Business Description

Ross Stores, Inc. and its subsidiaries (“we”, “our”, or the “Company”) operate two brands of off-price retail apparel and home fashion stores—Ross Dress for Less ® (“Ross”) and dd’s DISCOUNTS ® . Ross is the largest off-price apparel and home fashion chain in the United States, with 1,904 locations in 44 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico as of January 31, 2026. Ross offers first-quality, in-season, brand name and designer apparel, accessories, footwear, and home fashions for the entire family at savings of 20% to 60% off department and specialty store regular prices every day. Ross’ target customers are primarily from middle income households. We also operate 363 dd’s DISCOUNTS stores in 22 states as of January 31, 2026. dd’s DISCOUNTS features more moderately-priced first-quality, in-season apparel, accessories, footwear, and home fashions for the entire family at savings of 20% to 70% off moderate department and discount store regular prices every day. The typical dd’s DISCOUNTS store is located in an established shopping center in a densely populated urban or suburban neighborhood, and its target customers typically come from households with lower to more moderate incomes. Both our Ross and dd’s DISCOUNTS brands target value-driven customers. The decisions we make, from merchandising, purchasing, and pricing, to the locations of our stores, are based on these customer profiles. We believe that both brands derive a competitive advantage by offering a wide assortment of product within each of our merchandise categories in organized and easy-to-shop in-store environments. Our mission is to offer competitive values to our target customers by focusing on the following key strategic objectives: • Maintain an appropriate level of recognizable brands, labels, and fashions at strong discounts throughout the store. • Meet customer needs on a local basis. • Deliver an in-store shopping experience that reflects the expectations of the off-price customer. • Manage real estate growth to compete effectively across all our markets. Our fiscal years ended January 31, 2026, February 1, 2025, and February 3, 2024 are referred to as fiscal 2025, fiscal 2024, and fiscal 2023, respectively. Fiscal 2025 and 2024 were each 52-week years. Fiscal 2023 was a 53-week year. Merchandising, Purchasing, and Pricing We seek to provide our customers with a wide assortment of brand name merchandise that is on trend and fashionable at compelling discounts. New merchandise typically is received from three to six times per week at both Ross and dd’s DISCOUNTS stores. Our buyers review their merchandise assortments on a weekly basis, enabling them to respond to selling trends and buying opportunities in the market. Our merchandising strategy is reflected in our marketing, which emphasizes a strong value message. Our stores offer a “treasure-hunt” shopping experience where customers can find great savings every day on a broad assortment of brand name bargains for the family and the home. Merchandising. Our merchandising strategy incorporates a combination of off-price buying techniques to purchase advance-of-season, in-season, and past-season merchandise for both Ross and dd’s DISCOUNTS. We believe merchandise with nationally recognized brand names and labels sold at compelling discounts will continue to be an important determinant of our success. We establish merchandise assortments that we believe are attractive to our target customers. We generally offer a large selection within each classification of our merchandise, with a wide assortment of vendors, labels, prices, colors, styles, and fabrics within each size or item. Our merchandise offerings include apparel, footwear, home accents and furniture, beauty, bed and bath, accessories, gourmet food, toys, luggage, pet accessories, electronics, jewelry and watches, and cookware. 3 Purchasing. We have a large network of merchandise vendors and manufacturers for both Ross and dd’s DISCOUNTS, and believe we have adequate sources of first-quality merchandise to meet our requirements. We purchase the majority of our merchandise directly from manufacturers. We believe our ability to effectively execute certain off-price buying strategies is a key factor in our success.…