Janet Joseph Kloppenburg: Thank you, Mike. Jen?
Jen Foyle: Yes. In Aerie – I’ll start with Aerie. I mentioned that we’re really encouraged actually in both brands just by the early reads for back-to-school. Aerie was really just our ability to double down coming off a swim. With all the work we’ve done around intimates and just our fleece and OFFLINE categories, Janet, it’s incredible what we’re seeing. So — and like I said, the halo effect of going up against these noncomp stores and going comp and just our customer acquisition is healthy. Our total file is definitely. We’ve seen incredible acquisition, again, in both brands. AE is really — has seen some incredible growth in customer acquisition. So they like what they’re seeing. So that’s encouraging. Basically, it’s into it and what Aerie stands for, honestly, it’s firing on all cylinders right now.
So I can’t say it’s one business over the other. Some are definitely stronger than others. We saw wear-now categories still trending as we headed into August, and we own them. So we were there for the customer. And then AE, early on in Q1, we saw nice reads in tops. And we were able to chase, and we continue to chase women’s secular got better consecutively quarter-over-quarter. And then as we launch back-to-school again, the stars were aligned there. We were able to remix a little bit more into women’s versus men’s and really reposition men’s focused on back — on the holiday for men’s and really gearing up women’s for back-to-school, and it’s starting to pay off. So I like the early trends. We still have several weeks ahead of us. So we’re going to proceed fast.
But honestly, with a lot of intelligence, profit-minded, we don’t want to give up everything we’ve earned over the past few years of working towards these incredible margins that we’re delivering. And so we’re ready to go. I hope it continues. We like what we’re seeing now.
Janet Joseph Kloppenburg: But does your guidance assume that it will continue? Or is there some moderation?
Jen Foyle: Mike can answer that for you.
Janet Joseph Kloppenburg: Okay. Thank you. Mike?
Mike Mathias: Revenue guidance, Janet?
Janet Joseph Kloppenburg: Yes, doesn’t it – I do not show it embeds the current trend. And I get why you might not want to do that, but I’m just wondering if you could talk us through it.
Mike Mathias: No, you’re exactly right. It’s a little more cautious than [technical difficulty]. You’ve got about 50% – about half of the quarter ends from a revenue perspective, 7.5 weeks to go. And it does have a more of a side of the current quarter-to-date trends, yes.
Janet Joseph Kloppenburg: Thank you.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Chris Nardone with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
Chris Nardone: Thanks guys. Good afternoon. Just have a couple of questions on the gross margin. Can you confirm if there is any more freight recapture left in your guidance this year? Can you also help quantify the benefit you expect to receive from lower cotton costs? Then as a follow-up, I think you identified $25 million of identified savings so far. Is that only isolating the changes you made to the end-of-season markdown process? Or is there more embedded in that $25 million number? Thank you.
Mike Mathias: Chris, yes. No, I think we’ve pretty much anniversaried the majority of the freight headwinds that we had through the first half of last year. And your answer on cotton, we are — we do see line of sight to not only continued IMU benefit this year, but we’ve already have plans laid out for the majority of first half of next year. And we continue to see markup gains in our future plans, including, I think, just the benefit from cotton or any other commodity pricing. So our team is doing a great job there. We see kind of tailwinds on product costs into the beginning of ’24 at this point. The $25 million, just maybe add a little more color there, that’s really a net number. We’re actually seeing – with the incentive accrual, there’s actually more benefit we’re getting through not just the kind of clearance, end-of-season, sell-off process, but other operating expenses.
Michael hit on a bunch of them, delivery, warehousing costs, some headway in store payroll and a lot more to come. But – so there is more benefit embedded in the guidance, and really the impact of incentives is offsetting that a little bit.
Chris Nardone: Got it. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Stratton with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.
Alex Straton: Great. Thanks so much for taking the question. Really two from me. One, just on the gross margin in the quarter. Did you guys quantify how much of the outperformance you would attribute to the cost-savings initiatives? And then I just wanted to make sure I understood. Were there just one or two of the things you had identified that flowed through this quarter, and then there’s still more to come there in the back half? Just trying to understand all the moving pieces there because it sounds like a lot of different initiatives. And then just secondly, on the full year guide, I want to just dig into the components of the raise and how you’re kind of thinking about Aerie versus AE growth in the back half. Thanks so much.
Mike Mathias: Yes. So the gross margin in the second quarter, we had benefits both from the acceleration – or across a bunch of different fronts. The acceleration in the business, really, it started in June through July like we’ve described. Then we did have cost-savings initiatives. The change to our – that clearance sell-off of end-of-season goods had a benefit in the second quarter. It will have an annual benefit beyond what we were able to book in the second quarter or capture in the second quarter. And we – obviously, we did recapture the freight headwinds from last year as well as the impact of selling off extraordinary amount of units or not – higher than historical amount of units last year in the second quarter. In the full year guide then, we do have continued growth.
Really, the gross margin benefits that we’re rolling through this forecast continued benefits through the delivery savings we’re seeing with a wider network, including the capabilities we have for Quiet, warehousing costs alongside that. So compensation as well as other DC-related costs, and benefits through just gross margin in general from continued benefits to markup and controlling markdowns with very healthy inventory levels. So the guide really reflects a low single-digit revenue trend. Aerie’s still at this accelerated pace. I think it’s probably a low double-digit trend, AE flat to positive with the gross margin benefits that we’ve been able to see through the second quarter continuing through the back half of this year.