Macy’s Inc. chairman and chief executive officer Tony Spring said on Thursday that the company is seeing improved sales in its stores with refreshed women’s shoe departments.

On the company’s fourth quarter earnings conference call, Spring told analysts that at the company’s “First 50” locations, women’s shoes – along with ready-to-wear and beauty – outperformed the rest of the fleet by approximately 320 basis points on lower discount rates and higher initial ticket prices.

“[This] reflects positive response to our improved product assortment, visual presentation and staffing,” Spring said.

The company’s First 50 locations strategy refers to a group of Macy’s stores that were part of a pilot program to improve customer experience. The program was part of Macy’s “A Bold New Chapter” plan introduced in February 2024.

This update follows comments by Spring in December that Macy’s was adding staff to its women’s shoes and handbags departments in an effort to improve sales.

“Having dedicated runners to get shoes from the stock room and salespeople available to assist in handbags allows our colleagues to spend more time with the customer,” Spring noted at the time. “Compared to ‘non-first’ 50 Macy’s locations and those that did not receive additional staffing, women’s shoes and handbag sales outperformed by roughly 600 and 700 basis points, respectively, year-over-year.”

The CEO said at the time that this program “illustrates the importance” of dedicated customer assistance in high touch point categories.

Back on Thursday’s call with analysts, Spring noted that the 100 doors that received the extra staff in the fall continue to outperform locations without those same investments. “Performance of both the first 50 and the 100 test stores illustrate that when we invest in the customer experience, we can grow sales,” Spring said on Thursday.

This comes as Macy’s showed progress in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 by turning profitable and posting a small comparable sales gain.

Net income for the fourth quarter ended Feb. 1 was $342 million, or $1.21 per diluted share, compared to a loss of $128 million, or $0.47 per diluted share in the year-ago period. Net sales decreased 4.3 percent to $7.8 billion, though comparable sales were up 0.2 percent on an owned, licensed and marketplace basis.

For all of 2024, Macy’s Inc.’s net sales decreased 3.5 percent to $22.3 billion, with comparable sales down 0.9 percent on an owned, licensed and marketplace basis.

Looking ahead, the company is projecting fiscal 2025 sales to be between $21 billion and $21.4 billion; comparable sales down 2 percent to 0.5 percent, and go-forward business sales down 2 percent to flat.