BKE
#Good morning, <UNK>.
Well, I think, as we mentioned probably in the third quarter, we have a better variety of brands, and a wider selection of product and price points, and so we feel good about our denim selection as we go into fourth quarter, and look forward to that being some good business for us.
I think that's probably due to the traffic of the season.
Some of the cleaner styles have done well, but there's still certain markets that do very well with more of the bling styles.
So we're trying to fine-tune the assortment as well as the bottom openings and the fits, and we feel like we've got a good situation there.
Thank you.
On the heavy dependent oil areas, that has had an effect to business, and so we're managing through that best.
And on the flow of the product, <UNK> or <UNK>, do you want to take that.
Sure.
As we mentioned, a year ago at the end of the third quarter inventory, was down 1.5% from the same time in 2013.
So I think we feel like that we've been playing catch-up on inventory a little bit.
So we probably should be, by the end of the year, anniversarying those numbers, don't you feel like <UNK>, that those should be more comparable then.
I think so.
We're not forecasting where it will be, but we'll see an improvement on that, and feel comfortable going into fourth quarter where we're at.
Naturally, what happens over the next six, eight weeks will have an impact on that.
So based on where we're at and moving into it, we think that the markdowns will not necessarily increase over how they increased in third.
We see it more as a ---+ maybe more traditional.
But here again, we'll just have to respond to the market as we get into the season.
Bob, do you want to address anything in the men's.
Well, to <UNK>' point on the denim, we've got quite a bit of stretch, and there's new fabrications there, and there's new fabrications in the knits and colors.
So I think both of those, we're feeling pretty good about going into holiday.
And the casual business, as <UNK> mentioned, has grown as well, which is a nice supplement to the denim.
Thank you.
Well, we feel that we are really a specialty store and have great service in the stores with the product.
And we are continuing to review and enhance our managers and teammates to work on additional ways with guest connect and to line up business with them as far as appointments, and if they're ---+ a lot of people are having ---+ just very busy.
So we're looking at ways to help them with their outfits and selection, and work with them on making up better shopping opportunities for them and easier to buy, as well as just a continued level of increasing our store managers, which have a big impact on our business.
Over the years, we have taken very good opportunities and maximized our business, and sometimes there's just more going on in the fashion world than others, that make it a little challenging to comp up.
And we want to continue to keep a very strong regular price business, and the strength of our stores, so we won't be promotional as far as store-wide sales to generate business.
And focusing on the bottom line and generating cash to continue to be a very strong retailer.
So we're looking for ways to grow our business and such, and think we've got some good plans, but we're not just going to discount our store to generate extra sales.
We continue to review that.
The one thing we do is, we do special orders from the store that the guest can pick up free in store, and we're looking to, probably in the spring, add online orders pickup stores free, which we have freight going daily to our stores.
And so a lot of our guests do special orders into the stores, so they save that shipping fee that way.
But we continue to review what's going on and that's the key thing of our product being exclusive and private label, that kind of gives us an edge.
And we are going to keep working on it.
What I said is, we have special orders that they can pick up in the store now.
There's no charge.
That's going on now.
We're looking at online pickup, probably in the spring in the stores, which there would be no charge.
But we have not committed to changing our policy at this point.
We're consistent with reviewing to where we think our opportunities are, in growing the business, and reviewing where the price of the stock is.
And we have some people that ---+ investors that love the dividend, and some that encourage the buybacks.
So we just continue to evaluate with our Board on what makes sense for us at that particular time.
We bought 20,000 shares last month, as they said in the script, and we still have the ability, the Board approved over 500,000 shares we can buy, if we decide to.
So as I mentioned, that's something we continue to review.
Well, I think those comments are pretty fair, that the mall traffic is down.
We've known for some time that has been a trend, and we continue to try to set our store up as a destination store, and continue to do so.
We also are not discounters, but we know we have a variety of customers and ages, and such, and so we ---+ besides having a variety of brands and styles and such, we also merchandise our in-house brands so we have a selection of prices.
So we have denim in the $50 range, and we have denim in the over $150 range, and we try to cater what's going on with the trends for particular stores, so we can merchandise the stores to what the majority of their guests want.
So we realize the challenges, but we feel very good about our talent and our teams, and they're continually working to overcome those.
And I think there's combinations of things for third quarter that made it very challenging, but we'll be ready to continue to do our best.
We're continually working on investing on our online business, and we're working on a new base system for that going forward, and building some staff there.
So we're trying to do it very smartly, so we can improve our business, but also stay profitable, and not just be giving things away online.
And in our mall locations, we continued to improve our locations and update our stores, and we have in most cases A locations throughout our shopping centers, and continue to see that as a strong focus to build off and tie in with our online business.
All right.
With no further questions, we do want to thank everyone again for joining us on the call today.
We appreciate your time and this will conclude our call.
