A recent trip to the East coast found me in a mid-sized, somewhat economically depressed city that’s undergoing quite a revival in its downtown core. I had the chance to walk the downtown with one of the people intimately involved in that development as he explained the vision and showed me the construction. Part of what […]
A Tale of Two Retailers Read More »
This, I’m happy to say, is going to be pretty short. But I’ve gone to the trouble of reviewing their information so I might as well write something. As I’ve noted before, what intrigues me about The Buckle is the way they’ve integrated their private label brands with the other brands they carry in their merchandising. They
The Buckle’s Quarter Read More »
The headline I guess is that for its quarter ended August 3rd, Zumiez increased its sales and profits smartly. We have to talk about the impact of the Blue Tomato acquisition (July 4, 2012) and some restructuring costs, but basically things look good on a quarter over quarter basis. The more interesting issue, however, is the
You Own Action Sports in the Mall. Now What? Zumiez’s Quarter Read More »
I thought the Altamont deal would happen. I figured Billabong just had to get a deal done. That’s what they were doing until Centerbridge Partners and Oaktree Capital Management (we’ll call them the Consortium as Billabong does) asked the Australian Government’s Takeover Panel to take a look at the deal. Basically, the Consortium claimed that the deal
Billabong’s Deal. I Didn’t See This One Coming. Read More »
It’s almost unanimous. Companies in our industry, (whatever industry we’re in) or for that matter most other industries, are cutting expenses, rationalizing supply chains, targeting marketing efforts, cutting SKUs, creating omni channels, growing ecommerce business, being more discriminating in distribution and generally doing all the things they have to do if they assume that sales growth
Joining the Party; Quiksilver’s July 31 Quarter Read More »
We will, of course, get to the numbers. Among other things, we’ll talk about the impact of an extra week and their derivative liability. But let’s start by jumping right to the conference call and noting some things CEO Gary Schoenfeld says. He defines their core customer as “…the more fashion-savvy, older teen and early 20
How Our Market is Changing: PacSun’s August 3 Quarter Read More »
Globe reported a loss for the year ended June 30 of $6 million compared to a profit of $62,000 in the prior calendar period (pcp). That’s in Australian dollars, as are all the numbers in this article. Total revenues rose 2% from $83 to $84.1 million. The Globe brand was up 10%, but Dwindle fell 15%. Cost of sales
Globe’s Annual Results Read More »
Billabong released its results for the year ended June 30, 2013 a few days ago, and I’ve been plowing through the 200 or so pages of material and listening to the conference call. My recent writings about public companies have been lamenting that they are public. Not just because they have to share their travails
Billabong’s Annual Report Read More »
There are two things that really struck me in reading Spy’s June 30 10Q (which you can read here). You may not have seen them because, unlike you, I delight in reading small print and conference call transcripts. Perhaps “delight” is too strong a word. Anyway, the first thing I saw was that they had no (as
Spy’s June 30 Quarter; Things Are Getting Happier Read More »
If you’re a homeowner, you know that you can never complete your project list. All you can do is try to keep it from getting longer. At our house, outside projects are my job and in the Northwest, that means get them done in the summer. In the spirit of shortening the list, I stopped by a