Steven Madden Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
November 5, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Negative Sentiment: New tariffs (peaking at 145%) caused wholesale order cuts, midstream shifts out of China and shipment delays, materially raising landed costs and pressuring Q3 revenue and gross margin.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management says the worst of the disruption appears behind them as wholesale ordering normalizes and strong product (notably boots) plus heavier social marketing have driven meaningful acceleration in Steve Madden wholesale sell-through and DTC trends.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The Kurt Geiger acquisition is boosting revenue and DTC mix (comp sales up mid‑teens; Q4 KG revenue guided to $182–$187M with ~ $135M DTC) but is a near‑term margin drag (roughly a ~300 bps headwind) and has raised inventory.
  • Negative Sentiment: Q3 results: consolidated revenue $667.9M (+6.9% including KG) but organic revenue fell 14.8% ex‑KG, operating income and EPS declined (EPS $0.43 vs. $0.91 prior year), inventory rose to $476M, and net debt was $185M.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management issued Q4 guidance of revenue up 27%–30% and EPS $0.41–$0.46 and approved a $0.21 quarterly cash dividend, signaling confidence in near‑term performance despite headwinds.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Steven Madden Q3 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2025 Steve Madden Ltd. earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Danielle McCoy, VP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Danielle McCoy
Danielle McCoy
VP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Steve Madden Ltd

Thanks, Brittany, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our third quarter 2025 earnings call and webcast. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that our remarks that follow, including answers to your questions, contain statements that we believe to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our press release issued earlier today and filings we make with the SEC. We explain any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, which may not be updated until our next quarterly earnings conference call, if at all. The financial results discussed on today's call are on an adjusted basis unless otherwise noted.

Danielle McCoy
Danielle McCoy
VP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Steve Madden Ltd

A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure and other associated disclosures are contained in our earnings release. Joining me on the call today are Ed Rosenfeld, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Zine Mazouzi, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Operations. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ed. Ed.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

All right. Thanks, Danielle. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to review Steve Madden's third quarter 2025 results. As anticipated, the third quarter was challenging, driven largely by the impact of new tariffs on goods imported into the United States. During the period in April and May when new tariffs on Chinese imports reached 145%, wholesale customers cut back meaningfully on orders for the third quarter, and we shifted large amounts of production out of China midstream, which led to shipment delays. These factors, together with the negative impact to gross margin from the significant increase in our landed costs, resulted in substantial pressure on both revenue and earnings in Q3. Fortunately, while we will continue to see negative impacts from tariffs, we believe the worst is behind us.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Order patterns from our wholesale customers are normalizing, and we are mitigating a larger percentage of the gross margin pressure through strategic pricing actions and sourcing initiatives. Most importantly, underlying consumer demand for our brands and products is strong. Despite the noise from tariffs, our team has stayed laser-focused on executing our strategy to deepen consumer connections through the combination of compelling product and effective marketing, and we are seeing those efforts pay off, particularly in our flagship Steve Madden brand. Steve and his design team have created an outstanding fall product assortment that is resonating with consumers and enabling us to outperform the competition. Boots have been the standout, led by our casual tall shaft styles, but we're also seeing strong performance in dress shoes across various heel heights, as well as casuals like loafers, Mary Janes, and mules.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Our marketing team is amplifying this great assortment with richer brand and product storytelling and increased investment across YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest, which is driving measurable increases in awareness and conversion with our key Gen Z and millennial consumers. As a result, both wholesale sell-through and DTC sales trends for Steve Madden have accelerated meaningfully in recent months. Our new brand, Kurt Geiger London, also has strong momentum as consumers continue to respond to its bold, statement-making designs and eye-catching marketing, including the current campaign featuring Emily Ratajkowski. Comp sales for the brand were up mid-teens in the third quarter.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Overall, the acquisition integration remains on track, and our teams continue to make progress on revenue synergies, including expanding Kurt Geiger in international markets through the Steve Madden network and growing Steve Madden in the U.K. through the Kurt Geiger platform, as well as cost savings opportunities in areas like freight and logistics. We are also making meaningful progress in advancing our other own brands. In Dolce Vita, we're building on the outstanding success we've had over the last several years in our U.S. footwear business by expanding international markets and extending the brand into other categories like handbags. In Betsey Johnson, we are driving renewed cultural relevance for the brand with elevated talent partnerships, authentic community engagement, high-impact activations, and differentiated merchandise assortments. Both Dolce Vita and Betsey Johnson are on track to deliver revenue gains for the full year 2025, despite the headwinds from tariffs.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

In sum, while the third quarter was undeniably challenging and our financial results were not up to our usual standards, our team's disciplined execution of our strategy is strengthening our brands and building relevance and demand with consumers. We are confident that we will begin to see improved financial performance in the fourth quarter, and looking out further, that we have the brands, business model, and strategy to drive sustainable revenue and earnings growth over the long term. I will now turn it over to Zine to review our third quarter 2025 financial results in more detail.

Zine Mazouzi
Zine Mazouzi
CFO and EVP of Operations at Steve Madden Ltd

Thanks, Ed. Good morning, everyone. In the third quarter, our consolidated revenue was $667.9 million, a 6.9% increase compared to the third quarter of 2024. Excluding the newly acquired Kurt Geiger, consolidated revenue decreased 14.8%. Our wholesale revenue was $442.7 million, down 10.7% compared to Q3 2024. Excluding Kurt Geiger, our wholesale revenue decreased 19%. Wholesale footwear revenue was $266.5 million, a 10.9% decrease from the comparable period in 2024, or down 16.7% excluding Kurt Geiger. Wholesale accessories and apparel revenue was $176.2 million, down 10.3% compared to the third quarter in the prior year, or down 22.5% excluding Kurt Geiger. The majority of the organic decline in wholesale revenue can be attributed to tariff-related order reductions, shipment delays, and other impacts related to the production disruption. In our direct-to-consumer segment, revenue increased 76.6% to $221.5 million. Excluding Kurt Geiger, our direct-to-consumer revenue increased 1.5%.

Zine Mazouzi
Zine Mazouzi
CFO and EVP of Operations at Steve Madden Ltd

We ended the quarter with 397 company-operated brick-and-mortar retail stores, including 99 outlets, as well as 7 e-commerce websites and 133 company-operated concessions in international markets. Our license and royalty income was $3.7 million in the quarter compared to $3.5 million in the third quarter of 2024. Consolidated gross margin was 43.4% in the quarter, up from 41.6% in the comparable period of 2024 due to the impact of Kurt Geiger, which has a much higher mix of DTC than the legacy business and therefore has higher overall gross margin. Wholesale gross margin was 33.6% compared to 35.5% in the third quarter of 2024 due to pressure from tariffs, partially offset by our mitigation efforts.

Zine Mazouzi
Zine Mazouzi
CFO and EVP of Operations at Steve Madden Ltd

Direct-to-consumer gross margin was 61.9% compared to 64% in the comparable period in 2024 due to pressure from tariffs, as well as the addition of Kurt Geiger, which had lower DTC margin in the quarter than the existing business, driven by the concessions business. Operating expenses were $243.4 million, or 36.4% of revenue in the quarter, compared to $174.2 million, or 27.9% of revenue in the third quarter of 2024. Operating income for the quarter was $46.3 million, or 6.9% of revenue, compared to $85.4 million, or 13.7% of revenue in the comparable period in the prior year. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 23.4% compared to 23.8% in the third quarter of 2024.

Zine Mazouzi
Zine Mazouzi
CFO and EVP of Operations at Steve Madden Ltd

Finally, net income attributable to Steve Madden Ltd. for the quarter was $30.4 million, or $0.43 per diluted share, compared to $64.8 million, or $0.91 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2024. Moving to the balance sheet, our financial foundation remains strong. As of September 30, 2025, we had $293.8 million of outstanding debt and $108.9 million of cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments for a net debt of $185 million. Inventory at the end of the quarter was $476 million compared to $268.7 million in the third quarter of 2024. Excluding Kurt Geiger, inventory was $275.6 million, a 2.6% increase compared to the same period last year. Our CapEx in the third quarter was $11.6 million. During the third quarter, the company did not repurchase any shares of its common stock in the open market.

Zine Mazouzi
Zine Mazouzi
CFO and EVP of Operations at Steve Madden Ltd

The company's Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.21 per share. The dividend will be payable on December 26, 2025, to stockholders of record as of the close of business on December 15, 2025. Turning to our fourth quarter 2025 guidance, we expect revenue to increase 27%-30% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, and we expect earnings per share to be in the range of $0.41-$0.46. Now I'd like to turn the call over to the operator for questions. Brittany.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. One moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citi. Your line is now open.

Kelly Crago
Kelly Crago
Analyst at Citi

Hi there. This is Kelly on for Paul. Thanks for taking our question. Ed, you sounded pretty positive on what you're seeing on the fashion front. I'm just curious if you could talk more about how you're seeing the fashion develop this fall, how inventory levels in the wholesale channel are looking, and if that makes you think differently about sort of the prospects for spring, particularly in the wholesale channel.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. Good morning, Kelly. Yeah, we feel really good about what we've seen in fall. As we mentioned, we've seen a pretty meaningful acceleration in the trends, particularly in that core Steve Madden women's shoe business. As I called out, I think the biggest driver has been boots. Our boot assortment has just seen really strong performance. We called out that it's been led by the casual tall shaft styles. Those have been most important, but we've got a number of other things working in the boot and booty category as well. As I said earlier, it's not just about boots because we've really seen a nice improvement in the dress shoe category. That's obviously a category where we think we have a really strong competitive positioning. Our team has executed there.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

We're seeing strength in a number of different sort of looks within the dress category, and as I mentioned, really at various heel heights. Casuals have been important too. The fashion sneaker business has downshifted a bit, and we're picking that business up, and then some in loafers and mules and Mary Janes. Really feeling better than we have in some time about our fashion and Steve Madden and how it's performing. Yes, it does give us confidence going into spring. I think we feel better than we did a few months ago about how spring is shaping up.

Kelly Crago
Kelly Crago
Analyst at Citi

Great. Good to hear there. Unfortunately, you have got well above sort of where consensus is looking. Could you just break that down a bit for us in terms of what you are expecting from the core relative to the kind of down 15% you saw in the third quarter, whether there are any shifts there or what is kind of driving any acceleration there and just what you would expect from KG in the fourth quarter?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Sure. Yeah. So the core business, if you exclude KG, the revenue guide is essentially down 2% to down 4%. That includes increases in both wholesale footwear and DTC, but still offset by a decline in wholesale accessories and apparel. The KG contribution to revenue, I think at the low end, we are at $182 million and the high end, $187 million.

Kelly Crago
Kelly Crago
Analyst at Citi

Any sense of, sort of, the breakdown when we think about our models and how much of that KG revenue is coming from the DTC channel in the fourth quarter and what kind of impact that'll have on the grosses?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. I mean, as you know, overall, KG is over 70% DTC. I think I'd have to—I mean, I want to say it's probably about $135 million, something like that, in the fourth quarter coming from DTC. Obviously, that does have a meaningful mixed impact to gross margin.

Kelly Crago
Kelly Crago
Analyst at Citi

Got it. Thank you. Best of luck.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of Anna Andreeva with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Anna Andreeva
Anna Andreeva
Analyst at Piper Sandler

Great. Thank you so much. Good morning and congrats. Nice results. A couple of questions. Are you seeing stockouts in the core Madden business, just given everything that's going on with the supply chain and how quickly can you chase? Great to hear about DTC x KG bouncing back to positive. Ed, you mentioned a strong consumer response to a number of categories. Can you parse out how owned e-com did versus brick and mortar? How does the 10% reduction in China affect your thinking about sourcing?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Sure. Yeah. Look. Are there certain styles where we've had stockouts? Yes. Generally speaking, we've been able to chase some of the additional demand in the core Steve Madden business. As you point out, because of the supply chain disruption, we do not have the ability to chase that we normally do and the speed that we normally do. We did front-load some merchandise here because we had good reads on these products. We were in a position to fill some reorders, for instance, in Steve Madden. Also, some of this product is coming, or a good portion of it is coming from Mexico. Obviously, that's where we have a lot of speed, and we can get back into reorders in 30 days. I think it's been an okay story. Sure, I think the second quarter was about e-commerce versus brick and mortar.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

In both Steve Madden and Kurt Geiger, e-commerce is outpacing brick and mortar, but we've seen— We talked about the acceleration in Steve Madden. We've seen that in both e-com and stores in recent months. In terms of the final question, I think it was, how does the China reduction impact our sourcing? Look, it's obviously a welcome development to see the reduction in the tariff on China. The way that this tariff regime looks right now, the math would tell us we would move quite a bit back to China. I think that we're going to be careful about that. We want to remain diversified. We don't want to get back into a position where we have 70%+ of our sourcing coming from one country. We are going to continue to try to be diversified. It obviously does give us greater flexibility to go back to China where we need to to get the right deliveries. And quality, pricing, speed, etc.

Kelly Crago
Kelly Crago
Analyst at Citi

Makes sense. No, thank you for that. Just as a follow-up, as we think about the KG rollout plan, as we look into next year, just any color you could provide how we should think about the store growth versus wholesale?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. We will be— We're going to, I think, not get into a lot of detail about 2026 overall because we'll obviously be talking about that on the next call. I can tell you that we do plan to open a handful of stores in the United States next year for Kurt Geiger. We're working on those plans now. As we've talked about, the initial six stores in the United States are performing very well. We're getting pretty close on a handful of leases for next year to continue that rollout. There will be some wholesale growth as well because I think that we have opportunity in both channels.

Kelly Crago
Kelly Crago
Analyst at Citi

Awesome. Thanks so much again.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of Jay Sole with UBS. Your line is now open.

Jay Sole
Jay Sole
Analyst at UBS

Great. Thank you so much. I think I heard you say that legacy Steve Madden should be down 2%-4% with wholesale footwear and DTC positive. Can you just talk about how you're thinking about 4Q for the entire wholesale footwear segment and then wholesale accessories? That'd be helpful. Thank you.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. Wholesale. Including Kurt Geiger or excluding Kurt Geiger?

Jay Sole
Jay Sole
Analyst at UBS

I guess excluding Kurt Geiger.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Excluding Kurt Geiger, wholesale footwear, we're looking at up two to up four and a half. And wholesale accessories and apparel, excluding Kurt Geiger, still down mid to high teens.

Jay Sole
Jay Sole
Analyst at UBS

Got it. Okay. All right. That makes sense. I guess if you think about Kurt Geiger retail versus wholesale, I mean, how are you thinking about that?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

We have provided the DTC revenue for Kurt Geiger, which I said I think is going to be around $135 million. And then the overall number for Kurt Geiger, $182 million-$187 million is the range.

Jay Sole
Jay Sole
Analyst at UBS

Okay. Understood. Got that. Thank you for clarifying that. I guess just, you've asked this already a couple of times, but just on your visibility, I mean, have you taken orders? Do you take orders earlier for Kurt Geiger relative to the Steve Madden business? I mean, do you have visibility out into Q1 and Q2 yet for Kurt Geiger, or is it going to be on the same sort of quick-turning supply chain that Steve Madden is on?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

No. We do take orders earlier there. And so we'll have more visibility over time there.

Jay Sole
Jay Sole
Analyst at UBS

I guess any comment on sort of the order book and how that's shaping up right now?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

I think we're going to postpone all discussion of 2026 until the next call. Look, the Kurt Geiger brand continues to perform very well. We're going to see growth next year.

Jay Sole
Jay Sole
Analyst at UBS

Got it. Okay. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of Aubrey Tianello with BNP Paribas. Your line is now open.

Aubrey Tianello
Aubrey Tianello
Analyst at BNP Paribas

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to ask on Kurt Geiger as well. Appreciate the comment on comp sales up mid-teens. Any color you can share on how Kurt Geiger performed by region in the quarter?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. It's growing in all the core regions. They performed well in their home market of the U.K., continues to grow in the U.S., and we're also growing in Europe.

Aubrey Tianello
Aubrey Tianello
Analyst at BNP Paribas

Got it. Ed, you've talked about the revenue synergy potential there. One of the first pieces of that being sort of plugging KG into your existing international markets. I know it's still early, but any updates on that in terms of how that's progressing or when you could start seeing some of those benefits?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. We've been hard at work on that. The Kurt Geiger CEO just went on a world tour. I think he hit, I want to say, four continents over a three-week period, meeting with all of our international teams and international partners. That work is underway. I think we'll start to see some benefits in 2026. Probably more. I think anything that will be meaningful to the numbers would be towards the back end of 2026.

Aubrey Tianello
Aubrey Tianello
Analyst at BNP Paribas

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of Marni Shapiro with The Retail Tracker. Your line is now open.

Marni Shapiro
Analyst at The Retail Tracker

Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking my question. Your stores have really looked beautiful. Could we just focus a little bit on some of your smaller but growing areas? It sounds like the handbag business was a little bit disrupted. I'm guessing some late deliveries. I'm curious if you could just talk a little bit about what's going on there. Could we get an update on the apparel business, both at stores like Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and Revolve, as well as Madden NYC at Walmart?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. Sure. In terms of handbags, look, that's obviously been a category, if we're talking about Steve Madden handbags, that we have talked about all year was going to be down based on the excess inventory in the channel and some of the market pressures that we've experienced there. We came into the year expecting that business to be down double digits. That's been exacerbated by all the tariff disruption and everything that's happened with the supply chain and deliveries and everything else. We have certainly felt a lot of pressure there. We're going to continue to feel that in Q4. The good news is that the underlying demand, I think, is improving. We've seen good sell-throughs in fall so far, improved over spring. We've got a number of things working there. I think that our online Hobos, shoulder bags, EastWest bags, anything in brown suede.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

We've got the trends, and they're performing. I do expect that business to stabilize as we come into spring 2026. Apparel, as you know, has been a nice growth story for us. The focus, of course, is Steve Madden apparel. That's a business that we've been—the sell-throughs have been good, and we've been steadily growing it in those key accounts that you mentioned: Nordstrom, Dillard's, Bloomingdale's, Top Doors of Macy's, Revolve, etc. To your point, we also have the mass business that we do with Walmart under Madden NYC. That's an important business for us as well, although our overall business in the mass channel has definitely felt some pressure from tariffs. We expect that to get better as we go into 2026.

Marni Shapiro
Analyst at The Retail Tracker

Can I just follow up on what's going on on the back side in the department stores? I'm sorry, in the shoe side in the department stores. Are you seeing a big difference between the higher-end stores that you sell, some of the better stores, or I guess even more fashion stores? Revolve is a much more fashion store than some of the others versus stores that are a little bit less fashion, or it's across the board, your sell-through has been good, and there's not a lot of price resistance to the Madden brand when the product is right?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. We've been really pleased so far with the lack of price resistance that we've seen, particularly in the Madden brand. I think, as we've said, we have a lot of very strong fashion right now. I think overall, if you look at the overall company, the real takeaway on the price increases is that when you have real fashion-forward products or new fashion, the consumer is willing to pay. Where you have to be much more careful with price increases is on the core and more basic product. The good news is that's how we did it. That's how we planned it. As you know, we were very surgical about it. We didn't take a peanut butter approach where we spread the price increases evenly everywhere. We went style by style.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

I think so far we've been pleased with how the price increases have been received by the consumer.

Marni Shapiro
Analyst at The Retail Tracker

Fantastic. Thank you. The product really looks outstanding. Some of the best product out there in the market. Best of luck for holiday, you guys.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Thanks. Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of Corey Tarlowe with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Corey Tarlowe
Corey Tarlowe
Analyst at Jefferies

Great. Thanks and good morning. Ed, I was just wondering if you could talk to the AUR lift in the business. So you're selling $200 boots today versus sneakers that were more like $70 previously. How is that affecting the business, and what's the impact on sales and comp? How do you measure that? How do these fashion trends speak to what AUR could be next year?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. We are seeing a pretty significant increase in AUR. And it's really twofold. It's one, it's based on the price increases that we've put through in response to tariffs. And number two, as you point out, there's a mixed benefit due to selling more boots and in higher-priced categories. So in Q3, in our DTC, we were up about high singles in AUR. In Q4, we're running more like mid-teens increases in AUR.

Corey Tarlowe
Corey Tarlowe
Analyst at Jefferies

That's really helpful. It does feel as if there's a bit of a tone shift in your commentary around wholesale, where kind of the first half of the year I talked about order cancellations, and now you're talking about orders ramping back up. I'm curious, is this the fact that the channels are doing better, or is it that you see Steve Madden gaining more market share in these channels? How do you think about that?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

I think it's both. I think. Look, my tone didn't get better from how I was talking when we had 145% tariffs and everybody canceled every order. It would be pretty depressing. Some of that, the external noise has abated a bit. I think things are normalizing in the wake of all the tariff disruption. In addition to that, we are also seeing improved underlying demand, improved sell-through. That's causing the wholesale customers to come back to us with more aggressive plans.

Corey Tarlowe
Corey Tarlowe
Analyst at Jefferies

Got it. If I could just squeeze one more in. It seems like the product's resonating really nicely. Intuitively, what do you think that means for promotions, and what's embedded in your outlook for that? Thanks so much.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. I mean, the good news is we have been able, for instance, in our DTC channels, we have so far in Q4 reduced promotional days by a pretty meaningful amount compared to what we were doing last year. We have been able to be less promotional because of the strength of the product and the trend. We will do, obviously, we need to remain competitive when we get into the fall, the part of the holiday season here when everybody is promotional, but we are going to attempt to continue to be less promotional where we can.

Corey Tarlowe
Corey Tarlowe
Analyst at Jefferies

Great. Thanks so much and best of luck.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Nikic with Needham. Your line is now open.

Tom Nikic
Tom Nikic
Analyst at Needham

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the margin structure of the business. So obviously, 2025, between tariffs and the acquisition and maybe some tough first half of the year at the core brand or a tough first nine months, there was quite a bit of margin erosion this year. How do we think about how much of that is recoverable and how much may be structural? Thanks.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

I'd like to think all of it is recoverable over time. I think it's going to take a little bit of time. I don't expect us to get it all back in 2026. Certainly, over time, I do believe that the tariffs are going to find their way into the retail prices, and we'll be able to get back to our pre-tariff margins in the core business. The Kurt Geiger business is obviously lower margin than the legacy business, but we think that business has a path to getting to where the Steve Madden levels or potentially even higher over time. That's the goal.

Tom Nikic
Tom Nikic
Analyst at Needham

All right. Sounds good. Thanks very much, and best of luck this holiday season.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of James Ross with Williams Trading. Your line is now open.

James Ross
James Ross
Analyst at Williams Trading

Hey, good morning, and thank you for the question. Two questions, actually. The first being, will the mix of business with the addition of Kurt Geiger impact gross margins in Q4? I know we kind of touched on it in the first question, but I was hoping you could sort of dig into that a little deeper, maybe. The second being, can you provide some color on brand growth and opportunities internationally and what that looks like going into next year? Thank you.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. Go ahead. As far as your first question related to Kurt Geiger impacting gross margin in Q4, I think it would be similar to what we've seen in Q3, somewhere around 300 basis points. I'm sorry, what was the second part of the question?

James Ross
James Ross
Analyst at Williams Trading

Yeah. The second part was, could you provide some color on brand growth and just generally the opportunities internationally and what that looks like going into next year?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Okay. So is this about the legacy business or Kurt Geiger? Are you asking about Kurt Geiger or the legacy?

James Ross
James Ross
Analyst at Williams Trading

Yeah. Kirk.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Steve Madden?

James Ross
James Ross
Analyst at Williams Trading

Yeah. So Steve Madden and then also Kurt Geiger as well.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Sure. Yeah. Steve Madden, we continue to have nice momentum in international markets. For 2025, we're looking at high single-digit revenue growth. That is very similar across the three regions. Very similar growth in our three key regions being EMEA, APAC, and the Americas ex U.S. Nice momentum really across the board, and we'll look for continued growth into 2026. Kirk Geiger, as we've said, they're in really the early stages of their growth outside the U.K. and the U.S. We will be looking for very strong double-digit growth internationally out of them for a handful of years here.

James Ross
James Ross
Analyst at Williams Trading

Wonderful. All right. Thank you so much. Best of luck.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of Janine Stichter, I'm sorry, with BTIG. Your line is now open.

Janine Stichter
Janine Stichter
Analyst at BTIG

Hi. Good morning. I just wanted to follow up on the margin recapture if you could help us out. I think the tariffs you had said hit gross margin a little over 200 basis points in Q2. How much was it in Q3, and then how to think about Q4? Maybe help us unpack that, Kurt Geiger, between that and the core business. I think Kurt Geiger had been hit a bit more in the start of the year just because you had not been able to move as quickly there.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. As far as the tariff impact in Q3, given all the moving parts with the price increases, factory discounts, our renegotiated costing, as well as FOB differential between all the countries, I think it is best to look at it from a growth and mitigated perspective. Q3 was about 100 basis points more than what Q2 was. I think you are asking about Q4 as well. I think it would be a little bit worse than that in Q4.

Janine Stichter
Janine Stichter
Analyst at BTIG

The Q4 is the 100 is mitigated, and it'll be worse in Q4 versus Q3?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Q3 was about 100 basis points worse than Q2. We expect Q4 to be a little bit worse than Q3. Those are unmitigated, and the mitigation gets bigger over time. The net impact to gross margin will be considerably less in Q4 than it has been.

Janine Stichter
Janine Stichter
Analyst at BTIG

Understood. Okay. And then just maybe on the mitigation, I just wanted to clarify on pricing. I think you took 10% increases earlier this year. Have you taken more, or do you plan to take more?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

That's where we are right now. We'll have to look at it as we go forward. That obviously is still not enough to offset the full amount of the tariffs. Over time, we'd like to see if we can take more, but we want to be prudent about it.

Janine Stichter
Janine Stichter
Analyst at BTIG

Perfect. Best of luck.

Operator

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of Dana Telsey with Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is now open.

Dana Telsey
Dana Telsey
CEO and Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group

Hi. Good morning, everyone. As you think about the wholesale business, what differed by type, whether off-price, department stores, mass? What did you see, and what do you think of the outlook going forward? On the DTC side, was there a difference between full price and outlet performance? Thank you.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. So in wholesale, I would say we're seeing the strongest performance in the regular price channels. Where we have had more pressure is in the value price channels like the off-price and the mass. In terms of DTC, we're seeing much better performance in full price channels. Outlet remains a drag. I think we're being hurt by a couple of things there. One is five of our biggest eight outlet stores are on the border with Mexico, and those stores are running down about 40%. That has been a big headwind there. The other thing is that I think we were impacted more acutely there by some of the disruption from the supply chain in the wake of tariffs. Outlet has still been trending negative, and full price stores have been much better.

Dana Telsey
Dana Telsey
CEO and Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group

Got it. And then just on the value side of the wholesale channel, are they just not taking orders? Are they waiting for newness? Are they waiting for more goods, not accepting the price increase? Any way to articulate it?

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

They were the ones that pulled back most significantly. Again, it was during the period in April and May when China tariffs were 145%. They are coming back now, and we're seeing those businesses normalize. That was where we felt a big part of the pullback in the last couple of quarters.

Dana Telsey
Dana Telsey
CEO and Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group

Got it. Just lastly on marketing, as you think about Q4, anything we should be watching on the marketing side, given your improved social that you've had in terms of marketing as we head into the holiday season? Thank you.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

No. We're just going to continue to keep doing the storytelling. I think that we see it's working. I think our marketing teams are hitting the bullseye, and we just got to keep investing and keep telling and keep engaging with consumers.

Dana Telsey
Dana Telsey
CEO and Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group

Thank you.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Thanks, Dana.

Operator

Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citi, your line is now open.

Kelly Crago
Kelly Crago
Analyst at Citi

Hi. It's Kelly again. Thanks for the follow-up. I just wanted to follow up on an earlier question around the KG margin structure. In your disclosure, you said KG was about a 9% even margin business in 2024. Curious where that's going to shake out this year with the tariffs. As we look to 2026, how much can you recover? Can you get back to the 9% next year? Just longer term, I mean, you spoke pretty positively about KG margins. Where ultimately do you think this business can land, and how do you get there? Is it through SG&A synergies, anything in the gross margin to speak about? Just any color on sort of how we should think about the KG margins as we look forward. Thanks.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. In terms of this year, for the partial period that we're going to that we own them from May on, I think that they're going to come in around 6%. In terms of next year, we'll talk in more detail about that on the next call, but certainly we should see improvement from where we were today or from where we were this year. I think we'll postpone any further discussion of that until that call. In terms of the last one with the drivers to get to a longer term.

Kelly Crago
Kelly Crago
Analyst at Citi

Drivers.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. I think there's opportunity in both gross margin and SG&A, but I think the bigger opportunity is in SG&A. There's some cost savings opportunities that they're going to get from the combination with us, which we're already, all that work is already underway. We also think there's a significant opportunity to just leverage operating expenses over time as we grow that business.

Kelly Crago
Kelly Crago
Analyst at Citi

Just curious where you maybe think that those margins could go longer term.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Yeah. I think what we said earlier was that certainly. The intermediate target would be to get to where Steve Madden, the legacy business, was historically, but we think there's opportunity beyond that.

Kelly Crago
Kelly Crago
Analyst at Citi

Got it. Best of luck. Thanks.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Thanks, Kelly.

Operator

All right. Thank you so much. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Ed Rosenfeld for closing remarks.

Ed Rosenfeld
Ed Rosenfeld
Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd

Great. Thanks so much for joining us today. We hope you have a wonderful day, and we look forward to speaking with you on the next call.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

Executives
Analysts
    • Ed Rosenfeld
      Chairman and CEO at Steve Madden Ltd
    • Anna Andreeva
      Analyst at Piper Sandler
    • Danielle McCoy
      VP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Steve Madden Ltd
    • Dana Telsey
      CEO and Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group
    • Kelly Crago
      Analyst at Citi
    • James Ross
      Analyst at Williams Trading
    • Janine Stichter
      Analyst at BTIG
    • Marni Shapiro
      Analyst at The Retail Tracker
    • Corey Tarlowe
      Analyst at Jefferies
    • Aubrey Tianello
      Analyst at BNP Paribas
    • Tom Nikic
      Analyst at Needham
    • Jay Sole
      Analyst at UBS
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