Eric Beder: Okay. Good luck for the rest of the holiday season.
Stewart Glendinning: I appreciate that. Thank you, Eric.
Mark Still: Thanks, Eric.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Marni Shapiro from Retail Tracker. Please go ahead.
Marni Shapiro: Hey, everybody. Welcome, Stewart and Mark. Nice to meet you. I’d like to just dig in a…
Stewart Glendinning: Good morning.
Marni Shapiro: … little bit more to the merchandising changes. It sounds a little bit like we’re moving the pendulum back a little bit to where Express was, Portofino shirts, key items. If you could just dig into that a little and is, excuse me, is that visible? I was in the stores all weekend. I’m there all the time. I’ve seen some changes in the store. Is this what I’m seeing and how much more is to come? And could you also just talk a little bit about what’s going on to the outlets? It seems like that customer is definitely the more price sensitive, but other brands have talked about how the outlets have been a bright spot because the consumer is more price sensitive.
Stewart Glendinning: Yeah. Okay. Let me take the second half first and then I’m going to give you the benefit of getting a little bit of explanation directly from our Chief Merchandising Officer, because I think he’s going to give you a little more granularity. But look, on outlets, I would say that, outlets weren’t a particularly bright spot for us. They are a bright spot just in terms of being part of the profitability of our business. So if you look at the margin structure, outlets are a very good part of our business. But if you look at this past quarter, for us, the winner was eComm. We were up 10% in business in eComm. The performance was strong there and that’s where we won women back. So I would say that that’s how our third quarter played out.
But realistically going forward, each one of the parts of our business plays a role. Outlets will continue to be an important part of the strategy and eComm will get bigger and stronger, I think. Certainly, there’s nothing that’s going to slow that down. But every part is going to continue to play a role in the business. Michael, you want to talk about the merch strategy?
Michael Rangel: Yeah. Sure. Thanks, Stewart. Yeah, Marni, I would say that, it’s all about balance, ultimately. Getting back into certain icons such as Portofino, Gramercy, is certainly part of the success that we started to see within women’s. But that’s only part of it. It’s staying balanced across wearing occasions. So as Stewart had said in his prepared remarks, it’s leaning a little bit more casual, but it’s still being polished within that. We’re balancing price points, ensuring that we’ve got a good structure across good, better, best. But then a good part of it is getting back some of the customers within our icons and franchises, things such as Portofino, Gramercy. Denim had a strong quarter and that was relying upon getting back into skinny, relaunching FlexX.
I’d say it’s all about a balance within that. It’s not to move back to the days of old of Portofino, but the Portofino has a strong customer and we want to make sure that we are also having a balance of relevant seasonal fashion.
Marni Shapiro: Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And then could you just talk a little bit about the marketing side? I know it’s a lot of direct marketing, but how are you thinking about this? The Express brand is — there’s a lot of love for the brand for the people who love the brand. What about getting the new customers into the brand?
Stewart Glendinning: Yeah. I think the health of every brand ultimately is building renewal and you’re absolutely right, we have a very loyal set of customers that we look to retain. During this past quarter, what was notable was that sequentially we improved our customer file. The customer file had been under some pressure and so I was pleased to see that we’re headed in the right direction. I think there’s a lot more work to be done there. I think also you start to see that shift in the merchandising strategy. We’re going to be pulling in a set of customers into our stores and online differently than we were in the past because of the offering. Finally, it’s been a core focus of mine to take a close look at where we’re spending marketing and to look at what results that spend is driving.
I think to spend the money in marketing, you’ve got to be certain that you understand what returns that’s driving, what kind of customers that’s bringing to you. So there’s work for us to do just in terms of broad brand building and I think all those things combined will start to bring that new customer into our store.
