer about what’s hot and also react much faster than in the past at addressing that trend.

We also are going to take permission to look at those trends and introduce new trends along with that. So, I think that, that is something we’re beginning to exercise and we’ll exercise throughout the year. We also — honestly, last year, we had the tariffs hit us. And so, we weren’t able to actually buy or attain all the product that we wanted to fill out some of our worlds. And this year, that is not an object. We’ve worked very hard to diversify our store space, to negotiate. We do have the benefit of being able to price at great value above $5. All of this is going to lead to greater range and greater growth in certain categories that we weren’t able to really service last year. I hope that answers your question. Thanks, Brian.

Operator

The next question will come from Jeremy Hamblin with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Jeremy Hamblin

Thanks. And I’ll add my congratulations on the success. First, just a clarifying question on the embedded tariffs in guidance. So, I think what you said was that your modeling actually, like, for example, for China, what the ending 2025 tariff rate would be like 20% for China and not the 10% for the current global tariff rates. So, just a clarification on that.

And then, my other question is, if you think about the long-term model here and you guys for a very long-time, for a decade did roughly an 11% to 12% EBIT margin every year. And you’ve been building back towards that through a combination of improved operations and clearly higher AUVs. Where do you think you would need to comp at or what do you think the average unit volumes would need to get to, to get back to that 11% to 12% EBIT margin? Thank you.

Dan Sullivan — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Thanks, Jeremy. Let me take the tariff question first and then we’ll talk about the business model. And maybe I’ll just take a step back and confirm for the group how have we thought about tariffs in total in this outlook. First of all, I think you were in the right place to start. We have essentially assumed that the tariff rates that were in place as we started the fiscal year on February 1 remain in place. So, in rough terms, that means that the IEEPA tariffs that were eventually struck down later in February, we have assumed those are still in-place for the year. We think that’s the best proxy in a very, very uncertain world given the comments that we’ve seen from the administration to get back to that level. So, that’s what’s embedded in our outlook. Equally, we have not contemplated the impact in our guidance of this 150-day 10% global tariff rate, the infamous Section 122 tariffs. We have not factored that into our guidance. We don’t believe that, that impact is material to the guidance. So, that’s how we thought about tariffs.

On the business model question that you’re asking, look, I think we’re not running this business to achieve a certain number, 12%, 13% op profit. What we’re doing is designing a model that provides durable growth. And I think this year is a great example of that. The ability to comp on top of 2025 speaks to the durable growth. We’re going to be super smart and drive margin accretion and that margin accretion is going to balance reinvestment and bottom-line operating profit growth. How that model plays out in over time, what does that balance look like between reinvest versus grow the bottom-line? I think that’s what we will ultimately decide as we engage over the years. But I think it all starts with a trusted durable growth profile that based on the strategy and to Winnie comments, the way we’re executing the strategy, we feel really, really good about our ability to do that. And then, I think over time, we will get the mechanism right and the balance right of reinvest to continue to fuel that growth versus grow the EBIT margin line. And that’s what we will do over time.

Operator

The next question will come from Krisztina Katai with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Krisztina Katai

Hi, good afternoon and congrats on a great quarter. So, Winnie, I wanted to ask on the six pertinent moments that delivered newness and the great in-store experience that you talked about. How many curtain-up moments are planned for 2026? If you could talk about the expected percentage of newness within the assortment that you aim to achieve through these. And then, just lastly, some of the key categories that you anticipate driving the most excitement in the coming year. Thank you.

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Krisztina. So, we will also feature six curtain-up moments this year like we did in 2025. And they really are the seasonal moments that our customers focused on, be it New Year’s followed by Valentine’s through to Spring, Easter, etc. So, it really is their moments. And what’s really nice is that between those moments, we can always layer in newness. And we actually have newness in each of our worlds that occurs between those moments and we have the ability to now talk to the customer about when those moments deliver.

The key to our business success this past year has been getting the right product at the right price. And I think that, again, it begins and ends with the focus on the customer. And when we talk about key categories that we think are important, we set off last year with a mission to really be the destination for the kid and the kid and all of us. And with that, really doubling down on games, toys and crafting those thought processes that we really stand-out, both in terms of our position, but also in terms of our unique concept. We’ve got 9,000 square feet on average. It’s a fun place to shop and it’s a fun place to host kids.

And then, beyond that, really looking at teens and tweens. And so, we continue to fuel our businesses like beauty as well as our lounge business and accessories. And so — and then, this year, I think we are really excited about doing more in terms of room and dorm. And so, lots of great newness throughout our categories and our worlds, but again, with that focus on the kids and what they care about. Thank you so much, Krisztina.

Operator

The next question will come from Anthony Chukumba with Loop Capital. Please go ahead.

Anthony Chukumba

Thank you so much for taking my question. I guess, I have a quick one for Winnie. This has just been such an amazing first year. Are you sure your first name is Winnie and not winning?

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Anthony, that’s very kind. It’s Winnie like the Pooh, which is also a great product in the line right now. Thank you, Anthony.

Operator

The next question will come from David Bellinger with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

David Bellinger

Hey, thanks. I don’t really know how to follow that one. But my question is on social media. I mean, Winnie, you mentioned some of the influencer, TikTok, Instagram marketing. Are you looking at those sales as truly incremental at this point? And just can you help us think through any of the economics around that? Do you pay for post, do the influencers participate in any upside? Just help us understand the economics and the incrementality at this point. Thank you.

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So, David, what we’ve done is basically redirect what used to be spent on traditional TV commercials into social media. And it’s a whole range. It’s both engagement in terms of creator content with creators and influencers, but it’s also just ensuring that if you’re watching, if you’re on social and you’re Gen Alpha and you’re watching a great video about Stitch and you’re interested in Stitch product, we’re serving up the right content to you. And so, it’s a multi-pronged strategy. It’s not as simple as just going out and paying for influencers.

I think that what’s been really, really great, especially this year as we look at the first quarter, is that it’s less about influencer content and it’s much more about our ability to amplify what is user-generated that’s out there. People are talking about these products. We’re able to lean-in and say, we’ve got those products, we’ve got you. Even our stores are engaged and talking about, like, this product just landed. So, I think it just gives us access to a remarkable channel that again is agile, incredibly effective in terms of return on ad spend.

And honestly, the last piece of this is compelling. It’s something that the customers want to engage in. And so, all of those pieces give us courage to do more, but we always have a test, learn and ramp approach on anything we test on social [Phonetic]. We’re really excited by what we’ve seen thus far. Thanks, David.

Operator

The next question will come from John Heinbockel with Guggenheim. Please go ahead.

John Heinbockel

Hey, Winnie, quick question. I know in the past, you guys would run events in stores on the weekends. Your thought on that, the labor required for that? And then, could you do birthday parties and other related parties, or that’s too complicated labor wise?

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. John, great question. So, first of all on events, we continue to host events, and we just had an amazing Pokemon event. We’ve been really pleased. And I think part of it is those events are incredibly sticky and create community. And it’s something that certainly our brands and vendors want to help activate. So, it’s a one plus one equals three equation and the sales that we generate in general really do fund — more than fund any labor that we put towards the events.

I do think it’s an interesting and compelling question with regards to birthday parties and other activations. We haven’t contemplated that really fully. However, what we are trying to lean into is try to be a one-stop destination for your birthday needs. And so, we were excited about our balloon business. We don’t aspire to be all of balloons, but the best of balloons and really think about our target customer and then offering really great party celebration items that complement what we’ve always done, which is party favors and gifts. So, those are some thoughts, but certainly, as we focus in on kids, we look at all avenues of potential growth and what that could do for us. Thanks for your question, John.

Operator

The next question will come from Michael Montani with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Michael Montani

Yes, hi. Thanks for taking the question. I was going to ask, could you just summarize for the year where tariff headwinds ended-up falling out for you? And then, I believe in the first round of tariffs, it was roughly a third, a third, a third offset from pricing, cost-out and then vendor leverage. So, I’m just wondering if you could provide an update on how that has played out so far?

Dan Sullivan — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah. Thanks, Mike. So, we ended-up largely where we thought we would a quarter ago, about 90 basis points full year headwind in 2025. In terms of sort of what we — how we addressed those impacts, I go back to what I think is, like, a really important point with this business, which is we offset tariffs penny for penny at the item unit level. And that’s obviously super important to the economics and you see the benefit of that in 2026 because some of the gross margin tailwinds that we are getting right now is as tariffs have eased, we’ve got unit economics in a great place and we’ve got margin accretion. So, I think it’s noteworthy that the team was able to offset all of the tariff headwinds at the item level.

How they did it? I think you’ve got the three buckets, right, in terms of the pricing benefit, the ability to negotiate and the ability to reengineer and redesign product. I think all of that factored in. I don’t know that I would size it a third, a third, a third. I think pricing was probably a bit more, but I’ll leave it at that for now because I think you’ve got all three of the right levers.

Operator

The next question will come from Brad Thomas with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Brad Thomas

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. What a great year. A question on the step-up in capex, Dan. Just what’s that going towards, any interesting technology or supply-chain opportunities? And how are you thinking about perhaps getting back into some of the store refresh or remodel programs that had been in the past? Thanks.

Dan Sullivan — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah. Thanks for the question. And you’re right, it is a bit of a step-up year-over-year in capex, we plan to be somewhere just over 4% of net sales in capital, which is slightly higher than where we ended 2025. I think the capital is largely going to continue to be focused on the network and the stores and building out the next round of 150-ish new stores. That’s obviously the priority.

The second piece and you’re right, we are making investments in the distribution network. We’ve got to build for more capacity to support this growth. And so, that process begins in 2026 and we’ve allocated capital for that. And then, we are putting a bit more capital behind technology. We’re seeing real opportunity here structurally to enhance technology. We talked earlier about our digital business and the website. We’ve talked about how do we make the merch teams more efficient and optimize end-to-end management of this business. So, there’s a technology investment. And so, you’ve got the new stores, you’ve got investments in the network and in capacity and you’ve got a bit more going towards technology to support the growth.

Operator

The next question will come from — sorry, go ahead.

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

I was just thanking, Brad.

Operator

The next question will come from Phillip Blee with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Phillip Blee

Well, thanks for sneaking me in. Congrats on a great quarter. So, Winnie, you’ve spoken a lot about the contribution of the crew and incremental investments in labor over the past few quarters, how that’s led to better conversion and in-stock levels. Do you think stores are appropriately staffed now? Or do you think that there’s room for further increases in either hours or headcount, particularly as you ramp-up omnichannel efforts? And then, if so, how do you think about the opportunity to make additional gains in conversion? What kind of contribution could that have, or has most of the low-hanging fruit been taken already here now? Thank you.

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks. Yeah, thanks for your question, Phillip. Great question. It was interesting because I think last year, we made an initial investment in terms of labor to ensure that we could do kind of the basics, which is to get product — move products from the back to the front and to drive the conversion. And as the quarters progressed and we started to hit peak periods like holiday, we took a really thoughtful approach to match-up peak traffic, peak days with recovery in our stores and ensuring that not only did the customers see the product on the shelf, but they got a better level of service. And so, we will continue with that model.

And as it relates to kind of future endeavors like omnichannel, we are very much in a test, learn and ramp mode. We have initiated buy online, pickup in store. We’ve seen actually big, big growth with third-party delivery. And so, we’re going to continue to look at those avenues because we’ve got to meet the customers where they are. And I think particularly for the younger customers, specifically Gen Z, convenience is critical. And we think it’s actually an opportunity to acquire new customers who may not have considered us or walk away just because it’s not convenient. And so, I — we’ll take a test, learn and ramp approach in terms of how we look at that, but we think that turning on omnichannel is just going to actually lead to greater acquisition and greater conversion moving forward. Thanks for your question.

Operator

The next question will come from Spencer Hanus with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Spencer Hanus

Great. Thank you for the question. I’m just curious what you’re seeing in terms of growth from, like, new and then existing customers? And then, any change in how the recent results are just impacting your view on where this business can comp, like, durably out in the future, like have your expectations moved up about sort of where comps land sort of in ’27 and ’28?

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

So, Spencer, in terms of new and existing customers, we actually had what I would call a banner year in terms of both acquisition as well as repeat visits. And I would attribute that to more effective marketing and really again meeting customers where they are. I talked about the fact that we’ve just started collecting records for customers and we think that our ability to again get additional repeat and to drive our current customer base in terms of their value is much higher as we move through the year. And that’s one of our major initiatives for the year. We will also continue to focus on new customers and driving our brand awareness. So, all really, really good stuff. And I’m going to pass it on to Dan to talk about comp in the future.

Dan Sullivan — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, look, we’re super bullish on the growth profile of this business, right? You have to be — you look at the comp growth that we have delivered, you look at the new store growth, we haven’t talked about it on this call, but what we’ve seen in eight new stores and new markets in the Pacific Northwest, so we’ve got a business that we think has an optimal opportunity to comp strongly with a lot of white space. And that is a very, very unique concept within retail. And so, that’s how we feel about it.

I think going back to Winnie’s earlier comments, we’ve got a compelling strategy. We’re executing at an incredibly high-level with a talented crew and there are so many things left to do here. We have not scratched the surface on what’s possible. And so, you put all that together, I’m going to stop short of putting a number to it, but certainly, we are bullish with the growth aspects that this business offers us, particularly with this strategy. Thanks for the question.

Operator

The next question will come from — and the final question will come from Joe Feldman with Telsey Advisory Group. Please go ahead.

Joseph Feldman

Hey, guys, thanks for making some time for me. I pressed late, I guess. But I did want to ask you guys because I know you’ve talked about with maybe thinking about a new format for the store, now that you’ve brought out the Five Beyond items back into the aisles and have a more fluid merchandise flow, I was just wondering if you guys have been playing around with a newer format and what you’re thinking there? Thank you.

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks so much, Joe. I think we’re always looking at ways to make this shopping experience that much more inspiring and frankly just easier. And certainly with the abolition, I would say, the Five Beyond area, we have opportunity to take the back of store and make it even that much more productive. And so, we are looking at how to create better flow within the store without that Five Beyond area in the back and testing how we honestly convert stores in the network, but then also looking at new format work that allows us to really truly bring to life this idea of these worlds that customers can shop in and move from. And we are serving some distinct customer groups, the youngest customers with Gen Alpha, Gen Z, more teens, tweens and young adults and millennials moms, and they have very different needs. And so, we’re thinking through how do we optimize experience for each of those cohorts. So, more to come on that, but thanks for your question.

Operator

This will conclude our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Winnie Park for any closing remarks.

Winnie Y. Park — Chief Executive Officer

First and foremost, thank you all so much for your support and we hope to see everyone in our stores for all your spring break and Easter essentials. We appreciate you. Please connect [Phonetic] with us, and thank you for your attention on the call.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]