What changed in this filing

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Item 1. Business

2021-03-31 compared with 2020-03-27 · 48 added, 20 removed, 187 unchanged (27% of the section changed)

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(together with its subsidiaries, “TJX”, the “Company”, “we”, or “our”) is the leading off-price apparel and home fashions retailer in the United States and worldwide.

We have over 4,500 stores that offer a rapidly changing assortment of quality, fashionable, brand name and designer merchandise at prices generally 20% to 60% below full-price retailers’ (including department, specialty, and major online retailers) regular prices on comparable merchandise, every day.

Our stores are known for our value proposition of brand, fashion, price and quality.

We have over 4,500 stores and four distinctive branded e-commerce sites that offer a rapidly changing assortment of quality, fashionable, brand name and designer merchandise at prices generally 20% to 60% below full-price retailers’ (including department, specialty, and major online retailers) regular prices on comparable merchandise, every day.

Our mission is to deliver great value to our customers every day.

In our stores and online, we offer consumers our value proposition of brand, fashion, price and quality.

Our opportunistic buying strategies and flexible business model differentiate us from traditional retailers.

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We acquire merchandise in a variety of ways to support that goal.

We reach a broad range of customers across income levels with our value proposition.

We reach a broad range of customers across income levels with our value proposition on a wide range of items.

Our strategies and operations are synergistic across our retail chains.

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Further, we can leverage the substantial buying power of our businesses with our global vendor relationships.

In this report, fiscal 2020 means the fiscal year ended February 1, 2020;

During fiscal 2021, our business operations were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to the temporary closures and reopenings of our stores and other facilities, the pandemic has led to modifications of our operations, including the implementation of health and safety protocols, and has had an impact on our results of operations, financial position and liquidity, as well as consumer behavior.

See Risk Factors and Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition a nd Results of Operations below for more information.

In this report, fiscal 2021 means the fiscal year ended January 30, 2021;

fiscal 2020 means the fiscal year ended February 1, 2020 and fiscal 2019 means the fiscal year ended February 2, 2019.

Fiscal 2022 means the fiscal year ending January 29, 2022.

Unless otherwise indicated, all store information in this Item 1 is as of February 1, 2020, and references to store square footage are to gross square feet.

Unless otherwise indicated, all store information in this Item 1 is as of January 30, 2021, and references to store square footage are to gross square feet.

Our Businesses

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Our 34 Homesense stores complement HomeGoods, offering a differentiated mix and expanded departments, such as large furniture, ceiling lighting and rugs, as well as different departments, such as a general store and an entertaining marketplace.

During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, we announced our plan to make online shopping available on www.homegoods.com in late fiscal 2022.

Our TJX Canada segment operates the Winners, HomeSense and Marshalls chains in Canada.

Acquired in 1990, Winners is the leading off-price apparel and home fashions retailer in Canada.

Acquired as a five-store chain in 1990, Winners is now the leading off-price apparel and home fashions retailer in Canada.

The merchandise offering at its 280 stores across Canada is comparable to T.J.

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HomeSense has 143 stores with a merchandise mix of home fashions similar to HomeGoods in the U.S.

We brought Marshalls to Canada in 2011 and operate 97 Marshalls stores in Canada.

As with Marshalls in the U.S., our Canadian Marshalls stores offer an expanded footwear department and The Cube juniors’ department, differentiating them from Winners stores.

We brought Marshalls to Canada in 2011.

We operate 102 Marshalls stores in Canada and, similar to Marshalls in the U.S., our Canadian stores offer an expanded footwear department and The Cube juniors’ department, differentiating them from Winners stores.

TJX INTERNATIONAL

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In addition to our four main segments, we operate Sierra, acquired in 2012 and rebranded from Sierra Trading Post in 2018.

Sierra is an off-price retailer of brand name and quality outdoor gear, family apparel and footwear, sporting goods and home fashions.

Sierra is an off-price retailer of brand name and quality outdoor gear, family apparel (including footwear), sporting goods and home fashions.

Sierra operates sierra.com and 48 retail stores in the U.S.

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Our selling floor space is flexible, without walls between departments and largely free of permanent fixtures, so we can easily expand and contract departments to accommodate the merchandise we purchase.

Our logistics and distribution operations are designed to support our global buying strategies and to facilitate quick, efficient and differentiated delivery of merchandise to our stores, with a goal of getting the right merchandise to the right stores at the right time.

Our logistics and distribution operations are designed to support our global buying strategies and to facilitate quick, efficient and differentiated delivery of merchandise to our stores, with a goal of delivering the right merchandise to the right stores at the right time.

Opportunistic Buying

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We take advantage of opportunities to acquire merchandise at substantial discounts that regularly arise from the production and flow of inventory in the apparel and home fashions marketplace.

These opportunities include, among others, order cancellations, manufacturer overruns, closeouts from brands, manufacturers and other retailers and special production direct from brands and factories.

These opportunities include, among others, closeouts from brands, manufacturers and other retailers;

special production direct from brands and factories;

order cancellations and manufacturer overruns.

Our global buying strategies are intentionally flexible to allow us to react to frequently changing opportunities and trends in the market and to adjust how and what we source as well as when we source it.

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We develop some of this merchandise ourselves in order to supplement the depth of, or fill gaps in, our expected merchandise assortment.

Manufacturers, retailers and other vendors make up our expansive universe of more than 21,000 vendors, which provides us substantial and diversified access to merchandise.

Manufacturers, retailers and other vendors make up our expansive universe of approximately 21,000 vendors, which provides us substantial and diversified access to merchandise.

We have not experienced difficulty in obtaining sufficient quality merchandise for our business in either favorable or difficult retail environments and expect this will continue as we continue to grow.

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we are able to disperse merchandise across our geographically diverse network of stores and to target specific markets;

we typically pay promptly;

we typically pay promptly according to our payment terms;

we generally do not ask for typical retail concessions (such as advertising, promotional and markdown allowances), delivery concessions (such as drop shipments to stores or delayed deliveries) or return privileges;

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Our advertising is generally focused on promoting our retail banners rather than individual products, including at times promoting multiple banners together, which contributes to our advertising budget (as a percentage of sales) remaining low compared to many traditional retailers.

We design our stores to provide a pleasant, convenient shopping environment but, relative to other retailers, do not spend heavily on store fixtures.

We design our stores to provide a pleasant, convenient shopping environment without spending heavily on store fixtures.

Additionally, our distribution network is designed to run cost effectively.

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through a bank, but do not own the customer receivables.

We operate distribution centers encompassing approximately 19 million square feet in six countries.

We operate distribution centers encompassing approximate ly 22 million square feet in six countries .

These centers are generally large, and built to suit our specific, off-price business model, with a combination of automated systems and manual processes to manage the variety of merchandise we acquire.

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(b) Includes 46 Sierra stores in fiscal 2020, and 48 Sierra stores for fiscal 2021.

Sierra stores are not included in estimated store growth potential.

Sierra stores are not included in estimated store potential.

Some of our home fashion stores are co-located with one of our apparel stores in a “combo” or superstore format.

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We compete on the basis of numerous factors including brand, fashion, price, quality, selection and freshness;

in-store and online service and shopping experience;

in-store and online shopping experience and service;

reputation and store location.

We compete with local, regional, national and international department, specialty, off-price, discount, warehouse and outlet stores as well as other retailers that sell apparel, home fashions and other merchandise that we sell, whether in stores, online, through catalogs, or other media channels.

As of February 1, 2020, we had approximately 286,000 employees, many of whom work less than 40 hours per week.

In addition, we hire temporary employees, particularly during the peak back-to-school and holiday seasons.

Our full-time, part-time, temporary, and seasonal workforce supports the execution of our flexible off-price business model, including the timing and frequency of store deliveries and the management of a rapidly changing mix of store inventory in over 4,500 retail stores in nine countries.

Human Capital

As of January 30, 2021, we had approximately 320,000 employees (who we refer to as Associates), many of whom work less than 40 hours per week.

Approximately 86% of these Associates worked in our retail stores.

We hire thousands of temporary employees each year, particularly during the peak back-to-school and holiday seasons, and offer many entry-level retail positions.

Many Associates in our distribution centers in the United States and Canada are covered by collective bargaining agreements and other Associates are members of works councils in Europe.

Our large, global workforce supports the execution of our flexible off-price business model, including the timing and frequency of store deliveries and the management of a rapidly changing mix of merchandise in over 4,500 retail stores in nine countries and across four distinctive branded e-commerce sites.

We believe our Associates are key to our business success.

Focus on Health, Safety and Well-being during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed and implemented new practices that prioritized the health and safety of our Associates and customers, and reopened stores only when practices were in place, including social distancing protocols, access to personal protective equipment, occupancy limits and enhanced cleaning regimens.

During fiscal 2021, we also continued to pay or provide benefits for eligible Associates during temporary closures, provided appreciation bonuses to the majority of our store and distribution center Associates, and enhanced our mental health resources and other wellness offerings.

Workplace and Culture

We work to foster a strong, supportive culture where Associates at TJX feel welcome in the Company, valued for their contributions, and engaged with our business mission.

We use defined cultural factors and leadership competencies throughout our global business to express our organizational values, such as personal integrity, relationship-building and collaboration, and respect for our business model, and to promote consistency in leadership development.

Our policies and practices, including our open-door philosophy, encourage open and honest communication and engagement with the business.

Inclusion and Diversity

We strive to create an inclusive workplace, where Associates are inspired to work hard, challenge themselves, and be innovative in their thinking, and we believe the diversity of our Associates strengthens our business.

We have expanded our education programs and resources, including training on unconscious biases, and we sponsor a variety of affinity resource groups to support Associate networking and development.

During fiscal 2021 we accelerated our efforts on inclusion and diversity, including those related to racial justice, and have begun to deploy a global, four-phase strategy to drive these efforts.

Training and Career Development

We are highly focused on teaching and mentoring to support the career growth and success of our Associates, and we believe these efforts have promoted stability and expertise in our workforce.

Training happens broadly throughout the organization, from informal mentoring and direct training to a range of career and leadership development programs such as our TJX University for merchandising Associates.

Compensation and Rewards

Our compensation programs are designed to pay our Associates competitively in the market and based on their skills, qualifications, role, and abilities.

Our approach to compensation across the organization reflects our global total rewards principles, which include encouraging teamwork and collaboration, being fair and equitable, and sharing in the success of the Company.

We have the right to use our principal trademarks and service marks, which are T.J.

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Compared sentence by sentence after normalising whitespace, quotation marks, case and digits, so re-formatting and restated figures do not read as changed language. Wording changes appear as one removal and one addition. The current filing and the prior one are authoritative.

What changed 10-K

Item 1. Business