John Enwright: Yes, I’d just add to that, I think obviously we’re not giving out guidance for next year, but as a tailwind into next year will be international logistics getting back to more normal pre-pandemic levels, which will obviously benefit our P&L.
Oliver Chen: Okay, thank you. The last question, at Cowen we’ve done a lot of work on fungible tokens and NFTs, and also the metaverse and what’s happening with decentralization and Web3. Why did NFTs make sense for Vera Bradley, and are you seeing any interesting trends with the customer profile there and any thoughts on plans ahead? Thank you.
Robert Wallstrom: I think one thing that’s been so important for us of getting in the NFT world is, one, we’ve always been a company that’s been innovation-driven and we wanted to get into that space, learn from that space, begin to experiment in that space and stay relevant with the younger customer especially, so we thought it was a great opportunity. We thought we could use it as a leverage for our foundation and a leverage for just the collectability of our patterns, and so it’s something that we’ll continue to experiment around. It’s not a huge commercial opportunity yet, but it’s one of those areas we want to make sure that we’re exploring and learning and kind of growing as that space grows in the years ahead.
Oliver Chen: Thank you. Best regards, happy holidays.
Robert Wallstrom: Thanks Oliver.
Jacquie Ardrey: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Joe Gomes with Noble Capital.
Joe Gomes: Good morning.
Robert Wallstrom: Hi Joe.
Joe Gomes: I wanted to start off on Pura Vida – you know, we’ve talked probably for a year now about the digital trends, and I know you’re looking at putting together the database. What really needs to happen here before we can start to see some improvement in that business? It just seems to be taking a long time to, I guess, figure out where to go next on that side, outside of opening the retail stores.
Robert Wallstrom: I think that’s a great question, Joe. A few different things, right? One thing that is underway is the customer data platform, the technology. There’s a lot of technology pieces the team’s been working very hard on over the last quarter. We’ve had success with all of these platforms at Vera Bradley, so we’re working through and getting that learning, so we do think the first party data will be part of that. But the other piece of it is just a real diversification in the marketing platform. One thing that I think is exciting with Jacquie coming in and her leadership with her merchandising and marketing background is getting a fresh set of eyes to look at it, because we do need to find a new way of acquiring customers that is not as dependent upon our old channels, and that obviously has not been an easy transition but it’s one that we think we can get through.
Stores have shown that the consumer still remains engaged. It’s improved our ecommerce business, so when we get in front of the consumer, we’re seeing a positive uptick. I think it’s going to be really mixing. As we’ve seen a lot of these direct-to-consumer businesses have started to become more omnichannel, opening up stores, diversifying their marketing, and I think that we need to be doing the same. We’ve had a–it has not been an easy transition at Pura Vida to kind of re-platform the business, but I think we’re making some progress and I think with Jacquie coming on board, we can accelerate that progress in the months ahead.
Joe Gomes: Okay, and speaking on the retail stores, I know we’ve talked about in the past you have the San Diego store, I think it’s now anniversarying. How is that performing, how are those comps looking year-over-year for the San Diego store? It’s great news on the new ones, that they all seem to be performing above expectations.
Robert Wallstrom: What I would say about the stores at Pura Vida is it’s still early innings, right, so the good news is with all of our four full price stores that have opened up, they’re all tracking to exceed first year expectations, that’s really encouraging. The second part of it that’s very encouraging is we’re seeing a significant uptick in the ecommerce business in those metro areas, and again just showing the power that stores have not only as a four-wall revenue and profit center, but also just for the franchise overall. I know it’s one of these areas that Jacquie’s looking at as she plans the go-forward strategy, is just how to diversify the Pura Vida platform so that we can get that business growing again. I know I’m speaking a little bit for her, but we’ve had so many conversations over the last 30 days that she really sees some excitement and potential around that brand, and so I think we’ll see improvements as we move through next year.
Joe Gomes: Okay. One more, if I may. Just on the guidance, I was wondering if you could give us a little more color. Last quarter, the gross margin guidance was 53.7% to 54.1%, and you’ve increased the range for revenues for the full year guide but significantly reduced gross margins down to 51.9% to 52.1%. Even with freight expense declining and some of the other things that you’ve discussed, just maybe give us a little more color into how that gross margin estimate declined so dramatically.
John Enwright: Yes, so Joe, we talked a little bit about some more tactical discounting that we had probably initially built into our forecast at the beginning of quarter three, so really that is the more significant driver. Obviously that helped us drive a little bit more revenue, we’re expecting to drive more revenue based on that but at a rate difference. From a profit perspective, we’re neutral to positive on that, so we think it’s the right thing to do. It helps us be competitive in the marketplace – you know, she’s out there, she’s looking for more of a discount than I think we initially anticipated when we put together our guidance at the beginning of the third quarter.
Joe Gomes: Okay, great. Thanks.
