Skechers U.S.A. Q1 2025 Earnings Report

Skechers U.S.A. EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.34
• Consensus EPS: $1.17
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.17
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.33

Skechers U.S.A. Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $2.41 billion
• Expected Revenue: $2.43 billion
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$17.61 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +7.10%

Skechers U.S.A. Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 4/24/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, April 24, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 4:30PM ET

Skechers U.S.A. (NYSE:SKX) designs, develops, markets, and distributes footwear for men, women, and children worldwide. The company operates through Wholesale and Direct-to-Consumer segments. It offers footwear under Skechers Hands Free Slip-ins, Skechers Arch Fit, and Skechers Air-Cooled Memory Foam brands. In addition, the company provides men's and women's slip-resistant and safety-toe casuals, and boots for protective footwear in their work environments. It sells its products through department stores, family shoe stores, specialty running and sporting goods retailers, and big box club stores; franchisee and licensee third-party store operators; company-owned retail stores; digital commerce sites and mobile applications; and concept, factory outlet, and big box stores. The company licenses its Skechers brand. Skechers U.S.A., Inc. was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Manhattan Beach, California.

Skechers U.S.A. Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Skechers delivered record first-quarter net revenue of $2.41 billion (up 7.1% year-over-year; 9% on a constant-currency basis) and diluted EPS of $1.34.
• International sales rose 7% to account for 65% of total revenue, driven by 14% growth in EMEA and 8.3% in the Americas, while APAC fell 2.6% due to China pressures but grew 12% excluding China.
• The company faces potential new U.S. import duties of ~15% and is leveraging cost-sharing with vendors, sourcing shifts and pricing adjustments, and has paused annual guidance given the evolving trade environment.
• Gross margin narrowed 50 bps to 52%, and operating expenses climbed 180 bps to 41% of sales on higher brand investments, labor, rent and distribution costs, leading to an 11% decline in operating profit to $265 million.
• Inventory rose 30% year-over-year to $1.77 billion due to logistics delays from the Suez Canal closure, though it fell 7.6% sequentially, and the balance sheet remains healthy with $1.24 billion in cash and equivalents.

Presentation

[Operator]

Greetings, and welcome to Skechers First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn this conference over to Skechers.

[Operator]

Thank you. You may begin.

[Soo Hwang, Senior Director - International Merchandising at Skechers U.S.A.]

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining Skechers first quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call. My name is Soo Hong. I'm a senior director of international merchandising at Skechers, and I've been with the company since 2017. My favorite style at Skechers is the cozy fit in white navy.

[Soo Hwang, Senior Director - International Merchandising at Skechers U.S.A.]

Joining us on today's call are Skechers' Chief Operating Officer, David Weinberg and Chief Financial Officer, John Vandermel. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone of the company's safe harbor statement. Certain statements made on today's call contain forward looking statements based on current expectations, including without limitation, statements addressing the beliefs, plans, objectives, estimates and expectations of the company and its future results and certain events. These forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. There can be no assurance that the actual future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by any of our forward looking statements will occur.

[Soo Hwang, Senior Director - International Merchandising at Skechers U.S.A.]

Please refer to the company's reports filed with the SEC, including its annual report on Form 10 ks and quarterly reports on Form 10 Q for more information on these risks and uncertainties that may affect the company's business, financial conditions, cash flows and results of operations. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Chief Operating Officer, David Weinberg.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today on our first quarter twenty twenty five conference call. The first quarter marked a new sales record for Skechers with $2,410,000,000 in revenue or $2,460,000,000 on a constant currency basis and earnings per share of $1.34 Our strong financial performance across both our wholesale and direct to consumer segments was the result of continued global demand for our comfortable and innovative footwear and growth across geographies, driving our international to 65% of our total business. This growth is of significant importance given the increasing macroeconomic uncertainty and waning consumer sentiment. Both domestic and international sales increased by 7% with growth of 14% in EMEA and 8.3% in The Americas. In APAC, sales decreased by 2.6% primarily due to soft consumer spending in China.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

However, when excluding China, APAC sales grew 12%. We continue to view international as our primary growth engine, strategically investing in our retail store network and enhancing our distribution efficiencies. Skechers enduring success stems from our core design principles of style, comfort, quality and innovation at an affordable price. Our mission is to make convenience and comfort part of consumers' everyday life, no matter their age, interest or lifestyle. Sketch's proprietary hands free slip ins technology, ArchFit, StretchFit and other features are the center of this comfort movement.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Our technical performance division continues to expand its roster of elite athletes with the signing of footballers, Isco Alarcon, a Spanish national team veteran and rising star Nicolo Pasili, who plays for Roma and the Italian national team Jasperit Bumra, India's fast cricket bowler and national team veteran baseball player Jake Berger of the Texas Rangers and basketball pro Norman Powell of the Los Angeles Clippers. This quarter, we also announced the signing of Kiki Iriathan, first round draft pick of the WNBA Washington Mystics and legendary golfer Bernard Langer. Our athletes provide valuable feedback on the development of our best in comfort technical footwear and lend credibility and awareness as we further build our presence on the court, pitch, green and field and extend our region to new accounts and countries to meet the needs of sports enthusiasts globally. Complementing our athlete driven initiatives are multi format lifestyle marketing campaigns that feature diverse roster of talents. This includes Howie Mandel, Tony Romo, Howie Long, Martha Stewart and Brooke Burke as well as regional ambassadors like former European footballers Jamie Redknapp and Frank LaBeouf, Spanish singer David Bisbal and German singer Vanessa Mai among others.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Looking at our first quarter results in detail. Our record first quarter sales of $2,410,000,000 was a result of 7% increases in both our domestic and international channels due to the continued demand for Skechers. We saw regional growth in EMEA of 14% driven by strength across nearly all markets and The Americas of 8.3% with continued strength in The United States and Canada, partially offset by a decrease of 2.6% in APAC, primarily due to the continued economic pressures in China. Again, when excluding China, APAC grew 12%. We believe Skechers has significant growth opportunities in this region and we remain committed to investing in our product, marketing, retail footprint and logistics.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Wholesale sales increased 7.8% with growth of 4.2% domestically and 9.5% internationally. The domestic wholesale growth reflected broad based demand for our comfort technology products across our kids, men's and women's categories. Within international wholesale, we experienced solid growth across many regions and markets driven by the strength of our brand and appealing innovative products. Turning to our direct to consumer segment, sales increased 6% with domestic growth of 11% including strong performance in e commerce, international increased 2.9%, When excluding China, international grew 12% due to the strong DTC sales in nearly every market. SKECHERS branded stores showcase our comfort technology products for the entire family as well as innovative performance footwear and continue to drive awareness and purchase intent.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We ended the quarter with 5,318 Skechers stores worldwide of which eighteen twenty one are company owned locations including six eighteen in The United States. We opened 51 company owned stores in the quarter, including 15 locations in China, Thirteen in The United States and three each in Hong Kong and Mexico. We also relocated five stores, including the new performance focused store in Edmonton, Canada and expanded two others. We closed 17 stores

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

in the quarter. Also

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

in

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

the period, fifty third party stores opened, including 12 in China, Six in Indonesia and the first Skechers store in Argentina. Sixty Two Third party Skechers stores closed in the quarter including 42 in China bringing our third party store count at the quarter end to 3,497. We expect to open an additional 150 to 170 company owned stores worldwide in 2025. Included in the estimate is the 13 company owned stores opened to date in the second quarter. Our investment priorities remain focused on three key areas: expanding our distribution centers in The United States, China and Europe to more efficiently deliver our product and manage the expected growth in these markets enhancing our product offering with new technologies and categories while amplifying demand creation and growing our direct to consumer footprint and capabilities.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We are encouraged by the positive reception to our varied product initiatives during our recent domestic and international customer meetings, reaffirming our commitment to evolving, innovating and adapting our footwear to meet the needs of consumers and drive demand across our global footprint. While we are fully cognizant of the uncertainty in the current environment, we believe we are well positioned to navigate this leveraging the strength of our brand, our distinct and global market position and our healthy balance sheet. And now, I'd like to turn the call over to John for more details on our financial results.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Thank you, David, and good afternoon, everyone. Skechers' first quarter results reflect the continued strength of our business across channels and worldwide geographies, a testament to the power of our global brand and the appeal of the innovative comfort technologies embedded in our product portfolio. We are incredibly pleased with these results, especially in the face of such extreme market dynamics and believe they reflect our focus on managing factors within our control and delivering on our strategic plan. Before we get into our financial review, let me comment briefly on the current global trade environment, which presents a similar level of uncertainty to that observed during the initial phase of the COVID pandemic. Insofar as tariffs are concerned, we continue to address these with the same levers we have spoken about previously: cost sharing with vendors, sourcing optimization and price adjustments.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We are in the midst of pulling these levers while simultaneously monitoring the environment for needed adjustments and closely watching consumer behavior to ascertain future demand characteristics. Ultimately, we remain confident in our ability to navigate these challenges as we have in the past. We know that our proven track record of managing this globally diverse brand with a unique and compelling product portfolio focused on delivering style, comfort, quality and innovation at a reasonable price will enable Skechers to endure and likely thrive during this time. Now turning to our financial results. We achieved first quarter sales of $2,410,000,000 an increase of 7.1%, in line with our expectations.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

On a constant currency basis, sales were $2,460,000,000 up 9%. Direct to consumer sales grew 6% year over year to 879,400,000.0 Domestic increased 11% driven by strong performance in our e commerce channel and growth in our retail stores. International grew 2.9% year over year. Excluding China, our international direct to consumer sales grew 12%, which highlights the broad strength across regions in nearly every country and the continued opportunities to grow our brand across the globe. Wholesale sales increased 7.8% year over year to $1,530,000,000 International sales increased 9.5% with robust growth in many markets, reflective of our geographic diversity and strength.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Domestic growth of 4.2% aligned with our expectations of the marketplace returning to more stable growth trends. Turning to our regional sales. In EMEA, sales for the first quarter increased 14% year over year to $718,200,000 driven by robust consumer demand with double digit growth in both our wholesale and direct to consumer businesses. In The Americas, sales increased 8.3% year over year to 1,100,000,000 driven by modest growth in our domestic wholesale channel and strength in our direct to consumer channels in nearly every market. In Asia Pacific, sales declined 2.6% year over year to $589,000,000 Excluding China, Asia Pacific sales grew 12%, led by double digit growth in Japan, Thailand and South Korea.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We continue to navigate a difficult macroeconomic environment in China, where sales declined 16% following double digit growth in the prior year. As challenging market conditions persist, our expectations for the year remain modest. Leveraging the strength of the SKECHERS brand, we are focused on opportunities to fuel demand and expand our offering of comfort technologies, which continue to resonate with consumers across the globe and represent an important opportunity in China. Gross margin was 52%, down 50 basis points compared to the prior year, primarily due to lower average selling prices from higher levels of promotion in certain markets like China and customer mix. Operating expenses increased 180 basis points as a percentage of sales year over year to 41%.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Selling expenses as a percentage of sales increased 70 basis points versus the last year to 7.7%, largely focused on brand building investments and expanding awareness

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

for our

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

latest comfort technologies. General and administrative expenses increased 110 basis points as a percentage of sales versus last year to 33.3% due to higher labor and rent to support our growth in our direct to consumer segment as well as increased distribution costs, particularly in Europe to support higher volumes and alleviate processing constraints. Earnings from operations were $265,100,000 a decrease of 11% compared to the prior year. Our operating margin for the quarter was 11% compared to 13.3% last year. Significant foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations drove other income to $24,500,000 an increase of $26,600,000 compared to the prior year.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

This is similar to the charge incurred in Q4, primarily reflecting foreign currency exchange rate volatility during the quarter. Our effective tax rate for the first quarter was 22.3% compared to 19% in the prior year, reflecting the impact of the global minimum tax regulations we discussed last quarter. Earnings per share were $1.34 per diluted share, essentially flat compared to the prior year on 151,500,000.0 weighted average diluted shares outstanding. And now turning to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $1,240,000,000 in cash, cash equivalents and investments and maintain liquidity of $1,850,000,000 when including our revolving credit facility.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Inventory was $1,770,000,000 an increase of 30% or $413,200,000 compared to the prior year, primarily related to elongated transit times due to the closing of the Suez Canal. However, when compared to the prior quarter, inventories decreased 7.6%, including a slight decrease in China, where we continue to actively manage inventory levels. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $147,100,000 of which $68,900,000 related to investments in our distribution infrastructure, predominantly from the expansion of our distribution centers in North America and China. Forty Four Point Six Million related to new store openings and enhancing our direct to consumer technologies and $14,800,000 related to the expansion of our corporate offices. We continue to deploy our capital consistent with our stated philosophy, prioritizing the maintenance of a top tier balance sheet and investments required to grow our business.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

In response to the current climate, we are being more conservative about other capital allocation opportunities until we have more foresight into the path ahead. And now turning to guidance. As we began 2025, we communicated our belief, reflected in our annual guidance, that this would be another year of growth on the basis of the tremendous demand for Skechers we observed across the globe, particularly internationally. The first quarter confirmed that belief, reflecting the strength of our brand and product assortment. Today, we still believe many markets will continue along that trajectory, absent unforeseen impacts from the current macroeconomic environment.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

However, we must also acknowledge that the world is significantly more uncertain today than three months ago. We were in a similar situation five years ago, albeit for different reasons. I'm not in the habit of quoting myself, often, but the language I use then is equally applicable today. We will not be providing revenue or earnings guidance at this time, as the current environment is simply too dynamic from which to plan results with a reasonable assurance of success. As David stated, while the near term is uncertain, we are confident that we are taking the necessary actions to ensure that Skechers will successfully navigate this crisis.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We not only successfully navigated the situation five years ago, but emerged as a stronger brand and fully expect to do the same this time. With that, we thank you for your time today and look forward to updating you on our second quarter financial results, which we expect to release on Thursday, 07/31/2025. I will now turn the call over to David for closing remarks.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Thank you, John. We believe our first quarter performance, including record sales, is exceptional. We delivered our outstanding comfort products to consumers globally, further grew our direct to consumer business and expanded our presence within our extensive network of retail partners. While we are aware of the uncertainty in the macro environment, we believe we are well positioned with our distinct and global market position. We have a proven track record of managing our business in crisis situations, such as we experienced five years ago.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Like then, we are grounded in a clear strategic plan and remain agile and responsive to this dynamic situation. As a truly global brand with international representing 65% of our total business, we remain focused on enhancing network for greater efficiency and reach, enabling us to deliver more innovation, drive purchase intent, and ensure that our products are available when and where consumers want to shop, all while operating in this volatile environment. We would like to thank the entire Skechers organization as well as our suppliers and our retail partners for their determination and flexibility as we navigate the road ahead together. And now, I'd like to turn the call over to the operator for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer You may press 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. So that we may address questions from as many participants as possible, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you have additional questions, you may re queue, and time permitting, those questions will be addressed.

[Operator]

One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Jay Sole with UBS. Please proceed.

[Jay Sole, Managing Director at UBS Group]

Great. Thank you so much. David, John, you mentioned some of the things you're doing to deal with the tariff situation. Could you just talk a little bit more about China specifically? Just give us an idea of how much of the company's production is going to happen in China this year and what percent of that is coming to The U.

[Jay Sole, Managing Director at UBS Group]

S? And what can you is there something you can do to minimize that and over what time frame? That's the first part of the question. The second part is, from an industry standpoint, what are the you and your competitors, what are they is there anything you guys are doing collectively to try to communicate the issues that you have with the administration to try to figure out a way to lower the tariffs or create some kind of workaround so some of the tariffs that are out there don't become too onerous? Thank you.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Thanks Jay. Obviously, a key question, although we're not in the habit of giving sourcing percentages by destination market. What I would reiterate is a couple of things that were in our prepared remarks, namely that we're looking at the same three levers to deal with the higher tariffs from many markets to The U. S. The same way we did this before.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

That's looking at resourcing, it's looking at vendor cost sharing and it's looking at pricing. And all of those are actively being pursued by the company to one degree or another. Obviously, in the current environment, we will be looking to minimize production going to The United States from high cost locations, including tariffs. But we're not ready to say today anything more specific than that. I would also though emphasize the note that David made a couple of times during his prepared remarks, which is two thirds of our business is outside of The United States.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

So while this issue is incredibly in focus as it relates to our domestic market, recognize that two thirds of our business is much less impacted, if not minimally to not impacted at all, by the current situation. The other thing I'd note is that we have a substantial base of very valuable, highly collaborative partners we work with to manufacture goods. And we are working hand in glove with them in this process, so we can get to the best outcome overall for our business. And so far as industry efforts, we've participated in efforts alongside many our competitors to convey what we think is the best approach towards the global trade parameters that are in discussion today. But at the moment, I think that's probably not going to be the most likely outcome for a near term resolution.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Rather, it's going to rest on our shoulders to deal with the issue in front of us in many of the same ways we've dealt with it before.

[Jay Sole, Managing Director at UBS Group]

Got it.

[Jay Sole, Managing Director at UBS Group]

Okay. Thank you so much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Lauren Bafflescu with BNP Paribas. Please proceed.

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Exane BNP Paribas]

Good afternoon. Thank you, David. Thank you, John, for taking the question. I certainly recognize that you can't guide versus ninety days ago, but I think what's interesting from the prepared comments, there was a point of when you said, we still believe many markets will continue along with the trajectory versus the original guide. John, David, could you guys potentially unpack that a little bit more for the audience like what markets are you seeing notable volatility?

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Exane BNP Paribas]

Is it within The United States, Europe, China? Love to get some more color there as we think about modeling 2Q and potentially for the back half of the year. Thank you.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

I might start first on the markets that we don't see substantially changing in the near future. And that's really the vast majority of the markets is, again, harping on the two thirds of our business occurring outside of The United States. The majority, the vast majority of those markets performed very, very well this quarter. And we expect we'll continue to perform well absent unbeknownst changes from the macroeconomic climate that may result from the current situation in several of the larger economies. But I would state most clearly that what we see today has nothing to do with consumer demand.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Consumer demand for the SKECHERS brand, for our comfort technology products is extremely robust and, quite frankly, is almost hard to for us to catch. And so that's not the issue. Now, obviously, the markets that, today probably present the most uncertainty are The United States and China for two different reasons. In The United States, it's obviously a market where we're watching consumer behavior pretty closely, and we're watching both signals in our own business, but signals in other businesses, and those have clearly gotten more uncertain, in the recent past. I would say in China, that's a market that continues to work its way through some of the macro challenges we've talked about.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

The decline this quarter, think, is a bit more outsized mostly because of last year. If you recall last year, China in the first quarter was a good growth market for us, grew double digits. So I would take into context this quarter's result is more in our view a continuation of the performance we saw over the back half of twenty twenty four, but it also is illustrating some signals of stability and we are taking the actions that we've previously discussed around demand creation, product assortment, a focus on comfort that we think will actually yield significant benefit as the market continues to improve. So that's more of a status quo than anything else, but still a market where we know long term there is great prospects for the brand and we believe the actions we're taking today will have a significant impact to help drive that market toward recovery. But more than anything, would want folks to understand that there is certainly at the outset no concern from a consumer perspective for our brand because what we see there are tremendous signals as evidenced by a lot of the regional growth you saw across both wholesale and our direct to consumer business, particularly in EMEA, but also in The Americas, and then ex China in APAC, which all grew quite nicely in the quarter.

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Exane BNP Paribas]

Thank you, John, for all that color. And then with regards to tariff concerns, I think you laid out three strategies: cost sharing, sourcing optimization, pricing. How should we think about those three levers? You you listed them on that order. Should we think about cost sharing with your partners, manufacturing partners as the biggest lever and then pricing being the last lever?

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Exane BNP Paribas]

Love to get you know, the degree of magnitude. Are they all equal weight? And how fast can you implement each of those three levers? Thank you.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Yeah. You know, you're going get a lot of unknowns in that, Laurent. No, we did not list those levers in order of either economic unit or other importance to us. They're all being actively managed. We're working aspects of the strategy and the reason why we're inhibited on our ability to explain fully is that that's an evolving topic.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

I mean, we're right now today only in a pause on potentially drastic increases everywhere outside of China. And so how that unfolds will have a dramatic impact on how we plan sourcing.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Yes. I think it's important to note that we have to remain flexible. So we don't have a target and then keep moving part of our strength and what we've done in the past is we use all the levers and all sets of those levers, stay flexible and apply them where it's the best for us to go at that particular time. And that could change, like John said, over a short period of time. So, I think just to reiterate, we think we're in a good place.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We have some levers. We don't know what the final is, so we don't know which levers will do the best. What we do know is that the product is being received very well around the world and selling through. And we have faith in our way to maneuver these things to know that we'll come out as well as is possible.

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Exane BNP Paribas]

Understood. Last question. Two weeks ago, Levi's was asked if there was anti Americanism starting to brew with the brand. Answer was no. I'd love to get your take there, obviously which is a very dynamic environment, but just love to get your take.

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Exane BNP Paribas]

Obviously you guys are seen as a global brand, just to get a little bit more color there would be very helpful for the audience. Thank you.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

I would not say in any way we've seen any evidence of either anti Americanism or anti Skechersism, no isms. What I would tell you though is, as we've emphasized before, Skechers is very much an international brand and we're perceived that way in many markets. We don't rely as heavily as others on some U. S.-based assets for marketing the brand globally. We like to be very locally attuned.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

And so for that, the benefit is being perceived as much more of an international, locally applicable brand than an American brand per se. So no, we haven't seen any evidence of that, we wouldn't expect that. But obviously, we're watching the overall performance of the business very, very carefully at this stage.

[Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Exane BNP Paribas]

Thank you very much. Best of luck.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jim Duffy with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

[Peter McGoldrick, Equity Research Associate at Stifel Financial]

Hi, this is Peter McBoldrick on for Jim. Thanks for taking our question. I was curious in the context of your playbook to address the tariff headwinds in The U. S, could you discuss your appetite for taking price and ability to do so across regions and not just in The U. S?

[Peter McGoldrick, Equity Research Associate at Stifel Financial]

Could you elaborate there?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Well, as we said, I mean pricing at the customer and the consumer level is certainly something we're considering. We want to weigh that, as David said, against what type of impact we feel that would have overall, both to customers and consumers. I would surmise that much like when we've dealt with tariff situations or extreme cost impacts before, some amount of that will evidence itself ultimately in price. But if we're weighing that as we go along, I think in this case the issue is so specific to The United States, given the trade environment that we're probably unlikely to look across the globe for offsets, simply because one of the things you have to be very careful about in explaining any price action to the customer and the consumer is the rationale behind it.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

And what we've generally seen is when that's a logical explanation, when it's contextualized in the consumer's mind, the customer's mind as to why and that it makes sense, we find they're much more receptive to absorbing that. But the honest answer is at the moment, that's still something we're deciding upon, we'll need to assess the impacts of, and ultimately as David also mentioned, you know, we'll be flexible about, you know, if try one approach and it's ineffective, we'll very quickly move to another. We're not afraid to change tactics if that's what conditions dictate.

[Peter McGoldrick, Equity Research Associate at Stifel Financial]

Okay. And then on the expense side, as you manage what you're able to control amidst the uncertain backdrop, can you size the discretion over spending growth as we progress through 2025?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

There's a certain amount of certainly discretion that we have. I think what we want to weigh again though is, let me step back, we have tremendous brand strength, we have great product, we've got a strong balance sheet, and we have ambitions to continue to grow this brand. We don't want to be penny wise pound foolish in the near term. Obviously, we will keep in mind the totality of what is going on in the world, how that impacts our business, and make adjustments from there. But we also don't want to take foolish action today that would jeopardize our opportunity long term.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We referenced five years ago because there are, we think, some instructive outcomes where we continue to invest through that cycle and emerged as a stronger brand, and we feel many of the same opportunities will exist in the future ahead. So we'll exercise discretion, we'll monitor things carefully, but we want to be thoughtful and we want to bet on the long term, the long term health of our brand first, because that is what will ultimately enable the most success later on.

[Peter McGoldrick, Equity Research Associate at Stifel Financial]

Very helpful. Thank you.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Thanks Peter.

[Operator]

You. Our next question comes from the line of Adrienne Yih with Barclays. Please proceed.

[Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays]

Thank you very much for all the color. I guess my first question is the comment on 65% outside of The U. S, roughly 40% sourcing in China. Is there any under any circumstance, is it possible to be so aggressive about redirecting all the China sourcing to non U. S.

[Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays]

Locations? And how quickly could you shift any sourcing that you need to? And then my second question is on inventory. As we go kind of through this pricing cost dynamic, we saw this, I think you probably didn't, but in the cotton inflation era in 2011 and 2012 and there's kind of a push pull between units,

[Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays]

if

[Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays]

you want them down and conservative versus the dollars that they're going to be up necessarily. How do you think about that in the back half? And are you seeing any movement on marketplace orders right now? Thank you very much.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Insofar as the production is concerned, I would say all cards are on the table. We're looking at how we optimize the global cost of tariffs in all markets when we look to move production around. Obviously, with an effective tariff rate at about 159%, products from China to The U. S. Are prohibitively expensive.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

So that will be an anchor behind some of our thinking. Again, we're going to stay away from absolutes because what we believe will affect the outcome most is being thoughtful and flexible as time goes on. But certainly, we'll look to optimizing for the lowest overall landed cost in total and by market when we make those decisions and shifting around production destination market will be a feature of that. In terms of inventory, I think probably what I would note most is we're still dealing with some of the impacts of the Suez Canal closure, and that is the most significant impact to our inventories. And as we had said last year, that will continue until we lap that situation because that's a logistics challenge, not a business challenge per se.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

From there, I would say quite frankly, the more inventory we have under the prior tariff regime in The United States, the better off we would have been. But mostly, we're continuing to manage inventory as closely and thoughtfully And that means very low amounts of at risk inventory. The substantial majority of our inventory is either a booked order in the future or dedicated to our own DTC business, both of which have a pretty high fidelity to delivery. In terms of orders, it's a little early to say too far into the future other than next quarter, but I would say we're watching orders carefully, we're watching customers carefully.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Some are certainly nervous because of the environment, but what I would say is when we've shown them our product assortment, which we just got done doing here in Manhattan Beach and are in the process of doing across the globe, we see we get tremendous and positive response to what we're bringing forward, both in terms of the Comfort Technology products that we've had in the past, but also some newer products that are doing very, very well for us. So although they may be nervous overall, when we talk to them, they're excited about what we're bringing forward, about what we're offering. And ultimately, we'll have to find a way to manage through some of this uncertainty together. And that's what we're poised to do.

[Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays]

Fantastic. Appreciate the color. Best of luck.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Granton with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

[Alexandra Straton, Equity Research Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Thanks so much for taking the questions. Just a couple of follow ups from me. Just on your China sourcing exposure being relatively high. I'm just curious if historically something has kept you from moving out of that country compared to peers, and whether that's more flexible now and for whatever reason? And then another follow-up on inventory is I'm just curious how much do you have on hand right now that's not tariffed?

[Alexandra Straton, Equity Research Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

And how do you think about the flow of how long you have this window of non tariffed inventory before it starts becoming tariff? Trying to think about how this flows to the income statement throughout the year. Thanks a lot.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Yes, mean, I think when you look at production, right, it's partly about where your destination market is, it's partly about the capabilities of your partners. I mean, we've always maintained a fairly flexible view on where we want to get our product from. It has historically emanated largely from Asia, but that's also quite frankly where we have some of the best quality, some of the lowest cost opportunities and some of the most, quite frankly, deeply rooted relationships with manufacturing partners. It flexible. We're in the process of flexing that right now.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

But again, we can't think about this just from a U. S. Perspective, because that two thirds of our business that's not in The United States is pretty robust and is not currently impacted by a similar environment to what you see unfolding in The United States. So we'll be flexible on it, but I think it's important to keep the broader aperture of our business in mind when you think about that, because it's not a principally domestic business. Insofar as inventories are concerned, we did take action to get more inventory on land as much as we could.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Right before the most recent announcements, we did take efforts to pre clear through our free trade zone DC what we could. I would say, to answer your question in a slightly different way, we will begin to feel the impacts of the current tariff regime in the tail end of the second quarter and fairly acutely in the third quarter. Those are probably going be the two most sizable impacts based on what we know today. Some of that will also be contingent upon what which of those levers we pull and how quickly we're able to pull them and to what degree. So there's still more unknown than known in that, which is again why we've at the moment paused our guidance, but all of those are being actively pursued and we're doing everything we can bring in goods, obviously, at the lowest possible landed cost.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

I think it's important to note also that, at least in my perspective, we haven't really been slow to move and take multiple sourcing for our product. Like John said, because we're two thirds outside The United States, that's still a very viable factory base for us on a worldwide business that we continue to support and work with. The percentages that go to each country can change much more quickly than changing the entire production facility. So our business continues to grow in Southeast Asia, in APAC outside of China. We do foresee China continuing a growth curve somewhere in the near future.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

And we continue to make product and we can move it and try to maximize what we can. Like I said, we have significant flexibility and we try to use it. That's why it's very difficult to be tied down to percentages and how quickly. I think it's fair to say the smallest piece of what we make and what brings comes to The United States will now come from China at least in the short term till some new things are brought out. We really have no intention of bringing any 150% goods.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Having said all that, I don't know that we won't bring in enough goods as we get to the back half of the year as things change and move forward. There's just too many moving parts. And we don't see that as a big possibility now. So we're still moving forward. We still have great faith in those places that, like we said, outside The United States and China.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

That continue to grow. And that can take production from multiple sources.

[Alexandra Straton, Equity Research Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Can I

[Alexandra Straton, Equity Research Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

ask a quick follow-up? Just when do you have to have holiday orders in by? Like how long do you have until you have to the shoe drops on that?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

That's a questionable pun, Alex. I would say, for the most part about now, it will depend upon the nature of the product, if it's entirely new construction, it's earlier. If it's something that we've had before, the current environment will exacerbate that a bit as we move things around. And one of the things you have to keep in mind. It's not just, you know, what capacity do you have, but what's the logistical support behind that.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

And that's another element of the calculus you have to consider, particularly when you're down something like the holiday.

[Alexandra Straton, Equity Research Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Thanks a lot. Good luck.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Kiemann with TD Cowen. Please proceed.

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

All right. Thanks for taking the question, guys. Hope all is well out in Manhattan Beach.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

It's a beautiful day today.

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Usually is. So we're all obviously trying to become experts in how to model cost of goods sold in a new tariff regime. You talked about some of the key inputs and offsets like pricing, supply chain optimization, cost sharing. How do we think about your landed cost as a percent of your overall COGS, whether it's FOB or the other term maybe might just be landing costs. How much of that when we look at our much more simple Excel models and trying to forecast the gross margin and EBIT margin impact, how should we think about that critical input?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Well, I first compliment all of you really. A lot of the work that's been done up to this point in time, we found to be surprisingly close to the mark in terms of overall dynamics with regards to factors like FOB costs, etcetera. I mean, obviously, it is the most significant component of the cost of goods when you take into account the product life cycle. I think you do point out something that is important to keep in mind though, right? The primary impact for something like duties and tariffs is to the FOB price of the goods, but there are other elements that get impacted, particularly when you're moving production around both geographies and to different production facilities.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

You know, efficiency factors are different, labor costs are different, freight and logistics, both availability and timing are different. And so that's why this is not an incredibly easy answer to give, especially with the amount of volatility in the situation, because all those factors have to be weighed. Bluntly speaking, it doesn't help when the policies change as quickly as they have over the last three weeks. Some stability is necessary to be able to run the analyses we need to be able to make informed decisions on sourcing, what to do with product, what to do with pricing, what to do with cost, all that. And that's all in the works.

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Got it. That's helpful. Just one follow-up question. DTC has gradually become a bigger portion of the business. I think it's mid-40s percent globally.

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

I think at the beginning of

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

the year, when you issued guidance, you talked to 180 to 200 new stores. That puts you, I think, at low teen square footage growth or store growth, I should say, if there aren't any store closures on top of that. But how do we think about the level of growth you want to put forth in DTC? And how do we think about the omni channel comps both domestically and internationally?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Well, we're still excited to open stores. We still find opportunities to open stores profitably. Ultimately, it is a microeconomic decision. It's can we open a proposed location with the right level of profitability, the right scale to make sense. And we continue to see ample opportunity for that.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

I would say, you know, we'll continue to look at all those very carefully, especially in the current environment. We do have a bias towards international. International is where we see the largest opportunities, as David said, and we have said traditionally. And because the results there have been and continue to be very robust, we think there's a lot of ground to tread in that area. In The U.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

S, we still see exciting opportunities. We'll watch those carefully as the macroeconomic environment unfolds. But right now, we still see interesting and attractive opportunities to open stores. The final number may become something we look at as we deal with the repercussions of current environment, but no decisions have been made on that as of yet. I would also note though, even over the last three months, we've seen some fairly interesting dynamics within the DTC space and we spoke about these previously in a couple of venues.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

You saw some months where traffic was a bit more robust than others, consumers were out. And then you saw a pretty decent shift to online. And so overall, I would say we're very pleased with the DTC results for the quarter domestically and especially internationally. But there was a bit more volatility in that than we've seen of late. I think what's great about having the omni channel solution we have as a company is it allows us to flex quickly to meet the change in consumer behavior dynamics that we saw.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

And so this quarter in particular, we saw fairly robust e com growth. Stores did well, but they weren't the major source of the growth. And that was because consumers displayed a pension, particularly in February, to move online. And we were there. We were there with the right product, right assortment and availabilities, and that's why we were able to capture those dollars.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

So we expect to continue to leverage that omni channel capability going forward to meet consumers where they are and make sure that they have access to their favorite comfort technology products.

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Very helpful details, John. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jessalyn Wong with Evercore ISI. Please proceed.

[Jesalyn Wong, Director at Evercore ISI]

Hi, guys. Thank you for taking our questions here. Just on the manufacturing front, are there any specific products that are being made in China, which is currently not being produced in Vietnam? If so, maybe just a little bit of color on what franchises there are and what's the percentage of total products they make up? And the other question is, you know, you guys highlighted being conservative around capital allocation for this year, but at a 50 to a 70 stores for the remaining of the year, seems to imply that we're keeping our store expansion plan similar to beginning of the year.

[Jesalyn Wong, Director at Evercore ISI]

Given the high volatility in the current environment, just help me understand what is the thought process of keeping the store openings here? And how fast can we change our plans if needed in this environment?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

So on your manufacturing question, I mean, I'm not going to give detail at franchise level. I would say in broad brush strokes, probably the most noticeable discrepancy we see in terms of manufacturing capabilities is that kids footwear tends to the vast majority of it tends to emanate from China. It's very high quality. It follows all the regulatory requirements for consumer product safety in The United States and meets the right price point for a notoriously lower gross margin business. And so that will be a challenge.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

That's one we're going have to look at carefully because of that unique differential in manufacturing capabilities. Out of that, there may be products here or there that we need to think about. But generally speaking, I would say, we have the ability to back up most production in multiple locations. In terms of the store, I would go back to my last answer to John. We're making microeconomic decisions on the stores based on the pro form a characteristics of that location.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

If they don't make sense, we won't do them. If they do, for the most part, we'll continue. We are evaluating whether or not it makes sense to continue with every store on a regular basis because the dynamics can change. I would go back though, we just we're closing a quarter where our DTC business grew 6% and that includes a drag coming from China. And so there's a lot of opportunity that we still see in the business.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

And from a Q1 perspective, I would tell you the consumer was pretty healthy. Now where it goes from here is something we'll have to watch. But as we got through Q1, '1 of the most, I think, noticeable aspects of the behavior of the business was that ex China, it was up double digits on a DTC basis, and that's pretty healthy. So we'll continue to weigh those factors. I would say we're monitoring the situation, but it's really going to be dependent upon consumer demand and our analysis of that at the time we make decisions about opening stores.

[Jesalyn Wong, Director at Evercore ISI]

Got it. Just one quick follow-up. How much is kids business as a percentage in The US?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Well, I don't know if we'd give it by gender. I'd say it's the smallest of the three gender breakdowns, and it's not an extraordinary amount of the business, especially because kids, just as a general rule of thumb, carry a lower ASP. But we like having the kids business. We think it's good for the consumers. It's a complement to other purchases.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

It's often, quite frankly, the plus one purchase in a from a units per transaction basis. So it tends to be additive. We think it's important to our franchise, and we have some franchise shoes in that gender that work really well. The near term manufacturing is an issue we are going to have to overcome, but eventually we believe we can and we will get back to a market where there is not a challenge around the kids' manufacturing.

[Jesalyn Wong, Director at Evercore ISI]

Got it. Thanks, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rick Patel with Raymond James. Please proceed.

[Josh Reiss, Equity Research Senior Associate at Raymond James]

Hi. This is Josh Reyes on for Rick Patel. Thanks for taking our questions. I was hoping that you could kind of go through as the company is evaluating where tariffs are going to land, can you talk about the opportunity to delay decision making by leading more into air freight, if that's a possibility that makes logical, like logistical sense?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Well, I don't know if anybody on this call has perspective into where tariffs are going to go, would greatly appreciate their sharing. And I do think it's that lack of visibility that's one of the bigger challenges we face. Airfreight really wouldn't be a solution in mass to us. The amount of benefit you would get would amount to maybe a couple of weeks. And while that may be the case, in this instance that proves to be critical, the higher costs to load and carry our product in air wouldn't make that worthwhile.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

But I think again you touched on probably the most critical element of the situation is the volatility with which policies and rates have changed is one of the more challenging elements of it. If we face a set of challenges and conditions, we can navigate around those. It's when those challenges and conditions change dramatically very quickly that makes it very hard to plan. That's probably been the most troublesome aspect of the current environment.

[Josh Reiss, Equity Research Senior Associate at Raymond James]

Yeah, I

[Josh Reiss, Equity Research Senior Associate at Raymond James]

appreciate the color. Just a follow-up on that, I know you mentioned that the wholesale accounts are excited for your new product, but I was curious if you can give us a sense of how much confidence they have in taking on inventory given all the uncertainty going on? And then if orders end up softer than you plan, what's your confidence that the DTC channel can do the heavy lifting and move more units?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Well, Justin, there's a lot of assumptions built into any answer I would give you there. I'd say, look, clearly there is more nervousness today than there was three months ago. That's evidenced at the customer level for us, wholesale partners in The U. S. It's evidenced in the consumer data that's coming out more broadly in the financial markets.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

I think what's probably most appropriate for us to comment on is the fact that we can be flexible and we will be flexible. We've shown that in the past. If there's challenges in wholesale, we can lean on DTC. What's important to us is that we get the Skechers product in front of the consumer in an environment where it's conducive for them to make the choice to buy product. That's also incredibly contingent upon their spending power and power intent.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

So we'll have to watch all of that. I would say we feel good about our opportunities to get product through our own DTC channel irrespective of the tariff situation. Will make changes to ensure that our DTC business is in a position to have the product necessary to meet consumer needs. Now the wholesale partners, think we're all going to have to watch and see because it's a dynamic environment and certainly the confidence of everybody has taken a bit of a hit over the last couple of months.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Yes. Think it's important that we keep our eyes focused on demand. If there's demand for the product, we'll pick it up whichever way the consumer wants to shop. And if it means we have to we'll have more of product then we will. And we're always willing to share.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

So we plan to be ready. We do see demand for the product and demand for the product on a relative basis holding up very well. So we'll be ready whichever way we need to get to our consumer.

[Josh Reiss, Equity Research Senior Associate at Raymond James]

Thanks so much, and best of luck.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Thanks, Josh.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Christina Katia with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

[Krisztina Katai, Equity Research Analyst - Broadlines & Grocery at Deutsche Bank]

Hi, good afternoon and thanks for taking the question. So, John, just on the tariff mitigation strategies, how do you think about having to lean potentially more heavily on price adjustments either earlier than anticipated? Just really thinking about it in the context of unit elasticity, just how are you guys thinking about taking up prices versus what could happen with units? And then to the extent that you can talk about it, just how should we think about any potential margin offset for the higher inventory cost into The U. S, such as maybe domestic transportation that could be a tailwind here?

[Krisztina Katai, Equity Research Analyst - Broadlines & Grocery at Deutsche Bank]

Anything you can share in terms of, I think you're locking in your ocean freight contracts here. Anything that you can share from that perspective as well? Thank you.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Yeah, think we don't want to raise prices because of increased duties. That's not our objective. If we have to do that because circumstances require it, then we will. But we won't take that decision lightly. It will be done with as much dexterity as we can manage.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

And in many instances, we will put ourselves in a position to potentially absorb some short term pain to minimize the impact of those to both customers and consumers. We're willing to make that investment if we believe it's in the long term interest of the brand. You know, we will look at all factors, but I would state emphatically, our objective is not to raise prices for the sake of raising prices, but rather it will be in response to extraordinary costs, you know, if we see them. Insofar as the margin is concerned, I think at the moment our bias would be to look at protecting over, you know, the medium term as best we can, the gross profit dollars, striving to maintain overall margins in an environment where, your landed duties 159 is a big challenge and that would probably present we think an even bigger challenge at the consumer level. It's something we'll have to look at over the long term.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Again, assuming some sort of normalization, we feel like our ability to reconstruct these quite impressive sustainable margins we've been at over the last two years is pretty good because it's based on appeal of the product, it's based on the technology embedded in the product, and I think it's supported by the marketing. In terms of non landed costs, I'll let David comment on the carrier negotiations. I think those are recently concluded.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

I mean, we recently concluded them, we're still waiting to finalize exactly which routes we'll need for which countries as all this settles out and we get our points of production. But as of the time we were there a few weeks ago, prices were still very steady and didn't look to upset any of our caustic in the near term. So it's something we're constantly monitoring and looking at as we change points of production for different countries. And so far, we think it's looking fairly stable.

[Krisztina Katai, Equity Research Analyst - Broadlines & Grocery at Deutsche Bank]

Great. Thank you so much. Best of luck.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Nardone with Bank of America. Please proceed.

[Christopher Nardone, Director, Equity Research at Bank of America]

Thanks, guys. I just wanted to go back to China and wanted to see if you're expecting the business to improve as we move through the year. And then if there's anything you can speak to that provides any color on whether you're taking share or if the health of inventory in the channel is getting cleaner versus the last couple of quarters?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Our expectations for the back end of the year, last three quarters, are pretty modest. But again, I would point out that the decline this quarter was significantly exacerbated by the fact that year, the first quarter was the last sizable quarter of growth. So I think the decline looks a little bit outsized relative to where that business has been over the previous couple of quarters. I would say the encouraging signal is that it feels like that market hasn't reached a level of stability at least. What that means from our point of view is that it should be pretty modestly performing as you get into more comparable quarters in two, three and four.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

But also, we are putting a lot of energy into how we think about reinvigorating the consumer in that market, how we play off the strength of our Comfort Technology products, what we can do different in demand creation that might instigate some resurgence. I don't think we or quite frankly many brands are in a position of gaining share or trading share in that market, but I also don't think we're losing anything substantially either. It's still an incredibly important market for us. We are committed to that market by the long term. We continue to invest in our distribution infrastructure there.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We continue to invest in our capabilities in that market. So we still believe it has significant opportunity for growth and we'll continue to invest behind that because we think that the brand has that size of opportunity in it.

[Christopher Nardone, Director, Equity Research at Bank of America]

Got it. Then just a quick follow-up on pricing. So how quickly are you looking to make a decision whether you're going to raise prices to protect your earnings power, especially if the assumption holds that the current tariff structure for now remains in place for the next couple months?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Well, that's a critical assumption, right? And I think having some clarity on that would be very informative. I would say it's an in process motion. It's not any, it's not like a given day all of a sudden you decide you're going to raise all the prices. We're making adjustments as we go.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

So it's I would say it's actively in process. I think based on what we see today, would lead one to conclude that the most acute impacts from a stable tariff structure would be in Q2 and Q3 with some ability to resolve that starting in Q4.

[Christopher Nardone, Director, Equity Research at Bank of America]

Understood. Thank you. Good luck.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Anna Arnavay with Piper Sandler. Please proceed.

[Anna Andreeva, Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Great. Thanks so much. And thank you guys for all the color. We wanted to follow-up on The U. S.

[Anna Andreeva, Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

I think in the prepared remarks, you mentioned demand signals are more uncertain. Do you see sales moderate in April? Or is this a concern about what can transpire in the business going forward? And then we had a follow-up.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Yes. I mean, I would say, so far in April, we've seen a fairly consistent trend from the back half of Q1. Nothing that I would call out as a notable change other than there are some there have been some calendar shifts with regard to Easter. So you really have to look at that period in totality. You can't pick one week or one day and look at it and draw too much of a conclusion.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Our commentary was more about what we're watching than what we've seen. We're watching the consumer carefully, because there's been a lot of indicators from third parties, be they traditionally published surveys, consumer confidence indicators that would show that the consumer is growing more concerned about their spending power. That's really the genesis of motivating our watchfulness on the DTC side of the business more than anything we've seen.

[Anna Andreeva, Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Okay. That makes a lot of sense. I appreciate that. And on the CapEx, it sounded like you're looking to rein in that 600,000,000 to $700,000,000 range that you guided to previously, given the environment. And you already mentioned pulling back on some of the new store openings slightly.

[Anna Andreeva, Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Can you talk about what other projects you guys are considering to pull back on?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Well, just to be clear, we haven't pulled back on anything yet. What I would emphasize is that we're evaluating all alternatives, similar to evaluating all alternatives to managing the business in response to the trade environment. So we haven't made any decisions yet to pull back. We have made decisions to continue on. And the China and U.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

S. Distribution center expansions that we mentioned are good examples there. And I would gather that the vast majority of what we have planned, if it makes business sense and can't be deferred easily without an impact to the business, we'll probably continue forward. But we'll watch it carefully and we'll continue to evaluate opportunities should the dynamics of the market justify that. But again, going back to we're a strong brand with a good balance sheet, with great growth prospects.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We do not want to fail to take advantage of this opportunity to continue to invest in the brand for the long term.

[Anna Andreeva, Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

All right. Thanks so much. Best of luck, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Nikic with Needham and Company. Please proceed.

[Tom Nikic, Managing Director, Equity Research at Needham & Company]

Thanks for taking my question.

[Operator]

Tom, we aren't able to hear you. You may have yourself muted.

[Tom Nikic, Managing Director, Equity Research at Needham & Company]

Can hear me now?

[John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Yes. Hello? Okay.

[Tom Nikic, Managing Director, Equity Research at Needham & Company]

Sorry about that. I wanted to follow-up on some of the discussion around pricing. How do you feel about the consumers' ability to absorb price increases. And presumably, there's going to be a lot of goods that are going to become more expensive and inflation generally broadly in the economy may become a pretty meaningful headwind to consumer confidence. So how are you thinking about the elasticity and your ability to push price and not have it negatively impact the volume of pairs that you're selling?

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Well, as we said before, we're eager to raise prices. We would not be doing so were it not for a change in the duty structures of inbound product. On the one hand, obviously, you don't want to be taking price in the face of a distressed consumer. On the other hand, I would say, certainly in that type of a situation, while we do not wish for it, we are focused as we always say on delivering style, comfort, quality, innovation at a reasonable price. And I think being a reasonable price solution for footwear needs for consumers in that type of environment is a much better footing to be on than to be at the extreme premium end of the market.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

So, again, we're not eager to raise prices. We wouldn't be doing so were it not for the amplified duty structures that are prevalent today. On the flip side, we feel very good about being a brand that offers consumers a choice for reasonably priced, highly comfortable, stylish, innovative footwear. And so, I think in that environment, we will begin to press that message and make sure consumers understand that Skechers is a great alternative in that type of environment. But again, it's not something we went out and sought.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We wouldn't be changing price were it not for the exigencies of situation.

[Tom Nikic, Managing Director, Equity Research at Needham & Company]

Understood. And then a quick follow-up. In terms of your inventory planning, is there any thought to just potentially taking the more conservative stance towards ordering new inventory for the back half of the year with hopes that perhaps there'll be a deal on the table ninety days from now, one hundred and eighty days from now, who knows? But that maybe you don't want to get stuck with too much inventory at a time when this might be the worst time to be buying it.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We always act that way. We're not very big on speculative inventory. We're not buying to a plan that's not backed up by our consumers or our own direct to consumer on a worldwide basis. So, I think you have to realize that nothing about what you just said is instantaneous. You cannot wait for demand and make a shoe and deliver it in the next week to get it done.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

So, it's not quite as easy to planning. So, we plan to the request of our consumers and customers around the world, both direct to consumer and our third parties and our franchise stores. We build a model around them. We evaluate that on a weekly basis to see how it's coming to plan and see if we have to change anything. We're very meticulous about delivering on time and moving production cycles whether there's more or less demand to fit the structure.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

It's all part of our core competency and that's what we do on a regular basis. We are not in the habit business or even the desire to build inventory potentially and leave it someplace offshore in case it might be needed here. It's not part of our business model nor do we ever think that way.

[Tom Nikic, Managing Director, Equity Research at Needham & Company]

Understood. All right. Thanks, John. Thanks, David. Best of luck the rest of the year in navigating this situation.

[Josh Reiss, Equity Research Senior Associate at Raymond James]

Thanks, Tom.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sam Poser with Williams Trading. Please proceed.

[Sam poser, Equity Analyst at Williams Trading LLC]

Good afternoon. I thought you completely forgot about me, but I do appreciate it.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Sam, how could we forget about that?

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

That would be impossible.

[Sam poser, Equity Analyst at Williams Trading LLC]

Goodness gracious. Anyway, let me just do one thing. Given the ninety day hiatus or whatever is going on, the July 9 date, would we expect, given sort of the combination of what's going on with the Suez Canal and shipping goods around and trying to get ahead of any reverting to higher tariffs, that inventory at the end of the second quarter is going to be pretty high as you attempt to get goods in to avoid, of course, the order that you have. But if you have orders in for September, could we see those showing up in June at the June theoretically?

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Okay, I think you got to take one step backwards. The Suez Canal has nothing to do with tariffs and the amount of time to bring That's on top of the tariff.

[Sam poser, Equity Analyst at Williams Trading LLC]

That is already a problem. The other one is a different problem. So

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

yes, the Suez Canal wouldn't tend to exacerbate because now we're going to move to the following year and we'll have the same amount in transits and we've got a better handle on it anyway. The hiatus for the ninety days, like I said, we're not we've got a handle on what it is we need for June, July, August. If we thought for some reason that tariffs were going go up dramatically from that point and had the capacity to pick up inventory production, we conceivably could. But it has to be on the water by the tariff that you don't usually get that much time. So we're making everything to our delivery dates and we're trying to move them up as quickly as we can.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

But right now, we're in very steady flow, like I said, not a lot of speculative inventory. So we try to react as we get the information.

[Sam poser, Equity Analyst at Williams Trading LLC]

But I mean, as you said, you're trying to move orders up that you have. I'm not talking about building spec inventory. I'm talking about, for instance, you have an order for September. If you could get that made and delivered in June, right now you would do it, not spec, the order.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Yes. Well, depending on who the orders are from. But yes, we would move some. But in today's environment, with all this movement around the world, everybody is going to be short production space in different parts of the world that can be picked up. I don't know that you could pick up a couple months of production that quickly in this transition's right here.

[Sam poser, Equity Analyst at Williams Trading LLC]

And then you brought up that the kids business is a China sourced issue. Does that mean that theoretically we could expect, I mean, given that the kids businesses and those they're very price sensitive, would we expect a shortage in kids shoes at the back half of the year if you can't move a lot of that production? And secondly, you talked about demand, you talked about eyes on demand. I mean, how has your demand planning evolved over the last few years? And how do you expect that'll serve now, let's say, compared to COVID times?

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Well, I don't know that demand in COVID times is a great teacher of anything. There was a great demand and no supply. So I don't know that really counts. We're usually from the marketplace back, learn and we modify it on a weekly and biweekly basis to plan to make sure that the flows are being calculated correctly and that we don't have to make changes to our production line. We've learned as best we can.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Remember, this is a worldwide thing for us. We don't make very many unique products for different parts of the world. So we can mix and match production, certainly if we have raw materials before they're cut, because the biggest differential between marketplaces is more the size runs and the amount of sizes you need in each end of it, rather than the style or style specific. So, we can move things back and forth. I think most people know that's part of our core competency.

[David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

We're very flexible. We're very flexible within our regions with our production base. And we keep using them and try to get them as close to market need as possible.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

On kids, we weren't saying there's an issue, we're just saying that there's a notable differential between manufacturing capacity in China and other markets. Probably too early to make any concrete decision because as we mentioned, we're still in the process of evaluating our options to begin with. But, you know, certainly there is a known differential in the capacity to produce kids shoes that biases towards a market like China. So that's something to be considered.

[Sam poser, Equity Analyst at Williams Trading LLC]

Thank you. And then lastly, you said you might you're shifting to sort of be more geared to protect gross margin dollars. But my question to you is, given that you don't want to take price, I guess, of tariffs, could we expect that in order to sort of keep product where you are that you will you could take a heck, that we should expect a haircut on the gross margins if things don't change. And that also could be a good way for you to gain some market share because everybody else will have to raise price. I you have and again, that also helps with 65% of your business outside The US, I would assume.

[Sam poser, Equity Analyst at Williams Trading LLC]

I'm surprised you're not thinking globally on prices because you could price average it and minimize the increases.

[Sam poser, Equity Analyst at Williams Trading LLC]

I don't know.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

So I mean, to do the math, if we're protecting gross profit dollars, we would be sacrificed gross margin percentage. Because obviously to keep the percentage you have to amplify the price increase beyond what the increase in landed cost is that you're trying to offset. So that would result mathematically in some erosion. You know, ultimately the amount of that is something we'd have to assess over a longer horizon than, you know, we've been able to do over the short term.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

But again, our priority would be to replace the dollars in the short term, long term we'd address, you know, the margin percentages. I think insofar as the pricing, you know, we gave our explanation for that. I mean this is a localized issue. Know as much as we're all focused on in this discussion, again two thirds of our business this is not applicable to. And to impact pricing there would, I think, run the risk of being somewhat discordant with what consumers expect and what customers expect in those markets, and that's something we have to be attentive to.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

That all being said, you know, we will remain flexible in this environment. We've handled situations similar to this before. Flexibility, long term view, confidence, and continuing to make great product are what got us through the last time, and we think that's what it delivers through this time.

[Sam poser, Equity Analyst at Williams Trading LLC]

All right. Thank you guys very much. Good luck with all this.

[John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer at Skechers U.S.A.]

Thanks, Ann.

[Operator]

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Soo Hwang, Senior Director - International Merchandising
• David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer
• John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

• Jay Sole, Managing Director at UBS Group
• Laurent Vasilescu, Managing Director & Senior Equity Analyst at Exane BNP Paribas
• Peter McGoldrick, Equity Research Associate at Stifel Financial
• Adrienne Yih, Managing Director, Consumer Discretionary Analyst at Barclays
• Alexandra Straton, Equity Research Managing Director at Morgan Stanley
• John Kernan, Managing Director at TD Cowen
• Jesalyn Wong, Director at Evercore ISI
• Josh Reiss, Equity Research Senior Associate at Raymond James
• Krisztina Katai, Equity Research Analyst - Broadlines & Grocery at Deutsche Bank
• Christopher Nardone, Director, Equity Research at Bank of America
• Anna Andreeva, Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies
• Tom Nikic, Managing Director, Equity Research at Needham & Company
• Sam poser, Equity Analyst at Williams Trading LLC