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Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Good day and welcome to the DICK’S Sporting Goods First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Nate Gilch, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss our first quarter of 2020 results.
On today's call will be Ed Stack, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Lauren Hobart, our President; and Lee Belitsky and Chief Financial Officer. A playback of today's call will be archived in our Investor Relations website, located at investors.DICKS.com for approximately 12 months.
As a reminder, we'll be making-forward looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. Any such statements should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements in earnings release and risk factor discussions in our filings with the SEC, including our last annual report on Form 10-K and cautionary statements made during this call. We assume no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements or information. Please refer to our Investor Relations website to find a reconciliation of any non-GAAP financial measures referenced in today's call.
And finally, a couple of admin items. First, a note on our same store sales reporting practices. Recall last quarter, we announced our intent to move away from providing eCommerce sales growth and eCommerce penetration metrics beginning in Q1. Given the circumstances surrounding our temporary store closures, we're continuing to provide these metrics this quarter and will revisit this decision for Q2. And second, for your future scheduling purposes, we’re tentatively planning to publish our second quarter 2020 earnings release before the market opens on August 26, 2020 with our subsequent earnings call at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time.
With that, I’ll now turn the call over to Ed.
Thanks, Nate. Good morning, everyone.
Let me start by saying, on behalf of all of us here at DICK’S Sporting Goods, we hope each of you and your families are safe and healthy.
We would all agree that this has been a difficult year so far for our country. Our hearts go out to all of those impacted by COVID-19 and the civil unrest going on across America. These events have shined a spotlight on the deep rooted and longstanding issues around racial injustice and inequality in the country. All of this is happening while our world is still grappling with the dramatic and continuous change as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Virtually every business segment, including the retail industry and DICK’S Sporting Goods has been affected. Organized sports at all levels have come to a standstill, gyms and fitness centers were closed across the country, forcing everyone to build new fitness habits and routines. Throughout this evolving landscape, we anchored to our corporate values on the premise that doing the right thing is the ultimate path to success.
Our Company has a long tradition of promoting the safety and welfare of our teammates, athletes, and communities, and our response to the current health crisis was no exception. This is why on March18th, we supported the nationwide efforts to minimize the spread of the virus and temporarily closed our stores to the public. To take care of our teammates, we invested $34 million in the first quarter across the number of compensation and safety measures.
Beginning in mid-March through the balance of the first quarter, from a business standpoint, we focused nearly exclusively on managing for liquidity to ensure we came through this crisis in a strong financial position. We acted quickly and decisively to reduce, defer and eliminate cash outflows. And we maximized cash inflows through our eCommerce business. To fortify our balance sheet and provide maximum financial flexibility, we exercised the accordion feature on a revolving credit facility to increase our borrowing capacity to $1.855 billion. And we issued convertible senior notes that added over $500 million of net proceeds to our cash position.
As a result of these actions, I'm pleased to report at the end of the first quarter we had cash and cash equivalents of approximately $1.5 billion, and we feel very good about our liquidity.
Throughout the store closures, we continued to serve our athletes online and through our mobile apps. Our eCommerce sales were tremendous, increasing more than 200% since we closed our stores through the end of the first quarter, and notably contributing to our strong liquidity position. Importantly, these strong online results have continued into the second quarter, even in those markets where our stores have reopened. A key part of this success online is our new curbside pickup service.
Under Lauren's leadership, our stores, eCommerce and technology teams came together and launched this new initiative across most of the country within a matter of days. Lauren will cover this in greater detail during her remarks.
As for our stores, beginning in mid-April, we started to reopen where permitted in accordance with federal, state and local guidelines. As of the end of May, approximately 80% of our stores have reopened to the public, and we've been pleased with the early results.
Although the business environment of 2020 remains uncertain, DICK’S Sporting Goods is in a position of strength. We believe coming out of this crisis, health and fitness will become even more important to the customer. As the leader in sporting goods retail sector, our relationships with our key brands have never been stronger, and we are in a great place to support this demand.
Our experienced management team has a history of successfully navigating difficult market cycles and remains fully committed to managing our business with a long-term view. Perhaps most importantly, our balance sheet is strong and due to the actions we've taken when the pandemic first hit, we have enhanced liquidity to emerge from this crisis in even a stronger competitive position. Now, with the confidence in our liquidity and our stores reopening, we can turn our attention to gain market share for the remainder of 2020 and positioning our business for profitable growth in 2021.
Finally, I would like to thank our teammates. Through these difficult times, I'm especially proud of how they came through and came together to support one another, and the Company as a whole.
I would now like to turn the call over to Lauren.
Thank you, Ed, and good morning, everyone.
I want to start by also thanking our teammates for their hard work and dedication over the past several months. We've been incredibly impressed with how you committed to serve our athletes and continue to serve communities. You’ve done a tremendous job responding to the constantly changing landscape.
Through March 10th, our consolidated same store sales increased 7.9%, which was a clear indication that our strategies were working. Shortly thereafter, our strong sales trends abruptly changed as a spread of the virus accelerated and on March 18th, we closed our stores for the public. For the quarter, our online sales increased 110%, including curbside contactless pickup. This strength in eCommerce increased significantly after we closed our stores as online sales grew 210% since then through the end of the quarter. We continue to leverage our store network to ship from store and curbside pickup, while also fulfilling orders via our eCommerce fulfillment centers and distribution centers, as well as directly from our vendors.
Importantly, our vast fulfillment network seamlessly supported the significant increase in eCommerce volume and our ability to leverage these many fulfillment methods helped us to continue to reduce shipping times to our athletes.
We executed our new curbside initiative within days, as our stores, eCommerce and technology teams quickly helped us pivot our business and ensure that we were able to provide our athletes with a safe and convenient way to pick up their orders, while reducing shipping and packaging expenses. This is a great reflection of our culture and our nimble operating model, and a huge credit goes out to those teams.
The athlete response has been overwhelmingly positive. Curbside sales were up 1,000% since it launched through the end of the quarter when you compare it to BOPIS sales in the prior year, and curbside accounted for over 40% of our total eCommerce sales during this time period. We believe this experience will continue to be a big opportunity for us as we move forward.
Now, let me turn to the stores. By the end of the first quarter, we reopened approximately 20% of our stores. And as of the end of May, approximately 80% of our stores have reopened. We expect to continue opening our remaining stores throughout the rest of Q2 and into Q3.
As we reopen, the health and safety of our teammates and athletes is our highest priority, and we're following the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as federal, state and local authorities. As part of these efforts, we've enhanced our sanitizing protocols and are requiring face coverings be worn by all teammates. We're also requiring our teammates sanitize their hands regularly or wear gloves. Next, we're communicating, supporting, and enabling social distancing. This includes using floor decals throughout the store, and plexiglass screen to checkout, as well as limiting the number of people in the store where applicable by local ordinance. And lastly, we're taking steps to minimize contact, including continuing to offer curbside pickup. These actions are being supported by teammate and athlete communication tools aimed at reinforcing healthy habits, in addition to wellness protocols to ensure teammates are working only when healthy.
As Ed mentioned, to-date, we've been very pleased with the early results in our stores that have reopened, where we've seen a progressive recovery in sales and traffic. In fact, since reopening, many stores have comped positive on a brick-and-mortar basis. Furthermore, our online sales, including curbside pickup have remained very strong, even in those markets where we've reopened our stores. Where are we gaining momentum and through the first four weeks of Q2 with 44% of our stores remaining closed on average, our consolidated same store sales have decreased only 4%. As part of this, eCommerce sales have increased momentum and are over 250%.
In closing, we believe our teammates and athletes have new expectations related to their working and shopping experiences, and we're certain that the actions we're taking to build trust and to create competence in these new experiences will pay off for the long-term. Along with Ed, I remain very enthusiastic about the future of DICK’S Sporting Goods.
I will now turn the call over to Lee to review our financial results in more detail.
Thank you, Lauren, and good morning, everyone.
Let's begin with a brief review of our first quarter results. Consolidated sales decreased 30.6% to approximately $1.33 billion. Consolidated same-store sales decreased 29.5%, driven by 38.7% decrease in transactions and was partially offset by a 9.2% increase in average ticket. We saw declines in each of our three primary categories hardlines, apparel and footwear.
As Lauren mentioned, prior to the impact of COVID-19, we were very pleased with our comp sales performance. And through March 10th, our consolidated same-store sales increased 7.9%, a continuation of the strong comp trends we delivered in the second half of 2019. Shortly thereafter, we saw a significant reduction in customer traffic and demand due to the continued spread of the virus, and we closed all of our stores. We were able to partially offset the negative sales impact from our store closures, through a significant acceleration in our eCommerce business, including curbside contactless pickup. For the quarter, our eCommerce sales grew 110%. And as a percent of total net sales, our online businesses increased to 39%, compared to 13% last year.
Gross profit in the first quarter was $219.3 million or 16.45% of net sales, a 1,290 basis-point decline, compared to the same period last year. Within gross profit, we saw deleverage on fixed occupancy costs of 526 basis points, due to the sales decline. It's important to note that while we have successfully negotiated payment term deferrals and rent abatement, this didn't materially affect the P&L in Q1 as deferrals don't change the total cash payments and abatements are spread over the remaining life of the lease. We also saw lower merchandise margins, which decreased by 475 basis points and were primarily driven by sales mix, higher promotions, particularly early in the quarter and a $28 million write-down of inventory, resulting from our temporary store closures.
Finally, we saw higher shipping expenses and eCommerce fulfillment costs as a result of our meaningfully higher eCommerce sales growth, as well as the fixed costs associated with our two new dedicated eCommerce fulfillment centers that opened in the third quarter last year.
SG&A expenses were $403.2 million or 30.24% of net sales, up 494 basis points from last year's non-GAAP results. Again, that was due to the sales decline. However, SG&A dollars decreased $83 million compared to last year. This includes approximately $90 million reduction in expenses following our temporary store closures and was partially offset by $31 million of incremental teammate compensation and safety costs. Within the $90 million reduction in expenses included $21 million of income associated with changes in the Company's deferred comp plan for investment values, for which the corresponding investment loss was recognized in other expense.
In total, we recorded a loss per diluted share of a $1.71 compared to a non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $0.62 last year. Since the rapid rise of COVID-19 cases in mid-March, we acted quickly and decisively to preserve cash and fortify our balance sheet. Collectively, these actions have bolstered our cash and cash equivalents to approximately $1.5 billion at the end of the first quarter and we had $214 million of additional borrowing capacity on our line of credit.
Let's walk through the details. First, we meaningfully reduced cash expenses across the business, including marketing, travel, contractors and within payroll through salary reductions and furloughs of a significant number of our teammates across our stores, distribution centers and customer support center. Concurrent with the reopening of the majority of our stores, last week, we restored previously reduced salaries for our teammates except for certain executives and have started bringing teammates back from furlough.
We have also had very productive discussions with our vendors to reduce inventory receipts and extend payment terms. Likewise, we've had similarly productive discussions with our landlords about deferring and debating rent payments.
Additionally, we completed the issuance of $575 million of 3.25% convertible senior notes due in 2025, which includes a full exercise of the $75 million overallotment option. These notes provide for an initial conversion option once our stock price reaches $35.38 per share, and thus solution would typically occur when our stock price exceeds this threshold. However, in conjunction with the notes issuance, we entered into stock hedge transactions to reduce the dilution from shares issuable upon conversion of the notes.
The hedge transactions will provide economic dilution protection upon maturity of the notes, if our stock is trading at or between $35.38 and $52.42. The aggregate net proceeds from the issuance and the sale of notes were approximately $558 million or approximately $502 million net of the note hedge.
Due to current accounting rules, we have discounted the value of the notes on the balance sheet to $398 million as of the end of the first quarter. This discount will be amortized as non-cash interest expense, resulting in a total annualized interest rate of 11.6% on the discounted value of the notes. We also exercised the accordion feature on our revolving credit facility to increase our borrowing capacity from $1.6 billion to $1.855 billion and ended the first quarter with approximately $1.4 billion outstanding.
Finally, we made meaningful modifications to our 2020 capital allocation plan. This includes significant reductions to our planned capital expenditures. We also temporarily suspended our quarterly dividend, as well as our share repurchase program. As our business continues to stabilize, we may resume opportunistic share repurchases under our current authorizations.
For the first quarter, net capital expenditures were $51 million and we paid $28 million in quarterly dividends, which was declared prior to the suspension. We did not repurchase any shares.
Our quarter end inventory levels decreased 2% compared to the end of the same period last year, and working alongside our brands, we acted decisively to reduce, defer and cancel planned receipts to align with our new sales forecast. For the rest of 2020, we are conservatively planning our inventory receipts. However, we have plenty of liquidity as well as strong relationships with our vendors, if we need to opportunistically chase product.
With respect to our outlook, there's a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the scale and duration of several key external factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, stay-at-home orders and economic stimulus, as well as employment and consumer confidence and the potential impact on our business. Given this uncertainty, we do not believe it is appropriate to provide a 2020 outlook for sales and earnings at this time.
Notwithstanding this uncertainty, we move forward with confidence. We have ample liquidity and are pleased with our market position as well as our Q2 sales trends. This concludes our prepared comments. Thank you for your interest in DICK’S Sporting Goods, and operator, you may now open the line for questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Today’s first question comes from Robby Ohmes with BofA Securities. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I think, the question everybody wants to ask is, could we get a little more color on the first four weeks? It's great that you gave us the down 4 comps. But, how should we think about getting there in terms of depending on -- sort of maybe some color on how the reopened stores, if you just isolate those, how are they performing? And also how does eCommerce and curbside contactless pickup change when you reopen stores? Any more color you can give on those four weeks would be great. Then I have a follow-up question.
Robby, I think a couple of things. The stores that have opened are doing very well. As Lauren said, many of them -- most of them are comping positively. So, we're really pleased with that. And the curbside pickup, Lauren, I think you can talk about that. But, that's still doing really well.
Yes. No, the penetration of curbside pickup continues on. And Robby, I think, the way to think about it is, we were down 4%. We had 44% of our stores on average close during that period. And so, if you do the math, you can say that we're very pleased with how the stores are performing when they reopen.
Should we assume the quarter closed stores are -- stores that are still closed are comping kind of similar to what you put up for the first quarter or…?
They’re closed. We're not recording any brick-and-mortar sales in it, but we are continuing to do curbside pickup. Curbside pickup, we're including within our eCommerce sales.
The stores are doing very well, Robby. And they’re comping positively, the majority of them that we've opened up. And then, the eCommerce business is still doing very well. I wouldn't want to get ahead of yourself to think that with 40% of the stores closed, we're comping positively from the stores that are open or making up for those stores that are closed. That's not the case. They're doing extremely well. We couldn't be more pleased with how they're comping. But the curbside pickup and eCommerce business continues to be very strong, even in the markets where we’ve reopened.
And just a follow-up question, just the -- how should we think about potential further write-downs going forward. And Ed, maybe -- how should we think about the different seasons? We're moving into the second quarter here, how could that be different from the first quarter in terms of categories that may or may not pressure you, like team sports?
Yes. Team sports is the one that we're most concerned about from a go-forward sales standpoint, it depends. We don't know if the kids are going to play football this fall or if they're going to play -- if they're going to play soccer this fall. Some of the -- those are primarily school sports, especially on the football side. Baseball is starting to open up in some markets, which are more of a municipal leagues and travel leagues. And where the baseball has opened up, it's doing very well. But team sports is where we're most concerned, have kind of the least amount of visibility to what's going to happen going forward.
Got it. That’s really helpful. Best of luck, guys. And congrats on getting that curbside pickup going. That’s a really amazing execution.
Yes. Thanks Robby.
And our next question today comes from Kate McShane with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
The first question I had was just in terms of the change in product demand, how that's changed over time. I assume there was a lot of fitness type equipment being sold during the shelter-in-place, but, in the last four weeks, just wondering if you're seeing any strength in other categories. You mentioned baseball, wondered if there was any other trends that were emerging. And then, my second question is just about how you're thinking when it comes to back half of the year and what level of promotions you could possibly expect because of what we're entering into? Thank you.
So, Kate, the trend has changed a little bit. You're right. The fitness business was really a very big part of the business when the stores closed and the pandemic first hit. And that's still pretty good. We were struggling to keep in stock in that product. Although we've got some product on the road, we think we're going to be fine. The bike business was very good. But kind of the businesses that have started to pick up, the footwear business is very good, the apparel business is very good, the golf business has been very good since golf courses got opened up. So, all-in-all, it's been pretty good.
The baseball, where they've started to play baseball, it's been very, it's been very good. They're still not playing baseball in a lot of different places. We're starting to see -- we've got a good look into the baseball business from our game-changer app. And we're starting to see a lot more baseball games being played and scored on a weekly basis that's growing at a pretty rapid rate. So, we're pretty confident going forward. But, there's still a lot of places where they're not playing baseball yet. But overall, the footwear business, apparel business, golf business, and the outdoor business still continues to be very good.
Second question about the level of promotions in the back half.
Oh, yes. I don't know yet, none of us do. We think it'll probably be a tad more promotional because people have inventory to get rid of, but our inventory is in very good position. I mean, I think a lot of people were surprised to see our inventory actually down 2% at the end of the quarter. So, we're in a pretty good position. I think, it will be a little bit more promotional, but I don't think it's going to be -- I don't think it's going to be too bad.
Thank you.
Our next question today comes from Michael Lasser with UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. So, Ed, has this situation permanently changed DICK’S Sporting Goods margin structure? As part of that, can you comment on what the puts and takes are going to be into the second half that we should factor as we're modeling the business?
So, Michael, it's Lee. I think, with respect to the margin structure -- and I got you talk about operating margins. If we continue these trends where we're getting the brick-and-mortar sales back up and running, and they're getting back up and running well, the profitability of that channel is strong and our eCommerce business has continued to grow. It hasn't been terribly promotional, frankly, on the eCommerce channel and we've increased the curbside contactless pickup, which eliminates the shipping and packaging expense. And if we're able to maintain a high penetration of that, the profitability of our eCommerce business should improve as well. So, it all depends how it's going to mix out. I think, in aggregate, it’s a good picture for profitability going forward. For total profits, what it does to the profit margin line, it's really going to depend on how it mixes out, between eCom and brick-and-mortar stores. But if we can keep those brick-and-mortar stores rolling along with respectable comps, our profit picture should be pretty solid going forward.
And the merchandising margin rates from an eCom are actually running ahead right now.
So, just to clarify few of those points. Are the merch margin rates running ahead in part, because of this lack of promotion? And do you expect that promotion will resume at some point? This is a pretty unique period. Also, if you don't see -- if resurgence in the brick and mortar business is more temporary, can you frame what the impact from the mix shift to eCommerce is going to be? It looks like there was about 300 basis-point of drag from increased shipping costs in the quarter. How much of that was kind of temporary? And then, also as part of that, can you frame out how are you thinking about occupancy? You're going to be benefiting from a very radically different landscape from a real estate perspective, shouldn’t that help you to be able to leverage occupancy cost at a much lower comp and the leverage [Technical Difficulty]?
So, with regard to eCommerce, so we do have some drag on the gross margin due to the additional shipping costs. But, I don't expect the eCom penetration to remain at 39% of the business, as it was in Q1. If we get our brick-and-mortar sales back and eCom stays at 39%, that we will all be happy. But, I don't expect that it's going to stay that high. And I think that even though we had significant savings from curbside pickup, it couldn't offset the full impact of going to 39% penetration from a gross margin perspective. With regard to occupancy expense, I think, there will be opportunities, continue to be opportunities to drive down our occupancy expenses, to reduce our rent expense. We do have north of a 100 leases coming up for renewal each year and we're aggressively renegotiating those leases as we go forward. And we expect to continue to have opportunities there.
Mike, this is Lauren. I would just add that I think in this omni-channel world, which we clearly lived in for the last 10 weeks where the only way consumer could place order was online and the stores became a huge part of the fulfillment, they always were, but even a bigger part of our fulfillment and our demand driving, we really need to rethink what a sale is and what the profitability of -- and flow through is all the way through the P&L because the stores are such an integral part of what the eCommerce delivered over the last 10 weeks, it's very, very merged at this point.
Yes. Without the stores, we don't have the curbside pickup. So, that's becoming a growing consideration in how much real estate we need.
And our next question today comes from Chris Horvers with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
First question, a follow-up on the gross margin. You mentioned some, I think promotions earlier in the quarter. I think that was when you had strong comp. So, you can just give a little color there of what drove that pressure. And then, I have a follow-up.
Well, I think, shortly after we closed the stores, we were in a scenario where nobody knew what was going to happen, how long the stores were going to be closed. It was going to be weeks, months, nobody knew. So, we were pretty aggressive with promotions online in those first couple of weeks after we closed. And we are also still clearing out a little bit of the winter merchandise early in the quarter because we didn't have much cold weather. So, we were clearing through, some of that remaining winter merchandise, in stores even before we closed.
Makes sense. So, as you look forward on the SG&A line, can you just share some color in terms of how we think about the savings going forward? To what extent are you bringing -- are you -- as you open a store, do you bring back all the furloughed employees of those stores, or are you sort of cascading them in as the business builds back up? How are you thinking about the marketing expense in the second and third quarter as well? And any other color would be appreciated.
The sales have been strong in the stores as we've opened them. So, we're bringing back the lion's share of the furloughed associates in the stores as they open. We are taking on store by store basis because they're not all performing equally. But, we do have -- we had in Q1 and into Q2 some extra expenses in the store. We have continued with our Hero Pay Program where we are increasing -- temporarily increasing the hourly pay in stores and distribution centers by 15%. That's going to continue for a little while. We haven't determined yet when we're going to -- that's going to end. We do have extra payroll going into cleaning, sanitizing stores, lightening things down, wiping up the shopping carts and so on. So, there is actually some extra payroll in the stores right now as we get through COVID. So, I would expect that as the stores open, we would incur additional payroll expense for a while in the stores versus what we have in the past. And we experienced that at the end of Q1 as we started to open the stores and we will experience as well into Q2.
With regard to admin expenses, we have open positions right now. We'll be cautious as to hiring back to those open positions until we really see what's happening with the business. And we noted that we've restored -- as of the fourth week of May, we restored the pay reductions to almost all the associates except for a few of the senior executives in the Company, as we got to the point where we had 70%, 80% of the stores open, we restored their pay. So, we still have some meaningful savings coming in travel and contractors. We do have extra expenses we're incurring as well.
And then, just lastly, are you at this point planning marketing down in the second quarter? And then, similarly on just from a promotional perspective you exited clean. So, are you just waiting to see what happens in the environment, but at this point, given the strength in sales and the clean -- how clean the inventory is -- sort of the promotional is probably a positive so far?
Yes. It's Lauren, I’ll start with the marketing. We definitely, we were -- we cut back significantly when the COVID -- when the stores were closed. And we have -- we upped it and we're actually feeling very bullish on the back half of the year in terms of the spend and generating the consumer demand. So, we are turning on marketing obviously within reason and doing it in a phased approach. And then, Ed, do you want to mention about the inventory?
We feel great about our inventory position. We're chasing inventory. We're actually buying some off-price inventory from some of the brands that for whatever reason they have available. So, we're really happy with our inventory position. We're happy with kind of our margin rates going forward and what we have visibility to margin rates on a go forward basis. We’re cautiously optimistic.
And our next question comes from Adrienne Yih with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Ed, I guess, one of my first question is pre-COVID, DICK’S was one of the few retailers that was still sort of looking to open stores, albeit at a slower pace. I’m wondering how this current crisis sort of impacts that. And as a follow-on to that, you are very present [ph] with your kind of digital investments since 2017. What are the next evolutionary sort of IT investments, whether that's contactless checkout or things you're thinking about kind of the feature store? Thank you.
So, new stores, we've slowed the growth down a little bit. We pushed some of the stores that we're going to open this year into a next year. And we'll assess the marketplace and we'll assess what's going on from real estate standpoint on a go forward basis. As far as IT investments, we continue to invest in technology. We continue to invest in what we're going to do from a curbside pickup, footwear apps that we're talking about. So, we've got -- we continue to invest from a technology standpoint. And Lauren, you've got a couple of other things.
Yes. I think, Adrienne, you're absolutely right that the investments over the past few years, which really were -- and to enable us to scale productively all came to a very positive fruition over the past several weeks. And the new consumer environment has definitely accelerated. Some of our pushes for innovation, we will be -- we’re looking at the entire customer experience the entire customer journey, how to provide more contactless experiences, even in the store when people are shopping, whether that's our shoe runner app that we've tried right now where people can sort of self help themselves, providing a ton of different opportunities there, mobile will be a big piece for us going forward. So, if anything, this has incredibly energized our innovation efforts and our technology teams behind the changing landscape.
We also improved our delivery performance during the quarter versus last year. So, notwithstanding the big increase of sales that we had, we took about a half day off of our average delivery time from same period last year. So, we continue to make improvements there.
And then, Lee, just a quick one for you. How should we think about -- I know this is a big question 2Q sales. And the reason I ask that is sustainability of the May trend. People are talking about kind of summer vacations or more [ph] vacation, more outdoors. It feels like the things that are driving May performance, some of those drivers are unlike something investing [ph] or some of the onetime pent-up demand. It seems like they may could get stronger as we go into the summer. So, just wondering how we should think about some of the drivers of early May.
Yes. It's hard to say how it's going to play out, they could get stronger but could be some that was pulled forward as well because the kids are out of school and people are working from home. So, they may have got into some of the summer purchases early. So, it's a little hard to say on those summer trends how it's going to play out.
And our question today comes from Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
My first question, I want to ask you, Ed, there was a comment about market share in the press release. I think, it wasn't -- it was a couple years back when Sports Authority were closing, you made a clear message about going after share. I guess first, is it clear that you didn't gain in Q1? And then, in the comments that you made in the release, are you approaching this next few quarters in a similar way, so you looked at 2016, 2017, and then you read across to how the business should be managed from a financial perspective?
So, we think we've got great relationships with our vendors. We think our inventory is in terrific shape. The trajectory that we were on from basically Q2 of last year through even Q1 of this year before we closed the stores and the trends that we see that were picking up with the stores that are opening, we're pretty confident from the changes that we made from a merchandising standpoint, where our brand is in the eyes of the consumer that we're continuing to pick up market share. And I believe that we're going to continue to pick up market share. We put our self in a great financial position to be able to go out and aggressively buy product off price right now. We put our self in a position that we don't have to cut back on our marketing effort. We can go in from a marketing standpoint and drive consumers into our store, whether it's in the brick and mortar stores, whether it's from on an standpoint to curbside pickup, or when it's a more traditional online business.
So, we've made some big changes to the merchandise that we carry. We've made some big changes to how we are approaching things in the store from a service standpoint. We've made some big changes into how we're marketing our business. And I think if you take a look at last year in what our comp sales were versus others. We picked up market share and we feel that we are continuing that trend, especially as the stores start to reopen.
I just want to add on to that for a moment that the comparing to 2016 and 2017 and TSA feels a little different from how we're thinking about it now, which is that -- it's not about our brick-and-mortar competitors going under, it's about us gaining market share and gaining new customers and gathering customers try our online business who had never tried it before. So, it's a different compare, I just wanted to point that out. It's different and it's actually very exciting.
Okay. Thanks. And then, my follow-up. This relates to something that Lee and Lauren commented on, the merging of the two channels, and I know it's harder to look at profitability separately. My question is on what's going to be -- if you look at the business a year from now, are we closer to -- are we much closer to an equilibrium in profitability between the two channels? And again, I appreciate it. It's harder to look at them separate. But, I think in getting to sustainable profitable growth, I don't know if that is a prerequisite or not.
I think it does get to be closer, especially as we're seeing the curbside pickup not slow down and our stores continue to comp positively. So, as eCommerce picks up from a curbside standpoint, as Lee and Lauren have both said, it gets to be more profitable because of the shipping and packaging changes.
Okay. Thanks, Ed.
Sure.
And our next question comes from Sam Poser with Susquehanna. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. This is Will on for Sam. So, my first question is on eCommerce, and I realize you guys are not guiding here. But, I mean, how big do you think the eCommerce business could be this year? I mean, do you think it could be a $2 billion plus business this year?
Well, Will, as you said, we're not guiding that. But, we're really pleased with the momentum we’ve got and hope we can keep it up.
We suspect we can, but we're not going to go out on a limb and tell you what we think the numbers are right now. We'll let you know at the end of the fourth quarter.
Fair enough. Fair enough. And how much do you think -- I know you said stores are comping positive -- and how much do you think that the eCommerce business is cannibalizing stores?
Right now, very little. A lot of the eCommerce pickup we've got are from new customers.
That's a good segue. I guess, how many customers in 1Q do you think that you guys acquired, and were put in for loyalty program?
We're not going to get to that level of granularity right now, but there's a meaningful amount of the customers that we serve from an eCom standpoint, whether it be curbside pickup or more traditional eCommerce customers. There was a meaningful number of new customers that we picked up.
Our next question comes Seth Sigman with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to follow up on the quarter-to-date performance. The stores have had reopened the positive results that you are seeing. Is it sort of like an initial surge and then the trend steps back down, or have you seen some level of consistency or even an acceleration through this period in those stores that have reopened? And then, sort of unrelated, but the point on team sports that is obviously a risk ahead, there's some uncertainty. Any way for you guys to size up the exposure and what could be the impact from some limitations in the back half of the year? Thanks.
From a com -- from a store standpoint, I would say it’s been consistent. And, we think, as we start to get in some additional products, some fitness products and bike products, and boat products that’s been really very good, good, could accelerate, but it's been pretty consistent. And in the fourth quarter, back half of the year, we’re not going to get into to talking about that. We're not providing any guidance. We'll have to wait and see what happens. I mean, is there a second wave as some of the issues facing the country today, do they continue? So, it's really difficult to get out that far.
Okay. Fair enough. Just to follow-up on the online business. Can you guys give us the percent of online sales that actually touched the store today, whether that's ship from store or pick up, and how that compares to maybe a year ago? Clearly, the model's evolving here. And then, just regarding pickup, any more color on the types of categories that are being picked up, and if it's different than the typical mix? Thanks.
So, again, the meaningful kind of majority of the sales are coming out of our stores, whether it be curbside, or ship from store mix. Fortunately, it's a little bit more skewed towards some of the bigger, bulkier items that are more expensive to ship. And that's kind of favorable from an earnings perspective to do that from the stores.
It continues to increase. It's been more than half for some time that touch the stores in some way, our eCommerce business, and obviously with a surge in curbside that increased.
Our next question today comes from Mike Baker with Nomura. Please go ahead.
Could you talk about, if you think the stimulus helped? And I guess a part of that question would be, any more color on sort of the pace of business through April? We can sort of back into what the last seven and a half weeks comped out. But, I'm sure they weren't consistent across that period. My guess is, like a lot of other retailers, you saw things progress through the end of March and into April, helped by the stimulus or weather or whatever the case may be. But, if you could provide some color on that that would be helpful.
The eCommerce business has been building. And as we have opened stores, obviously, our store sales have been building. Some of that is timed in connection with when these stimulus checks arrived. But, assuming those checks arrived, going on a month ago, and the business continues to be good now. But, stimulus checks probably help. It's hard to measure it. But, we're still encouraged with where the business is now.
Okay. That's helpful. A couple of the follow-ups. You said you're buying off-price right now. Is that product that you think -- can you get that product in the stores this season or does some of that get packed away?
The majority of it will be in the stores this season. We may have some buys that we might pack away to use for next year, but the vast majority of it will be in stores this year.
Okay, interesting. And then, one more sort of follow-up as it relates to inventory. And I don't know if you're prepared to answer this. But, as you're putting in inventory now, and as you said, there is still a lot of uncertainty out there, I mean, how do you think about the risk of building inventory right now? And particularly as we get into back to school and some schools might not be going back in a normal fashion in September, and I could also ask about license apparel. Is there risk there? We don't have college football or world series or those types of things.
We're making the best decisions we can with the information that we've got and we are being -- we're probably being more cautious than we are aggressive. There are certain categories that we think are going to be very good and we're aggressive on. So, as an example, we continue to be very aggressive in the fitness category. We continue to be very aggressive in the bike category. We'll be very aggressive in the athletic footwear category, especially around running. As people coming out of this pandemic are -- I think they're really starting to realize that one of the great ways to be healthy is to be in shape and to be stronger. And we think we're in a great lane to help service that consumer who's looking to do that. So, we're going to be very aggressive in some areas.
From a license standpoint, around college football and some of the pro sports, depending on how things play out, we're not nearly as aggressive. So, we're trying to make the right decisions based on the information we have. And like I said, some places we're being aggressive and other places we're pulling back.
Thanks. Makes perfect sense. Fingers crossed for a return to some of the sports, particularly college football, in my opinion. Thanks.
And our next question today comes from Scot Ciccarelli with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Another store footprint question, and I think we all understand you can’t have curbside pickup without your stores. But, does the growth in eCom and curbside potentially push you to reevaluate the specific role of each of your stores? In other words, do they all have to be same sized, same configuration et cetera that they are today?
We don't see any change in what we're looking at from a store standpoint. We talked most recently about how we are trying to reduce space allocation, how we're trying to continue to focus on the team sport athlete, and although that team sport athlete, that baseball player, football player, soccer player may be constrained right now. That's not going to be in perpetuity. They'll be back. And if it's not this fall or next spring, they will be back. So, we think that's an important part of our business. As we continue to make changes to our footwear department and broaden the products that we carry in footwear or what we're doing in athletic apparel or in our women's business. And right now, our largest -- our second and third largest brands in women's athletic apparel are CALIA and the new DSG brand. So, we don't think that there's a big change. And one of the things with curbside, we need to have the product to make -- people want curbside, they want to pick it up that day. And in order to have the inventory available to them, we need to have these stores. So, it may not be very popular with people that don't truly understand our business, but we're very comfortable with our store configuration right now.
Got it. And then just to follow up, I just wanted to clarify something I think Lee said. Have sales actually continued to accelerate as we’ve moved further away from the distribution of the stimulus funds? Is that what the inference was like?
The eCommerce, we talked about the eCommerce business in May being up north of 250% -- 210% in the back half of Q1.
Our next question today comes from Peter Benedict with Baird. Please go ahead.
Two questions. First, just on -- can you give us an update on the status of the hunt clearance and exit, did that have any material impact on that product margin number in 1Q? And related to that kind of that outdoor theme that's out there in the marketplace, just any other areas of the store where you're seeing that play out? That's my first question.
So, on the space allocation, we slowed that down right now based on the capital. We cut back on our CapEx budget pretty significantly. So, that's been slowed down a little bit. As far as the outdoor categories, those outdoor categories have continued to be pretty good. We continue to comp positively in those areas.
Okay. And just pivoting over to SG&A. Just a follow-up on those, two questions. One, I mean, as we think about SG&A was down 17% in the first quarter year-over-year, sounds like you're adding back store employees, you're bringing back some marketing, how should we think about SG&A in the second quarter as you sit here today? Would you still expect it to be down year-over-year? And then, that $34 million of COVID expense that kind of hit SG&A in the first quarter, call it a $20 million to $23 million monthly run rate. Does that just continue through 2Q and in the back half of the year or are there parts of that that start to start to come off? Thanks.
I mean, there are parts of that that come off because we're not paying people who aren't working anymore. And just we had three weeks of paying people that weren't working. So, that piece comes off, at least in the stores. And we're returning people from furlough. But, as I said earlier, we are going to have increased expenses associated with running the stores because we’d largely have to bring back pretty much most if not all of our store associates because the sales trends have been pretty solid there. And we have extra expenses for the hourly workers of 15% and
extra hours we've got in the stores to do regular cleaning as well. So, we will continue to have some savings from people that are -- folks that are still furloughed at this point. We'll have some savings from lower expenses in May and we're not aggressively hiring back open positions right now. So, we’ll have some savings associated with that. But, we're going to have some extra cost too.
Our question today comes from Tom Nikic of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
I wanted to ask, over the last couple of years, you've made a lot of investments in the in-store experience, batting cages, the elevated in-store service levels, with new requirements around safety, social distancing, et cetera. Does that create any sort of impediments to some of those experiences that you've worked to add to the store?
Yes. So, when we first closed the stores and right prior to that, we pretty much shut down all of those experiential elements in the store. Be it the batting cages or the golf simulators. But, we have now been working very hard over the last several weeks to figure out ways to continue those experiences in a safe manner. We've turned back on golf fittings, which we are able to do it in a way that we believe is very safe for both, our teammates and our athletes, and same with the baseball simulator. So, we actually have adapted fairly well, and there seems to be consumer demand to keep those experiences going.
And Lee, a question for you. Obviously to shore up some of the liquidity, you did the comparable debt raise and you also borrowed quite a bit on the revolver. Is there a way we should think about the pace of sort of maybe paying down that revolving debt? If there's like a certain milestone you want to reach before you start paying down that debt or anything like that, but just from a balance sheet leverage perspective, any help would be appreciated?
Yes. We're in the process of paying down that resolver debt. As we go through, I think the worst of our concern or many concerns around the liquidity crisis that could have possibly occurred from mid-March through mid-April seem to be behind us. Our business is coming back; our relationships with our banks are really good. So, we're in the process of bringing that down.
Got it. All right. Well, thanks very much and best of luck for rest of the year.
Our next question today comes from Jim Duffy with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my questions. On curbside pickup, what do trends show you with respect to consumers, patience for inventory to be delivered to the store? Is conversion much higher if the inventory is lit up as immediately available in store, versus available in a few days or a week?
Yes. Right now, the availability that we're presenting is availability that is available in store.
Immediately.
I'm sorry. Immediately, yes, that's available to pick up immediately. So, the patience has not been a factor. We actually think that's upside what we can actually have what we would call, a delayed buy online pickup in store experience. But, we are -- that is something we're working on right now. And just as patience for the entire quarter or the profit, the whole thing has been taking on average, less than 30 minutes and usually closer to 15 minutes to fulfill. So, patience is important, but I think we're over-delivering.
That's great. And then, question, as relates to the second half of the year, a lot of enthusiasm around reopening right now, speaking with the vendors, most have been conservative with respect to planned inventory receipts for seasonal categories in the second half. We don't know what back-to-school is going to mean, but it will get cold and there will be a Christmas. Are you concerned that you may not have enough inventory for holidays? Is that part of the thought process at this juncture?
I think, we're concerned, if we'll have enough of the right inventory. We'll then have to kind of go to some second choices and move some market share. But, right now, we feel pretty confident we're in a pretty good shape. There's some categories and some vendors we'd like to have some additional inventory from that we're moving market share to and we'll see how that goes. But right now, we feel pretty good.
Thank you. Best of luck.
Thank you.
And Ladies and gentlemen, we have time for one final question. And today's final question comes from Joe Feldman from Telsey Advisory Group. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask a bit more about the consumer? I know, it was asked before about the stimulus checks. But, what are you seeing from the consumer? I mean, obviously it seems like there's an appetite for certain parts of the Sporting Goods, but are you seeing any differences, like, is there a trade down within categories, are people shifting upwards or anything that would give you any insight into how the consumers is feeling? Is it just really that once we're past COVID-19, things will start to free up and get better?
I don't think we see anything meaningfully different from trading up or trading down. Some categories, the average unit retail is actually going up, such as footwear, but that's really got a fair amount to do with the mix that we have. And there's mix differences. As we said, we think the fitness business, the boat business, the bike business, anything that has to do with the outdoors is really -- continues to do extremely well. And we think that will continue going forward.
And then, actually that was a good segue there, Ed. With regard to the footwear category itself, you've mentioned running a couple of times, is that really what's driving it right now, or how's versus basketball or versus style? I know you guys have made a little more investment on that front. Just any color on that would be helpful.
Yes. I mean, the lifestyle business continues to do extremely well. And so, we continue to be enthusiastic about that. But, we continue to be really enthusiastic about the running category because as people -- as it started to open up and people are getting out, and even a little bit before that when people could get out and social distance, they were out running, they were out walking, they were out walking and running, and that silhouette we think is going to continue to be very good for people trying to get out and get out in the fresh air, get in a little bit better shape of either walking or running. And we don't think that that's going to change anytime soon.
That's great. Thank you, guys.
We’re in a great position to take advantage of that.
Makes sense. Yes. I know that footwear deck looks a lot better and it’s great. Good luck with the quarter, guys. Thank you.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Ed Stack for any final remarks.
I'd like to thank everyone for their interest in DICK’S Sporting Goods, and we'll look forward to seeing everybody on our next conference call. Thank you. Be safe.
Thank you, sir. Today’s conference has now concluded. You may now disconnect your lines. And have a wonderful day.