J.Jill Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
June 11, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • New CEO Mary Ellen Coyne joins with 30 years of retail experience and plans to leverage investments in stores, marketing and omnichannel to strengthen J. Jill’s connection with its loyal customer base.
  • Q1 sales fell 4.9% to $154 million, with comparable store sales down 5.7%, gross margin slipping 110 bps and adjusted EBITDA dropping to $27.3 million from $35.6 million a year ago.
  • Withdrawing full-year guidance and suspending most forward-looking metrics due to macroeconomic uncertainty and the recent CEO transition.
  • Inventory rose 14% (5% on a normalized basis), driven by extra seasonal basics, and the company expects further margin pressure from markdowns and promotions to clear excess stock.
  • Strong balance sheet with $31 million cash, zero borrowings, $21 million remaining on the share repurchase authorization and a maintained $0.08 quarterly dividend, while moderating CapEx and new store openings.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
J.Jill Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Krista, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the J. Jill First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

Operator

After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Before we begin, I need to remind you that certain comments made during these remarks may constitute forward looking statements and are made pursuant to and within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 as amended. Such forward looking statements are subject to both known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. Those risks and uncertainties are described in the press release and J. Jill's SEC filings.

Operator

The forward looking statements made on this recording are as of 06/11/2025, and J. Jill does not undertake any obligation to update these forward looking statements. Finally, J. Jill may refer to certain adjusted or non GAAP financial measures during these remarks. A reconciliation schedule showing the GAAP versus non GAAP financial measures is available in the press release issued 06/11/2025.

Operator

If you do not have a copy of today's press release, you may obtain one by visiting the Investors Relations page of the website at jjill.com. And it is now my pleasure to turn today's conference over to Mary Ellen Coyne, Chief Executive Officer and President at J. Jill. Mary Ellen, the floor is yours.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

Good morning, and thank you for joining us.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

I'm very excited to be speaking with you today as the newest member of the J. Jill executive team. Having spent the last three decades in retail and specifically women's apparel and accessories, I understand what a special brand J. Jill is and the important role we play in serving a very loyal customer base, one that has grown over time and is often underserved but highly valuable. Throughout my career, I've learned that successful retail brands are built on authentic connections with customers, and J.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

Jill has that foundation in place. While we are navigating challenges today, stemming from the current environment, increased uncertainty affecting consumer spending and certain underperforming areas of the assortment, I strongly believe in this brand and the opportunities ahead. It was this belief and my passion for serving this customer that brought me to this role. I have a proven track record of building teams and growing businesses profitably. My background is rooted in product and merchandising, having spent sixteen years at Ralph Lauren before moving on to my most recent role as the CEO of J.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

McLaughlin. I not only have a deep understanding for the industry, but strong admiration for the customer J. Jill serves. In my previous roles, I have scaled businesses through multichannel expansion, elevating product offerings and introducing new categories. I see opportunities across all those areas here while maintaining the brand's core identity, which has supported such loyalty over the years.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

Over the past five weeks, I have immersed myself in the business, engaging with our teams, visiting stores and talking with associates and customers. I am working diligently to assess all areas of the business, where our strengths are, where there are opportunities and how we can evolve and improve performance. This initial review will inform my views on our path forward. What is clear, however, is the inspiring dedication that I have seen across our organization to delivering customers the experience they value from J. Jill.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

I am energized by the opportunities ahead and will be working with the team to leverage the investments that have been made in stores, marketing and systems. The fundamentals of this business are here. We have a loyal customer base, a lean operating model and strengthening omnichannel capabilities. I look forward to providing more insights into our plans and initiatives on our September earnings call. Now I will hand the call over to Mark to review our first quarter performance. Mark?

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Thank you, Mary Ellen, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome Mary Ellen to her earnings call. We are excited to have you leading J. Jill and are energized by your passion for this customer and proven track record driving growth in this industry. We look forward to sharing more on Mary Ellen's assessment of the business and strategies on our second quarter earnings call in September.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

But for now, let me review our first quarter performance. We entered first quarter with known challenges. We experienced adverse weather in February and we cut over to our new OMS system in March. Overall, the OMS project went very well and we are excited to now have a modern platform from which we can scale and grow, but the cutover did have a slightly larger impact on Q1 performance than anticipated. In addition to these known headwinds, we believe we had opportunities in the assortment and the macroeconomic environment continued to be volatile with uncertainty related to global trade policy impacting our customers' behavior, particularly in April and into May.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Despite these challenges, we delivered EBITDA above the high end of our previously guided range due primarily to disciplined expense management and continue to deploy cash to shareholders through our quarterly dividend and share repurchase program. While we remain confident in the long term resiliency of our loyal customer base and the opportunities to grow this business, we continue to navigate near term uncertainty with respect to tariffs and the impact the ongoing volatility will have on our customer. Because of this and also to provide Mary Ellen with the necessary time to complete her assessment of the business, we are withdrawing our prior full year guidance and temporarily suspending our practice of providing forward guidance on most metrics. I will discuss more on this, but let me review more details on our first quarter performance. Total company sales for the quarter were about $154,000,000 down 4.9% compared to Q1 twenty twenty four, inclusive of total company comparable sales decline of 5.7, which was partially offset by sales from new stores opened last year.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Total company sales also reflected a $2,000,000 negative impact from the OMS cutover. Store sales for Q1 were down about 4.4% compared to Q1 twenty twenty four and direct sales, which represented about 47% of total sales in the quarter, were down 5.4% compared to first quarter of fiscal twenty twenty four. As mentioned, weather impacted store traffic earlier in the quarter, while the OMS cutover had an outsized impact in our direct channel in March. In addition, our customer became more discerning with her spend in April, which was most pronounced in our direct channel as she primarily shopped markdowns, which put pressure on average unit retails and gross margin. Q1 total company gross profit was about $110,000,000 down about $7,000,000 compared to Q1 twenty twenty four.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Q1 gross margin was 71.8%, down 110 basis points versus Q1 twenty twenty four, driven by higher mix of markdown sales, primarily in the direct channel and higher full price promotional rates in both channels. SG and A expenses for the quarter were about $91,000,000 compared to approximately $89,000,000 last year. The increase was driven primarily by store expenses associated with five incremental new stores compared to prior year, OMS related costs, which came in at 1,600,000 versus $700,000 last year and merit increases, partially offset by lower management incentive accruals. Adjusted EBITDA was $27,300,000 in the quarter compared to $35,600,000 in Q1 twenty twenty four. Interest expense was 2,800,000 in Q1 compared to $6,400,000 last year.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Adjusted net income per diluted share was $0.88 compared to $1.22 last year, which reflected a diluted share count of 15,400,000.0 shares this year versus 14,400,000.0 shares last year as well as a benefit of about $01 per share related to repurchase activity in the quarter. During the quarter, we repurchased 186,800 shares for approximately $3,500,000 and as of June 11, we have approximately $21,000,000 remaining on the $25,000,000 share repurchase authorization. Please refer to today's press release for reconciliations of non GAAP financial measures to their most comparable GAAP financial measures, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and adjusted net income per diluted share to net income and free cash flow to cash from operations. Turning to cash flow. For the quarter, we generated about $5,300,000 of cash from operations, resulting in ending cash of about $31,000,000 and zero borrowings against the ABL.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Looking at inventory, total reported inventories were up about 14% at the end of the first quarter compared to end of first quarter last year, primarily due to an extra week in the supply chain we initiated last year in Q2 in response to Red Sea disruption. Excluding this extra week of inventory, normalized inventory was up about 5% consisting primarily of higher seasonal basic and basic full price inventory, which while less liable than fashion will present margin pressure in Q2 as we take select markdowns and implement promotions. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $2,700,000 compared to $2,300,000 last year. Investments were focused primarily on stores as well as the completion of the OMS project, including the initiation of work to enable ship in store capabilities in the back half of this year. With respect to store count, we closed three stores during the first quarter, including the two we discussed on our last call that shifted in from the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

We did not open any new stores in the quarter, resulting in end of quarter store count of two forty nine stores compared to two forty four stores at end of Q1 last year. Now for more on our outlook. As I mentioned, given the increased uncertainty with respect to the macroeconomic environment along with our recent CEO transition, we are withdrawing our prior full year guidance and temporarily suspending our practice of providing forward guidance on most metrics. That said, our teams are diligently working to assess opportunities for improvement within the assortment and we have taken swift actions to reduce inventory investments in floor sets beginning in the third quarter to better align with current demand trends. Quarter to date through May, total company sales are down mid single digits compared to the prior year period.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

While comparisons get easier as we move forward, should sales continue to decline at this level, we would expect to see significant SG and A deleverage as well as further pressure on gross margin driven by actions taken to ensure the movement of inventory in season. With respect to tariffs, in developing our financial models for the rest of the year, we have assumed tariffs will remain at 10% on all countries and 30% on China. While we expect to begin to see incremental product costs beginning toward the end of the second quarter from tariffs currently in place, we expect to mitigate most of these costs through a combination of vendor negotiations, on order adjustments and strategic price increases on select items in the assortment. However, any increases to current rates will result in additional margin headwinds for the year. We remain committed to operating the business with discipline, tightly managing inventory buys and clearing goods as needed in season and our strong balance sheet and ongoing cash generation enable us to continue to support our strategic investments in marketing, new stores and in systems capabilities such as Ship From Store, which is in pilot now and will ramp through the back half of twenty twenty five.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

We are maintaining our current run rate marketing spend in support of the customer file, but are reviewing the mix and creative to ensure maximum impact amidst the broader market backdrop. We are investing in new stores, but are evaluating nonessential capital spend. We now expect to spend between 20,000,000 and $25,000,000 during the fiscal year compared to prior guide of approximately $25,000,000 We are now expecting to open between one and five net new stores this year versus prior guided range of net five to 10 new stores as some new deals have pushed into 2026. And lastly, we remain committed to executing on our total shareholder return strategies. As announced on June 3, we are maintaining our quarterly dividend of $08 per share payable on July 9 to shareholders of record on June 25, and we will continue to opportunistically repurchase shares that will do so judiciously until trend visibility improves.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

The considerable actions we have taken the past few years to invest in our systems and strengthen our balance sheet will support us going forward. Our new OMS system is up and running and teams are making progress on the next objective, which is to ramp the ship from store capability for benefit in the of this year. With funded debt of $74,000,000 and $31,000,000 in cash, we have the necessary flexibility to navigate through this environment and enable us to be better positioned to capitalize on improvement when trends normalize for our customer. Despite near term headwinds, we are fortunate to have a strong brand and a very attractive customer. Our teams have managed through challenges such as this before, and I look forward to working with Mary Ellen as she continues to assess and develop plans to position us for long term success.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Thank you. I'll now hand it back to the operator for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Your question comes from Dana Telsey with Telsey Group. Please go ahead.

Dana Telsey
CEO & Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group

Hi, good morning everyone and welcome Mary Ellen to J. Jill. As you coming from J. McLaughlin and Ralph Lauren, you've had experience with this customer given the current macro environment. What did you put put in place at J.

Dana Telsey
CEO & Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group

McLaughlin, for example, during tariff, And what do you see the opportunity for J. Jill? And then lastly, you mentioned certain underperforming parts of the assortment. What are those? And how do you see the merchandise mix evolving for the upcoming holiday season?

Dana Telsey
CEO & Chief Research Officer at Telsey Advisory Group

And lastly, Mark, on the OMS cutover that you had, are there any other costs that go into the second or third quarter that we should be mindful of? And what magnitude of price increases are you talking and how promotional is it compared to where it could be? Thank you.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Hi, Dana. It's Mark. I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in if I can just on the on the tariff conversation. So we were speaking directly about j jill and and what we've done around the the tariff exposure. We mentioned in my remarks that the overall tariff assumption we're going with right now, though, as everybody knows, the final trade negotiations are not yet landed and it's unclear when they will be or what potential news flow will be until they are.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

But we've assumed 10%. We've kind of assumed status quo here in the past. 10% everywhere except China and 30% on China. As we've discussed previously, we've made as a company great strides getting our China sourcing down below 5% that continues to be an opportunity for us. And we've been looking at one of our strategies around mitigating tariffs is is on order adjustments, would include country migration and it includes adjustments in quantities.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

We mentioned vendor negotiations. We have a very strong long standing relationship with our vendor community and our agents. So we're working on on those levers and then very select and strategic price increases that the team has gone through and believe there's opportunity to to price up strategically within the assortment. All of those things combined for us, we believe, at the current status quo, while it does represent a headwind just given that it's an incremental cost, are manageable within our our current environment with respect to tariffs. You mentioned the assortment.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

I would say there's opportunity in the assortment around Yes. I think the teams I'll let Mary Ellen jump in on this, but around some newness, particularly in times like this where the consumer is a little bit more uncertain. And then we did have some successes in the assortment as well. I know this is an area that Mary Ellen is diving into with the teams.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

Thanks, Mark. Good morning, Dana. It's nice to meet you. I'll start with your question, which was around customer. And, yes, in my experience, both my time at Ralph Lauren and at Jay McLaughlin, what I have learned is that the most important thing you can do is to create meaningful relationships with your customer.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

And Jay Jill has done that in spades. This is a very valued segment. It is traditionally an underserved segment. And so we're very excited that that we have her here, and and it's a customer that I'm very familiar with. So thrilled about that.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

What we know about this customer, in addition, is when there are times of uncertainty, she pulls back. She is a smart, engaged consumer, one who is more discerning with her spend, and that is what we saw. And to Mark's comment, you know, we did not have enough newness in the assortment, and that will be a focus as we move forward. In my experience, this customer always returns and returns to the brand that she knows and that she trusts, and we are confident that that will happen here. With regard to your question about the holiday season, our product line is bought through the end of the year.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

But that being said, there is always more that we can do to win share of wallet, and that is my immediate focus with the team right now. We can impact presentations in store and online. We can impact marketing efforts. We can impact the way that we show up for her as we work through the balance of the year.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Great. Thanks. And I'll I'll just lastly Dana, you mentioned OMS. Thanks for that question. of all, I would say we're extremely excited to have our new OMS system in and stable.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

And, we mentioned that there was slightly more, negative impact in the cutover than we had anticipated. We we had provided guidance that we expected a million and a half. We came in at two. I'll tell you the the extra 502,000,000 in total for a project as far reaching. And important is OMS in the grand scheme of things is a a pretty good cut over for us from our perspective.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

The teams have worked really hard in what we call hyper care, which are the weeks following the cut over to address some unforeseen issues that weren't caught in testing. The million and a five we guided to we expected and the 500 that we didn't really came out of some customer facing issues, some glitches with checkout on the website, some glitches with stored credit cards on the website that were quickly diagnosed, addressed and fixed. So we're are now behind us. We'll continue to learn the new systems and as we continue to, you know, get every day behind us with the new system, but are excited about it. It was a very large project.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

The cutover went very well. A very large team was dedicated to it, and they did a fantastic job of getting it, to where we are today. And at the same time, we're excited that we're bringing up ship from store, which we talked before was the, you know, primary omni capability that we were going to deploy. We're in pilot, ran about 10% of the fleet. We're learning.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

We're fine tuning, and we'll be ramping that, through the back half of the year, which should, as we previously discussed, provide value, as we ramp it.

Operator

Your next question comes from Jonah Kim with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Jonna Kim
Director at TD Cowen

Thank you for taking my question. Just curious on the newness comment. How are you thinking about rolling out newness in the half? And juggling that with also the scale of how the tariff dynamics are? And how do you feel about the inventory position in the fall and also the holiday season? And then would love any color around ticket and traffic during the quarter if you can provide any details. Thank you very much.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

Great. Thank you for the question. I'll start with with the question around newness. Again, as as I had just said, the line is bought through the end of the year. That being said, we're able to make small adjustments, but really the impact of that will really come as we head into 2026.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

And, John, I would I would add in. And I apologize if we missed some of your questions. It was a little hard to to hear. Please, follow-up with us if you can, and operator, if you could allow that. I heard the question on inventory positioning going into fall and holiday.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

One of one of the immediate things or the nearer term things that we can impact our orders that are coming. So we did take our q three, which is really that fall and forward buys down more in line with current demand trends that we've seen, which is sort of the part of that. We exited Q1 with normalized inventories. Remember, our balance sheet inventories reflect about an extra week of in transits and on hands now related to the extra week we put into the supply chain last year when the Red Sea issues began. We'll lap those at the end of Q2, but we're still showing that in our balance sheet.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

So when we normalize that out, we're up about 5%, which, is, you know, and we have made some investments in some key basic items, some bottoms that actually did well during the quarter. But as you get into q two having inventories up five, we will do what's necessary to clear our inventories given that we're gonna be entering summer sale periods in July and want to exit q two clean with those new buys bought more appropriately with demand.

Jonna Kim
Director at TD Cowen

Understood. Yes. The question just was additional color on ticket versus traffic during the quarter and opportunities to drive more traffic to the store as well. Thank you.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Yeah. So through through the quarter and and q one for us was choppy. It would weather, which we had spoken about on our last call in February, which impacted traffic in stores. We had the OMS cutover, which impacted direct in, in March, and that primarily is a conversion type, impact just in a little bit of traffic because we brought the site down to cutover. And then really when April and some of the, global trade policy announcements kicked off, we saw overall a pullback in demand and that was traffic.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

It was also a a migration which we tend to see a migration to markdown selling and promo selling which impacted AURs, maybe even a little more than traffic. The opportunities we we mentioned that we remain committed to and and are fortunate to have the financial, model of the business and a strong balance sheet to be able to maintain our strategic investments. One of those in a a primary area is marketing and also stores and systems. And the marketing effort will look at mix and creative just in light of the current state of the consumer. And, that's as much about near term as it is really about supporting the file for the long term, which, we're still very excited about when the customer does come back and we fully expect her to that we can get back to driving profitable growth.

Jonna Kim
Director at TD Cowen

Got it. Thank you so much.

Operator

Your next question comes from Cory Tarlow with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Corey Tarlowe
Corey Tarlowe
SVP - Equity Research at Jefferies Group LLC

Great. Thanks. Mary Ellen, could you maybe talk a little bit about what drew you to J. Jill, some of the characteristics that you see of strength that you think are likely to continue going forward for the business? Any categories where maybe you see some opportunities or or green shoots?

Corey Tarlowe
Corey Tarlowe
SVP - Equity Research at Jefferies Group LLC

And then, Mark, just on the the quarter to date momentum, is there any way to put into context kind of some of the drivers or maybe how that compared relative to what you saw in the first quarter? Thanks so much.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

Sure. Thanks for the question. You know, for for me, as as I looked at at Jay Jill, the opportunity to build upon this brand's strong history while driving future growth was irresistible for me. Right? This is what I love to do is scale profitable businesses.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

In my past experiences, I've done that through multichannel expansion. You know, I'm a big believer in stores, but the balance here of of the ecommerce business to the brick and mortar business is really healthy and and both able to scale. But I've also elevated product assortments, introduced new categories, and I see tremendous potential for to do all of those things here, continuing to serve the very loyal customer that we have and to acquire new ones.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

And and Corey, I would put context around the q one performance into the into the May trend in this manner. The the quarter I mentioned before was choppy, so we had, you know, weather in February and the OMS cut over in March. It really was that slowdown once we were through those issues in April that seemed to very much coincide with the uncertainty that started to swirl out in the the global trade arena. And so that trend, we honestly didn't anticipate. And the May comment with down mid single digits is, indicating that some of that trend in April continued, as I mentioned in my remarks.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

The the uncertainty that is out there is and as Mary Ellen mentioned with respect to our customer, just creates in in our world uncertainty in the planning and is a primary reason why we are temporarily suspending our practice of providing guidance. But that also coupled with having Mary Ellen as new CEO and and making sure she has the time to assess and develop plans on the business, which we would plan to come back and share more on in the q two call in September.

Corey Tarlowe
Corey Tarlowe
SVP - Equity Research at Jefferies Group LLC

Great. Thank you so much and best of luck.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Thanks.

Operator

Your next question comes from Marni Shapiro from The Retail Tracker. Please go ahead.

Marni Shapiro
Managing Partner at The Retail Tracker

Hey, guys, and welcome, Mary Ellen. I feel terrible that you have to start and then tariffs happen. Not a fun way to start, but welcome aboard. We're excited to have you. Thanks.

Marni Shapiro
Managing Partner at The Retail Tracker

I'm just curious just to follow-up on the conversation about trends and what's happening out there. May was not a great weather month in the Midwest and the Northeast as well. The stock market was all over the place. I know your customer pays attention to those kinds of things. Have you seen any improvements in areas where the weather was more seasonal, where they're trending different in those areas or any improvement as we got towards a little bit away from that noise or was May down across the board?

Marni Shapiro
Managing Partner at The Retail Tracker

And then just one other quick question. I know you keep talking about ramping up ship from stores, very exciting. But will you be careful, I guess, about split shipments, which other retailers have called out as being very costly and prohibitive. Is that something that's already on your mind?

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Hey, Marty. It's Mark. Thanks for the questions. I'll start with the one. Ship from store shipping complete is a big objective.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

So we're well aware of the shipping cost per unit, etcetera, and that is as we're rolling out and piloting and ramping one of those knobs you can turn and and rules you can engage to make sure you're managing it appropriately. So very much aware of that. Very excited about the opportunity to fulfill what was previously unfulfillable demand within our business. So but but Yeah. Applying learnings as we do so.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

And then you mentioned the weather. Honestly, weather is is, you know, it's becoming the new norm, I guess. I would say that across country, there hasn't really been any major impacts that we would say. February was widespread, which is why we called it out. And I think at the time we mentioned it was everywhere except for the Southwest and Colorado, which seem to be the only bubbles of protected from the weather areas.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

The the weather in May, no big callouts. We've also been tracking, you know, from the political landscape, red states, blue states. We don't see any real major callouts across, any of those, differences as we look at them. We see general pullback in our, in our customer segment when things like the stock market volatility increases and uncertainty and worry tend to enter the mindset. So that that's kind of how we're looking at things right now and and a little bit of that rationale again behind the the decision to suspend our guidance for right now.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

But comfortable that got the strength and manage through it. Thanks, Marnie.

Marni Shapiro
Managing Partner at The Retail Tracker

Thank you, guys.

Operator

Your next question comes from Jeanine Stichter with BTIG. Please go ahead.

Janine Stichter
Managing Director & Analyst - Consumer Retail & Lifestyle Brands at BTIG

Good morning and welcome, Mary Ellen. I want to get your thoughts on new store openings. I saw you lowered the number this year. It seems mostly due to timing, but is there any change in the view for plans to net add stores over the next few years? And then just curious how the newer stores are performing.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

Thanks, Janine.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

Hi, Janine. I'll take that. So the question on new stores, we ended up as we mentioned last quarter, we had a couple of store closures that pushed from last year into this year, which was part of the closure activity in Q1. Overall, the store, the portfolio of stores we've opened, we've opened nine in the last, little over a year, are performing in line with where we would expect. They are subject to the macro as well.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

So we're watching that. A couple of learnings in smaller markets where it's a single store market that the ramp may be a little longer than we had expected, but but working on that part of the marketing investments will be to support those markets. But overall, very remain very excited about the store growth opportunity. The store growth, guidance for this year really represents, available spaces, and we will not compromise on the quality of the space. We talked a lot about the economics required.

Mark Webb
Mark Webb
EVP, CFO & COO at J.Jill

We're we're getting visibility to a void list and a a potential opening list that we're very comfortable with. The guide this year was more about, some slippage that has already occurred with the available spaces we're looking at that are likely to push into 2026. And then we're also in a couple of areas, you know, working with some uncertainties around planning commissions and FEMA and whether or not, the centers that we're in clear those hurdles and then we can, you know, work through them. So that's that's primarily why we guided, the stores down a little bit. We still feel comfortable in the 50 store opportunity by the end of twenty twenty nine, and we'll likely speak more about shorter, shorter term objectives at a later point.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

And I'll just add to that, that, you know, as I said earlier, JGL is in an enviable position having a balanced mix with room to scale both channels, you know, in store and and online. But I I feel very strongly about brick and mortar retail. I think stores are the best way you can tell your brand story and build authentic customer connections and really grow brand awareness. So we're excited about the the growth that's planned into the model as we move forward.

Janine Stichter
Managing Director & Analyst - Consumer Retail & Lifestyle Brands at BTIG

Great. And then just one more. I think, Mary Ellen, you alluded to some white space or potential new categories. Anything more you can share there, or is that something we'll hear more about in September?

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

We are working on that right now, and we will be sharing all of that in September.

Janine Stichter
Managing Director & Analyst - Consumer Retail & Lifestyle Brands at BTIG

Sounds great. Thank you.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

Thank you. So that concludes our question and answer session, and I will now turn the conference back over to Mary Ellen Coyne for closing comments. Thank you, and thank you all for joining us. As I said earlier, I am energized by the opportunities ahead. While we are navigating a challenging backdrop, we know there is always more that we can do to win our share of wallet and that is where we are focused.

Mary Ellen Coyne
Mary Ellen Coyne
President & CEO at J.Jill

I look forward to sharing more on our plans and my overall assessment of the business on our next earnings call. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Mary Ellen Coyne
      Mary Ellen Coyne
      President & CEO
    • Mark Webb
      Mark Webb
      EVP, CFO & COO
Analysts
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