Greetings. Welcome to Columbia Sportswear Third Quarter 2020 Financial Results. At this time all participants will be in listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded. At this time I'll turn the conference over to Andrew Burns, Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Burns, you may begin.

Good afternoon, and thanks for joining us to discuss Columbia Sportswear Company’s third quarter results. In addition to the earnings release, we furnished with 8-K containing a detailed CFO commentary explaining our results and updates regarding COVID-19 impact and the company’s response. This CFO commentary is available on our Investor Relations website, investor.columbia.com. With me on the call today are Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Tim Boyle; Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Tom Cusick; Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Jim Swanson; and Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer, Peter Bragdon. This conference call will contain forward-looking statements regarding Columbia’s expectations, anticipations or beliefs about the future. These statements are expressed in good faith and are believed to have a reasonable basis. However, each forward-looking statement is subject to many risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from what is projected. Many of these risks and uncertainties are described in Columbia’s SEC filings. We caution that forward-looking statements are inherently less reliable than historical information. We do not undertake any duty to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this conference call to conform the forward-looking statements to actual results or changes in our expectations. I’d also like to point out that during the call, we may reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, including constant currency net sales. For further information about non-GAAP financial measures and results including a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures and an explanation of management’s rationale for referencing these non-GAAP measures, please refer to the supplemental financial information section and financial tables included in our third quarter 2020 earnings release. Following our prepared remarks, we will host a Q&A period during which we will limit each caller to two questions so we can get to everyone by the end of the hour. Now, I'll turn the call over to Tim.

Thanks, Andrew and good afternoon. I hope everyone is well and your families are all safe and healthy. As we continue to work through this unprecedented year, I'm pleased to report third quarter results exceeded our internal forecast. While results were down substantially in comparison to last year, sales and profitability trends sequentially improved compared to second quarter, and we expect continued improvement in the fourth quarter and into 2021. The tremendous efforts of our global team of dedicated employees, as well as our cost containment and capital preservation actions have preserved our financial strength and position as well to recover from the pandemic and execute against our strategic plan. We exited the quarter with $315 million in cash and short-term investments, no bank borrowings and nearly $1 billion in total liquidity. Before reviewing our results and outlook, I'd like to discuss the senior leadership changes we announced today in the standalone press release and Form 8-K filing. After 18 years with the company, Tom Cusick has announced his intention to retire next year following a transition period. Tom has been a true source of leadership and instrumental to our success over his tenure. He will be sorely missed. We are thankful for the time and energy is devoted to elevating Columbia Sportswear to what it is today. As part as this transition, Lisa Kulok will become Executive Vice President, Global Supply Chain, and Jim Swanson will become Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer both reporting directly to me. We also made changes to capitalize on Columbia's omni channel growth potential by aligning our organizational structure globally to accelerate our business transformation with a focus on e-commerce and digital. As part of these changes, Franco Fogliato will lead the company and focusing on the omni channel experience by transitioning to…

Yes, thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. And our first question comes from the line of Bob Drbul with Guggenheim. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, guys, good evening. And Tom congratulations on your retirement and best of luck. Thanks for everything, the last 20 years or however it's been. Tim, I got a couple questions. I'm not sure I can stick to one. But I guess the first question is, from the business standpoint I think when you came out of Q2, the trends from June, can you talk through the monthly progression in terms of what you saw sort of July, August, September. And I would also be curious if you could just give us some insight on what you've seen thus far in October? It's my first question.

So yeah, we saw sequential improvement Bob in those three months. Obviously, as consumers are beginning to learn how to accommodate the impact of the pandemic, and begin to somehow get back to normalcy. And we saw increased consumption, especially at outdoor products in September. It really helps when Anthony Fauci is telling people to go outside. We were the beneficiary of that in September, where we had the best month of the quarter, certainly. As it relates to October, we really haven't started talking about Q4 yet, but we can see in our sales trends at retail, and remember that we have visibility of about 80% of our wholesale customers selling that our sell through has been strong. And we see depletions ahead of prior periods, and that's on lower inventories, frankly, because ourselves and others have had logistics issues getting merchandise to customers, as fast as they want it. So I'm quite encouraged by all these signs. And absent of closure -- the unanticipated closure of stores for whatever reason, that we could end up with a good year this year.

And Bob, I might add, as you're aware, Q3 is typically a fairly significant sell-in quarter for us where it's much more heavily weighted to the wholesale business. So looking at month-to-month progression is a little bit more difficult. When we look inside the direct-to-consumer business itself, as Tim touched on e-commerce growth was really quite solid throughout the quarter. And we've seen that trend continued through the month of October here. And then with regard to the stores, traffic remains quite depressed. We saw exiting the second quarter, we continued to see those trends through July and August, and then a bit of improvement as we got into the month of September, which is encouraging.

Okay. And I guess just when you think about, I should have the tie that the next two together, but, Tim, from a channel inventory seems lean, there is definitely some opportunity for you. But in the guidance that you're giving us today on the fourth quarter, can you just talk through like the assumptions on your wholesale business, your reorder business and your DTC business, sort of how you see that this quarter, and just the opportunities on a lean inventory, positioning the channel in your own inventory?

Yes, of course, obviously, it's difficult to have much visibility on this when you have the pandemic and of course the additional question mark around the election next week. But I personally feel comfortable and quite encouraged as I said, maybe I’ll ask Jim to give you a little bit more detail on the specifics.

Yeah, Bob, as we look at the end of the year, in my CFO commentary, kind of where we see inventory coming out at the end of the year, the low single-digit percent of growth. But as Tim touched on, in light of where early season fall 2020 sell through is at retail, and the fact that we see inventory positions being relatively lean, we feel like we're in a really good position going into the quarter in terms of inventory that we've got available to fill that demand and then likewise our e-commerce business continuing to see nice growth through that channel as well. So we'll stay after here and get that inventory balance down.

Got it. Okay, I guess just if I could just sneak in a third. In terms of just market share and market share opportunities when you think about what's happening in either the outerwear category of the footwear category, can you just talk through where you see your positioning and how it's sort of transpiring currently, Tim?

Sure. Well, you know among our most known competitors, there was a significant retrenchment in several of those in terms of buying and innovation around a future season. So we did not retrench as it relates to both inventory acquisition and really focusing on innovations that are going to differentiate the company. So, we're in a position I believe of significant strength, not only from our balance sheet, but from market acceptance, position to be able to get more business this fall as it relates to filling the shortfalls that were provided by other competitors, as well as gathering market space, market share in 2021 fall. Because we've -- as we said, launched this new outerwear, Omni-Heat Infinity Innovation, which is going to get a significant boost from the marketing efforts that we're putting forward, as well as just the fact that it's new and exciting and different.

Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Thanks.

The next question comes from the line of Laurent Vasilescu with Exane BNP Paribas. Please proceed with your question.

Good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my question. Thank you guys for all the color on the fourth quarter, on revenues, and EPS, Jim, to square away the guidance or at least the color, we've got the remaining balance of SG&A savings, cost savings for the fourth quarter. How do we think about the gross margin for the fourth quarter as we start to wrap some of the challenges that we've seen in the last few quarters?

Yeah, I think if you look at the SG&A side of that Laurent, you'll be able to kind of more or less back into the SG&A guidance just based on the variable rate of expense, and what our track record is the last couple quarters on cost containment in general. But as it relates specifically to the gross margin, what's implied in our guidance is a bit more contraction in the gross margin. With that said, and it's going to be highly dependent upon consumer demand in the marketplace. And what we generally see in terms of the promotional effects across the industry. Today, as we sit here in the month of October, I could share with you that we've approached this on very much on a normalized basis. And our product margins through our own DDC channel have been quite healthy. So I think, we're poised and ready to react should we need to. But we'll see how the quarter plays out here.

Okay, very helpful. And then I think you mentioned high-teen growth, high level color for 1H ’21. Is there -- are there any hurdles for you to get back, which would imply about a $1 billion in revenues, let's say for 1H ’21? Are there any hurdles for you guys to that would prevent you from getting back to your historical levels, $3 billion in revenues? That we should consider?

Yeah, I mean, it's -- we have been measuring ourselves frankly against '19, '20 is such an unusual time period. So we're measuring ourselves against '19 in all the stretch goals and focus, as it relates to how we we’re planning the business. I think we have a chance to get there. We're certainly not guiding as you know from that period. But the opportunity exists, especially when we look at the weakness in many of our competitors that we globally compete with.

And Laurent, I think just a part of your question there in terms of the hurdles. I think the biggest hurdle for us in part is going to be with regard to the direct-to-consumer business, in particularly the brick and mortar stores until there's essentially an end to the pandemic. And we see a resumption of traffic backed up more than normalized level, particularly in those destination based stores, or these tourist markets. That's going to be a pretty key factor and be able to return to that level in the time period that that'll require.

And then lastly, just one more question. Your inventories look like they're in good shape about 7.5%. There's some questions out there in the marketplace around just inventory levels for your brand. Not on your balance sheet. But with regards to your retail partners, any thoughts like how you see the inventory levels for your brand within the key retailers in the United States?

Yeah, again, as I said we have visibility to around 80% of our wholesale partners selling an inventory levels. And frankly, we're very pleased. The inventory levels are lower than last year, and the rate of sales has been higher. So, that's what gives us a lot of confidence for Q4 in that, we believe inventories are light. And then there's a high degree of demand for the product. So, yeah we're very comfortable with our positions today.

Yeah, in the reorder trend that we've seen in the quarter has been quite positive as much as retailers canceled orders in the first part of the year. There's definitely an appetite now that they're getting into the season.

Very helpful. Thank you very much. Best of luck.

Yep. Thank you.

The next question is from the line of Jim Duffy with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks. Hello, guys. A couple questions for me. I'm just starting on the fourth quarter, would you expect the wholesale business to inflect positive with the offset being the outlet stores? Is that the right way to conceptualize it?

I don't think we can quite get to that level. Jim, there's that $45 million shift, that will certainly have an impact where the wholesale business isn't down as significant -- nearly as significantly as it was in the third quarter. But we would still project that part of our business being down for the quarter. And then the offsets obviously be we're continuing to see nice growth out of ecommerce channel, we've got that plan in the third quarter, and then in an offset by some weakness in the brick and mortar channel.

Okay. And can you guys help with a little more explanation on the logistics challenges you spoke to for 4Q? Is the product not already yet in the right countries? Are you talking about domestics logistic issues that could be a challenge?

Well, with buy and large received most of our inventory for the fall 2020 season, we did have some delays related to some of the port congestion, in which inventory receipts were a bit later. And as a result, you see some of this shift out into the fourth quarter. As it relates to the ongoing disruption, as we look at the capacities, both within our distribution centers, of which our teams have done an incredible job over the course of the last several weeks delivering the growth that we've demonstrated today. And as we plan for the peak volumes in the fourth quarter, we believe that we've got the capacity in place to achieve the forecasts that we're providing here today. And there's likely, some upsides to consumer demands there where we can support it. And then and then the other challenge to this, obviously is in the case of a third party logistics providers. And we've also confirmed with those vendors that we work with it, we've got capacity from them to support the forecasts we provided. Now, to the degree there's upside to our forecasts, that becomes the productivity and that strain becomes increasingly challenging, but that'd be a good problem to have.

Understood. I'll leave it at that. Thank you, guys.

Our next question is from the line of Camilo Lyon with BTIG. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you. This is Mackenzie Boydston on for Camilo. Thanks for taking our question. My first question is just about any additional color you can provide on sales by geography, specifically the down mid 20% in China, compared to maybe the U.S. and Europe? And any current trends you're seeing, to seeing Asia, recovering quicker than the U.S., especially with rising case counts, and just kind of how what you're seeing right now? Thanks.

I think, it's clear that we were underperforming our opportunity in China that’s the single largest geographic opportunity for the company and we need to be better there. I think in the other regions in the world we're having, frankly, good success by comparison to our competitors and the opportunities for us are to really can to continue to gain market share in those other markets. There are some places in the world where outside of our control, where the stores have all been closed due to the government regulations or there have been significant geopolitical disruptions similar to Hong Kong, where we just, there's nothing we can do that's going to overcome those things.

Yeah, I think a lot of these markets, there's a pretty significant correlation, particularly in our direct-to-consumer brick and mortar business between cases of the virus and what we see in the performance. So if you look at the quarter with our Japan and Korea business, being down in the 20s both, a lot of that reflects some of these second waves that have come through and more recently with some of what's going on in Europe, we've seen impacts.

Got it. Thanks. And then on the wholesale side, any differences that you're seeing to whether between sporting goods stores, mid-tier department stores, any kind of things that you're seeing there? Thanks.

Yeah. I think our best performance from a sell through perspective has been in the sporting goods channels. When people are thinking about going outside buying, camping equipment and buying outerwear, they typically think first of sporting goods and an outdoor stores. And that's where we've seen significant improvement in businesses. So that plus, I think you can come to Columbia get good service directly from our e-comm sites.

Okay, great. Thanks. Best of luck in Q4.

Thank you.

Our next question is from John Kernan with Cowen. Please proceed with your question.

Good afternoon. This is Krista Zuber on for John, thanks for taking our questions. Two if I may. Just first as you continue along your digital transformation, could you kind of talk to your digital economics through sort of the margin differential you're seeing and the potential you see for your e-comm business versus what you're seeing in wholesale? And I have one follow up. Thank you.

Yeah. I think as Tim touched on, we saw phenomenal growth in the quarter in our e-commerce business. And when we look at the overall contribution margin that comes from our e-commerce business, it's north of the company's overall operating margin. It's a very healthy contribution margin, it's not quite to the level of our wholesale business, which is our most profitable. But, given the contribution that it does have we continue making that investments that have strong returns in that category or area of our business.

Yeah, I think it's important to note that the company really considers itself to be a wholesale business. And the wholesale business provides not only profitable revenues, but significant scale that we would not be able to accomplish through our own direct-to-consumer business. So we have a significant opportunity to have a broad distribution of our company's products, we consider ourselves to be a very democratic brand. And that's an important -- the wholesale business an important part of our future.

Thanks. And then second, just in terms of your capital allocation from here, in terms of certain metrics driving a restart of the quarterly dividend or share repurchase. Could you just touch on what you're sort of looking to see to sort of proceed on that front from here? Thank you very much.

Yeah, I think we're really looking to see some of the uncertainty list of it. We're in the process of pulling together our 2021 plan. And among the things that we're looking for in the business is a more sustainable and predictable flow of both profitability and cash flow. And as we begin to see that increasingly, we would revisit our capital allocation strategy. I'd anticipate as we come back around to our year-end earnings call in February we'll provide some more details on that topic.

Thank you very much.

The next question is from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citigroup. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks. It's Tracy Kogan filling in for Paul. I had a question about expenses. You guys mentioned the $45 million in expense savings this year and that you are looking for more savings in 2021. And I guess I was just wondering if you could give us a sense preliminarily of what the big buckets are where you think you have savings left to achieve and maybe if you could give some quantification? Thanks.

Yeah, difficult to provide quantification of that and we'll come back to that at one of our future calls. But in terms of where we see the greatest opportunity here and really break it down into four primary areas within the supply chain area, certainly looking at how we can drive efficiency in the flow of product, and our freight and logistics costs, it's a pretty significant item in the P&L within our gross margin. In our retail business, there's really two major areas that we're looking at within the retail business, part of which ties to how we can drive more efficiency within the stores from a labor standpoint. And then, as we've commented on, we're in discussions with our landlords with regard to lease negotiations as a result of the poor traffic that we're seeing in the stores. And then the fourth component is going to be much more around the organizational side of things, and really streamlining the business from an organizational perspective. And then, I think the only offset to that part is going to be we need to be mindful of where we need to reallocate capital and resources to support our strategic priorities, the growth in the business, including what we're doing from a digital strategy standpoint. Again, we'll look forward to sharing more details in February.

Great. Thank you. And I just have one follow-up. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the demographic of the customers and new customers you're drawing in your e-comm channel, if it differs from your cordless and customer? Thanks.

Certainly, well, I think our typical demographic would be a family, young family, because we have a significant children's business, youth clubs, as well as obviously, women's and men’s. And I think we've had the bulk of our success around attracting new consumers has been utilizing the digital ability to find consumers who look like our existing consumer base, and finding more of those. So, as I said, families, and then frankly having Dr. Fauci tell people to go outside, that's been a significant advantage for the company.

Great, thank you. Good luck, guys.

Thank you.

The next question is from the line of 6 Chris Svezia with Wedbush. Please proceed with your question.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. And thanks for taking my questions. I guess just the first one, just to go back to the cadence of the third quarter for a moment. When you made the comment that I think June, I think you were down 20% in total, or somewhere along those lines. And you made the comment in that you showed improvement sequentially every month of the third quarter, but yet overall sales down 22%. So I'm just sort of curious September being the best month. So I'm just curious, was there just the fact that there was this $45 million that fell out that, yeah, I guess it was not so much thought through, I guess maybe on our side or were the case [Indiscernible] did something really slowdown somewhere into court? I'm just trying to connect the dots a little bit between where June was and where third quarter ended and there’s much more improvement that still down [Indiscernible].

Yeah, Chris yeah, let me jump in and shed some light on it. And again, I think we comment as back in June, the month of June is a tiny quarter in the grand scheme, or a tiny month in the grand scheme of things. And when you look at the third quarter, it's predominantly a wholesale shipping quarter. And so it's difficult really to look at the month on month progression. But I would say is when we look at our side, if you set aside the wholesale business which is much more reflective of timing of shipments and deliveries and whatnot, and you look at the direct-to-consumer business, the e-commerce performance that we put up a 55% was really pretty steady throughout the quarter. And we've continued to see a light level of growth as we sit here in October. As it relates to the brick and mortar business, I think like part of the comments were pertaining a bit more to the brick and mortar business, as it relates to the progression and essentially the exit rate that we had seen in our brick and mortar business dated back to June, that really kind of held at that level pretty challenged in the market through July and August. We saw a nice improvement in traffic albeit well below prior years or pre pandemic levels in the month of September. Things still remain a bit challenged in that and it's going to take time like we've mentioned just given the dependence on travel and tourism and just people having confidence going out and shopping physical retail.

Okay that is, that helps a bit there. With regard to what you're seeing in the market today, which is seems like sell through is accelerating. What are the retailers telling you or saying to you about willingness to take on additional inventory? In other words, if you see the product moving at higher velocities and you feel like they're going to have the lean on inventory. They’re coming to you and saying, look, we rather case really have to or are they accepting the additional primary? Just trying to get a sense of connecting those two pieces about…

Yeah, at this point in the season, retailers aren't buying more merchandise unless what they have is selling, and they're buying more of what's selling and they're less interested in taking stuff that's not selling. So, we've been the recipients of the large gist there. And we've had reorders of our merchandise, which is tending to be selling better today. So, that's we haven't had to.

Yes, we reach our reorder trends been as good as it's ever been. But I mean, some of us indicative of, how significant the cancellations were earlier in the year. So, given the fact they're lean, I mean, there's definitely appetite as they see that sell through coming through.

Okay, and then just on the commentary about the high teens growth for the first half of the year, maybe just any color about how you think about the order book versus D2C? And also, do you have better visibility maybe to Q1 just because it's more of I guess a selling quarter and Q2 is maybe a little more reorder noise of timing, distributorship, shipments, just trying to get an idea of overall visibility when you think about that?

Yeah, we're comping up against several months in some cases where stores were completely closed. So, we have confidence that will be a store closure, for sure. And then Q2 is really a very tiny quarter, and reliant and it can fluctuate wildly based on what merchandise gets shipped from Asia to a particular independent distributor market. And so in general, we believe that Q1 next year, which will probably still be impacted by the existence of the pandemic, we should do very well next year, as based on the order book and just start again our reliance on we're comping up against an easy quarter.

Okay, so the order book is pretty even between Q1 and Q2 is what you’re saying?

I don't know, we haven't gotten really down into that level of detail. But I mean, looking at the high teens rate of growth through the first half, certainly the direct-to-consumer business with brick and mortar stores haven't been closed for the lion's share of the second quarter, that's going to be a key driver. But looking at our wholesale order book for the Spring '21 season, it'll be up a pretty good amount percentage wise, it'll be in the low double digit level.

Okay, all right. Okay, I'll leave it there. Thank you and all the best.

Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Alex Perry with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I guess, Tim, just a sort of higher level, broader question, sort of how are you thinking about the demand for the cold weather apparel and footwear, given the consumer spending more time outdoors? I guess what I'm trying to reconcile some of the different commentary out there in the market with demand for some of the hard goods categories so strong, but it seems like the soft line categories are sort of lagging, do you think there's sort of a delayed impact? And then, I guess, just trying to square that away with a lot of the retailers that you guys sell into have reported really strong results. So, just trying to sort of reconcile all the different commentary out there? Thanks.

Yeah, certainly well, again as I said, we've had very good early selling. So, it gives us a lot of confidence that our products that we have in the marketplace are in demand, the brand is well known. And on a typical year, whether it trumps almost everything in terms of sell through, so we're going to get our first real dose of winter weather this coming weekend in the Northeast, and we've already had snow in the Rockies. And so, we're pretty excited about the potential for a great year this year. And again, we're competing with people who in some cases have not delivered well. And so, there's an opportunity for there to be a bit of scarcity in the marketplace.

Got you. And then can you just elaborate a little more on I guess, the market share opportunity that exists in the fourth quarter given as opposed to the earlier question, some of your competitors have called out, sort of very lean inventory receipts not having the ability to fulfill demand. I mean, how much upside could that drive in the fourth quarter? And then will you run up against the capacity constraints off of that, like just trying to square away sort of what could limit the upside there, given the competitive environment?

Yeah, certainly. Well, when we talk about competitors, we're talking about our global competitors, which would include some small brands both in North America and in Europe which are stressed financially and not able to really keep their inventory levels at the area that they want. The outerwear business is such a high degree of componentry. By that, I mean, there could be 60 or 70 pieces of various components in a piece outerwear. So it requires us to make a bet early on of the year. So everything that we've got to sell is already for all intents and purposes, in a distribution center somewhere ready to be shipped. So we think there's an upside in terms of the opportunity, but it is finite based on the amount of inventory that we have. So as it relates to how big it could be, I don't know, we gave you what we think will happen based on everything that we've seen today.

Got you. And then just final one, could you comment on sort of how you're thinking about how the promotional environment may shape out given sort of your comments on overall -- it sounds like the overall channel inventory levels are pretty clean. So, I guess there shouldn't be a lot of promos sort of how you're thinking about that for the fourth quarter?

Yeah, I think you're right. I mean in a normal situation, you would expect that scarcity would not foster promotion. However, the other components which include some customers that may financially need to drive cash, and therefore become more promotional than they otherwise would. So there's just so many components and areas that we look at that could cause disruption in the promotional plan.

Yeah, I think on that, Alex, our fourth quarter outlook would contemplate an increase in promotional activity. But again, so highly uncertainty. It's not that we've necessarily seen that today, as we're sitting here in the month of October, but not knowing how various retailers are going to react as we get closer into the holiday season here and really needing to drive the conversion on that traffic.

Perfect, thank you. Best of luck going forward.

Thank you.

Next question is from line of Jonathan Komp with Baird. Please proceed with your questions.

Yeah, hi. Thank you. Maybe you touched a bit on this a little bit already, but just thinking kind of broad strokes for next year. I know you shared the first half view, trying to get a sense when you think of inventory in the channel and any sort of replenishment effect that you might have. Is there -- do you think there's going to be meaningful differences and kind of the fall winter product and what it looks like in the channel versus what is signaled spring summer? Just trying to think about any differences in the positioning in the channel there?

You're talking -- you asked me a question about Fall ’21?

Yeah, just trying to understand what might impact your replenishment relative to the state of the channel inventory come into the key season next year?

Right. Well, it's difficult to -- we haven't given any guidance at all the past Q1 -- first half of '21. But I can tell you, in my experience historically, when we start off with low inventory levels at retail such as we have today, and we have decent sell through which means the weather continues to cooperate, that there will be healthy orders for fall. And we believe that we have ammunition as it relates to innovative product, including our Omni-Heat Infinity that could provide good opportunities. But we're -- it's so far in advance of that season. We really don't want to be going too deep in that. But my assumption is that there will be very low inventories at the end of the winter season this year.

Okay, that's really helpful. I look forward to seeing the initiatives play out. Maybe just separately one other question, yeah really a bigger picture question. But it seems like both the shifts in your business combined with the cost opportunities you're realizing, seems like there's more structural tail winds and headwind to your margin. So, whenever you do get back to kind of prior peak sales, is there anything structurally that you think will prevent you from getting back towards the margin you've seen historically?

Well, we're definitely pushing on driving SG&A efficiency in the business. I think it's too early to provide any indication of investments that may be required to continue to drive and grow the business. I mean, certainly, we would be committed to certain investments, continue to drive growth, from a consumer experience and from a digital standpoint. And I think our supply chain at some level will require investment. But what that equates to and providing specific outlook regarding SG&A and overall cost or operating margin structure a bit early, but we certainly expect the actions we've taken this year to drive efficiency in our business.

Yeah, and I guess it’s been noted Tim, you've always talked about being pleased with your margin, but certainly seen further opportunity. And that's when I was at higher levels than it is today. So, I just wanted to make sure nothing's shifted or changed in the amount of investment that you think the business will make going forward?

No, I think, we concluded 20 -- 2020, ’19 that top quartile profitability, and we believe we can improve on that. And our goal is certainly to be top quartile and returns for our investors.

Yeah, agree.

All right. Thank you very much. Best of luck for holiday.

Thanks, John.

Thank you. At this time, we've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'll now turn the call over to Tim Boyle for closing remarks.

Well, I want to thank you all for listening in and we're looking forward to nice cold weather globally, and talking to you again in February about the results. Thank you.

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