We have the unfavorable currency impact that is less than 100 basis points on our operating margin. We have, as you may recall, also from the prior year, reporting, we have lower COVID-relief subsidies where we’ve received last year and not comping this year. And we do have also a higher performance-based compensation. What are the positive drivers, I think, that we see. We have positive store comp sales, especially driven by Europe and by Asia. We have the favorable impact of the higher initial markups mainly driven by lower shipping costs. I think we have seen them, and we commented on in Q1 as well as in Q2, how they’ve been improving our operating margins, and we expect this margin driver I think to continue and to help to expand our gross margin in the second half of this year.
And of course, importantly, I think, as Carlos also mentioned, we will have — in the fourth quarter, we will have the impact of the 53rd week. We’ve given you also before, this represents roughly 1% of the total company sales growth for the year, fiscal year ’24. And this will clearly also help to abate some of the rate pressure that you asked for in terms of the SG&A expense structure in the fourth quarter with the extra selling week that will benefit Q4.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. [Operator Instructions] And it comes from the line from of Mauricio Serna with UBS. Please proceed.
Mauricio Serna: Great. Congratulations on the pretty good results. I wanted to ask maybe if you could elaborate more on the trend that you have seen in Europe, maybe on a category perspective, like which have been, like the categories where you’re seeing like strong growth and maybe across the most important markets, which ones have you seen done the best or which ones might be lagging? And then maybe if I may ask also on the third quarter sales guidance, if I look at the main segments of the business, I think sequentially speaking, sales are roughly in line, maybe a little bit lower if you exclude the FX impact. What is driving — or like what are you seeing like any significant changes in sales trends across the different segments?
Carlos Alberini: Hi, Mauricio, thank you for your questions. Well, so let me start with your first question about categories. Just in Europe, like I said, the wholesale business is very significant, and we have a big business in apparel for both women and men and kids now. And we have a very big business in accessories, and that is primarily driven by handbags, but also many other categories that continue to evolve and develop. And then last, I would say, just we have the Marciano brand and we have footwear. And so among all those, just we see a lot of strength in multiple lines within the apparel categories, just with the whole global line introduction and what we have done, just Paul, with the product teams, just changing the way that the whole product assortment has put together and we have seen success with multiple areas there.
We have had great success with everything that touches dresses as a main category. Our athleisure line, which is a completely new offering from the last maybe 2.5, 3 years now, that line, went from being zero to a pretty significant part of our entire line and that line continues to do very well at wholesale as well. Our Kids line also had several seasons of the strong growth, just as more stable now. And our footwear business, just as we migrated more from the dressing to a more casual collection. I think we have seen great success with that change as well. Our handbag business has been strong and continues to be strong. I think — we always say that we believe that there is very limited competition for what we do. It’s very difficult, and we are ahead of the pack there, and we feel very strongly about our new collections.
We have a lot of business in different sizes of bags. We have just a lot of logo business and when you put it together, considering the quality that we offer aligned with the price that we require is a great combination, a great value proposition. So, overall, a very strong business across the board, we still see a lot of opportunities to continue to grow. We have a whole line of men’s accessories products. And we think that line is — could be a lot bigger. So we are trying to fuel that growth and invest in that category. We have a whole line of underwear and swimwear. And again, just we feel that the business is very small compared to what it could be. So we are trying to invest in these categories to fuel the growth. And overall, I think that the big advantage here is that we have this big relationships with key accounts and in many cases, they buy multiple categories, just including Marciano in certain cases as well.
So, overall, very, very happy with that. With respect to the sales guidance, maybe, Markus, you can start.
Fabrice Benarouche: Yes. Yes. Let me quickly start, Mauricio, for the full year, I think we’re guiding revenues up between now 2.5% and 4%. Before, it was 2% to 4%. We’ve increased the bottom end while maintaining the top end compared to our prior expectations. What are the key drivers for the revenue growth that we continue to see driving the growth in second half, positive comps in Europe and Asia. We have the 53rd week as we just talked about in the fourth quarter, and we have the driver also for the net new stores. For the third quarter, I think the same drivers are at play, but please also be reminded, I think then also the second quarter compared to our initial expectations that we had as we guided Q2 benefited from a wholesale delivery shift of $10 million into the second quarter.
And now going into the third quarter, as you mentioned, I think we have — and that’s also what I stated in my shared in my prepared remarks, we will have a two-point tailwind from currencies on the revenue growth.
Operator: Thank you. And we have time for one more question, one moment please. It comes from the line of Eric Beder with Small Cap Consumer Research. Please proceed.
Eric Beder: Congratulations on a great quarter and guidance. Let’s talk a little bit about capital allocation. You have $160 million in free cash flow this year, but where do you look at it that you want to continue to expand in terms of open stores. How should we be thinking about in terms of potential further share repurchases or increasing the dividend?
