Tractor Supply's Western style: Scully suede fringe jacket; Denton cowboy hat; Tee Shirt Central dress, San Diego Hat Co. fedora.The Brentwood, Tenn.-based Tractor Supply is striving for greater apparel market share by tapping influencers, pushing social media, forming partnerships, testing shops-in-shop, and in footwear and outerwear, stretching to some higher-priced products.
Last year, TSC had a strong performance, with net sales increasing 11.6 percent to $14.2 billion; comparable-store sales up 6.3 percent, and net income rising 9.2 percent to about $1.1 billion. sales and profits, though Tractor Supply, due to its exurban orientation in freestanding sites or in strip centers, hasn’t been hit with crime as much as other stores. “Our locations have been a benefit to us,” Estep observed. “But we think it’s not only our location.
Key Western labels include Wrangler, Ariat and Dan Post across jeans, boots and sportswear, as well as Corral boots, Justin boots, the San Diego Hat Company, Ely Cattleman shirts and Yellowstone T-shirts. Last July, as part of its second-quarter report, TSC announced it would accelerate store openings, with a goal of operating 3,000 stores in the U.S. from the current 2,200, an increase of 200 locations from prior guidance. Eighty stores are seen opening next year, with a step up to approximately 90 per year beginning in 2025. Tractor Supply has a sale-leaseback program involving 117 stores, which will help fuel the store expansion.
“Pre-pandemic, Millennials accounted for about 20 percent of our total customer base, but over the last few years it’s 25 percent,” Estep said. “We have grown significantly with a younger customer base as we see that Millennial customer moving out of city centers. As they move to exurban, suburban markets, they are buying homes, starting families, adopting pets and they might get into organic gardening or backyard poultry and they are coming to us for all that.