It was a lot of years ago when I first started reminding you not to focus just on your gross margin percentage, but your gross margin dollars as well. Then, in 2009, with the recession in full swing, I got all excited about Gross Margin Return on Inventory Investment (GMRII) after Cary Allington at Action Watch
What Does the Data on Our Target Market Say About Your Business Strategy? Read More »
As usual, SPY had the courtesy to file its 10Q with the SEC about the same time they did their conference call, making my job easier and my analysis more timely. You can see the 10Q here. Sales for the quarter ended March 31 rose 2% from $9 to $9.2 million compared to the same quarter
SPY’s Results for the Quarter; Operating Income Rises, but Interest Expense is a Killer. Read More »
There’s a lot I like about The Buckle. I don’t find time to cover them every quarter, but whenever I visit one of their 450 stores, I am impressed with how they’ve merchandised their owned (34% of revenue) with purchased brands together. My sense is that they give credibility to the brands they carry, not the
The Buckle Annual Report: Less Online, More Brick and Mortar Focus? Read More »
As I just noted in my last post on Tilly’s and expect to note as I get to other retailers, the teen market is sort of lousy right now. People seem a bit perplexed as to why it’s fallen so hard, but I believe it’s as simple as a lack of money and jobs for teens.
A & F’s Annual Report: Like Other Teen Retailers, But Not. Read More »
There is getting to be a certain sameness to all the reports I read from the retailers in our space. It’s not that Tilly’s has done anything bad, though their results aren’t good. It’s just that we seem to be in an environment where it’s hard to do something really distinguishing as a retailer. Tilly’s store numbers
More of the Same: Tilly’s Annual Report Read More »
I went to the Snowboard Industry Conference. I had fun. I learned stuff. I talked to people. I drank beer. I made a speech. Uh, I made the speech before I drank the beer just to be clear. During that speech there were three pieces of information I want to pass on to you. It’s not that the rest of the speech
The Economy, Value of Brands, and Relationship between Brick and Mortar and Online Read More »
PacSun’s 2013 fiscal year ended February 1, 2014, and that’s the year we’re discussing here. You can review the 10K yourself here. I’d like to start with CEO Gary Schoenfeld’s mention in the conference call of the “…four key pillars of our overall strategy.” They are, he says: “…our commitment to showcasing distinct brand identities derived from the
PacSun’s Annual Report and Quarter: Improvement, But More Needed Read More »
Intrawest recently filed their first public report since going public. You’ll remember that they did an initial public offering (IPO) as a way to restructure their balance sheet after the real estate market for mountain properties collapsed. I wrote about that here and here. Fortress was the company that owned most of Intrawest’s debt. Now that the debt has
Intrawest’s First Quarterly Report Read More »
When I review SPY’s results, we get to see what a smaller specialty brand is doing. They would prefer, I imagine, that they weren’t public and that we didn’t get to look over their shoulder. But for the time being anyway, we do. I suppose I need to confess that they are doing most of the things
SPY’s Year: Sales and Margin Up, Expenses Down Read More »
Zumiez reported top and bottom line growth even as they acknowledged and were impacted by the economic headwinds in Europe and the U.S. As they put it, “…teen retail in general experienced a challenging sales environment, with many mall based teen retailers seeing significant sales declines. Zumiez was not immune to the declines in traffic; however…our
Zumiez’s Annual Report: Growth, but Constrained by the Economy. Read More »