Lowe's Companies, Inc. (LOW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Please welcome Vice President of Investor Relations, Kate Pearlman.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Lowe's 2022 Analyst and Investor Conference. Thank you for joining us today, both in person and virtually. Today, we will discuss the next chapter of growth for Lowe's, which is anchored around 4 themes. First, we're building on our top line momentum with both DIY and Pro through our Total Home Strategy. Second, we still see a meaningful unlock -- productivity unlock ahead as we continue to transform our supply chain and focus on our perpetual productivity improvement initiatives, or PPI, across our entire organization. Third, we remain mindful of our role as a responsible corporate citizen, and we're striving to become the employer of choice in retail. And finally, we're committed to delivering long-term sustainable shareholder value through our best-in-class capital allocation strategy. We're going to hear more about each of these themes throughout the morning from the Lowe's Executive Leadership team, including Marvin Ellison, our Chairman and CEO; Bill Boltz, Executive Vice President of Merchandising; Joe McFarland, Executive Vice President of Store Operations; Seemantini Godbole, Chief Digital and Information; Don Frieson, Executive Vice President of Supply Chain; Janice Dupre, Executive Vice President of Human Resources; and Brandon Sink, our Chief Financial Officer. We're also joined by several members of our senior leadership team, including our division presidents, our general merchandising managers, the Head of our Marketing Department, the Head of our Online Business, our Corporate Treasurer and other leaders within supply chain, technology and store operations. Our Lowe's leadership team members are wearing blue lanyards today, and they'll be happy to catch up with you during the breaks. After the second break, we'll host a 1-hour in-person Q&A session. Once the Q&A ends, we'll have box lunches available for you. And as always, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team after the event if you have further follow-up questions. For those of you in the room, you may have noticed a small card in front of you. Today is National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. So instead of an attendee gift, we made a $25,000 donation to the USO, a longtime Lowe's partner. In fact, Lowe's has a rich history of supporting our military community. We offer an everyday military discount and support many veteran-focused organizations. And Lowe's has received national recognition for being an employer of choice for transitioning veterans and their families. For the veterans with us today, we thank you for your service. Before we begin today's presentation, I'd like to take a moment to review our notice regarding forward-looking statements. This information is also included in our press release and presentation, both of which are available on Lowe's Investor Relations website. During this event, we will be making comments that are forward-looking, including our expectations for fiscal 2022 and 2023. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied as a result of various risks, uncertainties and important factors, including those discussed in the risk factors, MD&A and other sections of our annual report on Form 10-K and our other SEC filings. Additionally, we'll be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation between reported U.S. GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures is available in the appendix of today's presentation. And with that, let me introduce our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Marvin Ellison.

Thank you, Kate. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. It's been 4 years since I joined Lowe's, and to borrow a line from the best-selling author, Jim Collins, we're making tremendous progress as we grow our company from good to great. We've taken steps to enhance our operating capabilities, improve our product and service offering and also to maintain our focus on driving productivity over the past 4 years. And because of these efforts, we're on track to deliver 36% sales growth, a 440 basis point improvement in adjusted operating margin and 169% increase in adjusted EPS. We've also developed a very effective strategy to serve our Pro customers, which has delivered more than 500 basis points of improvement in Pro customer satisfaction. We will also return a total of $43 billion to our shareholders through both dividends and share repurchases, while delivering total shareholder return of 141%, which is 2.4x higher than the S&P 500, which returned 44% over the same time frame. Sustained success always begins with a talented leadership team, and that's what we put in place, a diverse group of leaders with deep expertise across home improvement and retailers, leaders who brought capabilities that Lowe's had been lacking across critical areas of the business. And together, we set out to transform the company into a world-class omnichannel retailer that provides excellent customer service, creates a great place for associates to work and deliver long-term sustainable value for our shareholders. And to do that, we embrace a core set of behaviors that's become an important part of our culture. And these behaviors outline how we operate, how we reward and recognize outstanding leaders as well. And we understand that if we can take care of our associates, we can serve our customers and improve our communities, and we will create shareholder value. And these core priorities shape our response to the pandemic, and they continue to influence our decisions today. When I joined Lowe's, it had a storied history, a strong brand, great associates and a healthy balance sheet, but the company had lost its focus on the co-home improvement business. And after years of underinvesting in technology, the Pro customer, online and supply chain, Lowe's was losing market share, and the performance gap with its largest competitor was only widening. So to set the company on a path forward toward profitability and returns, we created a 3-year plan and focus on what we call retail fundamentals. The critical areas where all world-class retailers excel: supply chain, merchandising, operational efficiency and customer engagement. And we also began to modernize our infrastructure, specifically our information technology and omnichannel capabilities, marrying both digital and physical stores together. And we were fortunate that we've made tremendous strides in improving these retail fundamentals before the onset of the pandemic so we could manage the surge in customer demand effectively, while responding to the challenges posed by this unprecedented global health crisis. And this combination of COVID-driven demand and our enhanced operating capabilities helped us to significantly speed up our transformation time line. And at the end of 2020, we unveiled our Total Home Strategy to accelerate market share gains for both the Pro and the DIY customers. This strategy reflects our commitment to provide a full complement of products and services, enabling a Total Home solution for every project across the home. In other words, why would a customer need to shop anywhere but Lowe's for all of their home-related needs. And to achieve this Total Home Strategy, we are intensifying our focus on the Pro, we're accelerating and modernizing our online business, we're expanding our Installation Services, we're driving localization, and we're elevating our product assortment. This strategy gives us a unique opportunity to capitalize on customers' increasing preference for convenience, for getting as much possible accomplished in one shopping trip, both in-store and online. And we're confident that this strategy will allow us to continue to drive sustainable market share gains, while we're improving operating margin and return on invested capital. And with these considerations in mind, we made the decision last month to sell our Canadian business to Sycamore Partners. This is a very important step towards simplifying the Lowe's business model and providing a better return to our shareholders by enhancing our focus on the home improvement business here in the U.S., where we think we have tremendous runway for growth. But before we talk about the next chapter of growth, let me tell you why we're confident about the long-term health of Lowe's and the overall outlook for the home improvement industry as well. So in this challenging retail landscape, Lowe's is fortunate to operate in a sector that serves a resilient DIY homeowner and Pro customers in high demand. Lowe's operates in a vibrant, but very fragmented $1 trillion home improvement market in the U.S. that's evenly split between Pro and DIY customers. And if you combine Lowe's' share with our largest competitor, the 2 companies only equate to roughly $250 billion in sales, just 1/4 of that marketplace. So this gives us meaningful opportunities to continue to expand our market share. So today, we'll discuss our initiatives to build loyalty with both the Pro and the DIY customer, and we're very confident that we have a strategy in place to grow market share with both segments. So let's discuss the broader economy. And I know many of you are concerned about the housing market and the overall macro environment. So I'd like to clarify why we are optimistic about the long and medium term as well as why we believe home improvement is in a unique position relative to other retail sectors. As a reminder, there are 3 primary structural drivers of home improvement demand for Lowe's and all 3 remain supportive: home price appreciation, the age of housing stock and disposable personal income. Even though housing turnover has slowed, existing homeowners are enjoying a record level of equity in their homes, nearly $330,000 on average. And it's important to note that these homes are aging. The average age is 41 years old, the oldest since World War 2. And nearly 3 million more homes were built around the peak of the housing boom in the mid-2000s will be entering prime remodeling years. And on top of that, savings are near and all-time high and disposable personal income remain strong. Consumer savings are roughly $1.5 trillion higher than before the pandemic, and 85% of that savings is concentrated in the top 40% of income earners. And today, more than 90% of homeowners own their homes outright or locked in a low fixed rate mortgage, so they are more insulated from the impacts of inflation and higher interest rates. And with the slowdown in housing turnover driven by higher mortgage rates and low housing supply, many homeowners are deciding to trade up in place by repairing or upgrading their existing home rather than buying a new one. This is why the home improvement sector can perform well both when housing turnover is strong, but also when it slows. Demographic trends are also important long-term drivers of home improvement demand. And we are finally seeing strong millennial household formation trends, with roughly 250,000 first-time millennial homebuyers expected per year to 2025. And over the past few years, the way Americans view their homes has evolved. And through the pandemic, baby boomers preference to aging in place has only increased. And many in the baby boom generations are now focused on making their homes safe and functional to meet their changing mobility needs. And the pandemic also triggered a more rise of [ watch bed ] adoption to remote work, which has created a permanent step-up in repair and maintenance cycle for many homes. And finally, we see longer-term support for housing prices. There's currently 1.5 million to 2 million undersupply of homes, which is expected to persist for some time. And we expect this supply/demand imbalance to continue to support home prices in the medium term, even if some markets will see a price correction over the next 12 months. It's important to note that even if there is a modest decline in home prices, the record level of home equity built up during the pandemic would not meaningfully erode. In fact, it's worth noting that we are not seeing any difference in sales trends compared to our broader portfolio in a few markets, like Phoenix and Austin, where there's been a modest correction in home prices after years of steep increases. And let me also add that when I reflect back over my career in home improvement, I cannot recall a time when there has been such a confluence of long-term demand drivers. But there's also a persistent misperception in the market that the demand drivers that support home improvement are the same demand drivers that support homebuilding. And these 2 sectors of housing are actually quite distinct, about as different as new car dealers are from auto part stores, which is reflected in the divergence in homebuilding and home improvement trends this year. More specifically, homebuilding is driven by mortgage rates and a related factor of housing affordability. And with the multiple increases in interest rates and mortgage rates this year, we're now over twice as high as last year, which is negatively impacting housing affordability. But by contrast, home improvement is supported by home price appreciation. And when the homeowner sees the value of their home equity increase, they gained confidence that repairs and remodels will be a worthwhile investment. Plus home improvement spending at Lowe's tends to be concentrated in smaller project work and is cash-driven. So it's minimally impacted by higher rigs even on home equity loans and cash-out refis. Also, homebuilders are facing some residual labor and supply constraints, factors that no longer are pressure in home improvement. In fact, when homebuilders pause on building homes, their labor force can then turn to remodel activity instead, which could potentially increase the labor availability for home improvement. And finally, as a reminder, 2/3 of home improvement spend is nondiscretionary on repair and maintenance projects that simply cannot be delayed. As an example, if your refrigerator or water heater breaks, if your toilet stops working or if your roof is leaking, these are projects or purchases that cannot be postponed. Look, although these nondiscretionary purchases are not glamorous, they are the lifeblood of the home improvement business, whereas homebuilding tends to be more discretionary or cyclical. Look, although this is a unique macro environment, we can find some similar trends back in the mid-1990s when there was a steep increase in interest rates, which you can see in the blue line on the chart and a corresponding slowdown in new construction, which is reflected on the black line. But by contrast, home improvement spending continued to grow as the green bars in the middle of the chart show. This chart clearly shows the disconnect between home improvement and homebuilding. So now I'd like to talk more about the DIY and the do-it-for-me customer, and how we plan to grow market share with this very important segment. Our core customers, the millennial and baby boomers combined, make up the lion's share of the home improvement market. And if we can serve these 2 generations effectively, we can win every generation. Many Millennials are often repairing and upgrading older homes to meet their growing family needs, and we're focused on addressing their need for inspiration and planning as well as the project work tackled by both the weekend warrior and the do-it-for-me customer. And we're offering our [ local ] home products and services to those baby boomers choosing to aging in place, helping them to adjust to their changing mobility needs. Our DIY customers are also looking for new products that are easier to use, more energy-efficient and integrate with smart technology. And as we elevate our product assortment, we're bringing an unprecedented level of innovation to our stores. And we're ensuring that our products are priced right so customers can find value across a wide spectrum of price points every day at Lowe's. And as we invest in our private brands, we're delivering value, especially to consumers looking to stretch their budgets, but still want high quality and on-trend products. We also have a meaningful opportunity to expand our localization efforts. When I arrived at Lowe's, our store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was assorted just like our store in Philadelphia, Mississippi. And yes, we do have a store in the beautiful town of Philadelphia, Mississippi supporting the 7,000 residents who live there. And our customers in these 2 unique locations desire a store that fits the individual needs of their home. And now we have the ability to tailor our product offering to serve the urban and the rural customer in addition to all the other unique communities across the country. And finally, customers increasingly expect to be able to shop however, whenever and wherever they choose. So we're investing in our omnichannel retailing capabilities enabled by technology across the operations, lowes.com and our supply chain. You'll hear much more about these initiatives from Bill later this morning. And when it comes to our Pro customer, they are busier than ever. And our research indicates that Pros remain optimistic based on a strong backlog of jobs, and they expect steady project growth in 2023 with over 70% expecting even more work next year than they had this year. And as a reminder, our target Pro customer is a small- to medium-sized business owner, who shops more frequently than the DIY customer across multiple departments, driving higher ticket purchases. But when I started at Lowe's, there was a lack of focus on the Pro. It left us without key Pro brands, without a proper Pro service model and without an effective value proposition. It was no surprise that Pro customers would drive past Lowe's to go to the competition. But over the last 4 years, we've transformed our Pro offering to become a one-stop shop for these busy customers, taking market share in the process. We improved the service for our pros in the store, we expanded our Pro brands and product assortments, and we invested in job-lot inventory quantities. Then we reset the footprint of our stores with the Pro in mind. And earlier this year, we introduced our new MVPs Pro Rewards and partnership program, which is already exceeding expectations. In fact, Pros enrolled in our loyalty and credit programs are spending 3x more than those not engaged in these programs. And we'll continue to enhance our offering to the Pro, and we're going to have a new fast and simple digital experience and expand job site delivery capabilities, all of which will enable us to continue to grow Pro sales at twice the market rate over the next several years. And to accomplish this, we will transition from a place where Pros go just for convenience to a place where they go for planned purchases. You'll hear much more about this today from both Joe and Don. Now shifting gears to productivity. Over the past few years, we've created a culture of continuous improvement at Lowe's. We challenge ourselves daily to find more efficient solutions to help us continue to drive productivity and unlock shareholder value. This perpetual productivity improvement, or PPI, is a culture that permeates every team and every function at Lowe's. Many of our PPI initiatives are driven by the tremendous improvements we've made in our technology. This was clearly one of the biggest gaps we found at the company when we arrived as a leadership team. At that time, all of Lowe's operations were store-centric, and it impacted everything we did from our technology, to how we allocated associated labor, to how we serve customers and how we shift orders. The company had followed well behind other big-box retailers, who had already pivoted to an omnichannel shopping experience. And later today, Seemantini will provide details about our ongoing steps to transform our IT platform to an agile omnichannel model. Another important way we create shareholder value has taken our responsibility as a Fortune 50 retailer very seriously. I mentioned earlier that our decisions are guided by a core set of behaviors, and this is reflected in our commitments to support our associates, our community and the health of our planet. And last year, we contributed $100 million of support to communities, where our associates live and work, focusing on safe, affordable housing, skilled trades education and natural disaster response. And over the past 12 months, we've awarded more than $700 million in bonuses to our front-line associates and the company made an investment of $170 million in permanent wage increases for these associates to ensure that our wages remain competitive in the markets where we operate. Our ongoing investments in our associates reflect our commitment to become the employer of choice in retail, a great place to work where associates of all backgrounds can grow and build their careers. You'll hear more about our employer of choice initiatives later today from Janice. And protecting our planet through our commitment to sustainability is another way that we support our associates and our communities. And over the past 5 years, we reduced absolute Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 42% across our operations, 4 years ahead of our target. And these operating efficiencies also drove greater productivity, a true win-win solution. We're building on this momentum with our announcement this week of our 2050 science-based, net-zero target across our full value chain. To achieve our new targets, we will drive efficiency and electrification across our product of portfolio operations and our entire supply chain. We'll promote a transition of clean energy sources, and we will also support recycling. We've also set targets on renewable energy and product sustainability, which is outlined in detail in our annual corporate responsibility report. This kind of progress is elevating Lowe's' brand reputation, and people are taking notice. In 2021, Fortune recognized Lowe's as the most admired specialty retailer for the first time in 17 years. And this year, we once again earned that distinction, the first time in our history that we received this recognition 2 years in a row. And we were named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for North America for the third year in a row and a number of organizations that recognized Lowe's for our efforts to promote diversity and inclusion across the organization. These accolades demonstrate that the transformation that we're driving is resonating with our associates, our customers and the community. This is a really exciting time for Lowe's and the future of our company. We operate in a great industry that will continue to benefit from a number of powerful tailwinds over the next several years. We're making tough choices, but the right investments to accelerate market share gains through our Total Home Strategy to win the DIY customer across generations, geographies, taste and styles and to grow market share with our Pros. And we're investing in the critical omnichannel capabilities required for Lowe's to become a world-class retailer. We are confident that Lowe's has a meaningful opportunity to deliver further improvements in operating margin and return on invested capital as we unlock productivity across the company, and our best-in-class capital allocation strategy enables us to consistently deliver long-term sustainable value for our shareholders. And later today, Brandon will provide an overview of why we believe Lowe's is a great short and a great long-term investment. Before I close, I'd like to take a moment and thank our hard-working frontline associates and our talented teams across the company. Together, we've already delivered outstanding results for our shareholders, and I look forward to the next chapter of growth for the company because I know our best days are still in front of us. And with that, it's my pleasure to introduce our Executive Vice President of Merchandising, Bill Boltz.

Thanks, Marvin, and good morning, everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. 4 years ago, we set out to overhaul our merchandising strategy at Lowe's. In that time, we've made really tremendous progress. We took our stores with empty shelves, wasted space, poor localization and products typically purchased together like doors and doorknobs in separate aisles, sometimes even at the opposite ends of the store, and we transformed them to look more like this, by making targeted investments to win both DIY and Pro customers. And as a result, we're on track to deliver $130 increase in sales per square foot this year to $466. That's a 39% increase from 2018. As you know, Lowe's is a dominant -- a DIY-dominant business. And as part of our merchandising transformation, we took the prime sales for real estate at the front of our stores, and we created what we call a seasonal laydown area. The goal here was to create a more compelling shopping environment and a more inviting experience for our DIY customers. This allowed us to open up more space in the main power aisle to make a great first impression as the customers enter our stores. And with this new space, we can now showcase new on-trend items every season from trim-a-tree products over the winter holidays to patio furniture and grills during the summer. We're also transforming our private brand portfolio to meet the needs of our DIY customers, and I'll tell you a little bit about that later. But right now, I want you to know that as a result of all the work that we did to drive merchandising excellence across our stores, we dramatically improved our sales productivity and gross margin. And here's a look at how we did it. [Presentation]

We've accomplished a lot, and there's more to come. In fact, merchandising plays a critical role both in our path toward future growth and in managing the company's productivity. And to do that, we're elevating our product assortment, which is a key pillar of our Total Home Strategy, and part of that strategy is ensuring that we continue to provide our customers with a great value at all price points within each of our merchandising categories. And that really starts with having the brands that the customers want. But when this team arrived at Lowe's, many of the brands and the products that the Pros rely on to get their jobs done, they were no longer in our assortment, products like Simpson Strong-Tie framing hardware and fasteners, which are often listed in the specs for a job. And what that meant is that it was not possible for a Pro to shop the entire project at our store because this critical brand and many others were missing from the assortment. So we set out to win or win back these important Pro brands and expand our product assortment within these brands. And to do that, we made sure that our suppliers really knew 2 things: one, that we're committed to the Pro customer; and two, that they could grow their business by partnering with us. And I'm really pleased with the progress that we've made with the Pro brand lineup we now offer, which really gives the Pros the confidence that they can get what they need when they shop Lowe's. Elevating our product assortment also includes our strategy to balance well-known national brands with our high-value private brands. And our research indicates that Pros have a deep loyalty to national brands, while the DIY customers tend to be a bit more brand-agnostic especially in the decor categories. Becoming more intentional with our private brand strategy will allow us to drive more loyalty and profitability with our DIY customers. Now let me clarify a minute. We'll not repeat the mistakes of the past when the company pivoted heavily toward private brands in an effort to improve margin, all of the expense of the national brands that our Pros really relied on the most. By the time we arrived at Lowe's, the company had lost its focus on its private brand strategy. Simply put, there were just too many -- there were just too many brands without a well-defined customer value proposition. And we saw a real clear opportunity to overhaul this strategy by focusing in on about a dozen private brands to meet our customers' needs across various lifestyle and generational trends. To make sure that our customers know that they can trust all of our brands, we now have quality assurance labs in Mooresville, North Carolina and in Shanghai, China, where we now can test the durability and the reliability of our products throughout their entire life cycle. Increasing our private brand penetration also supports our longer-term operating margin targets because they have higher margins than national brands. And you can see here, we have some big power brands like allen + roth, Kobalt, and now our new modern brand, Origin 21, designed to appeal to the millennial customer. And in 2021, we acquired STAINMASTER, which is the most recognized and trusted brand in carpet with an industry leadership position that immediately gave us an incredible platform to build on. STAINMASTER joins our strong lineup of popular flooring brands that we showcase right in the center of our store. And earlier this year, we began extending STAINMASTER's high-performance characteristics and lifetime warranty to other flooring categories, like laminate, sheet vinyl and floor and wall tile, which are already performing very well. In this quarter, we're introducing STAINMASTER luxury vinyl and hose washable scatter into decor rugs, and we'll continue to extend STAINMASTER into other non-flooring product categories as the brand continues to gain traction with consumers beyond carpet. In fact, we're getting ready to introduce STAINMASTER paint. It will be our first private brand with its own color palette along with best-in-class stain resistance. And our consumer research told us this is just a natural extension of the brand, especially for busy families with children who might need just a little extra help keeping their walls clean. We're also upgrading our paint departments as part of our continued partnership with Sherwin-Williams, and this includes a new color wall that makes it easier for DIY and Pro customers to match the Sherwin-Williams color they want at our paint desk. And we're putting the higher-margin attachment items that customers need for painting projects closer to the front of the department to help -- so they can get everything in one trip. And for our Pro customers, we're also leveraging our new Pro paint job site delivery capabilities, handled by our Lowe's Pro Supply, or LPS, branches. Combining these capabilities with our new MVPs Pro paint rewards program, we're creating a great solution for these Pros who tend to paint as part of larger projects. And since painting is the #1 DIY project, we're making it easier and faster for them to shop virtually with a new paint visualizer and the ability to order tinted paint online and then pick it up in the store. And this is the kind of innovation that's driving traffic to Lowe's. And our merchant teams know that it's not enough to have the right brands, but we also know that we need to continuously work to bring new, innovative and exclusive products to Lowe's to generate that excitement. And this was another area where the company had lost its edge. So over the past few years, we've been working with our suppliers to develop and produce innovative products that will motivate customers to trade up from better to best. For example, we're seeing customers spend more to purchase the latest technology and appliances and battery-powered outdoor power equipment. Another important way that we're elevating our brand assortment is by helping our customers reduce their environmental impact. For example, our customers will see more than a $17 billion in lifetime water and energy bill savings from the ENERGY STAR and WaterSense products that they purchased from Lowe's last year. In addition, we're developing a sustainability landing page on lowes.com that will point to customers to rebate opportunities, how-to videos and the information that they can use to transform their homes and make better buying decisions. And we're also rolling out new sustainable buying guidelines to educate our merchants and our suppliers about how to make our product portfolio greener and more sustainable over time. And to set the example for our suppliers, we're working to add how to recycle labels where the space allows on all our private brand packaging by 2025. All of these initiatives will help support our new target of achieving net zero by 2050. And that's all part of how we're elevating our product assortments. Now let's talk a little bit about how we're putting perpetual productivity improvement to work in merchandising. And here, we're focusing on 3 main areas: product cost management, inventory productivity and pricing and promotional strategies. Our merchandising PPI initiatives will span more than 20 different work streams. Let me highlight just a few. First, our efforts to increase our private brand penetration will help us drive better margin rate productivity given the typically better margins of these products versus the national brands. And also, where it makes sense, we'll be converting select products in categories that our suppliers import today to direct import product, leveraging our scale and our favorable carrier rates, ultimately resulting in lower cost of goods sold. Over the past few years, we've partnered with our suppliers to help offset their rising input cost. But now as some of commodity prices and transportation costs begin to come down, we're revisiting these costs with our suppliers to ensure that our prices are competitive to support sales and to protect our margin. Our primary objective is always to be competitive. And to do that, we've invested in sophisticated cost optimization tools that help us track prices for the underlying components of the products that we sell so that our merchants and their finance partners are just well informed for the negotiations. This is just another big step forward for this Lowe's team. We're also improving on inventory productivity by rightsizing our product assortments and the space allocations through a rigorous test-and-learn process. This now allows us to quickly adjust the assortments across all of our stores. And we're making some strategic shifts in our inventory investments, reducing the depth in slower velocity items and then reinvesting it in safety stock or what we're calling, the Pro never out SKUs. This will help us capture more of the Pro customers' plan spend because we'll have the inventory in key SKUs where they need job lot quantities every day. Another critical merchandising PPI initiative centers around our pricing and promotional strategy. And this initiative is a meaningful contributor to our gross margin improvement of 110 basis points since 2018. Working with our technology and our finance teams, we built out a more robust pricing ecosystem, which reduced our reliance on discounting and enabled us to shift to everyday competitive pricing. In place of our old high-low cadence, we're now partnering with our vendors to offer extra value with targeted offers every quarter focused on seasonal events. We're offering our Pros bulk pricing in our online shoppers bundled pricing. And so for example, a customer can buy a suite of appliances at a better price than if they just bought the refrigerator alone. We also monitor our prices in real-time, making sure that we're priced right, especially on those key SKUs that matter the most. And with the rollout of the electronic signs and appliances and lumber, we can now rapidly adjust prices to protect margin, while reducing store labor costs. These signs will also allow us to provide more information to customers to help drive sales, like product details and customer reviews. Looking forward, we'll continue to optimize and fine-tune our pricing and promotional strategies with a near-term focus on pricing for smaller clusters of stores or even down to the individual store level, which brings me now to our efforts to localize our assortments, another key pillar of our Total Home Strategy. Four years ago, our product assortments were essentially the same across the U.S., no matter the characteristics of the local market. And this led to just a really large gap in sales productivity. We began first by eliminating a relevant product that wasn't selling, like riding lawnmowers in Brooklyn and 12-piece patio sets in West Philly, then we stood up an internal structure of field merchants, field inventory managers and assortment planners. These teams are now focused on helping us tailor our product assortments to the local market based on building codes, housing types, lifestyle trends, climate and demographics. And now with the much improved technology and having merchants on the ground, we have the ability to localize assortments and fine-tune our inventory at a store level. For example, in the city of Chicago, electricians can only use metal boxes because of the building code. But in the Chicagoland suburbs, just 15 miles away, they can use a plastic box. This is just one example of why localized assortment is critical to meeting the customers' needs and then capturing the sale. An even bigger opportunity is the framework we're creating for a few common market categories, like urban, rural and coastal stores, and these are areas where we still have a significant opportunity to improve localization to drive sales growth and expand both our DIY and Pro market share, all while increasing inventory productivity and protecting our margin. We're also making improvements to help us accelerate our online business as part of our Total Home Strategy. And this is a critical part of our efforts to win, especially with the DIY customer. Our research shows us that our most valuable customer are those who shop both in-store and online. And in fact, our omni customers spend twice as much as store-only customers. Our omnichannel ecosystem really starts with excellent merchandising, and that's why we've tripled the number of items that we sell online in the last 4 years, going from 400,000 to almost 2 million today. And we've doubled our online sales penetration, growing it from 5% in 2019 to nearly 10% this year. This ecosystem also includes an enhanced user experience with new capabilities, like configurable selling tools and visualizers, to help customers shop virtually, and it culminates with easy fulfillment options at the store or direct to the customer's door or job site. Now let me tell you how our marketing strategy and the closer integration within merchandising will help us drive market share gains. We're adjusting our traditional marketing channels centered around 4 key priorities: targeting customers, creating demand, driving urgency and then converting the sale. At the same time, we're gaining traction with our new Lowe's One Roof Media Network, which we call LORMN. We introduced this retail media network last fall to provide suppliers with customized advertising solutions, along with marketing and creative services. And through LORMN, we're tapping into the $40 billion retail advertising industry, and LORMN leverages Lowe's deep understanding of the home lifestyle customer by providing in-depth measurement and reporting, consultation and access to our media experts, all to drive revenue and traffic. And as more and more customers turn off cookies, which is historically how marketers have targeted customers, LORMN is even a more compelling option. It gives vendors a way to reach a captive audience of nearly 100 million DIY and Pro customers by serving them relevant content on lowes.com, social media, HGTV or virtually anywhere that they look for home improvement inspiration. Then here's the best part. All that content brings them back to lowes.com to close the sale. And what makes it so powerful is that while our partners have access to their own sales data, we own the transaction. And that means we can leverage our insights about customers, understanding what they're browsing and what options they're considering, and then we can tailor the way that we showcase our partners' products to convert the sale. Unlike search engine platforms, we know whether the customer actually made a purchase, so we can measure the return far more effectively. The results here are exceeding our expectations, and we have strong demand from our suppliers, who are shifting some of their marketing dollars to Lowe's, and they're getting excellent returns, more than double others in the industry. We're even getting requests from vendors who aren't Lowe's suppliers. We know we're not the first to market with the retail media network, but we are confident that we will be the best to market, and we expect to achieve levels of growth in 2 to 5 years that took others 5 to 10 years to reach. In closing, we have an exciting opportunity still ahead of us as we transform our business through our Total Home Strategy, a real opportunity to elevate our product assortment, tailor our product offering for the local markets that we serve and then accelerate our online business. We'll continue to drive productivity across merchandising through our PPI initiatives, and these efforts will allow us to grow revenue profitably and gain market share with both the Pro and the DIY customer. And now it's my pleasure to welcome Executive Vice President of Stores, Joe McFarland.

Well, thanks, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Many of you have heard me say that when I first joined Lowe's, I realized we had the hardest working group of frontline associates in the business. But back then, we needed to help them elevate their game to make it easier for them to deliver excellent customer service more consistently and create a strong and healthy selling culture. And that's what our team has been focused on from the onset. 4 years ago, we conducted time and motion studies, which indicated that our associates were spending 60% of their time doing tasks that took them away from serving customers and selling. So over the past 4 years, we've reengineered our store operations model. Today, our associates spend approximately 60% of their time on customer service and selling and approximately 40% of their time on tasking. In the process, we've levered payroll as a percent of sales, and this has helped us to deliver on the commitment that we've made at our 2020 investor update to unlock over $2.5 billion in store OpEx productivity. In fact, our relentless focus on driving productivity in our store operations enabled us to deliver these results ahead of our original expectations. These intense reengineering efforts also drove more than a 500-basis point increase in our customer service scores. So how did we reduce payroll and improve customer service at the same time? By streamlining our processes and eliminating redundant tasks and by working smarter, using technology that reduces total payroll spend by automating tasks and freeing up time for our talented associates to serve customers. We began with a few foundational changes to help us improve our operational productivity over time. One of those improvements was empowering our associates with smartphones. This gave them everything they need to do their jobs effectively right in the palm of their hands, so they do not have to leave the sales floor. And we continually add functionality to these smartphones, like an application to update prices and connect to mobile printers that print new labels right in the aisles. And in 2020, we leveraged these devices to manage our pandemic response, which include adding an app that helps associates pick merchandise for curbside pickup. A second foundational change was to our labor scheduling system. We had fallen behind other major retailers because of the gaps in our technology. At the time, Lowe's relied on a template scheduling, essentially a one size fits all, regardless of whether the store had a heavier mix of DIY weekend shoppers or a heavier mix of weekday Pro shoppers, which meant more weekday traffic. This also left us with limited ability to adjust as demand pattern shifted throughout the year. It was critical to get our arms around this area of our operations because our single largest expense is store labor. So we developed an industry-leading, customer-centric scheduling system. This allows us to predict customer demand and align our labor with peak customer traffic for each store in each department by day of the week and even by hour of the day. It gives us the ability to provide better department coverage and maintain our consistent and strong customer service. We monitor this every week so we can keep a sharp eye across the entire portfolio. Later this morning, Janice will tell you about another benefit of this new system, providing our associates with more flexibility to manage their schedules. These 2 foundational enhancements enabled us to expand our operating margin and begin unlocking productivity through our perpetual productivity improvement initiatives. We launched PPI across our stores in early 2021, centered around improving operational efficiency, removing friction from the customer experience and simplifying the selling process for our associates. As a reminder, this isn't a single win. It's a series of improvements that we are scaling across our stores over time. In fact, we are working on over 20 different PPI initiatives at any one given time. For example, we're overhauling our order picking process across all of our buy online, pick up in store orders, whether in-store, curbside or a locker as well as orders placed in our parcel network. We're cutting down the time it takes for an associate to pick an order by using the smartphone they already have in their hands, which allows them to access our new store inventory management system. This gives our associates improved visibility, both on and off shelf, so they can simply find the products faster. In addition, our easy-to-use order picking carts with mobile printers allow our associates to keep track of multiple orders. This is another great example of how advanced technology and improved processes are reducing the payroll expense, while, at the same time, creating a better customer experience. We're also launching a transformation of the front end of our stores. This includes our easy-to-use homegrown self-checkout system designed specifically for the home improvement shopper. This system will help us optimize our front-end staffing since we'll need fewer associates to check out customers directly. And as our cashiers pivot to assisting with the self-checkout process, we can invest some of the payroll savings in the additional associate time on the sales floor, so they can focus more on selling and serving our customers. We're also replacing the ancient green screens at the service desk with a new intuitive touchscreen interface. This new system is so easy to use that it dramatically cuts down on the associate training time and more easily facilitates cross-training with our associates. Finally, we're expanding our staging area for BOPIS orders as we position the company for longer-term growth in online sales. And with roughly 60% of our online orders picked up in store, it is critical that we make process as efficient as possible. Another initiative worth mentioning is our new returns process. This process modernizes and simplifies the return experience for our customers and makes it easier for our associates to enforce our return policies and also to manage complex returns. With the new process, associates just need to scan the item and scan the receipt and no matter where customers purchase the item in a store, online or through a contact center, our system can easily find it and determine if it's eligible to be returned. The refund value will also account for promotions, and this will simply help us to reduce fraud. This new process will automatically print disposition labels based on the vendor return policy. In addition, we're also streamlining our centralized return to vendor process, and this simplified process will further reduce tasking, limit product damage and move our inventory with speed and accuracy. This process begins with a customer return either in the store or online and ends with dispositioning the product in the most profitable manner for Lowe's. And then as a final step, we're collecting data from customers to help us better understand why items are coming back in the first place so we can help prevent that in the future. Through this best-in-class returns process, we expect to unlock labor productivity, increase the recovery to Lowe's and help to protect our product margins. I'd like to turn now to one of the key pillars of our Total Home Strategy: Driving higher Pro penetration by intensifying our focus on the Pro customer. Look, it would be difficult to overstate how broken the Pro service model was when we arrived at the company. But we are up to the challenge, and we have completely overhauled the entire Pro offering. I know some of our Pro customers, suppliers and even many of you shareholders and the people in this room were originally skeptical about whether we had the commitment and also the tenacity to succeed in this important area of the business. But after 10 consecutive quarters of double-digit growth in Pro, we've demonstrated our commitment to this business. We began by enhancing the service levels in the store. We added dedicated staffing and supervisors at the Pro desk. We added Pro loaders. We invested in job lot quantities. We invested in Pro brands that those Pros rely on. And we've made significant strides in these areas before the pandemic hit. So fortunately, we were very well positioned to respond to the unexpected surge in Pro traffic. Many Pros rediscovered Lowe's during this pandemic, and they were pleasantly surprised to find a much improved product offering as well as service offering. But our stores were still too difficult for this busy customer to navigate. So in the second half of 2020, we undertook the largest project in Lowe's history, to revamp the footprint of our stores with the Pro in mind. For example, we reflowed our rough plumbing and electrical aisles to reflect how the Pro shops, placing all the relevant products adjacent to each other. We also added a Pro drop zone at the front of our store for all of those grab-and-go pickup items. Then last year, we continued to improve the Pro shopping experience by adding designated Pro trailer parking and a place for Pros to charge their phones, fill their tires and even to wash their windows. These Pro conveniences add value to each trip the Pros take, and they simply cuts down on the number of stops that a Pro has to make throughout the day. To continue building on this momentum, we launched our new Lowe's MVP Pro Rewards and Partnership program earlier this year. When coupled with our long-standing Pro credit offering, this provides Pros with best-in-class financing and a value-added rewards program. This program is designed to make every Pro feel like an MVP regardless of the size of their business. We centered it around creating a business partnership to help us earn more market share with Pros who shop more and spend more across our store. And the more they spend, the more they earn, whether it's gift cards, exclusive offers or compelling prizes like a new Ford F-150 pickup truck or Super Bowl tickets. We also offer bonus points to all Pros, leveling the playing field for the small Pro who could earn points regardless of how much they spend. Importantly, we offer a stand-alone paint reward as we look to increase our share of wallet within the paint category, building on that transaction that we're gaining in Pro paint. We had a terrific start to our new loyalty program with better-than-expected performance across all of our key targets: sales, enrollments, average ticket, adoption rates. We're winning new Pro customers, while also growing the share of wallet with our existing Pro customers. This is a real home run. In fact, it's hard to find a Pro customer, who turned down the opportunity to sign up for the program when they realized how valuable these rewards really are. The next unlock for us is leveraging the insights we've gained about our Pros through our Pro CRM platform. This will help us better meet and even anticipate their upcoming project needs. A great opportunity to capture more of the Pro's planned purchases. This system also provides our Pro associates, both inside and outside sales force, with tools to manage, to grow and to retain the Pro accounts through consistent data-driven selling actions. It helps our associates connect better with Pro customers and personalize the experience that we offer. We can use the system to see what our Pros are buying and, more importantly, what our Pros are not buying from us. This helps us to discuss how we can better serve and meet their needs across their entire projects. Our new system leverages data and the insights to optimize our associates' time prompting them to call the next best customer with the next best action. This is a significant step forward for Lowe's to help us better serve this important customer with real-time insights about their business and project needs. It's clear that the hard work our team is doing to drive Pro growth is paying off with 16% 1-year growth and 76% 3-year growth in Pro throughout the third quarter of this year. With this outsized growth, we've driven a 600 basis point increase in our Pro penetration from approximately 19% of sales in 2019 to 25% penetration year-to-date. Not only are Pros building with their increased spend, they're also telling them that we're servicing them better. This is reflected by the 500 basis point improvement in our Pro customer service scores over that same time frame. In addition to continuing to improve our Pro offering, we are investing in never-out SKUs, expanding our job site delivery capabilities, and launching our new MVPs Pro online experience, a fast and simple in-store experience that we have replicated for the online customer. You'll hear more about this later this morning. All of these investments will help us continue to deliver our commitment to grow Pro at 2x the pace of the market. Now turning to our Installation businesses. This is another key growth pillar for our Total Home Strategy, and an important way we're meeting the needs of our do-it-for-me customers. This is another area of our business that we have fully revamped. We simplified what was a broken model into 2 focus areas. Starting with core installations of the products that we sell in our stores. These installs can range from large kitchen renovations to simple ceiling fan installs, all performed by independent third-party installers. So instead of taking on these projects ourselves, we're connecting our do-it-for-me customers with a consolidated network of independent service providers. We're also making it easy for our customers to purchase installations right on lowes.com. All they need to do is add to their cart when they check out. The second area we focused on was standing up an outsourced third-party model, where the vendor sells, furnishes and installs. These are more complex projects, like HVAC and bathroom remodels. And for these projects, we are paid a fee for providing that lead. But we don't have to carry any inventory, which is supportive of our ROIC targets. We're also tailing our install service offering to baby boomers. As Marvin mentioned, through our Livable Home program, we're giving customers turnkey solutions to make their homes more accessible and Installation Services to go with them. And that's everything from grab bars and walk-in tubs to ramps as well as stairlifts. The final area I would like to discuss is our efforts to reduce the impact of our operations on the planet that we all share. In order to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we've invested $550 million in the last few years to upgrade indoor LED lighting, replace stores' aging HVAC systems with high-efficiency models, updating our building management systems, even installing pallet grinders. In 2021, we began purchasing renewable power from the Mesquite Star wind farm in Texas. This alone drove a 4% reduction in our carbon emissions in its first year of operations. We are also currently rolling out rooftop solar to our stores, starting with 12 stores in New Jersey, while exploring opportunities to expand beyond. We've made significant progress reducing our energy consumption, which has also supported our operating margin targets. As Marvin said, this was a true win-win outcome. As we take the next step towards a net zero future, we're now exploring newer technology, like battery storage, geothermal to unlock further reductions. In closing, through our Total Home Strategy, we will continue to grow Pro sales at 2x the rate of the market, while also expanding our Installation Services. And we will remain laser-focused on unlocking productivity across our store operations through our PPI initiatives. As we continue to leverage technology to reduce the time our associates spend on tasking activities so they can focus on selling and delivering excellent customer service experience. And now it's time for a break. We'll see you back here in 15 minutes. Thank you. [Break]

Please welcome Chief Digital and Information Officer, Seemantini Godbole.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome back. I would like to pick up where Marvin left off when he told you about our efforts to transform and modernize our technology. I'll tell you about our progress to make our technology best-in-class, simple for our customers and associates to use, scalable for a Fortune 50 company and omnichannel right from inception. And you'll see how our new technology is helping us drive productivity by making our associates' jobs easier, removing friction from our customer experience and saving labor hours to be put back in selling. That is all part of the vision we laid out when I joined Lowe's 4 years ago. Back then, Marvin and I discussed the importance of technology in driving the future of retail and specifically, home improvement retail. But at that time, Lowe's was far behind leading retailers when it came to its technology, its strategy for architecture and capabilities. In fact, our technology was focused on managing costs and headcount and not building capabilities to serve customers the way they wanted to be served. So we set out to create a true omnichannel experience, grow our online and store sales, and attract and retain the best tech talent in retail. We anchored our strategy in customer experience and associate experience. We began our modernization efforts by migrating Lowes.com from a 10-year-old platform to the cloud. Now the site can routinely handle daily traffic in the excess of the volumes that infamously crashed it during Black Friday of 2018. We also continuously enhance the customer experience at a cadence that was impossible on the old platform. We used to make about a dozen Lowes.com updates every year. Now we make hundreds of improvements every month, and we are able to add new features and functionality within days. The new architecture gave us agility to make quick pivots like adding curbside pickup and touchless lockers during the pandemic. Joe already told you about many ways we are using technology to support our Pro customers, like our MVPs Pro Rewards Program and our customer relationship management, or CRM tool. As he mentioned, we improved our associate experience by rolling out a number of technology solutions that allowed them to focus on serving customers. These included smartphones, electronic signs and our new store inventory management system. We also began a multiyear process to convert our 30-year-old store system to a modern omnichannel architecture. But we were not afraid of the challenges when it came to overhauling these archaic systems. In fact, we had a late mover advantage because we were able to leverage the latest advancements in technology and our new leaders' expertise in successfully developing and delivering an omnichannel solution across retail. Now if this slide looks complex and confusing, that's because it is. It reflects the complexity of the systems that we inherited 4 years ago. While many other retailers were making investments to upgrade their infrastructure, Lowe's historically underinvested in talent and technology. Instead, the company used many separate off-the-shelf software packages and then customize them extensively, which made them hard to integrate, difficult to upgrade, slower to change as our business evolved. We were using several different systems in the store and several different systems on Lowes.com, none of which could talk to each other, which made them inefficient and unstable. We also had to reconcile a big contradiction in the way we operated. At a time, our entire business model was centered around our stores but our technology was designed to be enterprise-wide, which meant we couldn't localize products, prices or labor at a store level. Our systems are so complex, it created friction for our customers, and it made our associates job difficult because they had to toggle between as many as 6 different systems to complete their transaction, and they had to remember multiple log-ins while relying heavily on workarounds and tribal knowledge. Today, we are replacing these complex, outdated systems with a modern omnichannel architecture, one that enables a seamless, intuitive and consistent experience with a single source of information, including everything our associates need to serve customers whenever, wherever and however they want to shop. Sensating our old technology system is going to be a massive improvement. It will enable us to deploy new capabilities, build for the future and unlock a significant amount of productivity. It will give us a single view of the customer, no matter which channel they use, and a single view of our inventory, no matter where it is. With our old system, if a customer had a question about their order, associate had to start by asking a question, where did you buy this product? Was it online? Was it in a different store or was it through a contact center? Based on that answer, the associate had to log into one of the different systems to locate that order. But with the new architecture, there is really just one system and the associate can pull up everything they need to know using the customer's phone number. In the future, associates can rely on one intuitive easy-to-learn system from everything from checking out the customer to looking up inventory across the network. We are about 3/4 of the way through this transformation today, and we are accelerating the remaining work to drive sales and unlock productivity in the years ahead. Now I would like to tell you about the role technology is playing in our supply chain transformation. We are using artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation to give us tools for better forecasting, demand planning and sourcing allocations and faster inventory fulfillment systems. These are new tech enhancements which will be critical for our success, especially as we expand our Pro fulfillment network. Also important, we are creating end-to-end inventory visibility throughout our entire store and DC network and even our key suppliers. This will allow our associates to sell well beyond the limited view of their individual store. And once our associates see the accurate inventory beyond their store, they can sell that inventory beyond their store, enabling them to use Lowes.com to close more sales. Customers will also be able to track the delivery of the item in real-time every step of the way right up to their door. All these enhancements will create a more consistent customer experience and drive increased customer satisfaction. We are also using leading-edge technology to help us accelerate our online business, which is another key pillar of our Total Home Strategy. As you heard from Bill, we nearly doubled our online sales penetration in last 4 years. It would not have been possible for us to manage this massive growth without all the work we did to improve our technology infrastructure and enhance the functionality and stability of Lowes.com. As we look ahead, we see tremendous opportunity for further growth because our online sales are still underpenetrated compared to many other major retailers. To capture that growth, we are focused on enhancing our user experience and driving traffic and conversion. Let me give you a couple of examples of how we are enhancing the customer experience to make it easier for customers to visualize, estimate and shop for Total Home solutions. For starters, we are using virtual and mixed reality in categories like paint, kitchen and flooring, making it easy and fun for the customers to explore different possibilities for their home. And our new Measure Your Space tool is an example of how we are using spatial commerce and technologies like LIDAR, to help customers measure their room to get a more accurate estimate. We are tailoring our digital experience to support our customers' urgent needs when something breaks, making it fast and simple to order a new appliance, water heaters or HVAC products, and schedule all that installation all online. Earlier, you heard Bill talk about how we are using marketing to drive more traffic to our site. My team's job is to convert that traffic into sales. To do that, we overhauled our search experience to make it easier for customers to browse and find the products that they are looking for. We removed out-of-stock items from our product compare tool so customers are directed to what they can buy immediately. We are also partnering with suppliers to dramatically improve our product content with more ratings and reviews so customers can be confident about their purchases. And we have tools in place to ensure that our online assortment is priced competitively every day, just like our stores. Lastly, we continue to add more fulfillment capabilities nationwide. Overall, we are making shopping easier and more convenient across our website and our app with more payment types, fewer clicks to purchase and personalized product recommendations. Now when it comes to omnichannel selling, the conversion to our new architecture will enable us to fuel our endless aisle and drive Lowes.com growth right from the store. Historically, the stores only got credit for the sales made within their 4 walls, which meant they were disincentivized from directing customers to our website. Now our stores get 100% of the sales made online, and that means we are also expanding our associate training to sell our endless aisle on Lowes.com if you don't have what a customer is looking for in the store. But even today, our associates have to help customers pull up Lowes.com on our mobile app and complete the purchase themselves. In the future, the associates will be able to close Lowes.com sales directly from our store systems, which is a significant unlock for omnichannel selling. Now let's switch gears a little bit and talk about how we are investing in technology to serve Pro customers and provide a fast and simple digital shopping experience. We are getting ready to launch a game-changing MVPs Pro online experience that includes a virtual Pro Desk. Let me tell you what a difference that's going to make. Currently, when a Pro customer wants to get a quote or place a bulk pricing order, they have to leave their job site and come into the store or call the Pro's Desk. Then if they send a runner to pick up an order, it can be time consuming for both the customers and the associates because of the cumbersome process to authorize the runners payment. But with the launch of MVPs Pro online experience, Pros will be able to quickly place their bulk order on lowes.com through virtual Pro Desk on their laptop or mobile phone. They will be able to select their delivery or pickup option as part of their checkout process and preauthorize a runner who can quickly pick up the order. The new online experience also makes it easier for Pros to make a repeat purchase through the app's Buy It Again feature, and it has enhanced get it by rate function, calculators, product ratings and reviews and the ability to search in Spanish. Finally, let me tell you what we are doing to attract and retain the best technology talent in retail. In the last 4 years, we have added 2,000 tech associates to our team, more than doubling our workforce. To help us attract and grow diverse talent, we recently introduced a program called Launchpad. This is an on-the-job training program for traditional and nontraditional hires, including store associates who want to shift their careers to technology, which can open up opportunities for underserved communities. And with the investments we have made to grow our team, more than 85% of our work is now done internally, which is a best-in-class ratio for our industry. It allows us to curate solutions for our business, for our customers and for our associates. It helps us reduce our annual software licensing fees, all while creating a more consistent, seamless experience for our customers. And to support our team's growth and continue to attract top talent, we recently opened a global technology hub in Charlotte. This leading-edge collaborative workspace serves as a center of excellence in retail technology. It is conveniently located in a popular area of Charlotte, where technology associates can live, work and play, which makes it a great recruiting vehicle even in the era of hybrid work. I've covered a lot of ground today. So before I wrap up, let me give you a closer look at the innovation we are bringing to Lowe's. [Presentation]

And that's just the beginning of many more innovations to come in the future. In closing, Lowe's has made significant strides in overhauling our technology. We're making the right investments to create a true omnichannel experience, grow our online sales and attract and retain the best technology talent in retail. And I'm confident that the conversion of our systems to a modern omnichannel architecture will unlock tremendous amount of productivity and growth in the years to come ahead. And now please welcome our Executive Vice President of Supply Chain, Don Frieson.

Well, thank you, and good morning, everyone. Earlier, Marvin mentioned our plans to transform our supply chain to unlock our omnichannel capabilities, and Seemantini just explained how we are using technology to serve our customers whenever, wherever and however they want to shop. Now I'd like to tell you how we're building a world-class omnichannel supply chain to better serve our stores and meet our customers' expectations for fast fulfillment and delivery. Four years ago, we took a hard look at our supply chain, and just like other critical parts of our business, we determined that it needed an overhaul. As Marvin told you earlier, it was built to be store-centric and wasn't set up to serve customers' changing demands in an omnichannel world. We committed to invest $1.7 billion over 5 years to upgrade our capabilities in this critical area. And since then, we've made significant progress to improve speed, productivity and flexibility in really 4 key areas. First, building our network capacity and core distribution capabilities to support the future needs of $100 billion-plus retailer. Second, flooring products from our suppliers to our stores much more efficiently to keep stores in stock with the items they need and not overloading them with the items they don't. Third, using a market delivery model to support the sales of big and bulky products and expand our Pro delivery options. And finally, meeting the growing customer demand for seamless omnichannel fulfillment options. Now allow me to give you an overview of what our supply chain looks like today. Since 2018, we've added nearly 16 million square feet of space to be more flexible and more nimble and support the operations of a Fortune 50 retailer. With more than 100 facilities in our network, we've expanded our capacity and ability to floor more products much more effectively to exceed customers' expectations for both speed and service. Each one of these nodes plays a critical role and supported our Total Home Strategy and supports our ambition to provide a world-class omnichannel experience to our customers. We've also expanded our coastal holding facility network to create more capacity to hold product longer, so we can make better decisions where and when to move inventory to optimize our sales. It also helps us avoid stranding product where it isn't needed, leaving stores with inventory that ends up in markdown. These facilities puts us in a much better position to react quickly to unpredictable seasonal demand and extreme weather. This capability was on full display during hurricane season and when spring broke late this year. Coastal facilities also allow us to manage the flow of import product much better. That will support our strategy to create -- to increase our private brand penetration. The expanded capacity across our network is already making our supply chain more flexible and efficient, and we are leaning into this more agile network to fulfill and replenish product. Now with our old model, we were locked in the fixed routes from a distribution center to a store. Now we have increasing flexibility to flow product from whatever facility makes the most sense based on product availability and route efficiency. One critical step in our evolution is moving away from a store delivery model, which was terribly inefficient. With our old store-centric system, essentially each store served as its own distribution center for big and bulky products. We were holding appliances in our back rooms and storage containers behind our stores and using our store trucks to deliver them to customers. That meant customers could only purchase the inventory from that single store. They didn't have visibility into the available inventory we had to offer and neither did our associates. And because our store-based trucks didn't have delivery or routing software, customers didn't have visibility into the delivery process. They didn't know when their appliances would arrive. So to say this was a poor customer experience would be an absolute understatement. Our new delivery model, the market delivery model, is at the center of our supply chain transformation, enabling us to further consolidate our industry-leading position in appliances and positioning us for profitable growth in other big and bulky categories like grills, riding lawn mowers, stock cabinets and vanities. Let's take a look at the benefits of our new market delivery model for big and bulky product through the eyes of a customer. [Presentation]

We have 8 geographic regions up and running on this new model, and we're on track to complete the full rollout by the end of 2023. As we rolled out market delivery, we're freeing up space in our back rooms, which were originally built to support the store delivery model. These oversized backrooms are 10,000 square feet on average, and they give us a distinct competitive advantage because they're much larger than our closest competitors' limited backroom space. Let me give you 3 examples of how we're leveraging our backrooms. First, we're using them to optimize our parcel store network in strategic store locations to handle online parcel volume in conjunction with our stand-alone fulfillment centers. Next, our backrooms are helping us gain traction with Pros who paint. A critical component of our service to this busy Pro is our enhanced job site delivery capabilities for Pro paint orders handled by Lowe's Pro Supply, or LPS, branches today. Now as a reminder, we formed LPS by integrating the central wholesalers and maintenance supply headquartered businesses which we acquired in 2016 and 2017, respectively. We can now extend these capabilities by using the backroom space to mix and ship large quantities of paint direct to the job site. And finally, we're piloting BOPIS for popular online-only SKUs and high-demand product categories like tools and power equipment as we offer customers the opportunity to pick up their orders in a couple of hours at a Lowe's store near their home. We continue to view these store backrooms as a structural advantage that will expand our fulfillment capabilities without adding a network of capital-intensive fulfillment centers as we strive to increase the percentage of online orders fulfilled from stores. Looking ahead, we're now extending the benefits of market delivery to Pro flatbed deliveries to offer Pros a wider selection and a fast and simple online experience without ever having to leave the job site. As we seek to grow our Pro sales, our goal is to capture more of the planned purchases for our small- to medium-sized Pros by expanding our same-day and next-day job site delivery capabilities. We will be standing up a Pro fulfillment network across the country by leveraging a combination of our existing assets as well as some new facilities. Now we'll focus on 3 key initiatives to create this network. In some geographic areas with heavy Pro penetration, we will open a stand-alone Pro Fulfillment Center, or what we call a PFC. Like our first PFC that we opened in Charlotte earlier this year, we are stocking deeper quantities of top Pro SKUs and have expanded capabilities to handle large orders on multiple flat beds. We've seen a strong lift in sales through this new facility and excellent customer service scores. And at the same time, we'll also reconfigure our current flatbed distribution centers, or FDCs, which currently replenish our stores with lumber and other building materials. By modifying the design of the facility, we'll add other critical SKUs that Pros need so that we could also handle job site deliveries from the FDCs. And depending on the market, we'll utilize some stores in our 29 Lowe's Pro supply branches for expanded Pro deliveries, again, stocking deeper quantities of key Pro SKUs and then we'll handle job site delivery for the surrounding area from that location. We're also standing up a gig network for same-day deliveries for both our Pro and DIY customers that will be fully integrated on Lowes.com. Now critical linchpin to this expanded pro fulfillment network is the enhanced sourcing logic that Seemantini discussed. This improved technology will route orders to the location that they can be filled as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. Now the important takeaway is that our Pro fulfillment network will not be a one-size-fits-all solution. We're taking a multipronged, market-by-market approach to build out this capital-light fulfillment network for Pros in a way that really maximizes ROIC and allows us to move quickly to build on our momentum with the Pro. Let me transition now to talk about how we're improving our delivery capabilities for our Pro and DIY customers with an ecosystem driven by their demand for speed, which we are meeting through parcel shipping and gig networks. We've been expanding our parcel shipping capabilities and coverage with the combination of stand-alone fulfillment centers as well as a network of parcel stores. We're reducing our shipping costs by continuing to enhance our sourcing engine that makes real-time routing decisions. And earlier this year, we announced our partnership with Instacart for same-day delivery in as fast as 1 hour. Lowe's was the first home improvement retailer on the Instacart marketplace. And through our nationwide expansion, customers can now have approximately 30,000 Lowe's items weighing up to 60 pounds delivered from their store to the door. Now let's talk about how we're unlocking productivity and supply chain. So if you think about it, an evolving supply chain is all about improving productivity, maximizing speed and gaining efficiency. So right now, instead of me telling you about it, let me show you some of our productivity enhancements in action. [Presentation]

So this is all part of the culture of continuous improvement that every leader at Lowe's is embracing. In our supply chain specifically, we know that there is a substantial amount of productivity for us to unlock. There's also a lot of opportunity ahead of us to unlock efficiency in our operations. And that's one of the beautiful things about supply chain. Our entire focus as an organization is about improving efficiency which typically lead to more sustainability. You've already heard about our commitment to reach our net zero target by 2050. That commitment absolutely extends into our supply chain. We're focusing our efforts in 4 key areas, starting with building efficiency. Just like we've retrofitted our stores to reduce emissions and increase energy efficiency, we're also retrofitting our HVAC systems and LED lighting across our distribution network and added solar arrays on our RDCs. Next, we're focusing on reducing waste and improving recycling. For example, instead of paying to Holloway to use pallets, we're using pallet grinders to recycle and sell the pulp to our suppliers, a win-win for the environment and our business. We're also exploring the electrification of our fleet, including forklifts, vehicles and yard trucks. And finally, we're working on improving our logistics efficiency, optimizing our delivery routes and transportation, improving our reverse logistics and backhaul program by reducing the total miles we drive, especially empty miles. This increased efficiency will also improve the sustainability of our operations. So to wrap up, because customer needs and buying patterns are constantly changing, we know we would never really be finished evolving our supply chain. There's so much opportunity for us to capture as we continue to make our supply chain smarter, faster and more flexible, expand our Pro fulfillment network and complete the rollout of market delivery across our stores. This is really an exciting time for Lowe's with tremendous runway for growth ahead. Now please help me welcome Executive Vice President of Human Resources, Janice Dupre.

Thank you, Don, and good morning. All morning, you've been hearing about the key elements of Lowe's Total Home Strategy and how it is designed to help us expand our profitability and take market share. Well, I'm here to tell you that the most important part of that strategy is our people. That is why we are committed to making Lowe's a great place to work and becoming the employer of choice in retail and a place where our associates can grow and build their careers. To do that, we are focused on creating an enriching experience for our associates that provides 3 key things: good jobs, a sense of belonging and a promising future. Most importantly, we are doing a much better job of listening to our associates and acting on their feedback. In fact, more than 90% of our associates participate in our annual engagement survey, which is industry-leading in retail. Now let me tell you a little bit about some of the progress we have made over the last 4 years. For starters, since 2018, we have invested more than $3 billion in incremental wages and share-based compensation for our frontline associates. This includes an 11% increase in the hourly rate for our store associates just over the last 2 years and the incremental $170 million annual investment in permanent wages, which we're proud to say goes into effect this month. We also offer competitive bonuses and a comprehensive benefits package. And we have created new store leadership roles, including 1,600 assistant store manager positions and 10,000 department supervisor positions across the high-impact areas in our stores like Pro, the Garden Center and fulfillment teams. We're relying on our proactive associate listening strategy to improve what matters most to our associates, like helping to foster more work-life balance. And as Joe mentioned earlier, our new workforce management tools enable us to offer most of our full-time associates multiple scheduling options, which includes a shortened work week, consistent shifts and consecutive days off. And in 2018, we began incorporating diversity and inclusion into our corporate strategy. We are also making a significant investment in associate learning and development, and we ensure that we set HR goals that are closely aligned with business results and outcomes just to do our part to support the profitable growth of our company. Now most companies would be very pleased with the investments in associates that I just mentioned. But at Lowe's, we are striving to differentiate ourselves from other retailers. So we are making a host of additional investments to enhance our associate experience. For example, we're providing more development opportunities for our associates like debt-free education programs, which provides pathways into careers in supply chain, logistics, technology and more. And our Track to the Trades program, which is a certification which is a workforce initiative to help associates identify -- do career alternatives, excuse me, and financial support for associates to pursue a skilled trade. And as Seemantini mentioned, we're very proud that we just opened our brand-new tech hub in Charlotte where our associates can collaborate and innovate with their teams. These are just a few of the many enhanced investments in our associates, reflecting on our commitment to becoming the employer of choice in retail. In addition, we are making sure our investments in learning and development are generating higher sales and increasing associates' confidence and their ability to service our customers. For example, our results show that when associates engage with our Lowe's University Pro training, they actually generate 70% more leads than those who do not. We are also making sure that our technology investments accelerate the hiring process, and we're ensuring that we are hiring the best candidates into the right positions to drive sales. And we are making sure that we measure the HR outcomes to ensure that they are generating business results for Lowe's. Diversity and inclusion is one of those areas. We have launched a multiyear program to integrate diversity and inclusion into our corporate strategy across 3 key areas: talent, culture and business. We start with the hiring process, and we continue with a robust talent and succession planning process that fuels a diverse pipeline for critical roles. We help leaders track their team's progress by integrating diversity metrics into their quarterly business reviews. We also look for small and diverse suppliers and participate in 15 regional panels. And all these efforts are helping us identify and connect with our suppliers, uncover innovation and ensure our products meet the needs of our diverse customer base. And to allow our shareholders to hold us accountable to demonstrate our commitment to transparency, we have published our second culture, diversity and inclusion report just last year. And this includes workforce data that our shareholders have requested. We believe that building a more diverse and inclusive workforce has helped us generate better ideas, deliver stronger results and improve service through a deeper connection with our customers. We are striving to increase the representation of women and people of color in leadership positions across our workforce, in our officers, in our executive officer positions and our Board of Directors. And I am very proud to say that over the last year, leading voices in this space has recognized Lowe's for the great work that we're doing. We also recognize the importance of strengthening our bonds with our diverse communities that we serve. One of the ways that we're doing this is by giving back to several meaningful and thoughtful partnerships to help us better connect with these communities. For example, we are a founding member of OneTen. This organization's mission is simple, yet powerful: to create 1 million family-sustaining jobs for Black Americans over the next 10 years. And we are very, very proud to do our part to break down barriers and to help opportunities for careers here at Lowe's. We also remain very focused on cultivating an inclusive culture that invites and encourages diverse opinions and ideas. Today, we have 8 business resource groups that I'm happy to say are sponsored by our executive leadership team. These groups provide our associates with opportunities to collaborate, network and learn together. And they offer additional space for these associates to feel heard and engaged. We tap into these BRGs for insights, for ideas and perspectives to help our business. This focus on diversity and inclusion is key to our efforts to provide our associates with good jobs, a sense of belonging and access to a promising future, which brings me to our efforts to attract, develop, promote and retain talent. This is a very important way that we are investing in our people to drive business growth, an another area where we are measuring outcomes that are tied to sales. From the moment that a candidate applies for a position at Lowe's, we are committed to providing a positive impression. We are using technology to help us process applications in a matter of minutes versus weeks that the manual process took just a year ago. And we also continue to improve our onboarding efforts so that our new hires can quickly come up to speed. It now includes 2 full days where new associates spend time in every single department in the store. Next, they take 2 weeks of Lowe's University training that's tied specifically to their roles. And then we assign them a dedicated mentor that will help and support them to continue to grow and learn. All of this has essentially doubled the amount of time that we are spending with our new hires, and this gives them a better understanding of their jobs and ensures that they know about careers and opportunities at Lowe's. Once the associate is onboarded, we are using our new Lowe's University in-store training labs to provide the ongoing training that they need to build their skills and their confidence and progress in their careers. Associates can also access Lowe's University through their smart mobile devices. Now these trainings are small, they're digestible lessons that are tailored specifically to the associates role. And our focus on leadership development is enabling us to grow our talent internally. In fact, we have filled more than 80% of our leadership roles from within in the last year, and close to 90% of our store leaders have advanced to their current positions from hourly roles. I hope that you can see that we have a lot of exciting efforts underway to make sure that Lowe's is a great place to work and become the employer of choice in retail, where our associates can grow and build their careers. This is what's driving our investment in our people as we support the profitable growth of our business. And now please welcome our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Brandon Sink.

Thanks, Janice, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin today by affirming our full year 2022 financial outlook that we outlined on our third quarter earnings call a few weeks ago. We expect comparable sales of flat to down 1% with continued Pro momentum and steady DIY sales trends. And as a reminder, our 2022 sales outlook includes a 53rd week, which equates to approximately $1 billion to $1.5 billion in sales. And given our strong profit flow-through, we expect adjusted operating margin of 13% and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $13.65 to $13.80 for the year. Now keep in mind that our Canadian retail business represents approximately 60 basis points of dilution to the consolidated full year 2022 adjusted operating margin outlook. Our improved operating capabilities, combined with our disciplined expense management and our enhanced product cost management and pricing strategies, are enabling us to lever adjusted operating margin despite a modest decline in sales. We expect capital expenditures of up to $2 billion and share repurchases of approximately $13 billion. And finally, we're affirming our outlook of adjusted return on invested capital over 37%. Now let's switch gears and talk about how we're thinking about 2023. And given the uncertain macro environment and the range of potential outcomes, we're planning our business as we did in 2021 based on various scenarios. This approach gives us the ability to quickly adjust our operating plans as we move through the year with a focus on outperforming our relevant market and protecting our operating margins. And as a reminder, we view our relevant market on a mix adjusted basis, reflecting our higher DIY penetration compared to the broader market. And this slide outlines 3 points on a potential spectrum of outcomes for 2023, and under these scenarios, we have the agility to manage our inventory and SG&A to meet demand in a robust market where home improvement is well insulated from a downturn, and our relevant market is flat or slightly positive. And in contrast, we would moderate our spending and investments in a softer market where there is a brief or even prolonged downturn and the relevant market contracts by as much as mid-single digits. Now next year, we'll focus on actively managing the items in our control while quickly reacting to dynamic macro trends. And as you model our sales for 2023, keep in mind that lumber pricing is approaching the low point for all of 2022 at just over $450 per 1,000 board feet. And if these pricing levels persist into '23, this would represent roughly $1 billion headwind for next year or approximately 100 basis points. Also keep in mind, in each of these scenarios we'll continue to make incremental investments in our frontline associate wages, including ongoing merit increases and the $170 million in annual permanent wage investments that we just announced. In 2023, we will also invest in our strategic growth initiatives, including our enhanced supply chain capabilities across our new market delivery model and Pro fulfillment network. Now importantly, all scenarios yield operating margin expansion when compared to 13% consolidated adjusted operating margin in 2022 from a high of 90 basis points in our robust scenario to 30 basis points in our weak market scenario. And as I mentioned earlier, the Canadian retail business represents approximately 60 basis points of dilution to the consolidated adjusted operating margin. So said differently, even in the moderate market scenario, we'd expect our U.S. home improvement margins to lever by 10 basis points against a 1% decline in sales, and that's despite higher wage expense and ongoing investments in growth. This outcome reflects our continued confidence in driving productivity throughout our organization with our PPI initiatives. Now that we've outlined our 2023 scenarios, let me answer the question that many of you have asked us, and that's mainly how will we manage the downside risk. Let me explain the operating levers that we would adjust if needed. By far, our largest expense is frontline labor, which we manage through an industry-leading workforce management system. These tools allow us to rapidly adjust our store labor hours while still protecting our excellent customer service experience. We demonstrated this agility in the first half of this year when spring weather broke late, and we were able to lever operating margin despite lower-than-expected sales by quickly aligning our labor to the slower traffic in our stores. And we deployed the same disciplined, highly coordinated approach to inventory management, which enabled us to avoid some of the pitfalls seen across the retail industry this year. This allowed us to mitigate our markdown risk in a slower sales environment. And finally, if necessary, we would aggressively manage corporate SG&A, flexing advertising spend and incentive compensation while rationalizing and deferring incremental projects. Now building on our momentum and our plans for 2023, we are updating and raising our long-term financial targets. We expect to achieve this target by 2025 in our robust scenario where home improvement is well insulated through a potential downturn or by 2027 in our moderate scenario if there is a brief downturn in home improvement in the next 18 months. So starting with sales per square foot. This year, we're on track to deliver a 39% increase over a 4-year period to $466. Today, we're setting a new target of $520 as we capitalize on the growth opportunities within our Total Home Strategy. We're also on track to deliver a 440 basis point improvement in adjusted operating margin over a 4-year period to an estimated 13%. This is the result of higher sales, a relentless enterprise-wide focus on productivity and better-than-expected gross margin performance driven by disciplined product cost management and enhanced pricing strategies and promotional strategies. We are now increasing our long-term target to 14.5%, which we'll achieve through a combination of sales leverage and continued SG&A performance. With strong sales growth, higher operating margins and disciplined capital deployment, we're on track to deliver a 26-point increase in adjusted return on invested capital over a 4-year period to over 37%. We're pleased to be one of the very few retailers operating above 35% ROIC. And looking forward, it's now our goal to expand return on invested capital to 45%. Our outstanding operating performance over the past 4 years enabled us to return over $43 billion to our shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends. This is a reflection of our commitment to a value-enhancing capital allocation program. Now let me outline several key efforts that are designed to deliver on our long-term targets. And before I jump into these specific efforts, let me remind you of the company's long-term financial model. We expect our gross margin rate to be down slightly as we continue to drive significant improvements through merchandising productivity, which will be largely offset by our supply chain and Pro initiatives. We'll continue to lever SG&A through sales growth and enterprise-wide gains and operating productivity through our PPI initiatives, which will be partly offset by investments in annual merit increases and $170 million in annual permanent wage investments for our frontline associates. These building blocks give us confidence in our longer-term operating margin target of 14.5%, which, again, we expect to achieve by 2025 in our robust scenario or by 2027 in our moderate scenario if there is a brief downturn in home improvement in the next 18 months. But finally, make no mistake, we do not view our new 14.5% operating margin target as our final destination. This is only a mile marker along the way. By continuing to drive higher sales and incremental productivity while leveraging our strategic investments, we will have clear line of sight to achieve a 15% operating margin within 24 months of hitting 14.5%. Now let me walk through an example of the store level impact of driving a 5-point increase in Pro penetration from our current average of 25% to a hypothetical penetration of 30%. This analysis assumes that we're also making investments in our MVP Pros online experience, our Pro never-out SKUs, a modest increase in our Pro sales force and our expanded Pro fulfillment network that extends our current job site delivery capabilities. So taking a look at the impact at a store level. With a 5-point increase in Pro penetration, we would anticipate higher sales with only a modest increase in store labor hours, an increase in store level profitability and improved inventory turns. So with a modest investment in incremental overhead, we anticipate driving a significant improvement in operating productivity. And given our ongoing commitment to outpace the Pro market by 2x, we anticipate our incremental Pro sales will account for over half of the company's expected 100 basis points of sales leverage that you saw on the previous slide. Let's turn now to merchandising and supply chain PPI. We plan to build on our improved product margins with the next set of productivity initiatives and expect to yield $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion in gross margin enhancements over the next 3 years, while being mindful of consumer price perception and supporting strong supplier relationships. Now there are several initiatives under the merchandising and supply chain PPI umbrella. First, we'll continue to execute against our product cost management strategies. This includes negotiating with our suppliers to clawback some of the cost increases that we've taken over the past couple of years given that commodity prices and transportation costs have begun to decline. We anticipate that some of these clawbacks will be reinvested back into the portfolio through lower retail prices. We estimate that the net impact of these efforts will represent roughly 1/3 of the total merchandising PPI target. We also expect that our increased private brand penetration in DIY in the core categories will help us drive better margin rate productivity because product margins for our private branded products are significantly higher on average compared to their national brand counterparts. Second is our focus on unlocking inventory productivity by improving space allocation across our portfolio and shifting our investments in slower velocity SKUs to safety stock and higher velocity Pro SKUs. Again, what we're referring to as Pro never-out SKUs. Third, we'll continue to leverage everyday competitive pricing, which supports a rational disciplined promotional cadence and will also enable us to price right at a local or even micro market level. And finally, as we expand our Lowe's One Roof Media Network, we'll empower our suppliers with our in-depth insights based on our first-party customer data to drive higher sales of their products. Turning to our supply chain and Pro initiatives. We continue to make substantial investments. As Don highlighted earlier, we'll complete the rollout of market delivery by the end of 2023, which will unlock additional capacity for our appliance and other big and bulky product sales. And also the expansion of our coastal holding facility network will support increased import volumes as a result of higher private brand penetration and direct-to-import conversions. This will help us leverage our scale and carrier relationships to drive lower transportation cost. And we're expanding our Pro fulfillment network, by first leveraging our existing facilities across our flatbed distribution centers, stores and Lowe's Pro supply branches. And in select Pro heavy markets, we'll also open new Pro fulfillment centers. This capital-light approach allows us to move quickly to build on our momentum with the Pro while supporting our objective of expanding return on invested capital. And finally, as we expand our MVP Pro Rewards program, we'll invest in value-added rewards for the Pro to incentivize long-term loyalty and repeat purchases. In the aggregate, these investments are expected to pressure gross margin by about $1.6 billion to $2 billion over the next 3 years, effectively offsetting the gains realized through our merchandising and supply chain PPI initiatives. But these are critical to support our long-term sales and service objectives. Now let's talk about the conversion of our legacy store model -- store delivery model to a market delivery model. The additional capacity created through the new market delivery model will enable us to further consolidate our leadership position in appliances and support profitable growth for other big and bulky product sales. Now this is everything from grills, riding lawn mowers to stock cabinets and vanities. The new model reduces damage expense, often cutting it in half given the fewer touches needed to load an appliance in the bulk distribution centers and it reduces store payroll expense since associates no longer need to locate the appliance and ensure that it gets loaded properly for customer delivery. This model improves inventory turns with a shared inventory model where customers can select any appliance from our bulk distribution center for delivery rather than being limited to inventory available in the store. And finally, it will free up space in our larger-than-normal store backrooms. This is a unique competitive advantage that will enable us to optimize our parcel store network, expand our Pro paint fulfillment capabilities and increase the total percentage of online orders fulfilled from stores. We are confident that this is the right investment to position the company for future profitable growth in critical DIY categories where we have a market leadership position. Now throughout the morning, you've heard each of our leaders speak about our culture of continuous improvement, or PPI. All of these initiatives combined are expected to yield $1.5 billion to $2 billion in SG&A savings over the next 3 years. Store operating expense presents the largest opportunity for operating margin expansion. And in 2023, we'll finish converting our outdated technology to a modern omnichannel technology platform and modern selling systems throughout the store. This will help us accelerate associate training and free up labor hours to focus on serving the customer. We'll also transform the front end of our stores as we scale our homegrown self-checkout across the portfolio. This new cashier-assisted approach to self-checkout will enable us to reduce labor hours across the front of the store. And by accelerating our order fulfillment process, we will further reduce nonproductive labor hours. And finally, we'll continue to leverage our scale and purchasing power to drive down our indirect spend through disciplined sourcing efforts and vendor negotiations while outsourcing more support functions to our shared service center in Bangalore. Before I close today, I'd like to discuss our approach to translating our improved operating performance in sustainable shareholder returns. Our framework for unlocking value is unchanged. It's focused on 3 key areas: first, our commitment to operational excellence across the company; second, our ability to generate consistently high levels of cash flow; and third, our optimized shareholder-focused approach to capital allocation. And over the past 4 years, we delivered significant improvements in operating performance while creating substantial shareholder value. We are confident that our disciplined approach will continue to unlock additional value in the years ahead. And over the next 3 years, we expect that the company will continue to generate significant levels of cash flow. And assuming a disciplined execution, the company can generate operating cash flow of approximately $32 billion. And if approximately 20% of this cash is invested back into the business, $26 billion in free cash flow would be available. And through this time frame, additional cash of about $7 billion could be made available through debt issuance. This would result in approximately $33 billion in cash available to return to our shareholders, which represents roughly 25% of the company's current market cap. Our commitment to our best-in-class capital allocation strategy is also unchanged. It's centered around 3 priorities: first, investing in our core business on high-return projects, either organic or inorganic, to position the company for long-term growth; next, supporting our 35% dividend payout target; and finally, returning excess capital to our shareholders through value-enhancing share repurchases. Next year, we expect to hit our target leverage ratio of 2.75x, which we would continue to maintain consistent with our commitment to a healthy balance sheet and a solid investment-grade rating. Our Board of Directors just approved an additional $15 billion in share repurchases, which brings the total share repurchase authorization to approximately $21 billion. This is a reflection of our Board's confidence and the company's continued business momentum and strong cash generation capabilities. Now in closing, I'd like to remind you why we believe Lowe's represents a superior investment opportunity. Despite near-term uncertainty, we're confident about the medium- and long-term outlook of the home improvement industry and Lowe's position within the industry. We're investing in critical omnichannel capabilities necessary for our long-term growth. We have a resilient business model that will enable us to gain market share across DIY and Pro, while also expanding our operating margins and return on invested capital. And we have a proven track record of returning capital to our shareholders through a disciplined capital allocation strategy. All of this shows that the company is well positioned to deliver long-term sustainable value to our shareholders. And with that, we'll take a 15-minute break and return for our Q&A session. Thank you. [Break]

Please welcome back Kate Pearlman.

Welcome back, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the Q&A session. We're going to have a 1-hour session. Our executive leadership team is here to respond to your questions. If you have a question, please just raise your hand at your seat, and one of our team members will bring you a microphone. Please do wait for the mic so that we can ensure that everybody on the webcast can hear you. Also, please introduce yourself and please limit yourself to 1 question and 1 follow-up. And then if we have time, we'll come back to you for another question. All right. Let's get started. I think we have a question over here.

If you can see me, I can stand if you can't. Simeon Gutman, Morgan Stanley. My first question, a sales and housing-related question. given the traditional lag time from when home prices decelerate to when home improvement demand response. It means -- it could mean that sales are weaker in the back half of '23 and potentially into '24. The question is '23 is this shallow housing recession, and it's done at rebasis in '23? Or how should we think about it even into '24?

So Simeon, I'll take the first part of it. I'll let Brandon provide some input also. What we can do is just look at the historical trends of the demand drivers for home improvement. Understanding that as we look at a full year that there will be ebbs and flows on first half, second half and first through the fourth quarter. But also you have to think about the unique nature of home improvement, the greatest impact on our business next year and what happens first and second half is going to be more about the spring season and the weather pattern is probably then the macro environment to be quite candid. Having said that, as we look at the home improvement business, and we look at historical trends, those demand drivers that I talked about, and we've talked about consistently around home price depreciation the age of homes and basically the consumers' balance sheet, those things still hold true, and they remain supportive. And so when we look at that, in the face of interest rates being high, inflation and other macro concerns, we still believe that those things work in our favor, meeting those demand drivers. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to show that slide from the mid-90s when you saw housing turnover down and you saw interest rates up. And what that did to the homebuilding sector and conversely, your home improvement continue to perform well even in the face of those macro headwinds. And so we can only base our view of 2023 based on historical trends, but those 3 scenarios are really important because as Brandon will speak to, I'm sure, is the agility we've built so that we can quickly respond to whatever the macro gives us because my crystal ball isn't any better than your crystal ball, but we can look at historical trends and make financial assumptions on that, and that's what we tried to do. So Brandon?

Yes. I would just say, Simeon, as you know, there's a lot of uncertainty out there for next year, right? Which is why we took the scenario-based approach. As we showed on the slide, our goal was effectively to sort of book end a range of scenarios that we see potentially playing out next year in 2023, right, robust, where the market operates effectively flat you're down as much as mid-single digits next year in our weak scenario. But I would highlight as we sit here today, the weak scenario for us would resolve in our view as more of an economic shock, right? So sort of a broad-based effect where the consumer is down, all industries down. And we actually don't see that as we sit here today. It's the less likely of our 3 scenarios. And we often you heard in my prepared remarks, we get asked the question about how bad can it be? What's Lowe's downside risk. We really wanted to provide that mid-single-digit industry down and Lowe's being down at 4% again just to give you guys an idea of -- to Marvin's point how we would manage profitability and how we would manage flow-through and what that scenario would look like if it played out next year.

And Simeon, even in that worst case scenario, we still have accretive operating margin if you compare what will be a U.S. business based on a consolidated business. And again, that gives -- should give you confidence it gives me confidence that we're going to continue to operate at a high level. And as we say here often, we're going to control what we control.

Quick follow-up in the margin bridge. The 100 basis points of OpEx improvement is pretty significant to that. Can you assess the degrees of difficulty in achieving it? And anything on timing and magnitude?

Yes. So Simeon, I would just say we have an incredible track record. I think we've driven -- we talked about 450 basis points of operating margin. A significant portion of that has come from SG&A, right? The discipline and everything that Joe has talked about, we've sort of built that culture of continuous improvement, the cost take out. And as we look ahead, we feel like we have continued momentum. We have a flywheel. Seemantini talked about store tech modernization, front-end transformation, Joe, indirect cost takeout. We have merchandising and supply chain PPI. So as we look ahead, just given our track record, given the culture of what we've built in the flywheel, we feel like 100 basis points in the next 3 to 5 years, Simeon, is really achievable.

Question over here.

Chris Horvers from JPMorgan, and thank you for today. My first question is maybe in the comp for next year, talk about your expectations that sort of the degree of Pro up versus maybe DIY down transaction ticket and inflation as we think about '23?

So I'll give you just a broader perspective, I'll let Brandon jump in. Typically, when you look at any type of recessionary environment. And even if you look at our view of 2023, we think the Pro is still going to perform really well. And it's based on, again, those demand drivers of the average home being 41 years old, $330,000 on average equity in the home and the simple fact that 2/3 of our business remains nondiscretionary. So we believe that, that's going to hold up. And as I mentioned earlier this morning, our pulse survey with our Pro customers reflected that over 70% of them when they look at their current book of business, projects lined up, they believe that they're going to be busier in '23 than they were this year. And so that gives us confidence that the Pro customer is going to hold up. And as we mentioned on our third quarter call. I mean, DIY has been soft for us all year, but in the third quarter, we saw our best DIY performance and we think that the DIY Pro ratio and performance will probably be the same going into 2023. It's one of the reasons why those Pro initiatives that you heard from Joe and Don and Seemantini and Bill is really important for us to execute those at a high level. And we believe that we will because we need to really continue to drive that Pro growth.

Yes, Chris, I would add, when you look at Pro DIY growth in our moderate and robust scenarios, over the next 3 years, we're looking to outpace market by 150 basis points. That is inclusive of Pro within that market outpacing DIY and we feel like we can grow Pro at 2x the market. So that's overall, over the 3-year period, what our assumption is, as it relates to that Pro DIY mix? And then you also mentioned ticket in transaction. So when we look at ticket as we have communicated this year, we have seen high single digits inflation most every quarter this year. We actually see that continuing to wrap in the next year. So we're expecting comps to be lifted modestly by inflation next year. That's going to be offset by transactions and that is going to be that primary differentiator when you look at the other scenarios, transactions is going to be that differentiator when you look at the -- again, the 3 scenarios of what could potentially play out next year.

Got it. And then a follow-up on the cadence question for next year. So you have the wrap of inflation, but you're also expecting DIY to be weaker. So that's more seasonal that we should we think about like how do those 2 things interface.

Yes. I would say DIY, and this is just a general broad-based term. Next year, first half is going to be an easier cycle for us, right, with the DIY business. We experienced weather implications Q1, Q2 this year, we saw some pull forward in reversion in some of the categories because we were cycling over '21 stimulus. We called out patio grills. So those are all DIY businesses. We expect to be -- again, to be comping that first half next year. And then the second half is going to be a little bit more leveled out. So that's just to give you an indication, if you're looking at first half, second half, how to think about comps.

A question over here.

Brian Nagel from Oppenheimer. A lot of detail, great. So my question -- like the first question, that the new sales per square foot target of $520. If we unpack that, how much of that is the continued -- a function of the continued penetration of Pro versus other factors? And then I guess it was maybe a little piece of that. I mean how should we think about -- just what kind of sales per square foot does Pro penetration lend to in your stores?

So Brian, I'm going to let Bill talk about this U.S. retail reset that we did with the Pro in mind and how we think a large part of that sales per square foot growth is going to come out of how we just created more intuitive a more intuitive shopping environment for our Pros. So Bill, do you want to talk about that?

Yes, exactly. So thanks, Marvin. So as you know, we took on that project during the pandemic and really took on the entire store to set it with the Pro in mind, putting those products like I mentioned in my earlier remarks, getting them closer together. That was all part of the foundational work in this fundamental work that we needed to get in place. Now we have the opportunity to get a little deeper and go into each one of those categories and whether that's local opportunities like I highlighted, whether those are assortment opportunities that we can clean up, whether it's holding power for these Pro never out SKUs that we talked about to be able to give them the space that they need and be able to pack them and prepare them for sale in the way that Joe's team can execute, is all what the next steps are, and that's where that velocity starts to come from.

Yes. And Brian, your specific question, I called out 50 of the 100 basis points operating margin. You're calling out the sales piece. I would say, of the growth Pro represents about 2/3 of that opportunity versus the other pillars of our total home strategy online, product differentiation, localization, general rule of thumb there.

That's helpful. Then my second question, a follow-up question, I guess, for you, Brandon. In the scenarios for next year, which you laid out really well. In that we -- and recognizing what you just said, it's a low probability, but that weaker scenario, is that where you think you would keep expenses? Or would you -- if sales were to track consistent with that, would you actually pull further leverage to protect operating margins even further?

Yes. I think that's our view, right? We provided the downside risk. We often get asked, what does down 5 look like. We feel like we understand in that down scenario, what's the mix between ticket transactions, how would that translate to how we plan payroll, some of our other store expenses, incremental projects, et cetera. So we feel like, Brian, that's the best representation from a comp and from a flow-through standpoint, in that down scenario. Again, we don't think it's the likeliest of scenarios, but that's our view in terms of what the flow-through would look like.

Brian, I would just add, when you look at our payroll model that we have developed, it's a transaction based. And we have the ability to make the adjustments, again, day of the week, time of day, right down to the department. So we have a lot of built-in capabilities on the management of expenses to simply Lowe's did not have before.

Next question back there.

Jon Matuszewski from Jefferies. Great presentation. What levels of home price depreciation are assumed in your 3 planning scenarios for 2023? And relatedly, what categories of sales do you see being more pressured with a reversal in home price depreciation that we've seen over the past 3 years?

So Brandon, why don't you take the first part, Bill, you can talk about the category.

I would say in terms of degrees, home prices is not really going to be the element that's going to differentiate between the scenarios. You heard Marvin in his prepared remarks, talk about all of the factors that we believe, even if there's a slight step back in home equities and home prices, minimal impact to basically our scenarios in our models, right? We see it as more of a consumer-led recession, and that's how we've modeled it, and that's what's reflected in the scenarios.

Yes and some of the categories that typically will soften a little bit are these larger projects. And so you got to then focus on the repair and maintenance aspect of this. I'll give you a good example, like kitchen remodels, a customer may not take on a large kitchen remodel project, but they may scale it back and take on with the take with cabinet that we have in a cabinet and a countertop to match that cabinet that's now available in the store and do it for a lot less expense.

Great. And then just my follow-up question relates to the complexion of your Pro customer base and how it's going to evolve over the medium term. So can you give us a sense of what does the mix of trades people repair and remodelers and property managers look like today for the Pro customer group? And what's assumed as you push towards 30% Pro penetration?

Yes. So I'll give you a view and Joe, you can get into the specifics of what it looks like today. I think the best thing to ground yourself, is that our core Pro customers are small to medium-sized Pro. And when you think about Pro in this home improvement marketplace, so this $1 trillion marketplace, Pro is worth -- roughly 50% of that in that small to medium Pro is half of that Pro. So it's a significant market for a customer that we believe is being underserved. And for a customer that we have the ability with some of the service improvements and product improvements we've made to really leverage and grow our share there. So that's -- so I'll ground you there, and I'll let Joe give a little bit more specifics.

And so thanks for the question. We have a tremendous focus. You heard in some of my prepared remarks, both our internal and external sales force. So we understand that MRO customer will now have a nationwide footprint for the MRO customer. There are differences in the mix between different types of trades, organizations, electricians, plumbers, versus your kind of general contractor. And that's why we've launched things like Pro Paint. And this isn't to go after the painter who's doing all this big commercial painting. This is the Pro that paints, right? And so every Pro job typically ends with cleaning and painting and touch up. And so I think it's just an example of some of the capabilities we're building. In addition, Marvin mentioned the Pro parking, the dedicated lot associates. The air in their tires. And air in the tires may not seem like a big deal, but the more trips we can consolidate for that Pro that they can get more done in one stop, we like what we're seeing there.

Next question.

Greg Melich with Evercore ISI. My first one is actually a follow-up. I just want to make sure I got the inflation number right. So this year, the comp is slightly negative but inflation is high single digits. Next year, in the moderate scenario, it's basically the same thing, negative on comp, high single-digit inflation traffic and...

I would say modest, so not quite high single digits. I would expect it to dial back.

So next year, a little bit improvement in traffic still down maybe but improvement while you get some dial-back in inflation. Got it.

Correct.

And then my real question was maybe step outpacing the market, particularly in Pro over that time. Could you maybe frame it in the $900 billion TAM what area is growing faster than the average and less? And who's the share owner in all that? Is it mom and pops? Is it your main competitor? And how would you expect competition to change over those next 3 to 5 years?

So if you think about our growth priorities overall, and we see the market roughly $1 trillion not the $900 million, but who's going to argue with numbers, right? So having said that, we look at a couple of areas where we think we have outsized growth potential. We talked a lot about the Pro. And we have an expectation to outgrow the market. And when you think about that is it's aligned around all the things you heard today from Joe and Seemantini and Don and Bill. All of these things collectively, we think will contain to allow us to grow share. And remember, that's 50% of that $1 trillion marketplace. And so there's opportunities to grow. Where is it coming from? It's coming from the same places, the 600 basis points came from the last 4 years, and that's from the mom-and-pops, the regional players and our belief, some of the other home improvement competitors out there as well. And we think that will continue. One of the things we've learned with our loyalty program and when I talk about the fact that the loyalty and credit customers are spending 3x more than customers not engaged in those programs is that a lot of that is coming from frequency, just more trips. Having run the Pro business at our competitor for 6 years, I had a good understanding of what the average Pro customer spent on an annual basis and Lowe's was significantly lower than that. And so that gave us an indication that our customers were shopping other places at a significantly higher rate than our competitor was seeing. And that was part of Joe's service model philosophy, how do we put these things in place, get them to shop more. So we're seeing that we think that will only continue online. Seemantini and Bill both talked about the opportunities we have to continue to grow online when we arrived here, the online penetration was around 4%. Now the number is closer to 10%. And we think we'll get to the mid-teens is where we think we should be. So the growth opportunity is significant. And the great thing about that with 60% of online it was being fulfilled from the stores, we can create a different profit model with growing online. In addition to that, things like localization are really big deals because we're very primitive as Seemantini said where our systems were designed, it was almost impossible for us to do store-level pricing in any unique way and even assortment planning. And so we believe that's a huge opportunity. And also installation services is an area where Joe's team has totally revamped the entire model. And so if you just think about those 4 areas, where we've made tremendous progress but there's still a significant amount of opportunity to get better. We just think that this $1 trillion marketplace where us and our closest competitor there's only $250 billion of that. It gives us a unique opportunity to grow. And look, there is a possibility that the home improvement retailers who we compete with can also grow, but it's a big marketplace, and it's a lot more fragmented than what we tend to think it is.

Right. Next question?

It's Michael Lasser from UBS. Marvin, Lowe's has made a significant amount of progress over the last couple of years by leveraging some of the best practices out there in the retail sector. In order to achieve the market share gains that you've outlined today, is there a sufficient amount of differentiation in the strategy in order to capitalize on that market share opportunity? And then I have a follow-up.

No, it's a good question, Michael. I would say that one of the things that we anchored ourselves on as a leadership team was what we call retail fundamentals. And again, it's what I said earlier, is those things that all world-class retailers do really well, and we were not doing any of them well 4 years ago. And the fact that we were able to just build that foundation of retail fundamentals, that drove a lot of the market share gains and the operating performance that you saw today and that we experience in the last 4 years. So we don't want to diminish the importance of just being really good in supply chain, being really good on the operations side, having the right merchandising strategy, having the right information technology side. Those things are really important and when you do those things really well, consistently, you're going to grow your business. Now on the point of differentiation, I'll let Bill talk about private brands. We think it is the most unique area where we can differentiate, create loyalty and specifically you continue to take share and this is really important DIY and do-it-for-me customers. So Bill, do you want to talk about private brands?

Thanks, Marvin. So in addition to the private brand piece, we've got some really strong ones with Allen + Roth, Cobalt, the introduction of Origin 21 that we just put into the market. But then the STAINMASTER that I talked about is a huge opportunity. And for the room, you guys may not know, but STAINMASTER was a national brand that was exclusive to Lowe's and it was just a natural fit to become part of our private brand portfolio. And so it really allows us to build out opportunities and differentiation in the flooring category, for example. But then as you look at the opportunities with localization and the things that I had highlighted briefly in my prepared remarks is kind of that other opportunity for us to continue to differentiate as we look at rural coastal, urban stores, knowing where our stores sit and how do we better compete in those markets. So those are all the things that we're looking at.

My follow-up question is to get to the 14.5% operating margin over the next couple of years. It looks like you would only add about $300 million to $400 million of incremental SG&A during that time. Some of that was announced today with the $170 million investment that you're making in wages. Does that provide significant enough cushion considering you've already gone from 60% tasking to 40% tasking and you're expecting a lot of share gains in the Pro customer segment who tends to visit the store more often and will mean more transactions in the store?

Look, I'll take a piece of that. I'll let Brandon or maybe Joe can jump in. So on the Pro, the Pro is really interesting customer model because all of our stores today have what we will call fixed expenses relative to expected Pro sales. As an example, if you take store X, the fixed dollars that we invest for Pro loaders, staffing at the Pro desk, et cetera, if you increase pro sales by 10%, we will add almost $0 of additional expense. Now if you start to see a 50% increase -- and that's why Brandon talked about, you would see some marginal increase in staffing. But if you're talking about a 10% to 15% increase in revenue, which is significant, we would literally have virtually no expense increase on the pro side just because of how that customer shops us in the store. And then if you lean into Seemantini's your virtual [indiscernible] and how we start leveraging digital technology, that's even more accretive from a sales and less expense basis. And Brandon, I don't know if you or Joe want to add anything.

I'll just add a few things. I think it's important, and I know Don mentioned it in his presentation, Lowe's Pro supply. We've been investing in that business over the last several years. It's now nationwide. All the investments that we've made in the outside sales, growing our outside sales team, growing the Pro load or growing a lot of those areas. Pretty pleased with the investments that we have made there. Same thing with the Pro fulfillment center. This is a very capital-light utilizing the existing assets that we have to go direct to the customer and the Pro customer, again, that's small to medium Pro is that one that we're anchored in on.

Yes. I think, Michael, I would just add, the cool thing about our model when we look at the 90 basis points over the next 3 years, it's not either/or for us, but it's and. We're making the strategic investments that we feel like need to position us for growth, what we need to do to go after the 100 basis points of sales leverage. We're investing in payroll in our associate base in the supply chain. But at the same time, we got this productivity flywheel across the organization that sort of acts as a self-funding mechanism, and it's enabling us to drive -- make the investments, drive the top line, realize the sales leverage, while at the same time, we don't feel like we're forfeiting productivity and EBIT growth over the short term.

Next question.

Joe Feldman, Telsey Advisory Group. I wanted to ask about pricing. You guys talked a little bit about the opportunity that you still have in pricing and maybe more regional pricing and even local to the store price level. What does that take from an infrastructure perspective and from the buying team perspective to make that happen? And how soon could we see some benefits from that?

So let me do 2 things. I'd like Seemantini just to give a little bit of it before and after from the technology, what we've done. And then Bill, you and Brandon can kind of talk about infrastructure and kind of what it looks like. Seemantini?

Yes. And from a pricing perspective, we have invested significantly. First of all, for Bill's team, it was really tough to see all the data and make changes. It would take multiple systems, multiple hours. I mean 7 system 22 reports just to kind of give you a very high level. And from there, we went to -- we acquired Boomerang capability which is all about competitive data. We made that available. We have streamlined all the processes. There is only one place now you go to make changes. And I think from a perspective of even promo strategies, we have just made a lot of data visible some of the AI-backed capabilities. Now there is some capability for testing and learning as we make price changes and just make sure it is having the right impact on sales, and that's what Bill and my team are working very cohesively on that.

Yes. And I think that the cool part of what Seemantini and her team have done has now allowed Brandon's team and my team to really come together and be able to manage these down to the local level, if needed. And I'll give you one example that if you just backed up 12 months ago, we couldn't do bulk pricing down to a cluster of stores we had to do it at a national level. And we don't need to be priced the same in New York and in Mooresville, North Carolina. So there's just an opportunity there to be able to do that. And based on the systems that are built, it now provides that automation and that management tool for the merchant so that it doesn't become this cumbersome reporting and 7 systems and all the other nonsense that we're dealing with in the past.

Yes. I would just add, Joe, I mean when I look back to 2018, when tariffs were coming into the organization, we were almost crippled from a pricing organization standpoint. We just didn't have the technology. We didn't have the people. We didn't have the capabilities. We have tremendously overhaul the pricing and promotion organization. It's something in my previous role, Bill and I along with the merchants, the finance team, the pricing team. So that's something that we built up. Seemantini mentioned the competitive intelligence, the signage, the automation, the Pro pricing, the localized pricing, we have dramatically improved that core capability over the last 3 years. It enabled us to play catch-up. And now, as Bill laid out, we're looking at the next 3 years, and that's actually a differentiator, I think, for Lowe's as we look to maneuver through this environment. So it's been really cool to see that organization really come to life.

And just a quick follow-up. With the Pro, all the initiatives you guys have made and the changes are great. Can you talk a little bit about how you capture new Pros, like how you entice them to even come into the store and discover the MVP and the rewards and everything else.

So Joe talk about that. And Don, can you just talk about this asset-light fulfillment network that we're building because that is critically important to ultimately capture that new Pro and retain them with a really improved service model to get them what they need at the right time. So Joe?

Yes. And so one of the big things we've done with our Pro Loyalty is if you were to go back just a few years, every single store thought they had a CRM system. Well, that CRM system was the same for the store in Los Angeles as it was in San Francisco. And so all this cross calling, nobody really knew who had what. And so we have put our Pro sales managers out in the field. They have very specific assigned accounts with growth targets. And so I think some of the unlocks that we have done is really allowing us to serve that customer better. We have -- so to make it easy for our associates, it serves up. Our CRM serves up the next best customer with the next best action. And so there's not a lot of hunting and pecking that has to go on. We're really streamlining that system. It's an entirely new system. It's on the cloud, right? We waited to roll our MVP Pro Loyalty until we transition everything to the cloud. And so we're really pleased with the -- with our capability side.

And before Don, Seemantini also gave us great visibility to data. We were data-rich and strategy poor. So we didn't know what to do with it. We didn't have the capability to do anything with it. So now we can do one-to-one marketing. So we have many ways to alert the Pros that this new loyalty program exists and how it can benefit them in addition to the CRM platform that Joe talked about. So Don?

Yes. And in addition to that, when we talk about our Pro Fulfillment network, the real key here is that we're leveraging existing facilities. So if you think about our flatbed distribution centers, we have 15 of those across the U.S. And we've already expect what it takes to actually convert those facilities or I probably should say, not necessarily convert but add to are changed the way they operate so that we can do both store fulfillment and job site fulfillment. With the added SKUs that we have in those facilities, it then gives us an opportunity to go to direct to job site with those items that sell the most with the pros by having the right SKUs and job lot quantities of those SKUs. And again, not spending a lot of additional capital to be a stand-alone facilities to serve the Pro. Now in addition to that, we talked about our backrooms and the 3 or 4 things that we can do with their background as we move forward with market delivery. Part of that is also supporting the Pros that we can do gig network deliveries right out of the store that allows us to serve their Pro in a very different way than we have before.

Next question?

This is Kate McShane from Goldman Sachs. I know you mentioned you still expect some inflation next year, but when inflation does start to moderate, how do you think about pricing you've taken in the last few years? And does it stick?

Yes, Kate, I would say, if you're referring to sort of broad-based deflation, we don't really see that playing out in the next 3 years. I cited in my opening comments, lumber we're looking at about $1 billion of headwinds specifically as that approaches new lows this year. Bill has talked at length about opportunities that we have from a clawback standpoint. So we're going to be looking as we do constantly across the portfolio at commodities and transportation costs starting to roll over, and we're certainly going to go after that. But I think the flip side is, as we look across the broader portfolio. There's other categories and areas where the inflation is a little bit more sticky. And even we're continuing to consume it even now. Again, we feel like it's getting in the later innings, but it's still sort of coming into the system. So as we think about impacts to top line, we don't see deflation being significant or material as we look ahead into the next 3 years.

And then Brandon, the one thing I would add, Kate, is that we keep looking at opportunities to take costs as costs can come out and using role of the category, our category management process to drive traffic and transactions. And so those specific categories we want to reinvest back into in price, to be able to drive footsteps in traffic and start the basket, cleaning is a good example of that.

And our second question is just around the longer-term 15% operating margin that you had put on the previous slide. Just how much of that is really a function of the sales leverage that you mentioned? And how much of that is being driven by the fact that the bulk of the supply chain investment will be complete.

Yes. I would say, largely the sales leverage that we would expect, right? So I think you're starting the $520 target, and we talked about line of sight. I think we're looking at 3-plus percent growth over the next couple of years and you're starting to get into sales targets, $550 to $600. That's really what's going to be the primary driver beyond our 3- to 5-year outlook to keep that 15% insight for us.

Next question?

It's Mike Baker from D.A. Davidson. I'll ask a question and then I'll ask a follow-up both on the macro, bigger-picture market type questions. So 2 years ago, when we had our meeting online your weak scenario was for the environment to be down 10%. Now our weak scenario is, I think, down 5% to 6%. So despite the fact that it seems like some of the housing things are worse now than they were 2 years ago. Is the difference that you just underestimated how Housing would hold up 2 years ago? Or is there some other reason why the weak scenario was not as bad as you thought it would be 2 years ago?

No, Mike, it's a fair question. I would tell you that all of us had a lot to learn dealing with a global pandemic. And so we really use the best data we had available leverage the most talented economists that we had at our disposal to come up with the best possible assumption and the most unique macro environment than any of us have lived through. And so those assumptions were based on those set of facts and what we predict at the market -- how the market will respond based on what we saw. Now having lived through that and having a perspective on the competitive landscape and where we have strength from a share perspective, what you saw from Brandon is our best most updated assumption based on what we now believe, based on what we've learned and based on more historical trends. Brandon, anything else?

I think you said it, Marvin. I think that covered it.

So basically, just how a lot better than you thought.

Yes sure.

So a follow-up question also on the market. So your moderate scenario for 2023 is down 2% to 3%. Just wondering how that compares to what you're seeing right now in the back half of this year. In other words, what I'm getting at, are you expecting the market to deteriorate next year relative to what we're seeing now, be the same, be better be worse?

Yes. I think as it relates to 2022, I'm just going to affirm, Michael, I'm going to firm the outlook, right? So I'm not going to comment really beyond that in terms of what we're seeing. But yes, I mean, I think when we look at the moderate scenario, we're looking at a market that is effectively flat. I think we are for the most part as it relates to the relevant home improvement market next year. That's effectively what we're seeing. That's consistent with how things are playing out this year. Again, when we look at it on a mix-adjusted relevant market basis for Lowe's.

Next question?

Great. Steve Zaccone from Citi. Thanks so much for the details today. Wanted to focus on the planned purchases commentary for the Pro because it's a bit new. You talked about it in a little bit in detail, but could you talk about more just the investment cycle that you need there? Is it more OpEx versus CapEx? How long will it eventually take to scale that side of the business?

Well, a good question, and I'll answer it with 2 comments. So on the plan versus convenient. For us, Pros typically shop us because we have over 1,720 U.S. stores relatively close to their job site. And that's convenience. It's almost like going to a convenience store because it's close in proximity and you can get in and out quickly. And we've kind of developed our current business model with the small to medium Pro candidly, on the convenience Pro. But we understand in order to get this penetration north of 30%, we have to not only leverage the convenience for the Pro, we also have to get into those planned purchases. And part of the -- in my opinion, part of our bridge to get there is all the things you've heard today from brands to service model to fulfillment capabilities. And so as we think about that, we believe from a capital perspective, we can achieve everything we need staying within that $2 billion CapEx target that we've laid out for '23 and beyond. In other words, Don made a comment about a capital-light fulfillment network. And that is because we need speed. We need to get there quicker, and we also need to be very cognizant that we have a return on invested capital number that we're very committed to. And so we can -- we believe we can do both. From an OpEx perspective, it goes back to what I said previously. And that is that when you look at our current Pro model service model with our outside sales force and our staffing in the stores, you're not going to see a massive ramp up and operating expense in order to get to the sales target. So we think that's going to be minimal. But obviously, as we continue to grow penetration, as Brandon said in his prepared comments, you'll see some operational expense increase, but we think that it will be modest relative to the growth that we will see. So hopefully, that answers your question.

Yes, very helpful. To follow up on that specifically as you think about that planned purchases, does it scale you up to going after more of the larger Pro? Or do you still think there's opportunity to stay with the small to medium Pro?

We are committed to the small to medium Pro over the near term. And we believe that this is a pro with a $250 billion market size. So we're going to stay committed to that customer. And we believe that all of our Pro-related financial forecast and expectations that we can deliver by staying laser-focused on that customer. Now obviously, over time, as we get into different life cycles of a company, we'll start to target that larger Pro. But for now, we're going to stay laser-focused on that $250 billion marketplace for the small and medium Pro because, a, we believe we can service that customer really well and see because we think that customer is being underserved. And so that gives us an opportunity to take share.

Yes. Let me give you just a quick example of kind of the difference between planned and unplanned. If you think about our previous model, as just the convenience. That's where Pro would come in, grab some fence boards, maybe fence panel and some screws to do a repair project. And these facilities we're talking about with Don and we're putting in our top delivered items, not necessarily the top sales items, but the top sales items that are delivered. And so we now have the capability for Pro deliveries for a full deck package, right, or Pro deliveries for a full fencing package. And so that's really what we're getting at with the small to medium Pro. And over the years, as we continue to build out those capabilities is unlimited.

Next question.

Pete Benedict at Baird. Thanks for everything today. First one for Don. Just curious your -- the job site delivery capabilities. Like what are you able to promise Pros today? And then with all that you laid out, where do you see that maybe 3 years from now? What type of capabilities do you expect to deliver?

Yes. So as I mentioned earlier, we're taking a multipronged approach to this. And so the gig network allows us to deliver same date to our Pros to job site. In the case of a Pro Fulfillment network, the majority of that will be order today deliver tomorrow. And that's what most Pros ask for, again, on those planned purchases. As we fast forward 3 years, we don't see the ask being a lot different from that Pro. I think the difference will be the amount of volume that we will have running through those Pro Fulfillment networks.

Got it. And then maybe, Brandon, one for you. So in the weaker scenario, I think we have U.S. operating margins down around 30 basis points, right, on about a down 4% comp. You've said that transactions are kind of the big swing factor in the view. I know you're not expecting deflation, but in the event that average ticket actually is a driver of, let's call it, a mid-single-digit comp decline, whether it be because project spending is down. Maybe talk about how do those levers on OpEx change? Is it -- can you not move labor as much, but maybe you adjust other things, do you still -- would you still think you could maybe have op margins down 30, if it's average ticket driven and not transaction driven I guess?

Yes. I think fair question, Pete. I would say the reason I said primary is because I think there is potential if we're in a mid-single-digit negative market scenario where we may see a little more bumpiness with pricing and with average ticket. So I think we've considered that and it does sort of contemplate the mix of ticket and transaction that you're talking about. I think what gives us confidence really, as we think about the operating profit and the flow-through even in that scenario, we've been able to really plan using the workforce management tools and store labor, right? So by department, by store, by day. And as we lay that out, as we look at that on an annual basis as we plan that down in terms of quarterly increments. We have a lot of confidence that we can drive the expense management, along with the other levers that I talked through earlier this morning to yield that outcome.

Next question.

Steve Forbes Guggenheim. Marvin or Bill, I wanted to focus on the MST program that was mentioned in the video. I think it's -- overall headcount appears flat versus December 2020 at that 23,000 members. So can you just update us on how that initiative is maturing relative to expectations, inclusive of cost savings on a net basis. And then just why [ 12 ] seems to be the right level on a per store basis for you to execute on your initiatives?

You'll take, Bill?

Yes. So first of all, we're a little -- we're north of 23,000 now, which I'm really proud of, and the team continues to evolve as our business has grown, we've been able to put additional folks on the floor. And then we'll adjust based on store volume size, and that's the work that we're doing now to make sure that we have the right number of folks inside the store to do the type of service that we're doing. We're also taking on additional projects and additional opportunities to improve the service inside the store, including some of the pricing work that we talked about earlier.

And then just maybe a quick follow-up for Brandon. Maybe a summary right, obviously, you can do the math behind a lot of the data you provided in the presentation. So as we look out to sort of the '24, '25 time period, wherever '23 ends up rebasing too, it seems like you're sort of indirectly guiding to 6% to 7% EBIT growth in the out year. Is that the right way to frame where you guys think the business can generate a growth algo in the out years?

Yes. Look, I think the long-term target slide, we're committed to growing the U.S. business 90 basis points, right? And I think we tried to allow some flexibility from a timeframe standpoint, really with the unknown outlier be in 2023 and sort of what level of recession actually plays out. So again, we think that the flow through is a little bit unique next year depending on those scenarios, and it really comes down to the sales leverage across the robust versus moderate versus weak. But I think when you look at the model beyond '23 the flow through to get to that 14.5% is actually really consistent across the 3 scenarios because keep in mind, we're making all the same investments right, to drive the business over the long term and the associate base and into our strategic imperatives, that's not changing despite any of the 3 scenarios playing out.

Next question.

Yes. Nadeem [indiscernible] Capital. Question is on the Canadian business. I know this was done under a different leadership, I understand, but it has been a pretty disastrous investments. Maybe help us explain why did you give up on the business? And obviously, Home Depot runs a pretty successful Canadian franchise. And maybe because of that, it was impossible to achieve any traction or achieve any scale? Maybe just a little more color on the significant write-down.

No, it's an interesting question. You called it disastrous and that's why we gave up on it, but I'll answer it just the same. I would say that we owe it to the shareholders to ensure that our business model provides a level of return that is in their interest and also in the interest of our associates who are also shareholders. And so as we looked at the business that we inherited 4 years ago, we had to determine what would it take from an investment standpoint to get that business to be equal to or accretive to the U.S. from an operating margin perspective. And so after we relocated one of our best executives who really understood home improvement as an expat to go to Canada to evaluate this business over 2 years. we came to the conclusion that the only way we could get it relatively close to the U.S. from an operating margin perspective would take billions of dollars of capital that we currently did not have forecast in our operating model. And obviously, we felt that, that would not give us the return that something as simple as share repurchases would give us. And so obviously, that would not be in the best interest of the shareholders. The difference between us and other competitors in the Canadian market is that we basically, with the RONA transaction acquired a company that was a series of roll-ups that had no integration between systems, supply chain, assortment planning, marketing or banners, meaning what they -- the stores will call indoors footprint. And so we made the decision that it was in our interest and in the interest of the shareholders to sell this business because it would give us the ability to provide a better return and also give the Canadian business a chance to be a private business that could allow them, hopefully, to be aggressive as a business, not necessarily dependent upon being public and maintaining a certain financial performance that any shareholder would require or expect. We believe it was the right decision. Our Board believed it was the right decision, and from the overwhelming feedback from our shareholders, they tend to believe it was the right decision. Any time a business in a single year represents 7% of your revenue and creates 60 basis points of operating deleverage that is a very obvious decision that this is not in the best interest of the shareholders.

Next question?

Elizabeth Suzuki from Bank of America. Just a couple of questions on technology and the shift online and the improvement there. Are you finding that online sales are margin dilutive, accretive or neutral? And then if online sales ultimately got to 20%, 40%, 50% of sales and you gain market share with a little bit of a different margin structure, would that be a desirable outcome?

So I'll give you a 30,000-foot answer, then I'll let Seemantini talk about some of the things we're learning as she is now taking over online and Bill obviously has run the business and has a good perspective also. One of the great things about being an omni-channel retailer is, as Joe mentioned today, 60% of our online orders are fulfilled from our stores. And one of the most profitable transactions to us to have is a buy online, pickup in store. It is a great model because the customer can buy something online and get it fulfilled within a couple of hours. And in doing that, we can provide a great service environment, and we can drive a transaction that's very profitable. And so because 60% of our online transactions are fulfilled from stores, it gives us a different profit profile than, say, a pure-play online company. Now with that said, I'll let Seemantini just talk more about the investments we've made in technology and how we see this going forward.

And what I would like to explain back to Marvin's point, 60% is buy online, pick up in store. We are also sticking to all our supply chain, enterprise-wide supply chain strategies when it comes to online. So for example, the market delivery Don talked about for appliances, whether you go in stores or online, we are finding -- with our AI-based sourcing engine we are finding you the best node to deliver that appliance to you. So we are kind of sticking to the enterprise playbook. Even as we work with Bill, his pricing and promo strategies, which are enterprise, we are kind of following the same playbook. So we are not doing something just to grab share. But here is what we are observing online. I think as we improve our experience, like the visualizers how the paint is going to look on the wall, how is your floor going to look? Can you measure your own space? What we are finding is our average order value, we can clearly see in our data that keeps growing. We have algorithms where we remind you of stuff to buy to complete your project. We remind you of what goes better together, and we are just noticing, through our data totally objectively, that the customers seem to buy more and more, and that's what gives us a lot of hope for how we are going to increase our share.

Yes, you said it well. I think the other opportunities that allow us to be a little different is that the pricing work that we talked about earlier now allows us to separate the online pricing and the store pricing. So online-only product now can have a different pricing structure than store-only pricing.

And just a quick follow-up on that. Just given what you've learned from rolling out electronic signage for lumber and appliances, are there other categories where you think that makes sense?

It's an ongoing learning process. We have a couple of test stores where we're going to put electronic pricing across multiple categories, and it will be a test and learn environment. So we feel really pleased with what we've learned in both of those 2 really large categories. It would have been difficult for me to imagine with the price inflation and deflation we've seen over the past 18 months in lumber, how we would have managed that with the labor in the stores, if we did not have electronic price labels. And so we still have a lot to learn, but the early learnings are really positive. And as we fill stores up with more categories, we'll come back and have a much more educated response to that.

Keeping an eye on time, we have just over 5 minutes left. Next question.

Scot Ciccarelli with Truist. A couple of scenario questions. Do we assume or are you assuming, I should say, mid-single-digit same-SKU inflation in every scenario? Or is there a flex to that?

Yes. Again, I mentioned the term modest in the moderate and robust scenario. So I think that's fair to assume in those 2. We mentioned earlier, Peter's question around what would be assumed. And we -- and just as a reminder for the group, we do not see the weak scenario. That is our least likely scenario that's playing out. So I think when you look at that, the mix between ticket and transaction may be a little bit different. It may be a little more bumpy and you could see a little pullback or a little contraction there.

Okay. Got it. And then regarding kind of DIY versus Pro. Is the Pro assumed to be relatively flat in every scenario and DIY is the only thing that's really moving around? Or is it you would assume both channels actually.

Yes. I think when we look at the week, and this is similar when we went back and looked at historic recessions, again, this would be broad-based economic type shock, we actually have seen the Pro lead the recession and also lead the way on the way out of the backside. So in that scenario, we actually see that Pro business contracting faster. But again, that's not a scenario that is our highest likelihood. And I'll point to the moderate and the robust where we see market growth and we see the Pro outpacing the DIY, and we feel like we can take share at 2x. So those are the ones really that we're anchored to at this point, Scot.

Next question.

Eric Bosshard, Cleveland Research. Trying to make sense in Pro. What I hear you talking about is the growth and the incremental 5 points of penetration from kind of more of the same, the things you've done. And I hear you talk about asset-light and I also see 100 basis point of margin dilution from Pro and supply chain investment are $2 billion. And so I guess, which is it? Is there more investment to make this? Or can you just help me square those 2 things.

So I'll take it and let Brandon jump in as well. When you think about the supply chain investment, that also includes the continued build-out of market delivery, which, as Don mentioned, we're going to have that model hopefully completed by the end of 2023. And we believe that we can take the pro fulfillment network that Don outlined, and we can accomplish that within our CapEx budget of roughly $2 billion on an annual basis. We think that can be accomplished, and so we see that as an ongoing process. Relative to can we grow Pro by doing the same things, it's going to be an incremental improvement across other initiatives. So if you think about it for a second, a loyalty program improves as it becomes more mature. We launched it this year. And so although it is the same thing, it's going to be a much mature same thing in '23 with more customers with customers having more comfort. When you think about things like the virtual protests and being able to connect our Pro customers in a more digital way, that's going to be an incremental improvement. The Pro brands that we launched this year and other programs that are coming will also, we think, drive incremental growth on the Pro side and our ability to fulfill same-day next day with the supply chain improvements, we think we'll continue to make the Pro business incrementally better, does allow us to achieve those targets that we've talked about. So yes, it is some of the same things, those same things are foundational but the incremental growth will come from maturity and the addition of other things that we've talked about throughout the day, roughly from every leader that you heard from.

Yes. And Eric, I would just say financially, just to keep in mind, when you look at that red investment bar on the long term, that's going to include Pro mix as a component to that investments into the loyalty program, right? So that's sort of an all-in fully loaded number. again, more than offset, obviously, as we pursue the strategy with the 50 of the 100 basis points as we unlock the sales leverage, modest investment in payroll. So it's the right path, the right investments. It's going to be incremental for both dollars and rate, and we're confident executing against that.

Okay. And then second, if I could, on inventory. You've gone through a unique time in inventory. And so Bill, I guess this is a question for you, having enough stuff to run the business was the key. You now look at a year where the scenarios are cautious or less growth, may or may not be mix change. Just curious how you're thinking about inventory. I understand the comments on Pro and never out and shifting mix there. But is the vision for '23 to carry less inventory to continue to grow inventory? What's the strategy and anything within the mix within that.

Yes, great question. We still have opportunities, as I highlighted earlier, in regards to assorting localization opportunities to continue to stratify stores in regards to smaller volume stores to larger volume stores. We have a new leader in our IRP in our inventory planning role. And so she's actively working to help us with that working closely with Don's team. We still have opportunities in these job-like quantities as we've talked about for seasonal, you take -- you look at averages, you look at your sales plan, you've tried to buy to those sales plans and have the inventory appropriately to capture that season. So we're getting ready to start setting stores in the Deep South next week. So we're loading in product for seasonal now and to be able to take care of that. We'll roll that from south to north and complete in March. But all to drive and deliver against our sales plan and what we think is going to happen and planning a sell-through. And so that's part of how we forecast it. And in many of these categories that are import driven you're doing it 12 to 14 months in advance. So we're working on holiday of '23 right now, spring of '23 was bought a year ago. So we put all of our best heads together and shook the crystal ball and said, "This is what we think we can do, and we'll go do it. And levers, if spring works in our favor. We'll lever those domestic opportunities to try to drive more sales through the spring season.

And Eric, here's what's important. The reason why we talk so much about Pro driving the growth for next year is because, as you know, there's very little inventory assigned to the Pro that is seasonal trend. So we can make those more aggressive investments in Pro inventory and not have markdown risk because that inventory will sell in February, and it will sell in May, and it will sell in November. And so if we -- let's say we get a little too aggressive with Pro inventory does never out, we have 0 markdown risk. And so for us, it's one of the reasons why we can kind of hedge our risk, so to speak, by saying we're going to lean into Pro as it grows. And what you also heard Bill say is we're not leaning into seasonal for growth in '23. That would be high risk. And that's not a risk that we're going to take because they're, again, as good as we feel about our forecasting model, we're wise enough to know that there's enough uncertainty, we're going to limit our risk by saying leaning to Pro because that protects us on the inventory. it protects us on the payroll expense and it allows us to continue to grow in a space where we've been woefully insufficient specifically when we arrived 4 years ago, and we think there's market share opportunity there.

That concludes our Q&A session. Please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team if you have follow-up questions. And with that, I'd just like to thank you for attending our analyst and investor conference today. We have a box lunch available for you right outside the room. And in the spirit of efficiency, we're giving you some time back today. Thank you again for your interest and for your time today.