Genesco Inc. said its flagship Journeys chain delivered its second straight quarter of double-digit same-store growth, thanks to an injection of newness into assortments. Genesco officials further said a shift to a “style-led, not sneakerhead” focus is answering today’s young female consumers’ need for self-expression and setting Journeys up for a mega-growth opportunity.
In the fourth quarter, Journeys’ same-store sales vaulted upwards by 14%, accelerating from growth of 11% in the third quarter. Net sales grew 5.1% to $478.1 million. Operating earnings at the Journeys segment jumped 33.4% to $43.2 million, boosted by lower markdowns.
For the year, Journeys’ sales increased 2.6% to $1.4 billion while operating income climbed 138% to $26.3 million from $11.1 million a year ago.
“Journeys’ performance far outpaced the overall market,” Mimi Vaughn, Genesco’s president and CEO, said on the earnings call.
The third quarter had marked Journeys’ first positive comp performance in two years and turning around the chain was Genesco’s “number one priority as we started the year,” Vaughn said on the call.
Journeys is a high-volume industry footwear customer.
New Journeys Leadership Team
Journeys President Andy Gray
She noted that Journeys’ leadership team at the start of the year underwent a reset with the appointment of Andy Gray as president, replacing the retiring Mario Gallione. Gray had been global president at Foot Locker. Also joining the Journeys’ team in early February was Chris Santaella, formerly SVP and chief product officer at Foot Locker, as chief merchandising officer.
Vaughn said the focus in the first half of the year was the initial phase of Journey’s strategic growth plan that included updating assortments with key brand partners, including Adidas, New Balance, Ugg, Birkenstock, Converse, and Vans.
“This phase centered on injecting the product assortment with more newness, excitement, and storytelling to drive an inflection in Journeys comps,” said Vaughn. “The team did an amazing job quickly adding significant newness across several casual and athletic brands. Our key brand partners, very enthusiastic about Journeys’ unique teen customer proposition, stepped up with tremendous support of our strategic direction to better serve this customer, with a spotlight on the teen girl through elevated assortments and depth.”
Teen Girls a Big Focus for Journeys
The broader plan for Journeys is to reach the “underserved teen girl” at the mall, Vaughn said.
“While this customer is well served with fashion apparel, our recent market research underscored that Journeys has an even greater opportunity to serve this customer’s fashion footwear needs,” said Vaughn. “We’ve talked about expanding our consumer segmentation, building off the independent-style customer base we currently serve, to reach a wider teen audience who is also interested in style and trend that is six to seven times bigger.”
She added, “Today’s teens want to express themselves in different ways from one day to the next and footwear is a key enabler of this. At the same time, the marketplace is quite segmented among athletic casual and fashion with no concept that goes across all footwear categories in the mall for the style-led teen.”
More on Q4
Benefiting from the elevated product offerings as well as a visual reset of stores, comps improved sequentially from Q1 to Q2 before turning positive in July. Marketing investments were increased to build on Journeys’ momentum for the back-to-school season with Stacy Doren, a Levi’s veteran, appointed Journeys’ chief marketing officer, effective Aug. 1.
Growth accelerated to double-digit gains over the third and fourth quarter. Vaughn added, “In the fourth quarter specifically, increased allocations and bets on key footwear brands and styles paid big dividends and fueled strong full-price selling throughout the holiday quarter, delivering double-digit comps both in stores and online.”
Positive traffic and “meaningfully higher” ASPs helped drive Journeys’ results in the fourth quarter. Among categories, both casual and athletic brand sales were up, while boot sales leveled off after several years of declines.
Journeys’ 2025 Strategy and Outlook
Looking to the current year, Journeys’ sales are expected to show a low single-digit increase as the chain looks to build on the traction gained in 2024, but face tough comparisons in the back half.
Elaborating on Journey’s strategic growth plan, Vaughn said the initial plan called for quickly injecting “more newness and storytelling” to further solidify its positioning across athletic, canvas, and casual categories while the next phase is to offer “even more premium products” to reach a larger addressable market of teens.
She said Journeys will focus on four key areas this year, starting with further diversifying its product assortment.
Vaughn said Journeys is “focused on strengthening further our product leadership, inventory position, differentiation, and scale across a number of existing in-demand brands. We plan to drive growth in both casual and athletic and further elevate the assortment this year. Building on our longer-term strategic partnerships with our best-in-class premium footwear brands, driving ASP increases through outpaced premium growth, and enhancing our incubation strategy for new brands and new model launches.”
Ramping up Marketing
A second focus will be updating its brand positioning to reach an expanded group of teen customers. She said, “Our focus here to significantly boost customer engagement is on increasing investment in brand media, more unique and identifiable in-store and website marketing, and enhanced social engagement.”
Journeys will be launching a new brand platform and campaign for back-to-school, leveraging investments in data insights, CRM, and its loyalty program that more than doubled membership last year.
Revamping Journeys Stores
A third focus will be elevating the customer experience. Online, Journeys is investing in improved site content, editorial features, and storytelling. At the store level, Journeys is accelerating its store remodels.
Sandra Harris, Genesco’s CFO, said on the call that a pilot of 16 stores converted to a new 4.0 prototype format has delivered “well above average performance” in comps, traffic, conversion, and transaction size.
Vaughn added on the new store format, “We’ve been very pleased with these initial results. This elevated setting is essential to attracting these new customers and showcasing our more premium brands and products. We expect that we will have 70-plus stores with the updated design by year-end and have developed a tiered remodel strategy to reach a higher percentage of stores over the next few years.”
Journeys ended the year with 1,006 locations, closing 64 and opening seven during the year.
Finally, a fourth focus for Journeys is “unlocking the power of our people,” including investing in top-performing high-tenured managers in key markets to strengthen leadership and support the in-store experience.
Vaughn added, “We believe in stores, the ability to differentiate based on store experience, and we’re putting investments behind this. Altogether, we’re excited about Journeys’ evolution and the tremendous growth ahead.”
