Jeff Lick: Awesome, congratulations and look forward to catching up.
Molly Langenstein: Thanks Jeff.
Operator: Thank you. And our next question today comes from Marni Shapiro with Retail Tracker. Please go ahead.
Marni Shapiro: Hey guys, congratulations. I’m blown away by how beautiful Chico’s looks to start the fall season. So congratulations on that. If you wouldn’t mind just diving in a little bit on Soma and White House on a couple of things. You’ve touched a little bit on Soma. I think, Molly, you just said that you saw resurgence in sleep in the second quarter, so I’m assuming that bodes very well for the back half of the year. Can you just dig into that a little bit and what should we expect in the back half of the year as that bill goes to holiday? And then the dress business at White House was a bit of an issue in the back half of last year. So I’m curious if you feel comfortable with the assortments today, what the balance looks like or are you still playing catch up there as we head to the back half of the year, I know you’re still playing catch up on fashion there, does that include the dresses?
Molly Langenstein: Thank you Marni, so to start with Soma, I feel very good about the sleepwear business. It is diversified in fabrication as we enter the back half of the year, which we have not had that sort of balance before. We tested some fabrications and you’ll see not only our strong franchise of [indiscernible] continue, but also some other fabrications for different consumers for a more diversified approach. I also feel very good about the color expression and the print expression of the brand and anxious to get your point of view as we enter into that strong Q4. So I feel very good about the balance there between I think our bra assortment, in particular, between strapless, push-up bras, we have expanded sizes. We’ve added to the franchise of Votify, so there’s many different profile bras in that franchise.
And then there’s also a new proportion changes actually happening in bras as well to a more natural shape, which you’re finding in online. And then just to bring it all home, we have a very balanced panty franchise business. Two years ago, you couldn’t find a thong in our assortment, and we have a very robust thong business today and a diversified assortment. So we feel very strong about the balance and the position for the back half of the year for Soma. As it relates to White House Black Market, we are in a very good position in terms of our suiting. So you can now come in and be assured that you will find your size and we have the assortment in terms of our pants and our jackets. So each one of our proven silhouettes and proven fabrications is in a great stock position.
We are now complementing that with the fashion assortment. We are at the ratio that we wanted to be at now, meaning right now at the end of August, and I think that will continue to give us dividends as we go into the back half. As it relates specifically to dresses, the dress business overall in Chico’s and in White House, we expect it to continue in Q2, and it softened. So not only dressy dresses, but casual dresses, she quickly moved to this new proportion in sportswear. And you see that in our head-to-toe dressing and how the consumer was putting ourselves together. So we don’t have inventory carryover issues as we move into fall. And the good thing is that she bet on sportswear, and we have the sportswear inventory that she’s looking for as we move into the back half.
Marni Shapiro: That’s great and then can I just do one follow-up on this. I’m curious if you’re seeing any change in the later year shoppers is purchasing. It seems like they’re healthy across all metrics, as you’ve called out, is it different in the outlets versus your full-line stores or are you seeing your customer wait to purchase on sale at all or you really just choose more fashion sensitive than she is price sensitive right now?
Molly Langenstein: I’d say right now, she’s responding to loyalty in the most consistent way that when you look across our four tiers and you look at the behavior of our consumers, we are seeing consistency in our frequency. And quite honestly, a little overwhelmed by how amazing she is in terms of how often she comes back in her frequency. So the new loyalty program now one-year-old, launched a year ago, we believe is continuing to top our expectations and customer sentiment, redemption rate and frequency. And the fact that nearly 90% of our apparel customers and 80% of Soma are enrolled in these new programs, that was a big push for us to be able to get them into the new program because she had to enroll into the program, in addition to our store line people are doing a fantastic job of enrolling all of our new customers into these programs as well.
So how I would look at that, Marni, is that what we’re seeing from a consumer standpoint that the most important conversion is happening in stores because she is being able to put this new proportion together when she’s helped by a consumer, and it is the easiest conversion point to be able to do that and so that she has someone to help us put ourselves together head-to-toe.
Marni Shapiro: Great, thanks guys.
Molly Langenstein: Thank you Marni.
Operator: Thank you. And our next question today comes from Janet Kloppenburg with JJK. Please go ahead.
Janet Kloppenburg: Hi, everybody. I signed on a little bit late, Molly. Can you talk a little bit about what’s going on at White House Black Market, did it meet your expectations for the second quarter and if not, what does that look like as we move into the back half, I can hear you say that the repositioning will continue in the back half of the year, so I’d love to learn more about that? And I also wanted to hear about the promotional environment in the intimates business because I hear it’s been pretty challenging, but it sounds like you guys are doing well, so maybe you could talk me through some of those metrics as well? Thank you.
Molly Langenstein: Great, thank you Janet. As it relates to White House Black Market, we did see sales improve sequentially from Q1 with down 5.7% versus the 8% decrease in Q1 and that was on top of the 31.9% in terms of a two-year stack. We did see that stores outpace digital, and that really goes back to being able to put the consumer in White House had to sell together and be able to make sure that she’s leaving with coordinating pieces, whether they be knits or blouses or some of our new yarns and sweaters put back to suiting and responding in terms of being able to put that together. Our inventory levels have been heavy in meaning as a percentage in basics, and we are at that proportion that we would like to be in ratio between fashion and basics now in August.
So we’re well positioned as we move into the back half of the year and we are pleased with the early fall selling that we are seeing in fashion in August in the White House brand. In terms of promotionality and the promotional environment, we continue to manage our overall business with hard markdowns versus POS across categories. We do not want to go back to the days where the entire brand was promoted at one time. We don’t believe — we believe in our product. We don’t need to be able to do that consumers, but we continue to be able to look at strategic category promotions, whether it be a knit T-shirt or items that we have planned into the business. We did that for Q2, and we’ll have that for the back half of the year as well, and they are planned into the business.
So in terms of intimate specifically, the category on a macro standpoint is from what we are seeing from Circana [ph] data is a — have a little less demand today and so we believe that having the right assortment and remaining less promotional and making sure that we are offering the consumer the right balanced assortment and talking to her regularly through our loyalty program is the best approach, and we’re seeing that in our market share gains that we’ve had continually quarter-over-quarter and in particularly in the second quarter. So that’s how we’re going to continue to manage the Soma intimate business.
