Operator
Operator
Good day, and welcome to Dollar Tree, Inc.'s Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Tim Reid. Please go ahead, sir.
Dollar Tree, Inc. (DLTR)
Q2 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 22, 2013
$97.86
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+0.30%
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+9.43%
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+7.34%
Operator
Operator
Good day, and welcome to Dollar Tree, Inc.'s Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Tim Reid. Please go ahead, sir.
Timothy Reid
Operator
Thank you, Aaron. Good morning, and welcome to the Dollar Tree conference call for the second quarter of fiscal 2013. Our call today will be led by Bob Sasser, our Chief Executive Officer, who will provide insights on our performance in the quarter and recent developments in our business. Kevin Wampler, our Chief Financial Officer, will provide a more detailed review of our second quarter financial performance and will provide guidance for the remainder of 2013. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that various remarks that we will make about future expectations, plans and prospects for the company constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the Safe Harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors included in our most recent press release, our most recent current report on Form 8-K, quarterly report on Form 10-Q and annual report on Form 10-K, all of which are on file with the SEC. We have no obligation to update our forward-looking statements, and you should not expect us to do so. [Operator Instructions] Now I'd like to turn the call over to Bob Sasser, CEO of Dollar Tree. Bob?
Bob Sasser
Analyst
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. This morning, we announced our sales and earnings for the second quarter of 2013. Comp store sales increased 3.7%. This was on top of a 4.5% comp increase in the second quarter last year, and it was driven principally by a 3.1% increase in traffic and a 60 basis points increase in average ticket. Total sales for the quarter grew 8.8% to $1.85 billion. Earnings for the second quarter were $0.56 per diluted share. This represents a 9.8% increase over last year's $0.51 per share. Operating income was $201.3 million, an increase of $16.9 million or 9.2% over last year. Operating margin for the quarter was 10.9%, an increase of 10 basis points over the second quarter last year. This was our highest second quarter operating margin ever as a public company. And net income rose 4.6% to $124.7 million. For the first half of 2013 compared with last year, total sales were $3.72 billion, an increase of 8.5% compared with last year. Comp store sales increased 2.8% for the half. Earnings per share were $1.15, an increase of 13.9% compared with $1.01 per share in the first half last year. Operating income increased by $45.4 million. Operating margin increased 30 basis points to 11.2%, another first half record. And net income rose 9.7% to $258.2 million. I'm pleased with our performance in the second quarter. Both top line sales and earnings were near the upper end of guidance, and comp store sales, momentum is building. Most importantly, we provided value to our customers and brought a record level of second quarter earnings to the bottom line. We believe that our model is right for all times. In our current economy, with customers facing stubbornly high unemployment, unpredictable fuel prices and…
Kevin S. Wampler
Analyst
Thanks, Bob. As Bob mentioned, our diluted earnings per share increased 9.8% in the second quarter to $0.56. The increase resulted from our sales growth and a 10-basis-point improvement in operating profit margin compared to the second quarter last year. Starting with gross profit, our gross profit margin was 35% during the second quarter compared with 35.2% reported in the second quarter last year. Several factors contributed to this performance. Distribution expenses increased 20 basis points, reflecting the incremental expense associated with the ramp up of our new DC in Windsor, Connecticut and maintaining a high level of service to stores as we realigned DCs consistent with our added capacity. In addition, shrink expense increased by 15 basis points, while it remained below 2% of sales. These factors were partially offset by higher initial markup across many categories, reflecting continued improvements in sourcing and the flexibility of our merchandise model. Discretionary product grew by 35 basis points as a percent of our total sales compared with the second quarter last year. SG&A expenses were 24.1% of sales for the quarter, a 30-basis-point improvement from the second quarter last year. Operating expenses declined by about 20 basis points, due principally to reduced expenses for inventory services, insurance and utilities, which offset increases in legal fees and store supplies. Payroll-related expenses declined by 10 basis points, as leverage on field management payroll and lower expenses for retirement plan contributions offset increases in workers' compensation and health insurance benefit expenses relative to the second quarter last year. Operating income increased $16.9 million compared to the second quarter last year, and operating margin was 10.9%, an improvement of 10 basis points on top of the very strong 10.8% operating margin in the second quarter last year. The tax rate for the quarter was 37.9%…
Bob Sasser
Analyst
Thanks, Kevin. Once again, I'm very pleased with our performance so far this year and I'm excited about our future. First half sales grew 8.5% to a record $3.72 billion, and comp store sales increased 2.8% on top of a 5.1% comp last year, driven by a combination of increased customer traffic and higher average ticket. Our operating margin increased by 30 basis points to 11.2%, the highest first half operating margin in our history. Net income grew 9.7% to $258.2 million, and earnings per share increased by 13.9% to $1.15. We're continuing to grow. We opened 175 new stores across the U.S. and Canada. And so far, the productivity of new store class is very strong. We expanded frozen and refrigerated product to 444 stores, more than any previous year. Dollar Tree has a solid and scalable infrastructure that we're expanding to support sustainable, profitable growth in the years ahead. We opened our new distribution center in Windsor, Connecticut, ahead of schedule and under budget, and we're on schedule and on budget with the expansion of our Marietta, Oklahoma DC. Looking forward, I believe that we're positioned to do even better in the future. Our business model is powerful and flexible. It's been tested by time and validated with the company's 27-year history. The Deal$ brand is gaining traction. Dollar Tree Direct continues to broaden its reach, and we're expanding our Canadian business according to plan. We continue to manage our capital for the benefit of long-term shareholders. Over the past 4 quarters, we have invested $367 million for share repurchases, including $112 million in the first half of this year. It's an exciting time at Dollar Tree. We had a great first half. As we enter the third quarter, our shelves are full of the right product, our stock rooms are in great shape and our merchandise values have never been higher. We will now address your questions. [Operator Instructions]
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And we'll go first to Stephen Grambling with Goldman Sachs.
Stephen W. Grambling - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Analyst
Given the aggressive cooler rollout, I thought it was interesting that the discretionary continues to outperform consumables. Can you maybe talk about the cadence of comps in discretionary and consumables as the quarter progressed? And then maybe as a follow-up, any initial thoughts on the back-to-school season so far?
Bob Sasser
Analyst
We don't break any of that out separately and I can't really comment on the back-to-school season. But I'm going to try to give you some color, the comps were consistent throughout the quarter. June was the highest comp in the quarter. I believe our variety business comped consistently higher than the consumer business throughout the quarter. That's a result of plans. Stephen, we're a variety store, we've always been a variety store. We service slightly higher demographic than others in our sector, $40,000 and up versus $40,000 and down. So we've always had a discretionary portion to our mix that we aspire to. One of the reasons we're amongst the highest in margins in our sector is because of our variety mix. It's a balanced mix. It's about 50-50. Sometimes it's 51-49, sometimes it varies a little bit. But it's typically a balanced mix. Our consumable business has grown a lot faster over the past several years for a couple of reasons. One is the rollout of the cooler program. We went from basically 0 to a lot of coolers, a whole brand-new business during that timeframe. We added and expanded a lot of the consumer product categories over the past -- almost all of them over the past 10 years and certainly a lot of them over the past 5 years. So those are newer businesses to us. But again, we're always striving to strike that balance, not only because it's what we are, it's what we do, it adds excitement in our stores with the seasonal product and the variety mix, and it also contributes a lot of margins. So we're very happy with the balance as it is. I would expect going forward, you will see some bouncing back and forth as we continue to drive sales and serve our customers in these difficult times. And you'll see a little bounce back and forth. But all in all, when you look at the big picture, it's somewhere in the 51-49 or 50-50 range.
Stephen W. Grambling - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Analyst
Okay, that's helpful. I guess one quick follow-up, just on the gross margin line and on the distribution cost in particular. Are there still costs that you'll have to incur in the second -- or into the back half of the year? Maybe any color you can give in terms of how gross margin is playing in the guidance.
Bob Sasser
Analyst
Well, our distribution cost, Stephen, I will just share with you, that I would expect the pressure to continue a little bit through the third quarter on distribution cost. I would expect it to mitigate somewhat in the fourth quarter, that's just my -- our feelings right now. We opened DC10 earlier, which is a good thing. We're proud, we opened it earlier and ahead of budget. But we did bring all those costs online earlier than anticipated. And the other thing is with our distribution, we run a very high level of service all the way up until the time we bring on a new distribution center. We don't sacrifice service to our stores or in-stock in our stores or any of that in anticipation of bringing a new DC online. So what that does is we have DCs running, servicing our stores at a high level and then we bring a new DC online. We bring the cost up on that, but we haven't really brought down some of the costs in the existing DCs where we're realigning now. So it's not just bringing a new DC on the ground, it's been the realignment of the entire network as it now shakes out with different service areas for different DCs. So that's what you've seen. This is the first brand new DC we've done probably in 5 years, I'm estimating, I can get the facts. But the others have been replacements over the past several years. This is the first brand new one that we've opened in some time. And it's not -- it's something we expected. But again, we weren't willing to give up service level to our stores in order to improve the distribution costs.
Operator
Operator
We'll go next to Scot Ciccarelli with RBC Capital Markets.
Scot Ciccarelli - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division
Analyst
This is a little bit a broader picture, I guess. We have seen some shaky results from some other retailers, and yet, your traffic was up pretty nicely in the quarter. When you kind of think about what happened to you guys in the back half of last year, how do you think about how 2-year stack should kind of flow through? Is there any reason that you can identify at this point that 2-year stack comps should start to flow in the back half?
Bob Sasser
Analyst
We certainly are in the third quarter against our easiest comparison. I hesitate when I say easy in this environment, but our easiest comparison to last year is in the third quarter. So our expectation is that we're going to continue to grow our top line. We're going to continue to grow our comps. I haven't really looked at and don't have the stacks in front of me right at this minute for the rest of the year. But we are excited about our third quarter business. And the comparisons are much easier than they've been in some time.
Scot Ciccarelli - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division
Analyst
Got it. Okay. And then, can you just comment on cadence of new store openings? Was it pretty much normal pace or was there anything back-end loaded? The new store productivity, you commented it was good but might be a little bit lower than, I think, we've been modeling.
Bob Sasser
Analyst
Yes. And I think there have been a few changes and the jury is still out. And I get to see the granularity and, of course, we don't report the granularity and that's where my statement's coming from. But we did -- in the first half, we opened a few less stores than we did in the first half last year. Opened 175 new stores, I believe that's 12 less than we opened in the first half last year. But we also opened 25 new stores in January this year, which are really in last year's numbers. But ordinarily, this is the first time we've opened stores in January. We used to stop before the holidays and pick up with new store openings in first period, February. This year, we were able to accelerate our plan to get stores opened quicker, and instead of holding on to them, we just opened them up. So there was another 25 stores. If you added those into the first half, I think you'll find that we're actually ahead of the game. The real question though is for the rest of the year, we -- as I look at the rest of the year, we're on target and on plan to open all of the stores that we guided to. We opened a few less in the first half than last year, and we opened a little bit later in the first half than last year. One other thing I just want to point out to you, on the productivity, there's a pretty good range now between stores that we open up, productivity in our urban markets, our more densely populated markets and in our suburban and rural markets. So when you're looking at a small number, midyear, sort of a snapshot of 175 stores with others on the way, it really -- a few stores can make a big difference if you open -- and product -- sales productivity, if you open them up, a few more urban stores in the mix versus a few less suburban stores, that makes a big difference. If you do it the other way, that makes a big difference. As I look at where we are, I'm very comfortable with and happy with our productivity, so far this year. And I expect us to end up with another great year in sales productivity in our new stores.
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] We'll go next to Morry Brown with CL King. Morry Brown - CL King & Associates, Inc., Research Division: You called out the impulse items at the checkout as a top-performing category in the quarter. Can you give us a few more details around the performance of these items?
Bob Sasser
Analyst
I can share with you the -- what we've done over, we've lowered the profile on the front of our stores. We've re-merchandised the entire front, the checkout stands, the aisles in front of the checkouts, the front end caps in front of the checkouts. From the time you enter the store till the time you leave the store, those checkouts are real focal points. And we've lowered our profile up there for a couple of reasons. Customer service, now our cashiers can better see the customers and our customers can see the cashiers. It's cleaner, it's a more -- it's less cluttered-looking with a lower profile. And we completely changed the mix. We've got a whole lot of new items on our checkout stands, all aimed at that impulse, that last-minute sale that we can get from the customer. The things in the aisle in front of the checkouts, we've given our customers a little more shopping space there. We have a trend fixture up there that changes and changes and changes. The hottest items, it's the hottest impulse items, it's new, it's trendy. And we're seeing the return from that as being really remarkable. And there's a lot of room to go. I mean, we can do better. But as we talk about the checkout assortment being the highest comp in the third quarter, it certainly has been, and it probably will be for quite some time.
Operator
Operator
We'll take our next question from Matthew Boss with JPMorgan. Matthew R. Boss - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: So with the balance sheet pretty strong and little debt on the books here, can you talk to potential opportunities on the capital allocation front and your current thinking regarding cash priority?
Kevin S. Wampler
Analyst
Sure, Matt. I mean, I think you've heard us talk to this before. Obviously, as we think about cash, our first priority is always the business, growing the business and opening as many stores as we can, good profitable stores. And I think we're doing a good job there. Obviously, it's also building the infrastructure necessary, and we've had some bigger projects here the last year or so, with obviously DC10 at about $95 million, the expansion of Marietta at about $25 million. So those are very important to the overall ability to service our stores and continue to build our network, and for future growth as well. So obviously, that's always our first -- first and foremost in our minds. Obviously, beyond that, historically, the numbers would tell you that since 2004, we've repurchased $2.6 billion worth of stock. And over the last 3 years, it's closer to probably about $1.3 billion, $1.4 billion right now. And so we've looked at it, that's really where our free cash flow has went to at the end of the day. Historically, we've made acquisitions. Most recently, it's Canada. So it's not fair to say never, but there's nothing on the plate at the moment. So as we've said, we look at our capital structure, we talk to our board on a regular basis. And right now, we're very comfortable at where we're at, and we did buy back about -- just about 43.7 million here in the quarter of shares. So I think that's where we've continued to see where we put our cash to work at. Matthew R. Boss - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Great. And then, can you speak to any in-store initiatives to watch for in back-to-school and the second half? And also, Bob, if you can just elaborate on your earlier momentum building comment, I thought that was interesting.
Bob Sasser
Analyst
Well, the 3.7 comp is certainly momentum building for us. The first half, we did a lot of great things in our stores, I call them great. Our stores really worked hard to get all the initiatives done. And they were -- for example, you asked about stationery in the first half, we expanded our stationery department. We started, I guess, in April and did a portion of the stores, and then we finished up a bunch in June, and just in time for back-to-school. So we felt going into back-to-school, we had the best back-to-school assortment ever. And we have the best stationery department ever and expanded the stationery department on top of that. So early in -- or late in the second quarter, we're already getting some good results from our stationery sales. So I'm real proud of what we've been able to do there. Our merchants have done a terrific job of rationalizing the assortment and creating an extreme value in the stationery business. We think it's a real growth department for us. And our stores really did heroic efforts on getting them relayed. And by the way, within payroll budgets. You'll notice our payroll was really good in the second quarter. So they did this in addition to everything else that they do. Other categories, we redid, we finalized our checkout, our front ends. We've expanded our Candy department in the past several months. We continue to improve on our seasonal opportunities. And I used to talk about second quarter as not being much driven by seasons, but now, we've made seasons out of things that weren't really big seasons at one time. You start off and you got May, you got Mother's Day, which has always been good, now with our cards and our balloons,…
Operator
Operator
We'll take our next question from Peter Keith with Piper Jaffrey.
Peter J. Keith - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division
Analyst · Piper Jaffrey.
Just a follow-up on earlier question regarding the gross margin trends, that we've seen shrink kind of creep up here as a modest headwind the last 2 quarters. I guess kind of a 2-part question, should we expect that to continue through the rest of the year? And then also related on the gross margin, with the new DCs, would you then expect maybe some distribution expense leverage as we get into next year?
Kevin S. Wampler
Analyst · Piper Jaffrey.
So in regards to shrink, we have seen it creep up a little bit this year. And we're coming off of 3 years where it was basically at historical lows. So we've had some really great results. And it's edged up a little bit, and we're really -- we're basically 90% of the way through our inventory this year. So it's pretty much going to be where it's going to be, it kind of settled in. Again, it's still well below 2% at retail, which we think is a barometer that is important at the end of the day. So obviously, we're addressing it. There's various things that we think we can do internally to look at it and create some more focus around it and hopefully drive it back down to where it needs to go going into the next year. In regards to the gross margin and as it relates to the DCs, I think as Bob said, I think we expect within our guidance, there's costs associated with it going through the third quarter, as we continue to work through the changes in the network that it creates when you create capacity and you realign your stores within your distribution network. So that's built in, and we expect it to get a little bit better probably in the fourth quarter. But it does potentially create some opportunity for next year.
Peter J. Keith - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division
Analyst · Piper Jaffrey.
Okay, very good. And then I just had one quick follow-up. With the large amount of coolers you've done so far this year in 444 stores, could you give us a breakdown on what percentage of those are in existing stores and what percent is in the new stores?
Kevin S. Wampler
Analyst · Piper Jaffrey.
Yes, we traditionally have already spoken to that at year end. So we haven't broken that out at this point in time. But I would tell you, in general, given the larger number, more of them are going into existing stores than new stores.
Operator
Operator
We'll go next to Dan Binder with Jefferies.
Daniel T. Binder - Jefferies LLC, Research Division
Analyst
I was wondering if you can discuss 2 topics. One, if the 6 fewer days that you -- that were all there in the fourth quarter between Thanksgiving and Christmas impacts the comp or were you just talking about the impact on total sales? And then secondly, if you could speak to the markdown performance in the quarter.
Kevin S. Wampler
Analyst
Sure. As we look at the fourth quarter and the $25 million headwinds -- headwind that we've referred to, there is some comp effect at the end of the day. The bottom line is with 6 less days, there's just certain -- there's a certain amount of -- people will run out of time before they realize it. And they just won't come to the stores in those days. They'll figure out that they'll make it by without maybe picking up that last item. So there is a little bit of effect, but that's obviously factored into our guidance. With regards to markdowns, markdowns remain very, very good. We have -- at a dollar price point, we really have minimal markdowns. I think we've been able to control those. From time-to-time, we will have some seasonal candies or something like that after we come through a season that you'll see at the front of our store markdown. But by and large, they're fairly minimal and really very immaterial to the gross margin overall.
Daniel T. Binder - Jefferies LLC, Research Division
Analyst
If I could follow-up on the calendar shifts, in the quarter you just reported, the comps came in a bit better than expected, but the total sales were slightly below the high end of the guidance. Was there any kind of effect from the quarter ending later than last year as you got further into back-to-school?
Kevin S. Wampler
Analyst
I don't believe so, realistically, I don't believe there was an effect from that for the quarter.
Operator
Operator
We'll go next to Dan Wewer with Raymond James. Daniel R. Wewer - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: A question on inventories, up 6.7% per store. I understand the reasons you explained for the growth. But regardless, inventories are growing at a faster rate than either revenues or gross profit dollars. When do you envision that reversing itself, is it when we annualize the opening of the Connecticut distribution center?
Kevin S. Wampler
Analyst
Dan, if you remember when we reported Q1, we were actually up. Inventory -- total inventories were up 15.4%, and we're up 7.9% on a selling square foot basis. So it's obviously come down and the expectation is that it will continue to come down as we go through the year. So I would expect we'll be a little bit better-shaped at the end of Q3 and then, again, a little bit better at the end of the year. So that's how we view that at this point. Daniel R. Wewer - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: And do you think that's the primary reason for the higher shrink, just the fact that you have 7% more inventory in the store and therefore, just a bigger opportunity for our inventory to disappear?
Kevin S. Wampler
Analyst
Realistically, the increase is not all in the store at the end of the day. Part of it is in the supply chain, i.e. they're in the distribution centers a little bit or on the water coming to us. So the increase in the actual stores are something less than that 7 -- or excuse me, 6.7. So while there's a little bit more inventory, I don't think that's a major factor at the end of the day. Daniel R. Wewer - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: And Bob, one question for you regarding Deal$. When you acquired Dollar Giant, you're very quick to identify 1,000 store opportunities in Canada. You've been very clear about the 7,000 store potential for the Dollar Tree brand domestically. You're, obviously, very upbeat about Deal$, but curious as to why it's difficult to determine what's the potential rollout for Deal$? And when do you think you might have enough data to be able to give us an idea of how big that could be?
Bob Sasser
Analyst
Yes, good question. It's a little different in the U.S. than it is in Canada. We bought Dollar Giant, and we don't have another chain up there. All we have is Dollar Giant in the country of Canada. And we have made plans, we looked at the markets, we looked at how many stores per customer that was already in Canada and how many more we thought we could do and we did an analysis, and we came up with the 1,000 store. And in the U.S., we got Dollar Tree, and Dollar Tree and Deal$. At a point in time, my vision is, at a point in time, that Dollar Tree will continue to grow, but maybe Deal$ will be growing at a faster pace at some point in time. Right now, they're both competing for the same capital. They're competing for real estate, they're competing for all the resources that you put behind with the Dollar Tree brand. And frankly, the best return on the dollar is a new Dollar Tree store anywhere, so -- whether it's Deal$ or anybody else out there. So we're still growing Dollar Tree really fast, and we're still growing it very profitably, and we've got a lot of room to grow, and we're bringing Deal$ along. We still have opportunities to build the brand in Deal$. When we go into a market, not everybody really knows what a Deal$ is and they know what a Dollar Tree is, so we've got to do some things around branding. And the margin and the return, while profitable, is still not as good as a Dollar Tree at this point. At some point, it's going to be a push, frankly. But right now, that's the reason I haven't chosen to quantify what I see as the long-term potential of the Deal$ stores in terms of number, and that's my reason.
Operator
Operator
We'll go next to John Zolidis with Buckingham Research.
John Zolidis - The Buckingham Research Group Incorporated
Analyst
Question about the ticket increase in the quarter, 60 bps. It's a little bit lower than what it was the last 2 quarters when it benefit. And it should have been benefiting, I believe, the MasterCard rollout, which you don't anniversary until, I believe, the third quarter. So I was wondering if you could talk about the penetration of credit during the quarter, whether that slowed, and if there's anything else going on that's affecting the size of the ticket.
Kevin S. Wampler
Analyst
Sure, John. The penetration of debit and credit grew by 170 basis points year-over-year for the second quarter. And the majority of that was in the credit, not the debit side of the house. So today, roughly 40% of our transactions are either debit or credit. Again, about 2/3 or just a little less than 2/3 are debit, with the remaining being credit. So we are continuing to see an increase in penetration there. You're right, the MasterCard rollout where we really saw the effect was Q4 last year. So we are seeing some benefit from that. I would tell you just in general that the average ticket for a debit and credit transaction is coming down. And I think that's just a function of the fact that as a bigger portion of all transactions are debit and credit, on average, they're going to come down. So -- and I think that's just the trend, with retail in general, same with the increase of debit cards. And so there's no real surprise there, I guess, but it is just a little bit of a change in fact. So overall, I think we feel pretty good about our overall ticket growth in the sense that it continues to grow, we continue to focus on things where we can drive tickets such as the front end and checkout and impulse, as well as just doing a great job of merchandising our stores. So that's kind of the story of the ticket right now.
Operator
Operator
We'll go next to Matt Nemer with Wells Fargo Securities.
Matthew R. Nemer - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division
Analyst
So I wanted to touch on the coolers for a minute, if you could talk to the productivity of this year's class of coolers versus prior years. And then do you have any early view into how many coolers and freezers you plan to roll out next year?
Kevin S. Wampler
Analyst
Well, with regards to next year, obviously, we haven't given any numbers on that. So really we won't do that until the beginning of next year, realistically. But this year's class is -- some of them are going into maybe little smaller stores than where we've had, than we've put them in the past. So we've got some traction there. I think in general, we don't see the productivity as being any different than what we've spoke to in the past. And what that has been is what we've said traditionally a 5% to 10% comp lift, and that's across the whole stores, not just in the consumables side of the business. We also see a comp lift on the discretionary side when we add freezers and coolers. So it's an important aspect to the overall store business. And we continue to like them. It obviously drives traffic into the stores, more frequent trips. A little bit lower margin, but at the end of the day, with the overall comp increasing in the store, we like what it does to the overall P&L.
Matthew R. Nemer - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division
Analyst
And then just in terms of other store productivity initiatives, I just want to clarify that the stationery, checkout and party expansions are fully rolled out at this point and whether you -- can you give us any sense for what might be next in the back half of this year or maybe next year in terms of category changes or expansions?
Bob Sasser
Analyst
Well, it never really ends, does it? We rolled out expanded stationery department, more SKUs, more square footage. As we go through and analyze our results over the months and quarters, we'll see productivity issues and we'll identify the categories that continue to grow, and those are going to continue to get more. You may end up with another expansion in stationery in the next year, depending on how we do with this one, the same thing with our party. And also in our Food, in our Candy, in our snacks, in our salty snacks and beverage and that side of the business. So it's really a function of how the customer is responding, what are the customers asking for, how they're responding to a category, whether we're over-spaced or under-spaced, or under-SKUed or over SKUed, and we continue to make those adjustments throughout the year. So this year, first quarter, first half, it was the checkouts, it was the front end, it was stationery, it was candy, it was party. There's always a few others, too, by the way, that we do in our home areas. It may not be the whole department, but could be subcategories that we expand or contract, always searching for that sweet spot for the customer today and staying relevant to the customer today. So for the past several years, we had expanded our consumer products, our cleaning supplies, our HBC, our food, candy and snacks faster, reducing some space in the variety area. This year, we've chosen to expand some of the variety categories, and we're seeing some good results in that. So I guess I'm just saying, it just never ends. It's always an ongoing analysis of the business and analysis of the customer, listening to the customer, what do they want, giving them more of what they want to buy.
Operator
Operator
This does conclude the question-and-answer portion of our call. I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Tim Reid for any additional or closing remarks.
Timothy Reid
Operator
Well, thank you, Aaron. And as always, we thank you for your participation on this call, for your interest in the company and, most of all, for your investment in Dollar Tree. I'll remind you that our next sales and earnings increase and conference call are scheduled for Thursday, November 21, 2013. Thank you all again.
Operator
Operator
This concludes today's conference. We thank you for your participation.