HIBB
#Yes, we took a very hard look at that and feel like the seasonal categories impacted us by about 130 basis points.
Yes, definitely footwear we have that opportunity.
There are also many things in equipment just in accessories that we can fill in such as socks and headwear and some of those other types of products, some of the denim that we carry and other things that are very size oriented we will be able to do that which we think is a huge opportunity.
Sure, <UNK>.
As we mentioned in the second quarter we did see a detriment there of about 200 basis points or so on our total comp for the quarter.
As we got into Q3, Q3 is a higher volume quarter so it impacted us favorably by about a point and a half.
Yes, the traffic and the ticket, very similar story to what we've seen in recent quarters.
The ticket was up mid-single and the transactions were down mid-single.
We started off the quarter where our transactions were improved over the second quarter.
September actually had a little bit better transactions than the second quarter as well.
The big shortfall was in October.
Yes, to this point we feel like we're not in a place where we need to take significant markdowns.
Certainly some items that we're not comfortable with we'll address as needed as we already have, as we always have.
But at this point we still feel with some of the missed opportunity from last year and the lack of weather that we've had so far there's a little bit early to start with significant markdowns over and above what we've historically done.
I think obviously this week with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up will be a real telltale for us.
This is the season where we start to move from a little bit less need and more to gift giving.
So we feel like we need to really see the impacts of next week and the Thanksgiving holiday to then start to make those determinations of what we realistically need to do.
Sure.
You know we are only open for a couple of weeks but we feel very good about the way it opened.
And it's actually performing above our expectations but it's early, it's only the first two weeks but we're excited about how it performed.
If you take a look at last year's fourth quarter we did have some favorability.
The bulk of that favorability was in benefit cost and we also had some benefit on gift card breakage which we true-up once a year.
Those were the two main considers.
So I think that will be closer to normal this year.
So I think that's a piece of it.
And I think the other piece as we get into the fourth quarter we'll continue to keep a pretty tight rein on the more discretionary side of SG&A but we're going to fund the major initiatives and really not slow down there.
So that's the other piece of it that we want to make sure that we keep going.
So as I look at more of the investment versus controllable, the controllable side will be a little bit tighter but the investment side of our SG&A spending will kind of remain as planned.
We will provide more detail on that when we give out next year guidance on the next call.
But I would anticipate next year that SG&A, the investment side of SG&A will be slightly above what we saw this year.
I would say that there would be a fairly even spread next year and we'll provide more details in the next call but I would say it would be a fairly even spread and slightly more than this year.
Not really.
I think a lot of that is in some ways under our control where as we continue to make improvements in our assortment and replenishment and allocation I think we'll see some benefit there.
The new store productivity does always kind of ebb and flow with our overall comp number, so that is a big part of it.
So as we see our comp numbers improve typically our new stores come right along with that.
I think we continue to look at that and the biggest driver is really what is the demographics and the traffic patterns of the area, especially since most of our stores are in strip centers.
So that one-, three-, five-mile radius of the store from a demographic standpoint and traffic counts in those particular markets, so that's probably how we look at it a little bit stronger.
So the better the demographics are and the better the traffic count and how close people are proximity to our centers is a big driver of it.
Some of the areas that the weather has gotten cool we definitely have seen the increase in sales, especially in the apparel area.
We also feel very good about what they launch calendar looks like the rest of the year, especially in late November and all of December.
And then also as we go into January just last year if you remember we had some delivery delays with the port strike, so we think we will be able to have goods in earlier for our tax season.
So we feel very comfortable that we're going against some really soft numbers and then being able to fully utilize our distribution center on filling in on sizing and all that should pay some dividends.
So as we've seen some of those things in certain areas we think when we get that across the rest of our states that we're in a well-positioned because the assortments that we have in our stores.
We're actively seeking a VP of e-commerce currently.
We are evaluating what platforms we want to do within the next four to five weeks and we're looking at everything possible we can to move up the timeline as soon as possible.
So we have also we hired consultants and are spending the money and all the initial laid work to put in the core systems are going as planned and we are moving quite rapidly.
I can give you a little bit of details on that.
The first thing we're working on is the initial deployment of all of the hardware required for the POS implementation.
So that's the stage we're working on now and first half of next year we expect to have that deployed.
The back half of next year most of that time will be spent on the capability to ship from store to home.
So if one store doesn't have a particular item we can have another store ship it to the customer's home.
The following year is really the work that will be done on the website and mobile or app, so more of the e-commerce work will be done that following year.
And <UNK> we are doing things simultaneously.
We are actively getting our distribution center and all that all set for e-commerce.
So there is a lot of work being done as we continue to go through the year.
Very low.
We had very minimal but obviously there was some flooding and some of those type things but very minimal closures.
But when the weather is that way sometimes people can't get to stores.
Whenever we put guidance out there it's more of what we would call a normal season.
And so that would include minimal store closures, and that's usually how we try to guide is kind of normal middle-of-the-road.
Well both of those are clearly not normal.
But I would say if you look over the last four or five years excluding this past year that was more of a normal cadence I would say.
And so that's why when we talk about January our assumption is it will be getting close to normal, not including the past couple of years.
Yes I mean I think we still have some work to do to get the inventory a little bit more balanced appropriately with the sales growth.
We are expecting obviously more inventory than last year due to some of the port delays and the opportunities that we have around the tax and the season at the end of January and early February.
So we'll balance what we feel are the appropriate investments to ensure that we're driving revenue during that holiday which we consider Taxmas a holiday.
But then we also know we need to get some balance between the sales and inventory.
I was just going to say on a per store basis we're up 7% and we feel like we need to be up a little bit per store, especially with the work that we're doing on in-stock and making sure that we have product to replenish those stores.
So we want to be higher than last year on a per store basis.
Sure.
$100 million of buybacks is not sustainable through the long term unless we do some borrowing.
And so as we look forward we will continue to look at where we are, cash availability and where the stock price is and be opportunistic.
If we see an opportunity that makes sense then we will go into the revolver.
That's really what it's for and so we will use it if we think it makes sense.
No, it includes the $0.05.
Correct.
Minimal for the fourth quarter.
Obviously we have made a big buyback in the third quarter, so you should expect that to moderate quite a bit in the fourth quarter.
Yes, about 75% of the current decline is weather related.
The bottoms category was excellent during the third quarter.
We still see it as one of our fastest-growing categories.
It was impacted to a degree by weather but we still saw really nice growth.
Our deliveries on wearables we are in business now with our first vendor with two more vendors delivering within the next 10 days to two weeks.
So we expect that category to perform overall and we're going to certainly looking forward to having that in our stores.
The bigger driver will certainly be us moving our apparel business forward.
Without question we would expect the wearable business to have less of an impact than the improvements in apparel.
Thank you for your interest in Hibbett Sports.
I want to thank our customers for their loyalty, I want to thank our employees for their dedication and I look forward to having all you guys back on our fourth-quarter results in March.
Thank you.
