Rob Wallstrom
Analyst · Cowen and Company
Thanks Sue. Let me take a minute to update you on distribution. As of quarter-end, we had a store base of 111 full-line and 41 factory stores. During the quarter traffic remained very weak in many of the malls that housed our stores, especially our full-line stores. We are working with our store teams to drive traffic and sales through enhancing our sell and service culture nurturing more community outreach and building more localized assortments. Over time, we believe ample opportunities remain for both full-line and factory growth, but as you might recall we have slowed our new store growth this year. We will open a total of four new full-line stores with each of these being a very unique property. All of these locations will feature our new store design logo and digital package. In the first quarter, we opened a full-line store in Woodfield Mall in Metro Chicago, which has been a good market for us and relocated our Park Meadows store in Metro Denver to a higher traffic location within the mall. In May, we opened our Disney Springs full-line store in Orlando, which features a mixture of our core assortment with our Disney theme Vera Bradley offerings. In August, we will open a store in the International Market Place in Honolulu and probably most exciting in September we will open a flagship store in SoHo. This modern showcase location will embody innovative design elements will feature exclusive patterns limited edition items and unique store experiences. And we will be supported by a myriad of marketing initiatives and special events. In addition this fall, we will fully renovated our Jefferson Pointe Store in our hometown of Fort Wayne. In September and October, we will also refresh 16 of our higher traffic, higher volume full-line stores with our new branding, including storefront to side logo and interior changes. By the end of the year approximately 35 of our full-line stores will reflect our new modern store design and by the end of fiscal 2019 we expect that nearly all full-line stores will be refreshed. On the factory side, we expect to open a total of six stores this year. Foley, Alabama opened in the first quarter, Auburn Hills, Michigan opened last month, Columbus, Ohio, and Branson, Missouri will open later in the second quarter, Mebane, North Carolina will open in the third quarter and Daytona Beach, Florida will open early in the fourth quarter. Building our digital flagship remains a key part of our distribution strategy. The redesign and conversion of our website to a new platform is scheduled to launch in September. Our new site will reflect a more modern brand positioning, allow us to better convey our brand and product story, and increase customer engagement with the daymaker by stimulating interaction and storytelling to make our brands come alive. The new site will be mobile first and will offer many features including additional navigation and certain enhancements, strategic segmentation and personalization, express checkout, preorders, PayPal, e-gift cards, order online pickup and store, STO optimization, improve mobile response of design and mini site capabilities for future foreign expansion. Expanding our department store relationships remains a part of our long-term growth strategy. We now have a presence in approximately 620 department stores including all Dillards [ph] locations and about 250 Macy's stores. Our plans are to add about 100 more Macy's, Belk and Bon-Ton locations this year. However, our main focus is to build the productivity of our existing door through editing and curating assortments by location, adding more floor space where appropriate and delivering visual consistency across all locations. In addition, we are adding our jewelry collection to nearly 100 department stores and our fragrance collection to over 350 stores this fall. Now let me spend a minute on marketing. Last year, our primary focus was on raising brand awareness and through our initial marketing efforts we successfully increased our overall aided brand awareness by over 600 basis points. And this year, we have shifted our focus and media spend to improving brand perception, engaging a new audience, increasing desire for our brand and ultimately growing market share. To help us accomplish this, we have refined our marketing message and method to focus on our targeted daymaker customer. Our message is modern but leverages our brand heritage of being female centric. We believe women and in turn femininity should be celebrated. That's why we design beautiful solution that support this belief and help women connect with their femininity and to each other. Our comprehensive multifaceted media plan is a fully integrated mix of digital, social, exponential and print with our goal being to surround her with our brands. We will target our daymaker consumer reaching her where she already is looking and giving her content that celebrates femininity and showcases our product as beautiful solutions to everyday problems. Our marketing will be featured in Glamour, InStyle, People StyleWatch, Pandora, Spotify, Pinterest and SheKnows just to name a few. As we surround our daymaker, we will continue to connect with bloggers and other fashion and lifestyle influencers. You will see fewer digital banners and more engaging social media including video as well as lifestyle fashion magazine spreads that reach a high concentration of daymakers. Our plan calls for nearly 25% increase in fall fashion impressions. Our new creative campaign will launch in September and will connect women with one another celebrating their femininity and bring in the idea of beauty and solutions to life. Our new marketing campaign is just one of many reasons that we have an exciting fall ahead. Operator, we will now open the call to questions.