Greetings, and welcome to the American Eagle Outfitters First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to your host, Judy Meehan. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone. Joining me today for our prepared remarks are Jay Schottenstein, Chief Executive Officer; Michael Rempell, Chief Operating Officer; and Mike Mathias, Chief Financial Officer. In addition, Chad Kessler, AE Global Brand President; and Jen Foyle, Aerie Global Brand President, will be available during the question-and-answer session. Before we begin today's call, I need to remind you that we will make certain forward-looking statements. These statements are based upon information that represents the company's current expectations or beliefs. The results actually realized may differ materially based on risk factors included in our SEC filings. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Also, please note that during this call and in the accompanying press release, certain financial metrics are presented on both a GAAP and non-GAAP adjusted basis. Reconciliations of adjusted results to the GAAP results are available in the tables attached to the earnings release, which is posted on our corporate website at www.aeoinc.com in the Investor Relations section. Here, you can also find the first quarter investor presentation. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Jay.

Thanks, Judy, and good morning. Thank you for joining us today. I hope all of you are well and staying safe. Since the last time we spoke to you, COVID-19 has dramatically changed the world and our business. I'd like to start by saying how incredibly proud I am of our entire AEO family. The team has demonstrated extraordinary leadership, collaboration and humanity. Their commitment and agility have enabled us to take quick decisive actions while fueling our business in strong online demand. As we began to manage through the crisis, our priorities immediately shifted to protecting our people and our business, focusing on liquidity and near-term cash flow and preparing AEO for a new future. Our number one priority has been the health and well-being of our associates, customers and communities. In March, we hired a medical consultant to advise us on health and safety and to ensure we have the very best practices in all of our locations. We instituted work-from-home in mid-March, ahead of stay-at-home orders. We closed our stores shortly thereafter and have taken steps to support our affected associates. We led the industry by implementing best-in-class protective measures at our distribution centers. This includes providing masks, gloves, thermal temperature scanners, staggered schedules, social distancing protocols and nurses on site. By prioritizing the health and safety of all associates, our distribution centers have continued to operate successfully, supporting the acceleration of digital demand. As stores have reopened, we've also led with best-in-class protocols to provide safe and secure stores for both our customers and our teams. This includes a sanitation station and masks for all customers. We have received incredible associates and customer feedback. Reopened stores are performing extremely well and exceeding expectations. This has allowed us to be less promotional than planned to move through…

Thanks, Jay, and good morning, everyone. This crisis has certainly challenged all of us to work, behave and think differently. I'm incredibly proud of our entire organization, not only how well we have navigated through the past weeks, but also how we have used this as a pivot point. On numerous fronts, we have moved rapidly to sustain the business and maintain financial health. Yet, we have also quickly accelerated initiatives to transform our supply chain, build new digital capabilities, strengthen inventory management, reassess our store fleet and drive the company to a new future. When stores closed, we immediately leaned into our digital channel, which was a $1.3-billion business last year. This quickly became the lifeblood of the company. We are all extremely grateful for the dedication and resiliency of our distribution center teams. They have been truly exceptional. Thanks to their efforts throughout this crisis, fulfillment remained operational as online demand surged. Digital traffic, conversion and transactions rose significantly over last year. Online orders accelerated throughout the quarter with April, the strongest month. This momentum has continued into May, even in markets where we have reopened stores. The strength of our brands and product offerings has been clearly evident. In the quarter, AEO's online demand was 33%. After stores closed, demand accelerated to nearly 70% as new online customers more than doubled for both American Eagle and Aerie. In fact, Aerie increased its total new customer acquisitions across all channels at a double-digit rate while stores were closed. In addition, each brand benefited from previously store-only customers engaging online for the first time. Our collections of comfortable soft apparel are in strong demand. High-performing categories during the first quarter included AE's jeans, joggers and fleece and Aerie’s leggings, fleece, bralettes and even swimwear. Marketing efforts shifted to social…

Thanks, Michael. Good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be here, and I look forward to meeting all of you soon. My first 6 weeks as CFO have been active, to say the least. COVID-19 pandemic forced us to pivot our 2020 plans from investing for growth to prioritizing liquidity, above all else. Our strong balance sheet and cash flow have allowed us to self-fund our business for many years. However, given the uncertain operating environment, we accessed debt markets in April to shore up our cash position and enable us to continue to invest for the future. We have been laser-focused on near-term cost savings and cash preservation while also working on profit improvement initiatives, including inventory optimization and a review of our store fleet. I'm really proud of what my team has accomplished in such a short period of time. I have long believed the talent, hard work and dedication of our people is a competitive advantage, and this challenging situation has validated that view. Needless to say, the first quarter did not play out as we anticipated. Through early March, we were tracking to our plan and expected to have positive results. However, the abrupt closure of stores on March 17 led to a significant revenue decline and had a material adverse effect on margins and earnings. Consolidated revenue declined 38% year-over-year due to store closures. With its larger store base, American Eagle revenue decreased 45% to last year. Aerie’s performance was extraordinary. Total brand demand increased 12% to last year, reinforcing Aerie’s brand health. Reported revenue declined 2% to last year due to the impact of distribution center backlog that Michael discussed, which will shift sales into the second quarter. Aerie’s first quarter results were also high-quality with promotions well controlled. For total AEO, we saw a…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Oliver Chen with Cowen.

That 95% productivity is very impressive. How did you plan inventories and staffing relative to that? And were there differences by region? And how does it help inform what you're doing for planning in this dynamic situation?

Oliver, this is Michael Rempell. Yes, what I would say is we're thrilled, obviously, with the 95%. We feel like our teams did an incredible job preparing to open. We worked very quickly, very aggressively to focus the assortments, create welcome stations, remove fixtures and have a thoughtful plan around fitting rooms and how we handle returns. We had planned -- we had expected stores to open considerably worse than that. And I would say that the sales productivity we've seen is pretty consistent across markets. We haven't really noticed a major difference by market. They've all opened strong. They've all remained pretty strong. We are selling down inventory. And there was a lot of stimulus. There was pent-up demand. We had competitors closed. So there are reasons why it opened strong. But clearly, we're the strongest store in the mall, and our customers are continuing to come to us.

Okay, Michael. And a follow-up, as you've been proactive in inventory and planning ahead, the environment isn't going to be easy. So should we assume merchandise margin pressure as we look forward on a year-over-year basis and also average unit retail pressure?

Yes. Thanks, Oliver. Look, we're not planning merchandise margin pressure or average unit retail pressure. We took pretty aggressive actions, as you can see in the first quarter, to get our inventory clean. We're going to continue cleaning that inventory in the second quarter. So there might be some additional markdown pressure in the second quarter. But really, our focus has been planning inventory conservatively, getting clean, fresh assortments coming in for back-to-school fall and holiday and positioning the business to chase. We've been very focused on how we can drive merch margin increases that are greater than our sales increases. Chad, Jen and all their teams have done an amazing job, positioning us that way. And the work we did in sourcing, taking care of our vendors during this crisis, making sure we paid our bills, we owned our liabilities, have really made us the customer of choice. So we feel like we can position inventory conservatively, and we could respond in a very strong way in the back half. So we're not expecting pressure. We're expecting very positive results.

We're expecting to be the best looking store in the mall when it comes to July. I think we're the best-looking store right now in the mall, but when it comes to the back-to-school, there'll be a big difference between us and our competitors.

Sorry, Jay. And I should add, Oliver, the other thing we are seeing is mark-up benefit in the back half. So we see, due to lower commodity costs, energy, cotton, et cetera, we're seeing mark-up benefit in back-to-school and increasing benefit as we move into holiday.

Our next question comes from the line of Jay Sole with UBS.

Great. You mentioned -- you talked a little bit more about Aerie long-term goals. But can you give us an idea of what the Aerie store opening plan looks like for this year? I mean how much is the pandemic changed that? And maybe sort of what you're thinking about for early next year at this point?

Yes. It's Jen Foyle. And I hope everyone is safe and healthy during these times. So much going on out there. I look at it as a pivot point for our company, for Aerie, in particular. I think the teams -- I mean, our February trend was so exciting. We were really basically where we were in Q4. Just an amazing trend line. And obviously, with the epidemic and the current crisis, most retailers would slow things down. We actually accelerated. We have a whole -- I mean, coming out of this COVID, there's so much and so many learnings that have made us smarter, wiser, more cost-efficient. We just have so many great ideas, and this team is not slowing down. In fact, we're accelerating with ideas and newness. I'll speak to that in a second. We are still planning on opening up around 25 stores in Aerie. And inside of that, there's a couple of new ideas that we're working through. Obviously, with the current conditions, we have to make sure that those can come to life, but there's one in the near end that we're pretty excited about, and it couldn't be more relevant for these times. That's about to launch in June if everything goes well. It's a small store concept. I can't share it right now because it's special, and I will when we really bring this to life, but obviously, like I said, with the current conditions. But that said, I just want to go back to what this team did. Out of the gate, we reflowed our merchandise, but we also brought in newness. Our customer was demanding newness outside of February. And because of the way our receipt -- I mean our cadence was and our inventory position, we were able to…

Jen, that sounds all really fantastic. I think heading into before the pandemic, there was a path to improving EBITDA margins for the brand, given the scaling of the business and opening the stores and kind of leveraging a lot of the investments that have been made over the last 3 years. Given the pandemic is sort of maybe distorting some of the margins that we can see, can you just tell us where you see the margins trending based on what you know about the business today, what were you seeing over the last few months?

Sure. I'll let Mike add on to this, but I will tell you, our merch margin was up to last year. Our markdown rates were lower than last year. And it was a healthy margin last year. So very strong. The team pulled back on promotions. We got really creative. Because of the demand we saw online, we were able to pull back on strategic categories and make sure that we were being as profitable as possible. So we continued to be accretive to the total company. And you'll see more down the road, we're going to share more insight to Aerie as we build this brand out. And now with Mike joining us, he's very excited to get these results out. So Mike, I don't know if you have anything to add on.

Thanks, Jen. I can add on, Jay. Yes, I think, look, for Aerie, it's been business as usual, which is amazing. I think digital penetration definitely helped them stem the tide of the pandemic impact. We have plus 12% demand in total in the quarter is amazing. When you think about EBITDA expansion, I mean, the brand is at a revenue point now, really an inflection point where, from an operating leverage perspective, as we continue to see this amazing sales growth, it will drive additional profitability for the company, and that's what we're excited about. You'll hear more about that in our longer-term plans, definitely that are coming. But as it's approaching $1 billion, it's definitely at a leverage -- inflection point.

Our next question comes from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citi.

I want to go back to the comment you made about looking at the store fleet. Maybe just give initial thoughts about what you think that ultimate store footprint might look like for the American Eagle brand. And then related to that, I think I wanted to understand the store impairment charge on the 272 stores. Is that -- are you saying that, that number of stores have had a permanent impact -- have been materially impacted by closing due to COVID in terms of their cash generating power? And should we think about that number as the kind of number that you have on your radar screen that might ultimately close?

Thanks, Paul. It's Mike Mathias. I can take that. Look, I think our flexibility in our lease terms right now -- to handle the real estate question first. Our average lease life is less than 4 years. Half our fleet is expiring over the next 2 as we've talked about in our opening remarks. We think we do, over time here, especially -- again, it will be part of our 3-year plan that we'll outline in more detail, but we do expect we'll have less stores over time. This digital acceleration is something you can't ignore. I think it's not -- we don't think it's going to go away. So it's going to be a combination, we believe, of a smaller fleet and then favorable renewal terms on the leases that we do renew. As far as the impairment goes on the 272 stores, it's really about the projections. I mean those impairment calculations are about future projections. Half of those have less than 1 year left on their lease term. So it's -- when you think about the calculation of the impact of COVID and projecting those future cash flows, we really don't know, it's uncertain, but that's really the basis for that impairment calculation. I don't think there's nothing from a risk perspective we feel to immediate cash flow, it's really about projecting those forward.

Mike, and how many of those stores are mall versus off mall, if you could share that?

Pretty much, we think most of them -- I would say most of them, Paul. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but just based on our typical mix. So majority would be mall.

Our next question comes from the line of Tiffany Kanaga with Deutsche Bank.

Would you discuss in more detail how you are evolving your supply chain and fulfillment capabilities given the demand-driven pressure in the first quarter and what might remain a more digitally driven business environment?

Tiffany, this is Michael. Yes, it's a pleasure to take that question because we're really excited about the transformation that we're going through in supply chain. And last year, we had hired a new Head of Supply Chain, and we laid out a multiyear plan to really change our network. So the plan essentially revolved around using our primary DCs, but then adding multiple layers to our network or to put it simpler to put regional fulfillment centers near major cities, okay? The idea there is to take inventory out of stores, keep it in these fulfillment centers and be able to be more productive with the inventory by servicing stores same day or next day and having a larger pool of inventory close to customers to be able to fulfill digital needs also same day or next day and do that while managing costs. What's interesting to me is it's something that if you think about ordering from Amazon or other CPG companies, people have been doing with products for many years, but no one really does that in a meaningful way in the fashion space. In some ways, it reminds me of, in 2012, when we built our omnichannel distribution center, we couldn't find another example of a fashion retailer that used a single pool of inventory on the scale that we were talking about to service their customers. This is the same kind of thing that we feel like there's an opportunity to set our company up like a digitally native brand would to be able to put inventory close to customers, manage delivery costs and improve service levels. So we're excited about it. We had planned to do this over a few years. The pandemic and the crisis we're going through actually forced us to move much faster, but at the end of the day, that's a good thing. It's going to drive more capacity, more capabilities, better service and ultimately, lower cost for us.

Our next question comes from the line of Matt McClintock with Raymond James.

I want to talk about consolidation within the industry, market share opportunities, and it sounds like you're thinking about this as well. How should we think about these opportunities and the time line for those opportunities? Meaning, is this something where weaker retailers fall out sooner rather than later? Or is it something that's maybe a 2021 story? And Jay, maybe can you -- given that you have a long history in this industry, can you think back to another time where opportunities like this existed, and you were able to aggressively go after them? That would be helpful.

Okay. Sure. Going back in time, you had the time in the late 1970s, early '80s when there was -- where like 40% of the different retailers were closing up and department stores were closing up left to right. There was opportunity there. We look at this as a very advantageous time for us, and we will look at the different opportunities. But at the same time, we believe that within our own brands, we have great opportunity to grow between American Eagle, between Aerie, we see that opportunity. We believe that in the denim, which has been the basis of the American Eagle business that we can really capture bigger market share now. And we plan some very aggressive campaigns in the next couple of months to start. One thing that I'm most proud of is that 10 weeks ago when this crisis took place, we did not make cuts in our key operation. We kept our design team all intact. We kept our operations team intact. Our DCs worked the entire time through there. The inventory teams all were intact. Our logistics, our sourcing teams were intact. And at that time, we looked at it as an opportunity. How can we -- as Mike was talking about, how can we make things better? Certain things we had planned to open 9 months from now, we opened in 2 weeks. Michael has been very prominent there. But what happened was when we had to move with some of these regional warehouses, they were on our schedule to do 8 months from now and they did in less than 2 weeks. So we make things happen. Our design teams, their creativity during this period, I was amazed even with the fabrics that we picked out and everything, it was like very amazing and in the development. So I feel very -- I'm very excited. I think that this summer, we will really differentiate ourselves from the competition. And at the same time, look, there will be opportunities. You see what's happening in the marketplace. You see all these different companies that are in trouble. The beauty is that our balance sheet is a very clean balance sheet. We're standing on $900 million in cash. So when the right opportunity comes, we act very fast. So we're very excited.

And then just as a quick follow-up. The 95%, it sounds like that came in above your own internal expectations. Is the delta between the 95% and your own expectations may be a way to measure market share gains? Or where did that come from? Was that new customers? Or can you just kind of help us try to think through where the upside came from?

Look, on the 95%, we think when things settle down here in this country, we could get back to normal pretty fast. This has been -- it's been a challenging time for retailers. Last year, we had to work our way through the tariffs. The year before, we had to work our way through the border tax that was being proposed. We thought we had blue skies ahead of us back in March and all of a sudden, COVID came on so strong. And then last week, we thought we had blue skies again and unfortunately, what the company is going through right now, hopefully, everybody will pull together and things will get back to normal or whatever the new normal is. And I think that -- look, people are -- it's been a tough couple of months for the country. I mean, as Americans, we're not used to being quarantined. We're not used to being that curfewed and Americans like to run. They like to be free. And hopefully, everybody will get that feeling back and the country will overcome and the country will come together and do the right thing.

For acquisitions, both brands and channels have -- just like our productivity, have exceeded our expectations. So we've seen an increase in new customer acquisitions as well as customers migrating and shopping online with us for the first time during this crisis. Both numbers were far above what we had planned them to be.

Our next question comes from the line of Kate Fitzsimons with RBC Capital Markets.

This is [ Jared ]on for Kate. I guess just curious about kind of with the new kind of layers of the fulfillment services and those extra distribution centers, I mean what's the right way to think about the SG&A impact from that? And then I guess, bigger picture, as stores reopen, how do you think we should be kind of for forecasting out that SG&A dollar growth may be in just like a longer-term time line?

[ Jared ], it's Mike. I can take that. The DC cost or the cost from our 3PL, ultimately expecting as those get up and running and ramped up, that the transaction level cost will be that substantially different than our own DCs, and that is in our buying occupancy and warehousing cost, not in SG&A. So just making sure you have it in the right bucket there. As far as stores reopening, I mean, obviously, our SG&A dollars being down in the first quarter had a lot to do with stores being closed and the furlough of our associates. We're really excited to get all those folks back to work here in the second quarter. But as we said, only about half of our stores were reopened as of today. So from a cost perspective, we're still going to see a benefit in the second quarter as that continues -- that ramp-up continues between this month and through July. In general, right now -- we also, in the second quarter, as we kind of pivoted on cash preservation mode and looked at our controllable discretionary expenses for the balance of the year, the second quarter is where we'll see some of the dollar benefits of some of those costs that are even outside of stores. Right now, in our plans, dollars are down for the year, and we expect them to be down for the year. Even in the back half, some of that's going to have some variable nature to it as we see how sales materialize, which is definitely still uncertain. So from a leverage or deleverage or just a rate of sale perspective, I think the top line is really going to dictate that. But as of right now, our plans have dollars down for the year.

Our next question comes from the line of Janet Kloppenburg with JJK Research.

I wanted to ask Chad, if you could talk a little bit about the American Eagle assortments. We -- last time we saw you, Chad, in January, you were a little concerned near term about the top assortments. And I was just wondering what changes have been made and what your view is about progress there. And for Jen, given the momentum of new business, I was wondering if you could talk about your inventory levels and your ability to fulfill in the second quarter. And lastly, just for Jay, as we look forward into the second half, what your view would be on the outlook for comp store productivity improvement in light of what might be a challenging macro environment.

Janet, thanks for the questions. We are -- obviously, a difficult time to redirect trend lines, but as I think you have heard through this whole call, we've been really pleased with the resilience of our customer and the demand for the brands. And we have seen -- even going into the stores closing, we started to really see the turnaround that I was looking for from women's tops. And we continue to see strength in that category even in this time. And we're starting to see some of that also take shape in men's. So we've really taken -- you've heard from the whole team, we've really taken the last 10 or 12 weeks to focus on our future strategies to make sure that we have the best newness going into fall. We've been liquidating a lot of the seasonal merchandise with the intention of exciting our customers with clean new goods heading into fall. And I couldn't be more excited about the jeans assortment. As you know, we work all year to make sure that we're going to have the best jeans every back-to-school. And with the women's dream jeans and men's AirFlex plus, I'm confident that customer will respond positively there. And then in tops, we've really worked hard to focus on what's right in this environment and making sure that we have the softest tops, that we're focused on key items, that there's items outfit perfectly back to our jeans, where demand has remained strong. And so both in men's and women's, we feel like we're seeing strong momentum in those categories. And we were really confident in the newness that we're delivering for back-to-school. So there's still uncertainty as to how the business will play out through the fall, but as Michael said, our intention is to drive profitability above the sales line with focused assortments, focused inventory and great newness for our customers.

Janet, it's Jen. And I hope you're healthy and safe. Our inventories, they're right in line where we should be considering some of our non-comp stores as well, in fact, as we open up some of our new stores, we have about 77 stores that are about to open today, again, depending on what's happening out there. But in total, we'll have about 77. We've been gradually opening up in non-risk areas. But going back to the inventory, when I say that, even some of those stores, because they've been filling [ box ] demand as well, they're looking for more inventory. So we have -- we're right in line. Our clearance levels are down. Our presentation levels are up in a very healthy way, based on that flow strategy I talked about, again. And thinking about the non-comp stores and what our inventory looks like, we're right inline, and we have been actually pulling in inventory for demand -- for direct. I didn't mention this on my prior response, but we also have the summer free delivery that's coming in. That's phenomenal. It's an amazing delivery. I couldn't be more excited about it. Direct needs it right now. And yes, I think you're going to see on the go forward, we're going to be right inline. I mentioned I love where our markdown rates came in, down to last year. Our margins came in higher than last year, which is obviously an indicator of the health of our business. So yes -- and the only thing I would add on is, as we pushed out -- we did push out some receipts to make sure we were being responsible as we didn't know what the environment was going to look like as we opened up stores. Because of some of the businesses and how well they're doing, we actually have been using our liabilities up as well. So we've gone back out and purchased back into a lot of our receipts for the back-to-school, again, in a very healthy and responsible way.

Janet, this is Jay. You asked me a question. It's a -- personally, I think our merchandise for American Eagle and Aerie look great for back-to-school and for the holiday season that I've seen so far, I mean, it really looks outstanding. I'm very optimistic. My goal is that our cash position should get back to where it was last year before we took on the additional debt. That's the number one goal. But at the same time, I'm just hopeful and I'm praying that this COVID-19 doesn't grow anymore and the country could get back to a more stable. Assuming all that happens, we are very optimistic. But I learned one thing in the last 10 weeks, things change fast, it goes up, it goes down. You have to be agile, you have to be flexible and you have to be able to adjust right away. And one thing I'm proud is that my team, our team, our company did adjust right away. So when the crisis took place, we formed a task team right away. I can't emphasize the task team that we put together right away and how on a daily basis, we had updates. And we were the first back in the malls in the first week. The first thing we did was to protect our associates, right, immediately how do we make it safe everybody. And then we knew that things would not be normal, how do we rearrange our stores and in that first week, we had teams out when the malls were closed, playing and rearranging the stores to figure out what does it take to make our associates safe and the customers safe. So we have to have that flexibility. So I learned one thing. Whatever plans I make, God could change it right away. So we got to be very flexible, we have a great team that's really nimble. And here, we're having this call right now, and we're in 5, 6 different places. And we haven't seen each other in person. We've seen each other every day on the Zoom. Thank God, we have this great technology. Without this technology, we couldn't operate the company the way we are. Thank God for the technology and thank God for the team that we built that we do have this technology. So I'm very optimistic that we have the right team.

Our next question comes from the line of Susan Anderson with B. Riley FBR.

Nice job managing the quarter. I was curious, have you seen any of the demand change in terms of the product categories as consumers kind of come back into the stores and things started to open up? Are you seeing at all a shift into other products besides the lounge and comfy and active wear? And then I'm curious, have you seen any of those new customers actually come into the stores just yet? And then, Mike, one question for you, just on the gross margin. How are you thinking about the second quarter? Are you expecting significantly worse promotions in the environment out there?

Yes, in American Eagle, I think it's important to realize that even while stores were closed, we've seen terrific demand across jeans and shorts and some of the categories that -- when you read the articles out there, they say people aren't buying, but they've been buying from us. And with stores reopening and with the weather breaking, we've seen terrific demand across shorts. So I think we're seeing demand across the full assortment. We did see especially strong demand in some of the knits and sort of more lounge or more sort of at-home type apparel. And so we will make sure that we have a good balance going into back-to-school and fall, but we are seeing strong demand even across our constructed clothes, which I think just speaks -- I think our jeans and our shorts really speaks just to the fact that we have the most innovative, most comfortable product out there. You can lounge or be on your Webex calls in a pair of leggings or you can be just as comfortable in a pair of jeggings from American Eagle. And I think that's something our customers recognize and something that they'll still come to us for.

Yes. I can follow up with the gross margin question. So Susan, I think, really, when the pandemic started, we obviously went right to liquidation mode. Our number one goal being clean as we get through summer and the back-to-school, as we said, so our season assortments are seasonally appropriate. As we've exceeded our plans and one with the digital acceleration and getting through units really through the first quarter and the next one in May, we've actually been able to increase our AURs and be less promotional so far in the second quarter. We can't predict a promotional environment in total for the remainder of these last couple of months into Q2. But right now, we see our plans that we don't think gross margin is going to be anywhere near the 5% that we reported in the first quarter. I mean you can imagine that having to pivot mid-March, combination of kind of liquidate goods, store revenue exceeding -- the decline from last year exceeding over $300 million in the first quarter and then the inventory provision of $60 million that we took in the quarter was really all the result of -- resulted in that 5%. We do not see that being anywhere near that low in the second quarter. But the only thing that's consistent is that we expensed our normal level of rent in the first quarter. We'll do that again in the second quarter. But both top line -- the top line growth, we expect to significantly exceed Q1. And then those other components, any inventory provision, if there is one, will be definitely lower than that $60 million. And right now, based on what we're seeing on our week-to-week plans, we don't expect a lot of margin pressure right now in the second quarter.

And final question will come from the line of Kimberly Greenberger with Morgan Stanley.

I had a follow-up question on inventory. And I understand that there was a very prudent write-down in the dollars on the balance sheet. But if you could comment on the unit growth year-over-year at the end of Q1, that would be helpful. And then in terms of the sort of SG&A cuts, could you just help us understand what an annualized SG&A savings might be in terms of the actions that you've taken over the last 3 months? What -- if you can quantify the permanent savings in SG&A as opposed to those that are temporary and related to the store closures that will come back into the P&L once stores reopen, that would be helpful.

Thanks, Kimberly. I think I'll handle the SG&A question first. In our opening remarks, we executed about $225 million of overall reductions to our full year plans. At this point, majority of that was SG&A. And yes, it's a mix of fixed and variable expenses, obviously store furloughs and continued savings in the second quarter as we continue to open the stores through the second quarter. So those pieces were somewhat temporary. But there are other areas when we kick in to cash preservation mode for the rest of the year, really starting the second quarter into the balance, those efforts on other controllable and discretionary expenses, are things that will be permanent. I'd say -- I think there's a balance of what's fixed and variable out there now, really no expense is sacred in our mindset. So I think as we look forward to these back half plans, I don't want to put a percentage to it, but there are definitely elements of that $225 million that will be -- will carry forward beyond this year. And from an inventory perspective, a few -- the question if it was units at the end of the quarter. I guess what I -- the way maybe I'll answer that is inventory was down at the end of the quarter, we're down 8% on a cost basis. Our plans go forward have us down in the double digits, low double digits from here. Definitely, that's our projection for the end of the second quarter right now. And then as we set up plans for the back half, we are going to be in chase mode, just because of the uncertainty of our top line results right now. I think everybody out there saying the same thing about not having a crystal ball and predicting what that's going to look like. But we are setting up cost receipts to be down in that same low double-digit range with the ability to chase. So I think we're setting ourselves up intelligently and strategically to chase the business as we see it come in the back half and not being overly bullish. But as Jay has said, we do believe there's some market share opportunity out there. We're looking at it advantageously. And we're setting up the flow of our inventory to chase it versus setting up -- setting ourselves up in a risk situation.

All right. Thank you, everybody. That concludes our call today. We'll be around for follow-ups throughout the day. Thanks. Bye-bye.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.