Earnings Labs

Zumiez Inc. (ZUMZ)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 10, 2016

$24.66

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Zumiez, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone of the company's Safe Harbor language. Today's conference call includes comments concerning Zumiez, Inc., business outlook, and contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements and all other statements that may be made on this call that are not based on historical facts are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Additional information concerning a number or factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the information that will be discussed, is available in Zumiez' filing with the SEC. At this time, I will turn the call over to Rick Brooks, Chief Executive Advisor (sic) [Officer] (0:56). Please go ahead, sir. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you and welcome, everyone. Joining me on the call today is Chris Work, our Chief Financial Officer. I'll start today's call with a few brief remarks regarding our fourth quarter and our start to the 2016 fiscal year. I'll then give an update on our broader strategy and I'll hand the call over to Chris, who will take you through the numbers. After that, we'll open the call to your questions. Fourth quarter was another challenging quarter for us. While net sales came in ahead of our guidance range at $242.4 million, it was led by a negative same store sales comp of 9.5%. In light of these top line headwinds, we continue to tightly manage expenses in the quarter, which benefited margins and resulted in diluted EPS of $0.50, also ahead of our previous guidance. Evident in our results are some of the ongoing trends affecting our industry, including weak…

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thank you, Rick. Good afternoon, everyone. Let me take a moment to briefly review the results of our fourth quarter and February, and then I'll outline our guidance for the first quarter and how we're thinking about fiscal 2016. Then, I'll hand the call over for your questions. Fourth quarter net sales declined $16.1 million or 6.2% year-over-year to $242.4 million, from $258.6 million a year ago. From a retail perspective, North America sales decreased $18.2 million or 7.9% to $212.5 million, while our European sales increased $2 million or 7.2% to $29.9 million. Included in these numbers is the negative impact of foreign currency translation in the quarter of approximately $5.5 million. On a constant currency basis, consolidated sales were down 4.1%. North America sales were down 7% and Europe sales increased 19.9%. Consolidated comparable sales declined 9.5% this quarter, driven primarily by lower transaction volume, partially offset by an increase in dollars per transaction. Dollars per transaction in the period were impacted by an increase in average unit retail, offset slightly by a decline in units per transaction. In terms of category performance, Accessories, Men's, Junior's, Footwear and Hardgoods posted negative comps. During fiscal 2015, we added 44 new stores in the U.S. and seven in Canada, bringing our total stores to 634 in North America as of January 30, 2016. We increased our total locations in Europe by 33% ending the year with 24 stores in this region. Total store count as of January 30, 2015 was 658. Fourth quarter gross profit was $84.3 million, a decrease of $13.5 million or 13.8% compared to the fourth quarter of 2014. Gross margin was 34.8% in the quarter, down 300 basis points compared to 37.8% a year ago. The decline from the prior year was driven largely by the…

Operator

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Dorothy Lakner with Topeka Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Dorothy Senghas Lakner - Topeka Capital Markets

Analyst

Thanks and good afternoon, everyone. Just wondered, Rick or Chris, whoever wants to handle it, just if you could talk about where you think you are in the I guess I'd call it search for the next big fashion trend or even some smaller ones? I know you talk in general terms. And then if you could talk a little bit about Europe and how you think that business is going. Obviously you're opening more stores. Are there new markets included there? Just where are you in the thought process on Europe? Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: All right. Thank you, Dorothy. Let me start and I'll ask Chris to join in, too. So let me, and again, you're right, we talk in generalities relative to the fashion trends and cycles that we're in. But let me start just by reminding everyone kind of what has always driven the Zumiez business. We've been – our sales have always been driven largely by emerging in growth brands, by really hot items that can drive a lot of volume for us and then, of course, by fashion cycles and trends that are relevant for our consumers. So the answer, Dorothy, is yes, we have some things that are working, but not to the degree – not to a large enough degree, they are offsetting the larger benefits we had in 2014. So in 2014, as we said before, just to put some context around this, we had two – well, we had a fashion cycle that we were really maximizing and we had a hot item. We had two of the three really working for us in a strong way. And in 2015, we do have some brands that are growing, we have some really some interesting items…

Dorothy Senghas Lakner - Topeka Capital Markets

Analyst

Yes. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: The one thing I really feel strongly about is that, though, this is a trends related issue. I can tell you that from our perspective, our brand has never been stronger. We continue to work on things to improve our brand strength and our brand positioning. We have good indicators I think from our customers about how they feel about our brand positioning and likewise, our cultural strength within the organization. We have all evidence from you from our (23:19) interactions with our team, travels around the country is that we're in a really good position there, too, in terms of both brand and culture, Dorothy. So I feel very strongly about that. I think these are trend related issues for us. I think that in the modern consumer world where trends move so much more quickly, I think every retailer is going to find more trend holes in their business because of the speed of fashion cycles, unique for each retailer's positioning. But we're going to see here as we anniversary those larger 2014 trends, they really roll out, our comps get easier through the year as whether how much momentum we continue to gain with the newer, younger brands, as well as the – some of the item things we're driving. And I do think we're going to have to see some fashion cycle shifts. We just haven't seen any for a long time. So we have things, Dorothy, we're going to have to prove it.

Dorothy Senghas Lakner - Topeka Capital Markets

Analyst

Yup. Thanks. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Europe...

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

And I'd just jump in on Europe. Dorothy, I'd tell you, we're still really pleased with the progress that Europe is making. I think what you've seen here since the acquisition in 2012 is pretty consistent growth over that period of time despite the fact that shortly after the acquisition, Europe kind of dipped back into a recessionary period. But as we look at 2015 with 37.1% growth on a constant currency on really adding six additional stores, we're still seeing pretty strong comps there.

Dorothy Senghas Lakner - Topeka Capital Markets

Analyst

Yes.

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

And we've talked about that throughout the years that Blue Tomato has definitely been a comp driver over the last few months or over the last 12 months. So we're really pleased with what's happening there. As far as opening new markets, I mean, what I'd tell us is when you only started with three stores in 2012, you're always opening new markets. Now those new markets to date have been really concentrated in Austria, in Germany, but we continue to see good signs from where we are opening and we're very diligent about how we're testing this and opening in different markets and different types as to whether it's a mall or a street or a potential flagship location. We're testing all of those things. And as we've said over our last few calls, there's really no major red flags at this point. We're continuing to invest there. And from an overall profitability perspective, this is still roughly a break even business but this is something we're seeing – we're going to see the harvest of what we've been doing here in the years to come. And so we are really excited. The team is still intact for the most part since the acquisition and they are really excited about what they are doing over there, and we are excited for them. So it's been a good partnership.

Dorothy Senghas Lakner - Topeka Capital Markets

Analyst

Great. Thanks so much. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Dorothy.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Neely Tamminga with Piper Jaffray. Please proceed. Neely J. N. Tamminga - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Great. Good afternoon. Two housekeeping questions for Chris, and then a big picture for you, Rick. On the housekeeping, on your inventory levels, could you characterize kind of how you are feeling about the currency of your inventory as you're going to be exiting out of maybe the year and into February and March? And then also are you contemplating any store closings? And how should we think about the potential of magnitude of that? Big picture, Rick, for you. Could you just remind us the strength that's going on in Blue Tomato? What is the opportunity again, and kind of the action sports lifestyle, the consumer adoption curve around that over maybe in Europe as well as maybe UK? Where are they in that? My travels don't take me over there that often, so maybe reminding us of what the bigger picture opportunity is for the action sports lifestyle over in UK and Europe? Thanks.

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Sure. I'll go ahead and start with the inventory and the store question, and then I'll kick it over to Rick here. I'd tell you from an inventory perspective, we feel really good about where we ended the year. And I think what you've seen from us as we've moved through 2015 is that we are not one that's going to fall in love with our inventory and hold on to it forever. We are focused on moving inventory. And as our sales results have dipped, our buying teams have done a really good of job continuing to move through, and really strategic markdowns here. This is not marking down the whole store. They are marking down those things that aren't selling. And so they've done a good job at 4.7% inventory growth on the store growth that we've had. From a per square footage basis, we feel fine with where we've landed. And from an aging perspective, we actually feel pretty good about where the aging stands. So the teams have done a really nice job managing through that. From a store closing perspective – what you've seen from us over the last few years is we've closed a handful of stores each year. This just last year was actually a smaller amount, we only closed stores. But it's something we continue to watch. And as you've heard us talk about, we don't want one more store than we need to have in any given trade area. So we are still actively managing the portfolio and looking at trade areas where we have the potential to either decrease our store count and still capture the same volume in that area, or relocate within those trade areas. So you're probably going to continue to see a similar cadence to what…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Richard Jaffe with Stifel. Please proceed. Richard Jaffe - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Thanks very much, guys, and just a question – a bigger picture question on ecommerce and the payoff of all your investments and your ability to use online and to sell from online in stores and then to use the stores for fulfillment is clearly a break from the norm in our space and wondering how that's playing out? And how you see the growth of ecommerce versus the growth of comp store sales, how that's been trending. Thank you. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Great, Richard. Thanks for the question. A lot to that question. So let me try to parse it here in terms of laying that out for you. Now I'll start by saying that again, we are almost not even considering – we're not even (32:57) any distinction today between physical stores and ecommerce business. Think about what we are doing here from the perspective of maximizing business in a trade area. And not just maximizing our sales in a trade area, but what we're trying to do now, particularly as we layer in the idea of micro-assortments and localization of fulfillment, we're going to in the long run try to maximize the efficiency of the business model on a trade area basis. So that's kind of the headline in all of this, but let me break it down a little bit more for you and I'll talk maybe a little bit within that specifically about the idea of localization. So I think when we talk about all these things, you have to think of localization as one of – a series of steps being taken over the last…

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah, absolutely. I think... Richard Jaffe - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Yeah.

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

...it's good to talk about this cost side because, since we announced this in late December here, that we were moving this direction. From a cost perspective, as we're planning this for 2016, we're really looking at this as a break-even proposition from 2015 to 2016 when you compare cost as a percent of sales. And what that means is that the cost of the Kansas fulfillment center going away is really swapped for higher costs associated with store labor to fulfill the product in store and also shipping, because you do end up with more split shipments when you move to this type of model. And from an overall financial statement modeling perspective, I should note here that the shipping cost is still within the cost of goods sold line item. However, the store labor is actually flipped from cost of goods sold into SG&A. So you'll see a little bit of... Richard Jaffe - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Right.

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

...movement there, but the model does not come without challenges. And the impact of inventory planning and labor utilization is impactful, but we do believe this is going to drive the best customer experience, as Rick mentioned. So over the coming years, we're going to be working hard to harvest the efficiency of the model through better assortment planning, better order algorithm, aligning shipments, better in-store labor planning and really, what we believe will be an increased margin with the benefit of harvesting slow moving product more efficiently before markdowns. So we're really excited about the way that we're going to be able to serve the customer doing that – or doing this – and we're going to learn a lot from it. We're going to keep getting better at it. Richard Jaffe - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: It's going to be very interesting to watch. I look forward to it. And just one more question. The Stash membership, would you comment on its growth?

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. So we're up to about 3.8 million members today. So we continue to see really strong growth here, and we're continuing to service those members in lots of different ways, which our marketing team, as you know, is very creative. And they're really finding ways to bring excitement to the program and to generate interest from our best customers. So we're continuing to learn a lot and, as you can see, the numbers are getting a lot bigger, right, as far as members in the program, and that's just a benefit for us in marketing to our customers. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: And I'd just add to that, Richard, you'll see us continue to evolve what we're doing there in terms of the Zumiez Stash, particularly as we get towards the end of the year, there'll be some new elements of it rolling out. I think it will be exciting for our customers and if we continue to offer, I think, really unique, hard-to-find, exclusive rewards, some pretty amazing stuff through the catalog rewards for our customers too. So really cool stuff; as you know, stuff we don't sell. They're all about unique experiences, unique product that you can't buy. So it's a pretty cool program, and you'll see us continuing to evolve that here over the next few months in a year or two. Richard Jaffe - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Great. Thanks very much. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jessica Schmidt with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Jessica L. Schmidt - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Can you just talk about the impact, if any, as you anniversary last year's port delays? I guess how big of an impact was it to your business in terms of, I don't know, (41:18) sets in first quarter? And then on Footwear, can you just talk about what drove the improvement in February, and I guess how sustainable you think that could be?

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Okay, great. I'll take those questions, and fortunately they're going to come in one answer. I think our buying team – and we talked about this a lot – as we moved through the end of 2014, and into the beginning of 2015, the impact that the port strike had on us -and I think our buying teams, in connection with working with our brands, did a great job of working through that. And we are really able to not have a very big impact on the 2014 holiday season, albeit we did see some impact as we moved into the early parts of 2015, and we talked about that. And one of the areas that we had the biggest impact was actually Footwear. And so what you're seeing today in the February result on a negative 8.6% (42:10) comp is you're also seeing that Footwear was a positive category, and I would chalk most of that up to the port delays we had last year. So we're getting a little bit of benefit there with Footwear coming back. I will tell you Footwear has been down since Q4 of 2012, so we're lapping some numbers that are on multi-years decline. So we're still working on Footwear. It's been a challenging category, and especially with the athletic cycle, there we continue to test new things and try new things, and we're going to keep working on it for the foreseeable future because it's an important part of our business. It didn't lose ground overall, when you look at all of our categories as a percent of total sales over the year, but it's been a slow performer for a period of few years after being a huge driver of the comp for the few years before that. So we'll continue to work on it, but the increases you're seeing today are mostly port-related.

Jessica L. Schmidt - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Betty Chen with Mizuho Securities. Please proceed.

Betty Chen - Mizuho Securities USA, Inc.

Analyst · Mizuho Securities. Please proceed.

Oh, thank you. Good afternoon. I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about the product pipeline, if you can, Rick, I know – you mentioned February, maybe impacted by some fashion. Just looking farther down the road, are there some things that the team is getting a little bit encouraged with? And then also separately just curious on when we think about these trade areas I know there were only two closures in 2015. But when that does occur, do you see a certain amount of sales transfer either moving to the online business or to a nearby store that could perhaps lead you to kind of be considered these trade area strategies going forward? Thanks. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: All right. I'll take the – let's start with the last part, Betty, of your question. And I think we're going to figure all – this is the exciting part I guess about this modern world we're in now, where at this point we've made so much progress in developing our capabilities and our infrastructure at this point. We're going to actually start to really now experiment with these ideas and see what the impact is and measure the impact because once you can really start to think in a trade area way, you break out of the channels, whether that be physical channels or marketing channels, whatever that may be that we used to think in, you break out of those channels and you can really start to look at what happens in the trade area. And when we talk about optimizing our store portfolio in our trade area that's really what we're talking about. What would it mean to unplug a store? How much of the volume do we maintain…

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Betty, the only thing I would add to that is one of the things we have shared with you guys over the years is just our concentration of vendors in our top 10 and our top 20. You know, we track that as an indicator of where our brands are going based on how highly concentrated they are, when we find things that really drive comp versus when they did aggregate (49:22), we also often see more new vendors come along. And as we look at our top 10 and our top 20, there really has been no change in what we've seen over the last few years from a standpoint of 20% to 30% turnover in the top 10 and top 20. What has changed is the overall penetration when you look at those top 20 vendors as a percent of our total sales, over the last two years, we've seen pretty meaningful declines, which to us leads us to that new kind of wave of product. You are seeing some brands cycle out of the top 20 and you're going to see a lot more brands cycle back in. So we're optimistic about what that means for the future and we'll continue to track the brand movement. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: And this is, again, one of those things that are always cyclical in retail on our end, and retail in our business is that we're seeing that disaggregation of sales out of those top 20 and into and being spread out more among the smaller brands that we're carrying out there. So again, from our perspective, it's a good sign for our cycle we're in today and we just need to see those brands continue to build momentum, Betty, for where we're at today.

Betty Chen - Mizuho Securities USA, Inc.

Analyst · Mizuho Securities. Please proceed.

Great. Thank you so much. Best of luck. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Alexander with BB&T Capital. Please proceed. Paul Stephen Alexander - BB&T Capital Markets: Hi. Thank you. Apologize if I missed it, but could you just talk little bit about the comp guidance? February comps were a little bit worse than what you were expecting for the overall first quarter. So, what gives you the confidence in the acceleration coming? Thank you.

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. Thanks, Paul. I'll take that question. And what I'll tell you is, as we've looked at the quarter, you're right, the February comps came in at negative 8.2%. We're looking at comp guidance of down 5% to down 7%. And really what's the predictor behind our guidance is looking at what we're seeing on a week-to-week basis. And we did see much tougher results over the first couple weeks of February than what we saw over the last couple of weeks of February and into March. And so, as we started to look at the trend line going forward, we felt comfortable that we are seeing enough in the business today to move ahead of what our February results were. And there's not a lot more to it than that just trying to – so we're trying to forecast based on the trends we're seeing in the business today.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Howard Tubin with Guggenheim Securities. Please proceed.

Howard Tubin - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst · Guggenheim Securities. Please proceed.

Thanks, guys. I was just curious to get your view on the overall promotional environment here as we moved into the spring season and whether or not that's having any impact on how you view promotions within your own business. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. We – it's been a promotional environment forever, I think, over the last few years. It doesn't seem like it's relented that much, and our basic position hasn't really changed in that, in that what we want to do is offer uniqueness to our customer. So, where we do that, we're able to sell products at full price and maintain a strong margin profile in our business. And as Chris said earlier, yes, we had to take markdowns on those things that did not move as sales toughened through the back-half of 2015, but we're very targeted of what we do. We don't do fall store promotions. It just doesn't make sense in our world, because of the nature of supporting our brand partners and doing what's right for our brand partners and helping them build equity within their brands through price discipline. So, I guess from my perspective, I don't think it's going to get any less promotional. I think that's going to continue. I think – again, that's part of the modern world. I still feel as if there's too much capacity in the retail world, and when I say retail world, I mean in both the digital and physical spaces. And I think that part of our issue, in terms of the promotional environment is working through that capacity relative to the modern consumer world where you have complete price transparency, complete inventory transparency, domestically as well as globally, in terms of buying product, and even to the point where you see people, based on currency movements, shopping cross-border in today's world. So, I don't think we're going to see the promotional environment slow down. it's really about – again, in our case – our unique position relative to trend cycles, and relative to brand emergence, hot items, those things for us that we have to drive out and provide a uniqueness for our customers. So I don't see it being getting less promotional, in fact, I think we've got a ways to go to work through the excess capacity that is in the retail world today.

Howard Tubin - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst · Guggenheim Securities. Please proceed.

Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Komp with Robert W. Baird. Please proceed. Jonathan R. Komp - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Yeah, hi. Thanks, guys. Maybe if I could start, just a couple of clarifications, Chris, with some of the details you've shared for the outlook for 2016. First, if I could just ask on the gross margin side, it sounded like you might expect to see some favorability later in the year. I know you're going to be (54:43) that the product margin decline in the fourth quarter, but can you help share your perspective on what types of comps do you think you'll need later in the year to get increment on the gross margin line year-over-year?

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah, and what I'll share is the way that we're thinking about our annual guidance here. And what we said is that we thought it was going to be softer in the front-half of the year, and we would see stronger comps in the back-half of the year. Obviously, when you're lapping a negative 7.3% comp in Q3 and a negative 9.5% comp in Q4, we would expect to be able to comp positively in the back-half of the year. And from a leverage perspective on gross margins, we are expecting to see product margin improvements as well. You've seen us, based on our tough sales results, we've had to really strategically discount some products to get out of it. And it's impacted gross margin here through our product margin declines over Q2, Q3 and Q4. And so we are expecting to drive product margins here on the back-half of the year. Absent that, when I just think about things like occupancies that I talked about, and store operating costs that I've talked about, we would still expect to leverage that on a 3% to 5% comp. So, the business has got to get to those levels to leverage those overall expenses. But, I think we're going to manage really strong inventory discipline is what you should expect to see from us, right? The team is going to manage to what the sales results are. And we've had to do that in 2015. And to the extent we are able to get sales results going in the right direction, in 2016, our expectation is we're going to see margin grow with sales. Jonathan R. Komp - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay, great. And then, just another clarification on the SG&A guidance. I know there is adjustments in a couple of the numbers in 2014 and 2015. So just wanted to clarify the percentage growth you're looking at in SG&A dollars for 2016. I think it would be kind of at least 7% or higher, but I wanted to confirm that's the same number you are looking at?

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. Yeah. We are – obviously, there's our GAAP numbers, which is mostly what I speak to, but we've laid out all the adjustments in the script. And as you know, the SG&A growth, excluding those adjustments, is going to be quite a bit higher. And we are, as we laid out in our prepared remarks, we are expecting SG&A growth to be higher in 2016. And I think what this comes down to is, we've done a pretty good job of managing SG&A growth throughout 2015, and we've been – we kind of have a long -term path. And Rick talked a lot about this in his remarks earlier today, that we're long-term planners, and what we think the right investments for the business are. And the commerce engine is something that has been years in the making. And so, as we look at 2016, we are expecting 2016 to be a little bit more of an investment year, from a standpoint of things like our new Customer Engagement Suite. We're going to have to deal with the statutory minimum wage increases across the country, both on a state-by-state basis, as well as municipalities that are raising minimum wage. And it's not just the impact of minimum wage, it's those that are near minimum wage as well. There is continued investments in our people, plan and SG&A. As you know, we are a performance-based culture, and in a year like we just had, the incentives reflect the results that we've performed to. And so we are expecting some growth there, and there's other strategic initiatives that, again, are all in line with our long-term plans. So, these investments are all relative to the plan, I should say. So, to the extent that we see continued challenges in 2016, we're…

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Pam Quintiliano with SunTrust. Please proceed.

David N. Kwon - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust. Please proceed.

Hi, this is David Kwon for Pam. Thanks for taking our question. In terms of the health of your consumer, you mentioned recent challenges are more trend-related, or a lack thereof? How's he feeling, (1:02:17) though, and has there been any recent differences in sentiment that you've picked up on related to lower gas prices, higher wages and warmer weather? Are these factors impacting allocation spend? Thank you. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I think again, we're seeing that, from our perspective – I'll address the weather issues. We always see weather issues every year. I would tell you that we had an amazingly good snow – good, one of our best snow Hardgoods business in the West Coast we've had in a long time is because it snowed in California, maybe for the first time in four years. The flip side of that was the East Coast and the Midwest were terrible in our snow Hardgoods business. So no, we always think about that. We always plan about that. We'll move products around to fulfill customer need where we it does, where we do get the appropriate weather. So weather is always a factor for us, particularly during these seasonal types of periods when you are transitioning from winter to spring. So, we see great variability day-to-day in our business that is, to a significant extent, driven by weather. Now, the broader issues around gas prices and things like that, I think, again, these trend is unfortunately overrides that in our case. And if you look at the lot of macro data, gas prices, it's not being spent on clothing, it's being spent other areas, on technology and homes and cars, but a large part for us is that we just haven't had that must-have item, that really must-have brand at a significant enough momentum level that then it will offset those trends from previous years. So I think we have some things that are unique to us, that we need to overcome in this. That is about our position relative to this time in this marketplace, that we need to deliver on for our customer, both on the trend set as well as on the emerging brand set and finding that hot item. Things like we did in 2014, that were more difficult in 2015. So we need to earn those dollars through how we execute in our business.

David N. Kwon - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust. Please proceed.

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Van Sinderen with B. Riley. Please proceed. Jeff Van Sinderen - B. Riley & Co.: I know it's small concentration, but any color you can add on what you're seeing on the Girl's side of the business, and what your outlook is there. Is there anything to get excited about? And then, if you don't mind, given traffic generally running negative, lots of store closures in the industry, just wondering what your latest thinking is about rents as you negotiate renewals and new leases? Thanks. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay, great. Thanks, Jeff. Just making some notes here, make sure I get all your points. I don't have a lot to say on Girl's. As you've just heard from our prepared comments, Girl's was negative, like most of our business unfortunately has been in the last few months. So I would tell you the same thing about Girl's that I said broadly. We have things that are working. We have some things we're excited about, but they haven't been of a scale at this point to offset that. So I think just more to come there in that business. And again I don't think we're unique in this way. I think anyone that's trying to sell higher price point has a higher fashion quotient to their consumer, whether that be in our world, fashion isn't just about fashion trends. It's about brand and uniqueness of those special items. We view those as trend fashion-driven items too. So I can't call out anything for you. Girl's has been a growing, significant growing part of our business over the last two years or three years, Chris, in terms of gaining penetration within our mix of our business. But, generally, I don't have anything that would be much different than overall business in terms of we're just really tactically trying to experiment and test all sorts of things in that Women's business, just like we are in the other aspects of our business.

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Just to add some color to that, this is the third quarter in a row the Women's business has been down, but it was up over 36 months before that. So, the Women's business as a percent of our total sales has actually been consistent with the prior year, but this is a business that's gained 3% of the total sales over the last three years. So, we've seen a lot of growth there, but consistent with our overall business, it's experienced a slow down here. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: So then on your second part of your question, Jeff, regarding to our topics and discussions with landlords around rents and renewals, the answer here is always variable, depending on the centers that you're talking about. So, it's all about how important we are in particular centers relative to the demand for that center. So, no really new news here either, I think just like when we work, we have great partnership with our major landlords. They get what we do, they see – I think see the value we bring to their centers in terms of our customer. But it's always about balancing and the trade-offs between the really powerful centers who have this tremendous demand, and we will expect that the rent negotiations are much more challenging there versus centers in the B&C categories where we might have a bit more leverage on our side in talking and discussing with those landlords what the right levels are. And again, I would hearken back here to this idea of what we're trying to do in the broader market above trade area. So, you can think about our – how we might manage this, how we might work towards trade area profitability over the long run in our thinking about which centers are needed to fulfill and to capture the market within a particular trade area. So I think this kind of thinking and our ability to experiment and test with that, our ability to localize fulfillment and to what makes sense for the consumer and as well as our cost structures, I think will add additional dimensions to this conversation. So, we have again great, I think great relationships with our landlords, but it's always a balancing act. Jeff Van Sinderen - B. Riley & Co.: Got it. Thanks and best of luck for the rest of the quarter. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Adrienne Yih with Wolfe Research. Please proceed.

Douglas Drummond - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please proceed.

Hi. It's actually Doug Drummond on for Adrienne. Thanks for taking our questions. Most of mine have been answered. But circling back to inventory, you've been exercising great discipline with respect to inventory management. When do you perceive that inventory growth will be in line with sales growth, and should we expect total inventory to be flat to down and in 1Q 2016? Thanks very much.

Christopher Codington Work - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. I mean, I think when you experience the sales declines that we've had here in the last quarter, it is tough to match your inventory to sales specifically when you're growing units at the level we have, which we've added 57 units here in the last year. So, we actually feel like on a per square footage base, the inventory is very well situated. And I think when I would expect to – our long-term goals are always to grow sales at a faster rate than inventory. And I would expect we'd be able to continue to do that as we get sales in the positive territory and moving in the right direction. So, I think our challenges here have been more on the sales declines over the last six months. And so, as we look forward to 2016, our goals are to grow sales quicker than we grow inventory. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: The only thing I'd add to that, Doug, is the fact that we're kind of unique compared to a lot of shearer apparel fashion-driven retailers who you would – if you would report the inventory, in other words, you may be more concerned about, we have categories of our business like blank skateboard decks. They're blank skateboard decks. We can manage that relatively closely. So, if we have a down-trending cycle there, they don't lose – there's not an obsolescence factor in a number of areas of our business that other people do. So we're able to manage the quality of our inventory still to a high level and work to give ourselves a bit more time to work through challenges like that. And I can tell you that in our seasonal category, I think we feel good about, particularly the snow category for where we're at currently relative to how we've been able to manage through that. I think we feel good about that category that is more – we have more trend or seasonal risk really to inventory positions. So, again, our (1:10:26) inventory, I think Chris and I feel good about where we're at. Our buyers again I think have been very disciplined about where we're at. And the uniqueness of our business allows us – I think it gives us some more time to work through issues, again, because if we don't mark down a product – we're not marking it down, if we believe we can have a sufficient sell-through rate, and we can manage the open-to-buy to get inventory in the right position over time.

Douglas Drummond - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please proceed.

Okay. Great. That's helpful. Best of luck, guys. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions in queue at this time. Richard Miles Brooks - Chief Executive Officer & Director: All right. Well that means let's wrap this up then. And again, I – although it was a very challenging year in 2015, I just, again, I want to thank all of our teams and our vendor partners, because I actually think while very challenging on the sales front, we achieved a tremendous amount that's going to position us well for the longer term (1:11:19) 2015 is going to position us well over the longer-term. So, thanks to all of our Zumiez teams everywhere across the country and around the world, and thanks to our partners on the supply side, our technology partners. We greatly appreciate the effort that was made to help move our businesses forward. And we're looking forward to hopefully a much better year in 2016 and for many more better years beyond that. So thank you, everybody. I really appreciate it, and we'll look forward to talking at the next quarterly call.