Savers

Well, shares of Savers Value Village soaring in its debut today. The stock is up nearly 30 percent now. The four-part thrift store retailer has been dominating today, it has more than 300 locations in the U. S. , Canada, and Australia. Let's bring in Savers Value's village CEO Mark Walsh. Mark, congratulations on the debut. We're talking about a huge debut today, but your company has been around for nearly 70 years. Why come to market now? A lot of t Great secular trends, thrift, value, an oversized TAM opportunity, total addressable market of over 2,200 stores. And look, I think of that where we are with our private equity sponsor, it's the right time for us to make this j Mark, how does your business fare in an economy What does it mean for Savers? Are At an average AUR of $5, it's extreme value. We're, 15 years, positive, same store sales comp every year other than the 2020 COVID year. So we're pretty confident that we'll perform well through any economic environment. Currently our transactions have been exceptionally strong. We feel great about our connection with our thrifters and feel really good about the future in terms of continuing that ability to connect with the folks who come and shop with us. Yeah, in addition to a software economy potentially working in your favor, you've also got a demograp Younger cons We've seen a huge push or huge growth in the second hand market in that space too. What are you seeing across your stores? We are seeing exactly that as well. Our loyalty member base is $4. 7 million. Our new members who are joining are skewing much younger. Really excited about that. Obviously that's great for a brand. Anytime your influx of new customers who are joining your members So we're seeing that exactly, that same exact trend. Mark, what do you t Is it just in terms of the cost? Is it also just indicative of inflationary pressures and what's going on more broadly speaking? Well, I t But then there's a level of authenticity in what we represent. What we hear from our thrifters is they want an environment that's fun. They love the treasure hunt. We put out 33,000 new items per store, per average week. And then you add to that a turn of 15 times. So our average thrifter, when they come in, they see a fresh environment almost every time. So the treasure hunt experience really drives, I t We've seen a n We're talking about names How are you t When it comes to e-commerce, we invested a lot of time and energy understanding what that could mean for us. At $5 AURs, it's not a good use of capital. So we have no plans to invest in an e-commerce space. Our focus is going to be around brick and mortar. In fact, 70% of thrifters that we've surveyed indicate that brick and mortar is where they want to shop. It's fun. It's energizing. They Well investors are certainly energized as well, at least based on the stock move that we've seen today. Mark Walsh, Savers Value Village CEO. Good to talk to you today. Appreciate the time. Thank you very much. Nice to talk to you.