In the intimate area, the early spring was a test where the company had it in half a dozen doors maximum. One of the stores is Bloomingdale’s and another one is Nordstroms, so they are in a number of stores within stores. Urban Outfitters got a good read from being in both Bloomingdale’s and Nordstroms and they were successful. Going forward it sees the bookings of intimates exploding.
Could you give an update on the timing of the CRM rollout at Anthropologie?
The company is not ready to give a date on that yet, but it will be in the second half of the year.
Will it be in time for the holidays?
It should be running in time for the holidays but the company does not think it will have an impact during the holiday. When the CRM package is rolled out, it will have little impact immediately, as it starts to grow slowly and there will be a substantial impact 12 months after that.
Could you comment on the tax rate?
The basic tax rate this year will be around 36%. Urban Outfitters has another incentive coming back on the construction of the corporate office. The company booked $7.3 million in fiscal year 2007. In fiscal year 2008 it would hope to book another $8 million.
How many stores in each division are considered metro?
Of the 106 Urban stores the company would define 42 of them as metro and out of the Anthropologie stores out of the 93 it would define 17 as metro at this point.
Last year you had the bottoms business struggling, and as a result you saw some UPT weakness given the top to bottom ratio. Could you talk about that business at Anthropologie?
There is a lot of traction in other bottom areas, denim, shorts and etc. The top business is in a tops cycle. Any UPT challenge Urban Outfitters did have related to bottoms weakness, was just related to a poor fashion offer.
Could you quantify the costs associated with the development of the new concept that you plan on announcing later this year?
The costs associated with it are immaterial to the company. The company believes that that will continue for sometime. It does not have breakout that.
Could you comment on gift card sales?
Gift cards for holiday period were up 12%.
How many of those gift cards have been redeemed thus far into the first quarter?
The company can not tell how many have been redeemed at this point in time. Typically, redemption as usually at Urban happens earlier than Anthropologie, and a large percentage are probably already been redeemed.
Could you share the ending square footage for the different brands at the end of the year?
Urban is 1,026,134. Anthropologie is 706,543 and Free People is 11,638.
You said about six to ten new Free People stores this year. Would the balance of the store openings be split evenly between the other two divisions? |
