We ask that all participants limit themselves to one question and return to the queue for additional questions. Please note that the queue for our question and answer session did not open until the start of this call. Please be advised that reproduction of this call in whole or in part is not permitted without written authorization of Tractor Supply Company And as a reminder, this call is being recorded I would now like to introduce your host for today's call, Mary Winn Pilkington, Senior Vice President of Investor and Public Relations for Tractor Supply Company Mary Winn, please go ahead

Thank you, Tamia. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate your time and participation in today's call. On the call today, participating in our prepared remarks are Hal Lawton, our Chief Executive Officer, and Kurt Barton, our Chief Financial Officer. We will also have Seth Estep, EVP and Chief Merchant, John Ordus, EVP and Chief Stores Officer, and Craig Ledbetter, our SVP and Chief Supply Chain Officer. Join the call for the question and answer portion. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the floor for questions. Now let me reference the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This call may contain certain forward-looking statements that are subject to significant risk and uncertainties, including the future operating and financial performance of the company. In many cases, these risks and uncertainties are beyond our control. Although the company believes the expectations reflected in its forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations or any of its forward-looking statements will prove to be correct and actual results may differ materially from expectations. Important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements are included at the end of the press release issued today and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Thank you for joining us. If you have additional questions, please feel free to rejoin the queue. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation. We will also be available after the call for any further discussions. Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Hal.

Thank you, Mary Winn, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. The third quarter marked a step forward for tractor supply. We're encouraged by the improving sales momentum and broader strength across our business. While there is more work ahead, we believe our actions are gaining traction. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for joining us. Let me start with a few highlights from the quarter. Net sales increased 5.1% to $3.91 billion, driven by new store openings, VIP pet care and comp sales growth. Comps increased 0.4% on top of 3.9% growth in the third quarter a year ago, reflecting a 0.7% increase in average ticket and a 0.3% decline in transactions. Transactions were cycling 2.7% growth last year, resulting in one of our strongest two-year stacks of the past five years. Deluded EPS was 43 cents. Of note, sales trends and transactions strengthened as the quarter progressed. Monthly comps improved from a decline of less than 1% in July to modest growth in August to solid growth in September. That stronger finish included positive performance across a broader set of merchandising divisions and regions. Our consumable, usable, and edible categories continued to outperform the chain with strong momentum in September. We saw strength in wildlife supplies, equine and livestock, truck tool and hardware, and seasonal products. Digital also grew at a double-digit rate. These gains were partially offset by softness in big-ticket and companion animal, although companion animal trends improved sequentially by a quarter this year. Turning to our market and customers, the story remains largely consistent with what we shared in the second quarter. Several broader trends continue to pressure the categories we serve. Elevated interest rates and reduced housing mobility are weighing on property improvements and larger projects. Pet ownership headwinds, particularly new pet acquisition, continue to affect demand in certain categories. Across the farm economy, increases in commodity prices and operating costs are influencing purchasing decisions. Customers continue to spend, but remain cautious. In our most recent consumer work, more than 60% said they felt less comfortable making non-essential purchases than six months ago. Inflation, higher fuel costs, and broader uncertainty continue to weigh on household budgets and discretionary spending. Despite these pressures, our core customers remain engaged. Higher spending customers again led quarterly performance, delivering above comp chain growth for the fourth consecutive quarter. And Neighbors Club members represented nearly 82% of third quarter sales, with member comps increasing and retention improving modestly. We're also encouraged by spending trends among younger customers and the performance of our rural stores. Our younger demographic led comparable sales growth across age groups in the third quarter with strength among Gen Z and Millennials. And across our store base, rural locations returned to more positive comp growth and again outperformed the other population density groups. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for joining us. A significant portion of our price investment has been on everyday essentials that matter most to our customers, and we've been focused on approximately 50 everyday essential SKUs that matter most to our customers. And we've seen strong unit growth on these items, reinforcing that our investments are delivering value to customers and strengthening our competitive position. Looking ahead, we remain committed to value and price leadership. Thank you for joining us. Second on pet, pet continues to improve. Companion animal performance remains below our expectations, but the sequential improvement is encouraging. Pet comps improved from approximately negative 4% in Q1 to negative 3% in Q2 to negative 2% in Q3. And including new stores, alley vet, and our VIP pet care acquisition, our total pet business grew 5% in the quarter. Thank you for joining us. We've also successfully integrated Alivet as the prescription platform for VIP pet care post that acquisition. And together these initiatives collectively are strengthening our pet business. Digital Digital continues to be a meaningful source of growth and customer engagement. Customers have always valued the convenience of tractor supply, and increasingly, they're defining that convenience as shopping with us online and taking advantage of our nationwide store network for pickup and delivery. Digital sales increased approximately 16% in the quarter, with growth in both traffic and conversion. And we continue to expand delivery and final mile capabilities, making it easier for customers to shop whenever and however they choose. We see opportunities to improve convenience, increase purchase frequency, and capture a greater share of customer spending. As we move into Q4, we expect continued momentum in sales trends while recognizing that consumers remain cautious. Our team is focused on executing our initiatives and building on the progress we made. Beyond near-term performance, I want to discuss the strategic reassessment we outlined on our second quarter earnings call. As a reminder, we're taking a comprehensive look at our operating model, strategic priorities and capital allocation. While the work continues, I want to share several perspectives and decisions that are already emerging and that we've made. While our end markets, consumer environment and cost structures have changed materially since we introduced our last long-term strategy in December 24, the investments we've made over the past several years have strengthened our business and positioned us for the next phase of growth. And we're building on that foundation to sharpen our priorities and continue to make deliberate choices about how we operate, invest and generate stronger returns. As previously shared, we remain committed to generating operating margin leverage as comparable store sales move above approximately 2%. An important factor in this model is depreciation. Following several years of elevated capital investment, we expect depreciation growth to moderate to the mid-single digit or lower in 2027. Additionally, we're not comfortable operating track supply at an operating margin below 9%. Thank you for joining us. Like much of the retail industry, we are going to need to offset the reinvested tariff refunds and anticipate continued inflationary pressures, particularly with higher diesel and commodity costs. We are working closely with vendors on a broad range of efforts to improve product costs and offset inflation. As an example, renegotiated vendor support agreements are expected to generate more than $50 million in annualized benefits next year. We're also taking actions across pricing, assortment, and supply chain while maintaining compelling customer value and strengthening gross margin dollars. Additionally, we expect to realize STEM mile savings from our new distribution center in Nampa, Idaho next year. On the SG&A side, we're targeting more than $75 million in additional annual reductions over 27 and 28. These savings are incremental to the operating margin leverage we expect as comps move above 2%. This commitment reflects actions already underway, including the completed pet sense closures, adjustments we've made to our benefits programs, and a comprehensive rollout of our store productivity program that has been in pilot for several months. We're also pursuing opportunities to reduce costs across our business, including supply chain operations, corporate efficiency, and the use of technology and process improvements to simplify work. Stronger comps, actions to offset cost pressures, moderating depreciation, and incremental productivity savings provide a path to restoring operating margins above 9% over time. Thank you for joining us. and many more. at the heart of our business is a strong culture grounded in our mission and values. Our team members bring that culture to life every day through legendary service and a genuine understanding of our customers and the out here lifestyle. We recognize that our recent performance has not met our expectations, but we have confidence in our business, our team members and the opportunities ahead. We're taking decisive action intended to improve performance, strengthen our earnings power and unlock the full potential of Tractor Supply. We expect to provide additional detail on our 2027 priorities, guidance, and also our updated long-term financial framework as this work is completed. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kurt to discuss the quarter, our outlook, and the financial implications of the actions underway.

Thank you, Hal, and good morning, everyone. I'll first build on Hal's comments by focusing on the financial performance in the quarter, then how we are managing the current cost environment, and wrap it up with our outlook. Transactions accelerated through the quarter and were generally positive outside of July. Units per transaction posted positive growth in every month and reached their strongest level of the year at quarter end. Our consumable, usable, and edible categories also accelerated month over month. Taken together, these are indications of improvement in our core business. Our focus is on sustaining that improvement and translating it into more consistent comparable sales growth and stronger profitability. Moving down the income statement, gross profit increased 2.6% to $1.42 billion. Gross margin was approximately 36.4%, down about 90 basis points from the prior year. There were several puts and takes within gross margin. The largest pressures were higher transportation costs, both in rising fuel costs and carrier rates, as well as the investments we've made to strengthen our price value position. These were partially offset by tariff-related benefits. Transportation pressures intensified from the second quarter and were greater than we anticipated entering the third quarter. Thank you for joining us. The approximately $100 million full-year tariff refund benefit included recognition and gross margin of about $70 million in Q2, $15 million in Q3, with the remaining $15 million expected in Q4. As we discussed in our last call, we planned to reinvest those dollars somewhat ratably throughout the second, third, and fourth quarters as we provide value to our customers and help offset higher freight costs. As Hal described in his remarks, we are also taking actions across pricing, product costs, and supply chain operations to address these pressures and support gross margin improvement over time. Turning to SG&A, SG&A was approximately $1.12 billion, or 28.6% of sales, compared with 28.1% in the prior year. The increase of 43 basis points primarily reflects fixed cost deleverage, given the level of comparable store sales. It also includes 15 basis points of startup costs associated with our new distribution center. These pressures were partially offset by expense productivity, lower incentive compensation, and benefits from our fee development stores as part of our sale leaseback program. Importantly, we are beginning to see tangible progress from the actions we discussed last quarter. Across the organization, teams are taking a more rigorous approach to spending, labor productivity, and resource allocation. That work is ongoing and we believe there is additional opportunity ahead. Thank you for watching. Turning quickly to the balance sheet, average store inventory increased 4.8% compared to the prior year. The primary drivers were 3.5 points of inflation, inclusive of higher transportation costs, and approximately a point of growth from the load-in of inventory at our new distribution center. We continue to believe our inventory is in good shape and appropriate at this time. Turning now to the fourth quarter and our outlook for the balance of the year. As we enter the fourth quarter, we are reaffirming our 2026 guidance. The sales improvement we saw as we exited the third quarter is a positive sign, and our current planning assumptions contemplate positive comparable sales during the fourth quarter. At the same time, our outlook remains measured and we have considered a variety of scenarios. The fourth quarter is our most weather-sensitive quarter. and there remains uncertainty around the consumer particularly for discretionary and large ticket purchases. That said, we are encouraged by the opportunities our seasonal and holiday offerings present. On gross margin, we expect a more stable year-over-year comparison in the fourth quarter than we experienced in the third quarter. As we discussed in our last call, the prior year comparison becomes less challenging, and supply chain efficiencies from our new distribution center are expected to begin contributing to gross margin. Startup costs will continue to affect SG&A in the fourth quarter as this facility ramps. Thank you for joining us. Our full year adjusted operating margin outlook reflects our year to date performance, the more manageable fourth quarter gross margin comparison based on the rate of decline moderating, and the expense actions underway. Let me spend a moment on operating margin because we know this remains an important question for investors. A year ago, we discussed an operating margin inflection point around the 2% comparable sales range. Our 2027 planning is focused on the actions required to support that performance while absorbing the current cost pressures such as higher fuel freight and commodity costs. At the same time, there are several structural factors working in our favor. We have and expect to continue realizing productivity improvements across our distribution network. Additionally, we are actively engaged to improve the economics of our vendor relationships to further reflect the investments we have made in our customer reach and capabilities. These benefits should help support our growth priorities and offset a portion of the cost of maintaining our value proposition. We are also taking actions across SG&A. The repositioning of PetSense will remove losses from the business. Depreciation growth should moderate as our capital spending normalizes. We have made meaningful progress on a comprehensive store productivity program, and we are taking an even more disciplined approach to where we allocate both capital and operating expenses. Our objective remains straightforward, strengthen comparable sales performance and convert that improvement into stronger earnings growth and returns. Shifting to capital allocation. For 2026, we expect capital expenditures to trend towards the lower end of our range and share repurchases towards the higher end. We now expect net capital expenditures in the range of $675 to $700 million and share repurchases of $425 to $450 million. The net capital expenditures forecast includes expected sale leaseback proceeds in the range of $325 to $350 million. It is important to note that approximately two-thirds of these proceeds represent a recovery of capital expenditures for the construction of new stores, while the remainder relates to existing store sale leaseback proceeds. As Hal discussed, we are continuing the work we began last quarter to sharpen our strategic priorities and capital allocation. Our focus is increasingly on improving the productivity of our existing assets and investing in capabilities that support future growth. We continue to see attractive economics from new stores. That has not changed. As discussed last quarter, we expect to moderate new store openings in 2027 to approximately 85 to 90 stores. This is a capital allocation decision, not a change in our view of the long-term new store opportunity of 3,200 sites. We've also decided to move toward a more flexible seasonal garden center format that requires less capital while capturing the most productive selling periods. In addition, we intend to expand the outdoor recreation and wildlife supplies program to a meaningful number of our stores by the end of next year, building on the strong customer response. More broadly, we are increasing our emphasis on digital, delivery and final mile, pet and existing store productivity, areas where we see opportunities to strengthen our customer proposition, grow sales, and improve returns. Thank you for joining us today. Stepping back, Tractor Supply remains a differentiated business with significant competitive advantages. A loyal and engaged customer base, a productive store network, a low-cost supply chain, and substantial opportunities to grow share of wallet. With that, I'll turn the call back to Hal for a few closing comments.

Thank you, Kurt. Before we open the call for questions, let me leave you with a few final thoughts. We made progress on sales in the third quarter and we're encouraged by the customer response to the actions we're taking. At the same time, we recognize there is more work to do. Our priority is now to build on that momentum in the fourth quarter and drive more consistent performance across the business. We also know that cost pressures remain, and some of those pressures will carry into 2027. And we're not waiting for the environment to improve. We're taking actions now to simplify how we operate, improve productivity, and get more out of the investments we've already made. As we look ahead, our priorities are clear. We need to drive stronger, comparable sales, manage cost of discipline, and focus our capital on the opportunities that generate the best returns. These actions will strengthen the fundamentals of our business and position Tractor Supply for sustainable earnings growth and long-term value creation. As we move into the fourth quarter, our focus remains on being the dependable supplier our customers count on. Whether it's preparing for winter, caring for their animals or maintaining their homes and properties, we have an important and critical role to play in their lives. I remain confident in our business, our strategy and our team's ability to execute. We have a strong foundation, meaningful opportunities ahead of us and a clear focus on the work required to deliver better results. I hope today's discussion gives you a better understanding of the progress we're making, the challenges we're addressing, and the work underway to strengthen Tractor Supply for the long term. I want to thank our team members for their commitment to our customers and communities. That connection remains at the heart of Tractor Supply and is a strength we will continue to build on. With that, let's open the call for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason at all you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, please press star one. The first question comes from Peter Benedict with Baird. You may proceed.

Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Kurt, I think I'll just ask one about gross margin. You said The fourth quarter, you're expecting more stable than 3Q. Is that just down less than the 90 basis points, or do you think it's going to be close to flat on a year-over-year basis? And as we kind of move into next year, I appreciate some of the comments you guys have given around the things you're doing. But I'm kind of curious on how we should be thinking about gross margin next year. We do have to lap some of these tariff refunds. How do we think about the first half of next year? Just any color you can provide in terms of gross margin for next year in total. I know you talked about the $50 million savings, but it would be really helpful just to flesh that out a bit further. Thanks so much.

Peter, good morning. Good morning to everybody as well. I'll do two things. I think to address your questions, I'll bridge third quarter to fourth quarter. And then your second part of your question is a bit about addressing... and some of the key pressures and offsets going into 2027. Very specifically, we do expect our performance and gross margin year of year in Q4 to be better than it was in Q3. While modestly down, and I'd say modestly 10 or 30 basis points down would be our base case assumption, what really plays into that from the key drivers, freight pressures we expect to continue to persist, and the pressure on gross margin similar to Q3. There are easier compares in the fourth quarter than there was in Q3. If you look back, Q3 had one of the strongest gross margin performance of last year, and then we had higher promotions, a number of pressures in Q4 last year, so we're lapping some easier compares. As we've mentioned, we have put in some pricing actions. And so there are negotiations, there's partnerships with our vendors and some pricing actions that are already mitigating some of the pressure in Q4. The last thing in Q4 is we begin to see benefits coming out of the new Nampa DC, and we're roughly expecting about 15 to 20 basis points of benefit from the Nampa DC beginning in Q4. As far as next year, we understand that we've got cost pressures that we've seen in Q3 and Q4. We're lapping about $100 million of tariff refunds. and many more. you're really closing the gap to about 20 basis points and we've said we've got cost negotiations price selected pricing actions in place and we believe that gap is pretty manageable and we've talked about our SG&A cost benefits in this may be an environment that an overall operating margin our SG&A cost benefits are also helping solve the overall operating margin benefit and you know with that I think we've covered the primary drivers for both fourth quarter and the fiscal year, and I appreciate the question.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Chris Horvath with J.P. Morgan. You may proceed.

Thanks and thank you for taking my question. You mentioned a number of times the momentum in the business that you saw build in September and has continued in October. Can you provide more clarity on where you are quarter to date and then in the pretty weather sensitive business, to what extent do you think the weather has been, you know, maybe a helper in September and October and related to the momentum? Did inflation accelerate over the quarter? And is that part of the momentum that you're seeing versus on the unit side? And where do you think momentum, where inflation lands in the fourth quarter of this year? Thanks so much.

Yeah. Hey, Chris, thanks for the question. And thanks for joining us on the call today. As mentioned on the call and your reiteration, the momentum that we saw sequentially improve through the third quarter leading to solid positive comps in September has continued into October. So kind of our run rate for October is very much in line with what our exit and run rate was in September. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. We'll be right back. If you look at, say, year-to-date versus Q3 or first half versus Q3, the entire shift in our comp performance was in comp transactions. So it speaks to our ability in Q3 to get more footsteps in the store and convert those footsteps into sales. Thank you for joining us. As it relates to weather here for Q4, I think it's been kind of neutral-ish so far. I mean, that hurricane came through was really much to nothing, actually left a little rain that impacted the first week. And then it's been, you know, nice, you know, modestly cool these last couple weeks, but really flat kind of from a temperatures perspective versus last year. So I would say our performance again in October has really been more around share gains and the work that we're doing. versus any tailwinds that we're getting from the market. Anyway, thanks so much, Chris, for the question.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Stephen Zacon with Citi. You may proceed.

Great. Good morning. Thanks so much for taking my question. I want to follow up on Chris's question. I guess I was curious for your assessment of how much of some of the initiatives you have in place are getting you back to this sort of solidly positive calm? And then what's missing to kind of see a little bit better growth in the business You know, is it the macro sort of needs to get better from a consumer uncertainty perspective on the discretionary side? As you look to 27, you take sort of a preliminary view. Can some of these initiatives you have in place, you know, continue the business and sort of a solidly positive outcome? And any sort of quantification would be helpful.

Thanks, Stephen, for the question. And back to a little bit of the commentary in the question with Chris. We would assert that the vast majority of the improvement that we saw in the quarter was due to the work and initiatives that the team has been pushing on. and I highlighted some of those in the calls related to our digital business performance where customers are really embracing the improved customer experiences that were from an online perspective as well as the continued rollout of our final mile delivery program. and the combination of those two drove 16-17% growth in our digital business for the quarter. Similarly, delivery continues to exceed all expectations and all plans that we've had. We talked about how we're going to be leaning into that more next year. We're seeing significant growth and reception from our customers on that. As I mentioned on pets, we continue to see sequential improvement in that business. Very much you can look at the and many more. And we absolutely gained share on that in those categories in Q3 and will continue to. And a little bit on the margins, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about that. And Seth can provide some more detail in a future question if it comes up. But as it relates to Q4, we understand what we've got to do on margins and pricing and gross margin in Q4 and into next year. and hopefully you're taking away from today's call that we understand that mission and we are taking actions on that mission. We're taking actions that relates to SG&A. We're also taking real actions that relates to cost of goods and we are taking actions on it relates to pricing. While we're committed to being priced competitively and leading in the market, we also know that this is an environment where pricing is likely going to be moving up over the next few months. We've already started that journey. We're seeing the market act very rationally as we do that, and we expect that will continue over the next few months and will be a contributing factor to the improving margin rates that we're highlighting today.

Thank you. The next question comes from Michael Lasser with UBS. You may proceed.

Good morning. Thank you so much for taking my question. How much of the increased promotional and discounting posture do you think had an impact on your sales performance in the third quarter? And as you mentioned, it is a very challenging environment for the consumer. So to the extent that you maintain this position of being a bit more aggressive with your top 50 items into next year, and the composition of your sales gravitates towards these more items that are on promotion. Do you think you could keep your operating margin flat if you did comp 2% next year knowing all these puts and takes that you have in place today? Thank you so much.

Hey, Michael. Thanks so much for the question. Appreciate you joining the call today. A few things I would assert. One, I wouldn't say that we were more promotional in Q3. We leaned into everyday value in Q3, but we certainly were not more promotional in Q3. Thank you for joining us. and many more. Yes, we are committed at a 2% comp to having operating margin kind of break even. That is our pivot point. And the $75 million that we talked about today, that's incremental SG&A actions that we'll be taking that will fall over the next two years from an annualized perspective. Those are incremental to that 2% operating margin inflection point. We will provide further clarity in our next call on what the resulting range for operating margin is for next year, because obviously that's dependent upon what the comp sales outlook we have are. But to be very clear, we are committed to holding our operating margins at 2% comp next year prior to the $75 million incremental SG&A.

Thank you. The next question comes from Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley. You may proceed.

Simeon Gutman Hey, Hal. Hey, Kurt. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about this 9% margin. You said, I don't know if I've used the word right, but you're not satisfied if they go below that number, which I think is understandable. So investors have been beginning to condition by retailers to focus on operating income dollar growth rather than a margin target. So you're drawing a line at 9%. And by the way, I don't think it's unreasonable. Is there a risk that you end up sacrificing investments that can drive dollar growth faster? but you know without the like what's diluting the margin right so how do you balance the objectives and then how do you why do you think you can do both

Thanks, Simeon, for the question. I think this is the tried and tested back and forth on retail, operating margin dollars versus operating margin rate. What I'd say is at the highest level, we're always around driving operating margin dollars. That's what you take to the bank, and that's what drives the overall business. That said, I would say there's obviously optics and perspectives that you have on the fundamentals of the business. We're not comfortable running the business below a 9% operating margin. and we know we need to move back above that as quickly as possible and we're confident that we can grow operating margin dollars, continue to grow share and improve our comps as well as drive our operating margin rate back towards that goal. And as I said again, next year we are building an operating model and a business plan that allows us at a 2% comp to inflect on operating margins and the $75 million of SG&A Thank you. The following comes from Chuck Saranoski with North Coast Research. You may proceed.

Good morning, everyone. Could you maybe restate your pet strategy now that you've got far fewer PetSense stores, more e-commerce and Alavets in with PetVIP, but maybe give us the update with all that combined, please.

Hey Chuck, this is Seth. Thanks for the question. When we go back and we look at our pet strategy, it's really around three core pillars. It starts with our store and our store assortments. With that, over the course of this last year, the team has done a very nice job. Resetting every single consumable category in pet multiple times, driving a level of localization, driving key brands that we have, driving for health and our exclusive brands that we mentioned in prepared remarks that are continually to considerably outperform like kind of the broader brands within our store. And also just looking at total space allocation when you look at our store assortment from that perspective. Fresh pet in stores and we've raised our target on this year from 700 stores to 1,000. We're very encouraged by the momentum we see there where around 40% of those buying in that fresh category continue to be new or reactivated to pet at Tractor Supply. The second piece I'd tell you is around digital. We mentioned that subscription grew at triple digits. We're very pleased with that. We're also very pleased with how we're able to leverage our final mile delivery program and how we're leaning into our digital experience to make sure we win those consumers and be the most convenient shopping destination for life out here in rural America relative to pet and also the extended categories in areas like poultry, equine, livestock, etc., and then the final piece I would just say is our ecosystem we're building in services. Very pleased with not only our pet wash program, which we've mentioned before, that is driving just great customer engagement through both our neighbors club and that being in stores, but also the integration of Ally Vet and VIP Pet Care, where we have completed that integration now where Ally Vet is the fulfillment arm for VIP pet care. We're on track there and we are very encouraged by the momentum we're seeing at that point. So it's really around the combination of our store base, our assortment, leaning into what's growing, leaning into digital and making sure we have the right experience across all channels and finally building what we believe to be the most unique pet ecosystem in our markets.

Thank you. The next question comes from Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett Research Advisors. You may proceed.

Hey, good morning. Thanks very much. On the 50 SKUs you reduced price, Kurt, can you talk about the unit velocity you saw? And I guess the question is, would it make sense to accelerate that effort going forward? And then just a simple one, can you just quantify inflation here in 3Q and your expectations for 4Q?

Thank you. Thank you for joining us. A retail price inflation somewhere between 1 and 2%. We saw relatively close to 1% in the first half of the year. In the Q3, it is actually below that number, and that has more to do with and many more. In there, the ticket was really mostly fueled by growth in units per transactions. And we do expect that the level of inflation to moderate more up to the level we saw the first half of the year as part of Q4. And then Seth can, I'll turn it over to Seth to talk about the essential SKUs.

Thanks, Kurt. Thanks, Chuck. Yeah, I would just say when you look at the 50 essential SKUs that we've really invested in over the course of, you know, from kind of Q2 forward, we're going to continue to lean into that. We've seen really strong UPT and transaction growth there, as well as we're seeing that drive the broader basket within Tractor Supply when you look holistically at the basket. It's not just those items are coming in and Thank you for joining us. They're coming in, they're buying the full store, and you'll see us continue to lean in there and we'll be targeted to making sure we're managing margins appropriately there, but also making sure that we are managing market share and driving growth.

Thank you. The next question comes from Scott Ciccarelli with Truist. You may proceed.

Good morning, guys. Scott Ciccarelli. So two SG&A questions. First, I think your sale leaseback program is expected to be $75 to $100 million higher than it was last year. I know there's a cash component, a proceeds component, and a one-time gain that you recognize. So is it fair to assume your SG&A benefit this year will be $75 to $100 million higher than it was last year? And then secondly, what broad categories do you expect to be the biggest drivers of your expected SG&A reductions over the next two years? Thanks.

Scott, I'll go ahead and take that and start with the question on the sale-leaseback program. The growth in the overall sale-leaseback program is very much in line with what we signaled and we said is that a couple years ago was we began to build these owned fixed Thank you for joining us. and for the year because of some efficiencies in the construction of new stores we're actually seeing slightly higher year over year but it's all related to the benefits of leveraging the size scale of owning the construction so you're getting some gains on new stores as we flip those. That will be more of the story going forward. Higher amounts of proceeds in cash is coming from new stores less on existing in regards to that. As far as the $75 billion in cost savings, as Hal mentioned, we've got a number of things that we've taken actions on. And then there's other areas in productivity across the chain that both principally in stores and in distribution centers. And there's a A meaningful portion of this is opportunities to be more efficient through technology, automation, or just using some of the upstream work in the supply chain to make some of the efforts more efficient at the store level. And maybe John can just mention quickly some of the benefits they're already seeing. As Hal said, they're in pilot.

Thanks, Kurt. I would just tell you, first of all, we look at productivity all the time. We have a team in the store operations group that does a great job looking at this. They've been in the stores, they know the stores, they're former store managers, and they know how to continue to bring productivity down. And it shows just even in Q3, we levered labor and we also had top box in both overall satisfaction and GURAS scores, both year over year and quarter over quarter. We continue to look at productivity in three different ways. One is how we improve customer service, that belly to belly selling full contact retail that we're known for and that we're always going to give. Thank you for joining us. Working with Craig on things like when we get trucks, how the truck should be loaded, what comes out first. Working with Seth on things like signage and how many signs, what are the signs, digital mapping of stores, and how do we put them up. Or even just areas like recovery and inventory touches. We measure how many times we touch a piece of inventory, where it's at, and then also using technology in order to know where to recover, which aisles should recover, and then how we fill things in the queue part of the business in both pet and feed. So we'll continue to drive this meaningful over the next few years on this. And we're going to continue to move on the labor model, planograms, assembly, a lot more, including on the field activity support teams where we've been able to help them. And now we now have a field activity support team member in every single store that also helps drive that task down.

The following comes from Christopher Nardone with Bank of America. You may proceed.

Thanks, team. Good morning. So sorry to ask another pricing question, but I think the prior message was your investments in these unbeatable prices was expected to be more of a temporary phenomenon. And now it seems like the tone is changing a bit that you want to keep prices on key SKUs lower for longer. Is this the right message? Are we interpreting this correctly? And then just going back to the inflation comments, loud and clear in the back half, but is there a possibility that inflation can rise above 1% heading into 2027? I think historically we've seen this two to three quarter lag tracking commodity prices, but want to see if this time is different given the promotional strategy. Thank you.

Yeah, hey, Chris, thanks so much for the question and for being on the call today. I'd start with first, like, you know, Tractor Supply, we are the destination for consumables for our customers. We are the grocery store for our customers' pets and animals, and we're committed, and we always have been, to being everyday low-priced on those items. Thank you for watching. We'll see you next time. Thank you for watching. and many more. Thank you very much. positive units per ticket, and also positive AUR. It's a very healthy profile as we're now kind of mostly through October. And our goal would be to continue that into 2027 with a healthy balance across all of those drivers of sales.

Thank you. The next question comes from Seth Stigman with Barclays. You may proceed.

Hey, good morning, everyone. I guess it's a bigger picture question and somewhat of a follow-up, but I guess the message is that you're more aggressive on price than you've been on recent years. And at the same time, you're saying that you can deliver operating leverage on a lower comp than in the past. And you gave us a lot of examples, which we appreciate, but I guess what's fundamentally changing across the organization to support that, I guess, to give investors confidence that this is achievable and And then I guess somewhat related as you think about next year, a lot of moving pieces in 26, but is the right way to look at this basically 26 guidance, the adjusted EPS, that is the right pace to grow off of in 2027 despite all the moving pieces? Thanks so much, John.

Yeah, hey Seth, I'll take those. I'll start right there with your last question. 26 is the right basis to be jumping off of. We've said, particularly with tariff refunds, we are going to manage through... Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. in the areas that we know and in our control depreciation as Hal mentioned moderating down to mid single digits or lower next year that's coming off of like a 7% growth this year and we believe we can have lower growth and depreciation and start to actually see leverage in that case we've We've also seen operations of the core operations and John just got done talking about how we even saw lower labor hours in Q3 than the year before. Store wages leveraging even at a comp sales below 2%. So we've got significant results already in the cooperations. I look at Q3's SG&A when you back out Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. The insights that we see and the confidence we have on the things that we can control that gives us that ability.

More questions.

Thank you. The last question comes from Steve Forbes with Guggenheim Securities. You may proceed.

Good morning, Hal Kirk. Hal, we may be just revisiting Tractor's price to value proposition one last time here. I was curious if you could maybe expand on your initial thinking about how price zones will evolve and or work in an agentic world, inclusive of how Tractor prices products today online, nationally, regionally, locally, and if the team really has a good handle on the full scope of investment Thank you, Steve.

and many more. and many, many more. But to be very clear, we stand for price with our customers. And as we look forward, we're confident that we can manage margin and our price perception as we always have. As I mentioned, the market is acting very rashly right now. The higher costs that we're seeing are everyone in retail is seeing these higher costs, right? Everyone in retail has been paying freight bills at a higher rate for the last six months. Those are all going on the balance sheet, and those are all going to have to roll into cogs and gross margin over time. We know that task. We're out ahead of that task. We're making adjustments in our pricing structure, and we're making adjustments to their vendors to offset that. As it relates to kind of the more broader comments, Steve, online and stores, we have a kind of a strong belief that online and stores pricing should mirror each other.