Ethan Allen Interiors Inc (ETD) 2014 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Ethan Allen earnings release conference call. (Operator Instructions)

I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Mr. David Callen. You may begin, sir.

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning. I'm David Callen, Ethan Allen's Vice President of Finance and Treasurer. Welcome to Ethan Allen's earnings conference call for our first fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2013. This call is being webcast live on EthanAllen.com where you will also find our press release, which contains supporting details, including reconciliations of non-GAAP information referred to in the release and on this call.

Our comments today will include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks, which may cause the actual results to be materially different than expected when making those statements. Please refer to our filings with the SEC for a complete review of those risks. The Company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking matters discussed during this call.

After our Chairman and CEO, Farooq Kathwari, provides his opening remarks, I will follow up with details on the financial results. Farooq will then provide more details about our ongoing business initiatives before opening up the telephone lines for questions. With that, here is Farooq Kathwari.

Thank you, Dave and thank you for participating in our first-quarter earnings call. I am pleased that we are also joined today by a number of our interior designers who are attending our annual interior design conference here in Danbury. With 200 of them are here and we thought it would be good for them to also listen and participate in this conference call.

While our September 30, 2013 quarter had lower sales and profitability compared to our strong quarter in the previous year, we are pleased that we did have respectable results of sales of $181.7 million and adjusted operating earnings of 9.2%. We also had adjusted earnings per share of $0.33 per share compared to $0.38 in the previous year. We increased our backlogs both at wholesale and retail.

During the quarter, our retail division sales were lower by 4.9%, reflecting a lower backlog in the beginning of the quarter, selling [through] products to make room for new products, impacting both sales and profitability, and sale of two retail locations to an independent retailer after the first quarter of last year. Our retail division retail sales increased by 11.4% with comparable increasing 13.8% on top of a 9% increase in the previous year. While very strong growth, we were impacted in September due to concerns relating to the goverment shutdown. As mentioned above, the previous year also reflected results of the two design centers which we sold to our independent retailer.

We continue to improve our balance sheet with cash of $119.6 million, increasing from $100 million from 09/30/12. Our inventories of $141.7 million decreased by $16.3 million from 09/30/12 and increased by $4.4 million from 06/30/13, and almost all of that in work in process, reflecting higher orders. Capital expenditures were $3.3 million compared to $8.3 million in the previous year. We expect capital expenditures for full year to be between $15 million to $20 million with D&A of $18 million.

Our advertising for the quarter was about the same as in the previous year. We expect to increase our advertising spend in the second quarter at this time about a 10% increase. Our written business in the first two weeks of October was impacted by the severe bickering in Washington, DC. We now do see consumers starting to focus on decorating their homes and we remain cautiously optimistic due to our many initiatives.

At this stage, Dave will provide more financial information. I will then review our business initiatives and open for questions and comments. Dave?

Thank you, Farooq. Consolidated net sales during our first quarter were $181.7 million, which was nearly flat sequentially with net sales of $182.3 million in our fourth quarter of fiscal 2013, but were 3.1% lower than the prior-year quarter.

As noted in our press release, our deliveries during the quarter were negatively affected by retail backlogs at the beginning of the quarter that were 7.2% lower than the prior year. Our retail division net sales of $141.8 million were 4.9% lower than the prior year, reflecting the lower opening backlogs.

The retail growth in net sales was also negatively affected by the sale in the second quarter last year of our two Houston design centers to our independent operator in that region, though our wholesale business continues to sell to that retailer. These impacts were partly offset by significantly higher clearance event sales this quarter as our design centers made room for our new products in support of our new Eclecticism campaign launched in early October.

Our wholesale net sales of $113.2 million were 1.6% higher, including the benefit of shipping the new floor sample products to our retail division and to independent retailers alike. Our retail division's written orders in the first quarter grew 11.4%, including comparable design center growth of 13.8%. The difference between these metrics is largely due to the sale last year of our two Houston design centers.

Our written orders benefited this quarter by the shift in our annual price increase from July the prior year to August this year, as clients tend to close out projects in advance of the price increase. Our written order growth also includes the growth in clearance sales during the quarter, which affect written and delivered sales.

We operated 147 design centers at the end of the quarter, compared to 149 operated by the Company at the end of the prior-year quarter.

Our global retail network included 297 design centers at September 30, 2013, compared with 302 locations at the end of the quarter last year. Independent retailers operate 150 of these, including 70 in China. This compares with 153 independently operated last year, including 73 in China.

Our consolidated gross margin of 54.4% in our first quarter improved 40 basis points sequentially from our fourth quarter, but was lower than the 55.6% gross margin in last year's first quarter. The gross margin last year benefited from a higher proportion of full priced sales at retail where clients elected to finance their purchase over 48 months through our third-party financing partner. The prior-year mix of retail net sales, of consolidated net sales, also provided a lift to the prior-year gross margin, as did a $900,000 greater benefit last year in consolidation from the sell-through of retail inventory. Our gross margin during the current year was negatively affected by the significant increase in clearance sales during the quarter.

On the wholesale side, our plants and logistics operations continue to perform well, largely offsetting higher health insurance related costs and modest material cost pressures with improved operating efficiencies. Our product mix was beneficial to our gross margin with higher shipments of accessory and upholstery floor samples, which offset a decline in shipments of case goods during the quarter. We continue to see operational improvements in our wholesale business, including leverage of our operations in Mexico and Honduras.

Our adjusted operating expenses were well controlled for the quarter at $82 million or 45.1% of net sales compared with $84.7 million or 45.2% of net sales the prior year. Consistent with our practice, these adjusted expenses in the quarter exclude $600,000 of international startup losses and $200,000 loss on the sale of vacant real estate in our retail division. The prior-year expenses included a loss on the sale of vacant retail real estate of $1.6 million. Please prefer to our press release reconciliation tables showing the adjustments made to our results for all periods.

Our adjusted operating income for the quarter was $16.8 million, or 9.2% of net sales, compared with a very strong prior year adjusted operating income of $19.6 million, or 10.4% of net sales. Our normalized income tax rate for both the current year and the prior year was approximately 36.5%. Adjusted earnings per diluted share for the quarter of $0.33 compared with $0.38 the prior year.

Now, I'll briefly comment on our balance sheet and liquidity. Our cash and securities at September 30, 2013 totaled $119.6 million. Our inventories are a healthy $141.7 million and customer deposits are a strong $67.4 million, reflecting our higher retail backlogs at the end of the first quarter. We continue to be well positioned to pursue our business initiatives.

And now, here again is Farooq to discuss those initiatives further.

All right. Thanks, Dave. And as I mentioned previously, reinvention is critical to any enterprise or institution. And the cycle of reinvention is getting shorter and shorter. I follow the wise saying, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

Our focus on launch of our marketing initiatives under the umbrella of New Eclecticism is part of reinvention of migrating from a leader in furniture to a leader in home fashion. Our strength is that we create iconic, beautifully designed products, and now further differentiate these products with unique, high impact branding and deliver them in one of a kind retail experience. Our focus is to communicate a unique, more modern, more fashion-forward sensibility and our customer experience is already fundamentally different due to our in-house professional interior design services.

In October, we mailed a 60-page magazine to about 2 or 3 million households and will be followed by another 3 million mailing of magazines in November, with a focus on holiday shopping. We are already seeing greater interest in our accessory products, and these accessories are important to increasing traffic, and especially being relevant in the holiday season.

We plan to continue the focus on our marketing campaigns next spring, and we continue to open new design centers and to relocate our design centers to better locations. In the past 12 months, we have opened design centers in Montreal, Canada; Brussels, Belgium; Antwerp, Belgium; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Seattle; Las Vegas; Des Moines; Boca Raton;, Corte Madera in the San Francisco area; Burlington in the Boston area; and Winter Park in the Orlando area. Under construction and opening in the next few months are new locations in Amman, Jordan. This is the second in Jordan. Seoul, Korea, this is our fourth in Korea. Bucharest, Romania, this is the first in Eastern Europe. Lyndhurst area of Cleveland; Calgary, Canada, the second location. Sarasota, Florida, again, a relocation, a new design center coming up. Houston, Texas, again a relocation; Marlboro, New Jersey, a new design center and a relocation; and Rockville, Maryland in the Greater Washington DC area.

Our manufacturing and logistics are in good shape. We are now investing in our newest operations in Honduras and expect it to get fully on-board within the next 12 months.

I would also like to mention that Ethan Allen -- green is part of our business model and we are pleased to have received many awards for our environmental efforts.

We continue to focus on adding relevant technology at all levels of our vertically integrated business. In particular, we have the twin focus of providing the most current technology to our retail associates, and also to substantially increase our presence in the social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Houzz, Instagram, and others.

And with this, I would like to open it up for any questions and comments that you might have.

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Matthew Fassler with Goldman Sachs.

Hi, this is [Holly] Goodman on behalf of Matt Fassler. We were wondering what your plans are for promotions going forward and how we should think about gross margin trends in the next quarter.

Yes. As Dave mentioned that our gross margins at 54.4%, still at very healthy levels, was somewhat lower than the 55.6% that we [had] in the prior year, which was again, as I said, one of our strongest quarters. Keep that in mind in the last few quarters we have been running at 53%, 54%, 53%, and 52%. So we've maintained a strong margin and as we go forward into the spring period, I believe that the opportunity for us is to somewhat improve our gross margins from what we have in this last quarter, because of the fact that our promotional activity will continue to be aggressive, but we're keeping in mind that we also want to maintain and increase our gross margins. And I think that's what you're going to see.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Todd Schwartzman with Sidoti & Company.

Just a couple of quick ones. How should we think about the current quarter, so Q2, any follow-through on the floor sample closeout issue and what the pace of that is throughout the current quarter?

You're now talking about Q2?

Q2, correct.

Q2, we'll have some of it, but most of it was done in our first quarter, Todd. We're going to have some impact, but the impact is going to be more on a continuous regular basis rather than the one-time impact we had in the first quarter.

Okay. So also -- thank you for that. Just to be clear on your commentary, your opening remarks, Farooq, as well in the release regarding the goings on in Washington and the impact in your business, the first two weeks of October, a little slow and, just paraphrasing now, the last 10 days or so, last week and a half, things have returned to normal. Is that back to September levels in terms of traffic?

No, I think we have a new normal. After this bickering in Washington, the normal is defined differently, Todd. So I think that we're not going back to last year but, as you also know, it's in the last week or so is when we do get most of our written business. So to some degree, this October is not going to be that different. We are now gearing up. We are starting to work on projects. People were concerned, they were concerned in September. As I mentioned that I believe that our September results were also impacted by this shutdown issues in Washington. It carried through the first two weeks in October and now we see people coming back. But people are still somewhat cautious. However, as our business is not something that is not what you call upper end restaurants, where if you don't eat, you don't come back. In our case, people do come back. So we do expect most people to come back, yet people are cautious, Todd.

Okay. Do you keep internal data regarding the slicing and dicing of consumers' personal income segment in terms of how that shakes out with respect to written and delivered sales within the quarter? Is it the high end, the middle end that was staying away for that period? Is it kind of across the board?

No, I think it's across the board. It was surprising to see people at all levels of income are concerned on what's happening in Washington. And as I said, that because of our -- and also, keep in mind, we launched one of our most aggressive and the most exciting campaigns this month. If I knew the government was going to be shut down, I would perhaps have done it some other time. Not really, we would have still done it. But we have a very, very major campaign out there. It's exciting. It's excited our people here. It's exciting consumers and I see that it's exciting especially not only our core customers, but it's exciting the Gen Xers, which is really what we want to improve as our base.

So I think we are sort of seeing the issues and the benefits across the board in consumer you might say different demographics.

Does it surprise you or maybe disappoint you slightly that the government shutdown would be having this much impact at a time when the stock market is at a multiyear high?

Well, Wall Street lives in a different world than Main Street. So I think the Main Street people are concerned and I think most probably that Wall Street is thinking of the future. And future most probably, I think is more positive. Wall Street is thinking of the fact that overall I think we are improving, the economy is improving, consumer confidence is improving. So I see rightly that Wall Street is looking in the next six months or so, I would hope so, while the Main Street is concerned on what's happening right now. I think that's where the difference is, in my opinion.

Okay. Can you speak to the pacing of the written business in the quarter? I mean we know about October, but from the July through September period, how that played out?

Yes, Todd, most of our business was increased in August and -- I mean July and August. More in July because we had, as Dave mentioned, we had price increases in August. And September, we had lower sales than last year. And we should have had lower sales. We attribute it all to this concerns of the shutdown.

Are there any additional price increases planned either in conjunction with New Eclecticism or just in general?

Not yet, Todd. I think that at this stage, we are stabilized. We did increase prices a few months back and at this stage, I think that the real benefit is going to be to leverage those increases and also to leverage the benefit of our manufacturing operating at fuller, you might say not full capacity, but at a higher level that helps us.

Got it. And also, it doesn't seem as though you put bought back any bonds or stock in Q1. What are your plans for the fiscal year?

Well, we're watching it very carefully. We have about 1.1 million share authorization for buyback. So we're going to keep our options open.

Okay. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Brad Thomas with KeyBanc Capital.

Just to follow up about the New Eclecticism, I apologize if I missed this. I had some technical difficulties at the start of the call here. But with some of the new merchandise on the floor now, could you just talk a little bit more about the response that you're seeing to it and is it helping to improve the close rate or bring in some incremental customers that you don't think you would have gotten?

Well, as I had mentioned, perhaps you missed that, we have 200 of our top interior designers here with us and many of them are listening to these comments because I wanted them to hear this kind of a conversation so that they'd go back and do more business. And they are excited. They're very excited about this focus on migrating Ethan Allen from a leader in furniture to a leader in home fashion. They're excited about the eclecticism in color and the variety that we offer because the consumer is moving towards that. Eclecticism is taking place, whether it's in apparel, whether it's in fashion, whether it's in automobiles, even your telephones. So they see it and they are excited.

They're also excited because they can help consumers make it happen. If all of it is in one color, consumers think they can do it, too. Consumers want eclecticism. They also want great quality and they want service, and our designers are able to do it.

So the reaction has been very positive and, Brad, I think if we didn't have all these concerns of shutdown and all of that, I think we would have had a stronger interest by consumers. However, it's just too early. This is a very major launch. This is going to be for months at a time that we're going to be at it. So we've had a, so far, a very strong response.

That's great. And then I know that the Company has made a point to bring down price points on the accessories. What are you seeing with respect to that change at this point?

Yes, good response. I had mentioned that also that our accessory sales in September are showing a much higher increase than we've had in the previous months. And of course -- in October I mean -- it still is early. We have a very, very strong program in October. So as I have said earlier, we really want to become much more relevant in the holiday period. We also have established a very strong logistics base so that consumers can, if they don't buy it and take it home from the stores, but they will also be able to be shipped to them the same day or the next day.

Great. And then just to get back to this kind of question of what the underlying run rate of sales looks like when you normalize for things like the price increase and the clearance events that you did. I mean just stepping back, Farooq, and putting things into perspective, I mean this is the strongest written comp that you guys have had in I think over three years. And the backlog I think is up about -- the deposits were up about 11% at the end of the quarter. How much is this just sort of getting the backlog back to where you want it to be? And, or could you potentially deliver sales in the 10% plus range in this December quarter? Or is that too high of a bar for us to think for this December quarter?

I mean, if you look at just keeping in perspective our written business, our written business has been reasonably good. If you take a look at out of this Great Recession, our comparable written in, let's say for I'm now talking three or four years after this Great Recession, in 2011 was up 10.3%. In 2012, was up 8.4%. 2013 we went up only 1%. But that's what you are looking at. Then when you look at this far as this quarter, we were up -- in fact, even in quarter one of fiscal 2012, we were up 11.4% in comparable. And now, we are looking at an increase of comparable 13.8%.

So really, other than this 2013, which is the fiscal year ended where we had four quarters of low comparable increases, in the last three, four years, our comparables have been up. Now, having said this, I think that 13.8% is a very high number, and while we are pleased at it, it also reflects, as I said, some impact, maybe 3%, 4% of the price increase. But on the other hand, we are at maybe -- I don't know, this is just a guess at this stage, maybe 3% or 4% negative due to the shutdowns. So 10%, 12% is really the run rate this quarter. Going forward, it's hard to say, but our objective obviously is to have positive increases in comps and also total.

So I think that just don't get carried away, Brad, but be reasonable and I think we're going to increase them.

Sounds good. Thank you so much, Farooq.

Our next question comes from John Baugh with Stifel.

A couple of things. One, did you clarify or did I understand on the clearance, some of that fell into the orders in Q1?

Most, actually, all the clearance, basically almost all of it is delivered right away. Now, it has two impacts, John. I mean, you this business quite well. The impact of that is that we sell the product at lower retail, lower margin. In fact, we would think we would have higher sales of clearance. It's the other way around. Because unfortunately clearance also takes the attention of our designers for selling products and working with their clients on regular business. So you would think that we would get greater business. It is unfortunately for us because of the fact, a lot of our business takes place when our designers are working on projects. If it takes away from projects, they sell clearance, yes, we have immediate sale, which is delivered. It has negative on margin, but the good news is, it's all of that in that particular quarter.

Okay. And then I wanted to ask you, I'd date myself if I remembered the year and I'm glad I don't, but you have sort of moved away from a colonial, early-American-only store facade and product line a long, long time ago. And yet I hear you saying you've got to move even further towards modern-end fashion. Where are you, do you think, in migrating your product line? And is this what the younger consumer wants, and we still need to make a significant shift to cater to that customer, or more so to the 50 to 75 crowd?

Yes, John, you are right. It was in the early 1990s when we made a major push to migrating from early American colonial to the more modern perspective. However, the modern perspective of the 1990s is different than what we need to be today. The focus on color, the focus on eclecticism, mixing is very, very important. Even in the 1990s, it's a migration of consumers' tastes. In the 1990s, consumers did move towards more modern perspective, but still the mixing of products, the mixing of even different levels of quality was not there. Today, people are, as you know, comfortable in shopping at Neiman Marcus and even Target. So we want to offer -- I mean, in our case we're not going to have two different levels of quality. But this whole question of taste, whether it is the baby boomers and certainly, of course, the Gen Xers, is taking into a shape of new fashion.

So whatever we did 20 years back, today really is not as much relevant. And today, we need to be relevant. And that's why this whole focus on eclecticism takes us to a fashion business, takes us to a lot more accessory business, soft goods business, and that's what you're going to see, John.

And following up on that, could you speak to the size of your stores? I mean if we're migrating more to a home decor and less of furniture, and case goods just continue to decline it seems like, it would seem like your store footprints are just still too big for the new normal or whatever you want to call it. Do you see it that way where we see continued, as leases come due, or places that you own, you might even consider moving, selling and moving? Discuss your real estate strategy.

I think that all the things you have said are important, John, that if you've -- as Dave mentioned, we have somewhat two or three less design centers now than we had a year back. This is by plan. In fact, right now, we have a number of design centers under construction. We have one in Marlboro, New Jersey, which is going to replace two, but in a more important area in terms of traffic and in terms of the neighbors. Similarly, we are now building one in Cleveland that is going to replace -- between Cleveland, we had three neighborhood stores. We're replacing it with one flagship or one major store.

Now, the location is critical. The size is somewhat less, smaller than we used to build. We used to build 18,000 square foot stores about 10 years back, and now we are building them anywhere from 8,000 to 12,000 or 13,000 square feet. So size has come down. Locations have improved, and in some cases, we have taken duplicate stores out. So that process continues. We are, today, building in much better locations, higher traffic. For instance, in Burlington, Boston, we just moved only a few blocks away but into a much better traffic area. And we went from I think a 17,000, 18,000 square foot to I think a 9,000 or 10,000 feet, but much better and stronger. And that's what we've been doing around the country, John.

Okay. And is there a goal on accessories as a percentage of the mix? Remind us where you're running kind of now and then what that influence might be to your financials going forward.

Today, we are running about 15%, 16%, 17%. Our real ideal goal should be -- I mean we've got to get there, not next year. Our ideal goal should be to between 30%, 35%, but it's going to take from us some 16% to 30%, 35%, we've got to make a lot, a lot of impact in the next year, year and a half. And the margin profitability of our accents is approximately 6%, 7% gross margin net higher than furniture.

Great, and my last question is China. Can you tell us sort of what's going on there in terms of both their retail effort and then your wholesale business into their warehouses? And how that may -- the cadence of that may play out over the next few quarters? Thank you.

Yes, John, the Chinese are doing what everybody is doing. They're trying to leverage more. They want to do more business with less inventories. They want to make sure that the folks that they buy from maintain inventories and support them. That's what they've been doing in the last one year. They went from -- and we understand it. So we are now almost through their going to this next phase. It did affect us, what, a couple of million dollars in sales and shipments this last quarter. But going forward from that perspective we have now sort of made it into more of a normal run. But business at the retail level is increasing and Ethan Allen business is increasing greater than the other brand that they have.

And, Farooq, their store count, I think if I heard it right, was down three stores. You said their business is increasing. Could you give us a feel for what their retail business is like, and how fast is it growing, and how fast would you guess it might grow in the next four quarters? Thanks.

John, you know what they are doing is, and even learning -- I'm actually going there next week to spend a few days there. And last week, we had a whole team of them here. They have 70 or so locations, but almost half of them are very small locations, small size in second location or third location, or fourth in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, other places in smaller markets. So they're also finding out that some of these smaller locations had to be closed.

In our case, most of our business is done in 20 of their main locations and those are the ones that they're focused on and we're focused on. So this question of having three, or four, or five less does not impact the total business. Because the one that they're impacting is some of these 4,000, 5,000 square foot small locations that they opened up.

Thank you. Good luck.

Our next question comes from Budd Bugatch with Raymond James.

John and Brad took most of my questions, but I do have a question. I think last year, you spent, if I remember the K information right, about $29 million on advertising, at least that was disclosed in the K. Can you give us this year maybe what the advertising budget is? I think it was 4.1% of sales last year.

Budd, let me just say that we are running approximately a little less than 4% in this last quarter. We are going to go to about 5% the next quarter and then progressively increase it.

To what kind of level? Where would you think the high watermark --

Well, I think most probably -- I want to increase dollars, not percentages because I think that we want to get more business. I think 4- -- 5% or so is a pretty good number for us, Budd.

That would be delightful. And David, we missed it, where the operator kind of interrupted some of the presentation. So I missed the store counts. Did you give the detail of the store counts?

I did, Budd. We are operating 147 Company-operated design centers and there were 297 total.

Total. How many those are now in the States? So you've got 70 in China?

Correct.

Okay. And what's the independent stores owned in the States and Canada?

There are 62 in US --

And Canada.

And then 18 the remainder.

Eighteen in Canada or [in Europe] as well?

No, outside of the US, including Canada.

All right. Thank you on that. And Farooq, you did say -- is the inventory issue in China pretty much done? I thought that was going to be done kind of last quarter. Is that over now?

Yes, it is. Actually, most of it is done. As I said, overall relatively small impact. But it's mostly done and now we need to see us get more business. And the good news is, as I said, is the retail business has been increasing.

Okay. All right. That's it for me. I think our colleagues have kind of gotten all the information. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Cristina Fernandez with Telsey Group.

I wanted to see if you could tell us how many of the 300 or 297 design centers have now transitioned to the new Eclectic format and have the home accessories. Last quarter you said about 200 were going to be done at the end of the September. Is that where you ended up?

Yes. Approximately almost all the 200 of them were -- reflect this new Eclectic, as again most of them, some somewhat more, some less, but every one of them has now this projection of our Eclectic presentations. And as we move forward, we'll continue to keep on improving it and adding to it. But this was a major, major undertaking last quarter and it was substantially completed in September and a little bit in October.

Okay. So then the remaining 100 or so there or less, I mean is that all going to be done here in this second quarter or is that going to take place over couple of quarters?

No, the ones that we have -- 200 of the ones in North America, substantially all of them were done. The ones that are overseas are being done at a different level of timeframes.

Okay, that's helpful. And then I wanted to go back to the, I think it was Brad's question on the written orders. I mean if most of the increase happened in July and August and September was a little weaker, with your lead times now being four to six weeks, I mean should we assume that most of the written orders were already delivered in this first quarter? Or is that carrying through to help with the second quarter?

No, they would help us in the second quarter because most were not delivered. We did end up with higher backlogs at retail and wholesale and they will be delivered in the second quarter. But also keep in mind the second quarter will also be impacted in the business we do in October because some of that -- and most of that we would have delivered in the second quarter too. And what we didn't write in the first two weeks of October.as we start moving towards more in the end of October and November, some we will deliver in this quarter, but the rest we will deliver in the following quarter. But the business we did get in the first quarter increased our backlogs and that we will deliver in the first quarter -- will deliver in the second quarter.

Okay, thank you.

Our next question comes from Jeremy Hamblin with Dougherty & Company.

Good morning. So I just wanted to ask about the price increase and the implementation of the shipping charges and see if you guys have had any customer feedback. And one, do they notice the shipping charges that you haven't had in place before. I think it's $75 for the first $2,000 of goods, $129 above that. How is the customer responding to seeing this? Is this something where -- I mean it is competitive with your peers, but it's something new and different for the Company.

You know Jeff, I'll just tell you this. Our designers are sitting here, they are listening to these conversations and I'm sure they are impressed with the kind of questions you all folks are asking because they are really, really relate to our business. And we had 200 of our interior designers here; only one asked [the] question. It's amazing; we had even forgotten the fact that we had implemented it. It had gone very well. And it has been received well, it's gone well. There are certain things we need to do to keep on fine tuning it. But it has not had any -- we have not had issues at retail or implementing it.

Okay. And then I wanted to also ask about your Platinum Rewards program and how you feel about the initial response? Can you give us a sense for the initial sign up -- I think the program started in September -- how the initial sign-up for the program compared to your expectations? And if you could give us a sense for the percentage of customers that signed up for the program, how many of those actually made a purchase?

I'd say overall it was a very major undertaking. We send out this Platinum magazine to over, I think it was 5.3 million households. This was our biggest mailing. But again timing is everything. With this shutdown and everything else it did distract people.

And secondly, I think that because of the fact people expected this to be somewhat of a rewards program in points, not the kind of a rewards program that -- we had a little bit of a confusion I think, which we are now working to take it to the next level. People did sign up. Actually everybody who became a customer signed up, because by signing it up is when they would get the benefit of a lower price.

So it helped us get people signed up. It helped us get them on our email list. So that they are now receiving our email blasts which go almost every day.

So as we move forward, for instance this month in October those folks who are on our Platinum -- who have signed up for the Platinum are getting an extra 5% on if they purchase our accessory products. And now as we move forward in the next quarter our objective is to also take this Platinum program and convert it into a point program where our existing customers will get point rewards, which they can then utilize in the future.

Okay. So it sounds like it -- do you feel like your design associates understand the program? I mean, as we've talked to bunch of centers in the last month or two, it did sound like there is some confusion around the program. And do you feel like there -- is there an additional education that you need to do, a training program for your design associates (multiple speakers)?

Yes. I think, as I said, it was a little bit of mix because of the fact that people expected it to be more of the reward system of points. However, I think our design associates understand it. It was a little bit harder to implement because of the fact they had to do more work to get it implemented in orders. But other than -- they do understand it but it was a little bit more of harder work to implement by our design associates. And as we go forward, I think they are understanding it better and we are also helping them make it, and make it somewhat simpler.

Great. And you talked about New Eclecticism being, and the shift in consumer sentiment to more variety and the ability to mix products, as being the new normal. I'm wondering in terms of your promotional strategies going forward, it seems as if the Company is almost being forced into being more promotional simply because the competitive environment is dictating that. But we see that through things like your Platinum Rewards program I think was 15% off in September and the $50 off a $400 purchase, or every $400 of purchase equates to 12.5% in October. Is this going to be the new normal for the Company going forward that you're going to just be more aggressive in general on promotions?

Well, it's all a relative term. And people say you have to be aggressive, you're talking a 40% , 50%. That's what every, most other folks are offering as discounts. In our case, 10%, 12% is the normal and our objective is to stay in that range.

10% to 12%. Okay. Great. Thanks so much.

All right. Thanks very much.

Our next question comes from Barry Vogel with Barry Vogel and Associates.

I don't want to beat a dead horse and most of my questions have been answered, but I have in front of me -- and it's a good thing that I'm -- I must be on a couple of your mailing lists -- three beautiful brochures. And two of them say, You Belong Here, and the other one has to do with Express, Ethan Allen Express. And the brochures are done very well and consistent in these brochures are all kinds of sales and all kinds of savings. Now, historically, before the Great Recession, you never did this before and of course you found out that world has changed. And so what I'm wondering is in your strategy for promotions the new normal for you that what I'm looking at in front of me is going to continue because that's the fact of life? Or is this just a temporary situation?

Now, Barry, tell me did you receive the October magazine?

No, I didn't.

You'd better get it -- Dave, make sure you send him overnight -- because you're going to be excited. What you're looking at is old stuff. So you should file that, Barry. You're going to get new ones, and you're going to see excitement, and you're going to be more excited than you were 25, 20 years back when we last met.

Not that much back. All right, no I appreciate that. But I don't know which mailing list I'm on but it's very impressive brochures and they are consistently telling the customer that Ethan Allen does have sales prices throughout the year, it just depends. Now the other comment I wanted to make, which has to do with the Eclecticism.

Yes.

My daughter lives not far from here, about half an hour away. And historically she always made fun of the furniture that my wife and I have in our home and of course we have totally different tastes than the young people do. And she finally decided after saving some money to start spending it and she is the new -- the young people, even though she's in her low 40s, and she is not interested in the stuff that my wife and I are interested in. She wants contemporary only. So I think you've got it nailed that the younger people want something really different than you and I thought was proper furniture or design in our house.

But Barry, I am very contemporary. You speak for yourself. (Laughter) But all designers sitting here. You know, Barry, you are absolutely right. I think this attitude of contemporary, that attitude of modern but with a classic perspective, classic meaning, great design, great quality, I think we offer tremendous value. And the good news is that we are now going to reach this whole Gen Xers, and your daughter you mentioned. And that really is going to expand our reach because we are going to offer them a lot of choices which most of these, many of our competitors don't, especially those who are reaching these younger people.

So yes, I just want to tell you my personal experiences because it's been validated by your movement very aggressively into this eclecticism.

Yes.

So thank you very much. Keep up --

All right, Barry, good to hear from you again.

Always a pleasure.

Our next question comes from Kristine Koerber with DISCERN.

Good morning.

Yes, good morning.

Couple of questions. First, can you just provide a little more clarity on the gross margin, how much of the decline was due to clearance versus mix, versus maybe ongoing promotional activity?

When you take a look at the gross margin there are many moving parts. We had -- Dave mentioned those but he can do it or I'll just summarize it. Our gross margin this quarter was impacted first by the clearance. Secondly, it was impacted by doing more business in products that are sold at sale than financed. As you know, when we use our financing, then people have to buy the products at the regular price. And our selling expense on financing goes to our selling expenses rather than gross margin. So that was a second moving part.

And the third one was the facts that our mix of retail to total sale was lower this time then the last. I would just say that more or less, most -- all of those three to some degree contributed more or less equally to the difference in the gross margin.

Okay that's helpful. And then as far as with regard to the advertising campaign and the direct mailers, can you give us some idea of the percentage of mailing that are targeting new customers versus existing? And did you acquire any mailing lists?

This quarter we did not acquire mailing list. We have done that in the past. I would say that at this time when we expand our mailing like in September and October we are now reaching approximately 60 and 40, 60 our core and 40 Gen Xers.

Okay. And are some of them new customers?

They are prospects, yes, actually all --

Okay, they are all prospects?

Other than approximately 700,000, 800,000 of our client base, everybody is a prospect.

Okay, great, thank you.

Our next question comes from [Jennifer David] with Ethan Allen, Inc.

Yes, go ahead, who is this?

If your phone line is muted, could you please unmute the phone line? Maybe they queued up by mistake. Do you want me to move on to the next question?

Yes, please. I think it might be a mistake, yes.

Our next question is a follow up from Cristina Fernandez with Telsey Group.

Yes, Cristina.

Hi I just had a quick follow up. So in September you hired a new Chief Brand Officer, David Moore. Can you just comment on what you expect him to bring to the organization and should we expect a different marketing message once he gets on board? Or should it just be an evolution of the strategy you have currently in place?

Well, Dave is sitting in this conference room and listening so we expect him to work very, very hard and be very, very creative and productive. In fact, this Eclecticism campaign is something that he was supervising. He actually joined us about six months back. We actually had retained the agency that he worked and he is the one that was involved and responsible for supervising this campaign that we have just launched. So he is already working. He has already done a good job and we expect him to continue to work very hard and be very creative and productive.

Okay. Thank you.

And I am not showing any further questions at this time. Would you like me to repeat the instructions again?

No that's fine. Thanks, everybody. And if you have any questions, please give a call to Dave Callen and I'm sure he'll be able to answer any further comments and questions that you might have. So thanks very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a wonderful day.