About Steven Lawrence
In September 2023, Steve Lawrence, CEO of Academy Sports + Outdoors, discussed consumer spending trends and the company's growth plans. Lawrence stated that the company announced a new long-range plan in early April with three pillars: opening 120 to 130 new stores over five years, expanding its e-commerce business from 10% to 15% or higher penetration, and increasing productivity in existing stores. He expressed confidence in the company's plans and said the company is not focused on which competitors it takes market share from, citing its value proposition and operating model.
Lawrence described a "bifurcation" in customer behavior in the first quarter of 2023, with customers gravitating toward value and toward newness, such as recently launched brands like Birkenstocks, Blackstone, and Yeti. He added that customers are not paying more for the same items, noting that supply chain pressures pushing prices up have not been accepted by consumers.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Steven Lawrence's recent appearances.
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Transcript (10 segments)
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Interviewer0:01
A week ago, Steve Lawrence, CEO of Academy Sports. Nice to meet you and have you here.
S
Steven Lawrence0:08
Nice to meet you virtually too.
I
Interviewer0:10
We enjoyed speaking with Ken. I'm curious about the timing. He told us the good stuff happening, and now you have to come in and tell us the stuff that's weakening somewhat.
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Steven Lawrence0:20
I'll point that out to him. It's been an honor working with Ken the past four and a half years. A legend in the industry, and I have big shoes to follow.
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Interviewer0:29
People took notice of the stock after they said you should check out what's happening with Academy Sports. Having him on, he was able to highlight the business model, the growth, but a lot of that was hyper-fueled by the pandemic. And what happens now?
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Steven Lawrence0:43
You know, we just announced back in early April a new long-range plan that has three pillars to it. First, new store growth, opening 120 to 130 stores over the next five years. A lot of it is new markets. We think there's opportunity to expand the store base in new markets and states. We think there's a lot of growth in our dot-com business, about 10% penetration. We think we can get to 15% or higher. And then increase our productivity in our existing store base. So we're looking at that, making sure the existing stores we have are productive and profitable. So we're very confident in our plans to move forward.
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Interviewer1:30
Who are you taking shares from? A Dick's? A Walmart?
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Steven Lawrence1:35
I think it depends on who the competitive market set is. We're not as focused on who we take it from. We know the value proposition we offer, the strong operating model we have translates to new geographies. We just know the share we're going to pick up.
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Interviewer1:56
I remember one time it was bicycles, jerseys were a hot seller. And lately we've had to float the question a little bit and say, what are the weak spots you're noticing? Where do you see the consumer behaving differently in 2023 than in 2022?
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Steven Lawrence2:14
We saw a bifurcation in the customer in the first quarter. On one end, the customer is gravitating towards value, any place they can stretch dollars. That's working. And the other thing is newness. If we have a brand in our store less than a year, we launched Birkenstocks, Blackstone, or Yeti with new colors, that's worked well for us. On the flip side, customers aren't paying more for the same. So in some cases, some supply chain pressures out there pushing prices up, customers aren't paying more for the same.
