諾德斯特龍百貨 (JWN) 2014 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Hello and welcome to the Nordstrom first-quarter conference call.

At the request of Nordstrom, today's conference call is being recorded.

(Operator Instructions)

I would now like to introduce Rob Campbell, Treasurer and Vice President of Investor Relations for Nordstrom.

You may begin, sir.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us.

Today's earnings call will last 45 minutes and will include about 30 minutes for your questions.

As we get started, I'd like to refer you to the slides showing our Safe Harbor language regarding forward-looking statements.

Participating in today's call are Blake Nordstrom, President of Nordstrom Inc, and Mike Koppel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, who will discuss the Company's first-quarter performance and outlook for FY14.

Joining during the Q&A session will be Pete Nordstrom, President of Merchandising; Erik Nordstrom, President of Stores; and Jamie Nordstrom, President of Direct.

Before we begin, I want to mention that Blake and Mike will be using slides which can be viewed by going to www.Nordstrom.com and the Investor Relations tab.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Blake.

Thank you, Rob and good afternoon, everyone.

Our first-quarter earnings performance was above our expectations.

Comparable sales improved in each month of the quarter, highlighted by the continued outside growth of our online business and accelerating sales trend in the Rack.

This was partly offset by ongoing softness in full-line store sales, consistent with what we've experienced in 2013.

Mike's upcoming comments on this call will provide additional detail on the quarter.

Along with those, we'd like to share a broader perspective of our business including a current example of the progress we're making that's indicative of our strategic direction, and then conclude with a few comments on our announcement regarding our credit receivables.

We continue to focus on the execution of our customer strategy, whether in-store or online, full price or off-price.

At its core, it's about providing a superior customer experience with our investments and efforts directed toward one Nordstrom approach that creates synergies and leverages shared assets and capabilities across all channels.

An example of this is our launch last week of the Nordstrom Rack e-commerce site and the associated mobile app.

We've stated for some time our desire to be wherever our customers want us to be.

Our multiyear expansion of Rack stores, which included 10 openings in the first quarter, is giving us increasing relevance with more customers looking for great fashion at great prices.

Our HauteLook acquisition several years ago, which now has over 17 million members, has enhanced our e-commerce capabilities.

Now we're combining forces to provide a powerful platform for elevating the customer experience in the online off-price segment,

NordstromRack.com builds on the strength of both HauteLook and the Rack.

It involves the integration of talent, combining the e-commerce expertise of HauteLook, which developed the platform for the site, and the merchant expertise of the Rack.

It includes one of the largest merchandise offerings in the online off-price segment that encourages shopping a limited time flash sale event, side by side with a persistent selection of off-price product.

It allows merchandise to be shipped faster than most off-price competitors, enabled by our new fulfillment center shared by Rack and HauteLook.

Finally, it accommodates easy returns through the mail or any Rack location, a capability we added in 2013.

Concurrent with this is the launch of the associated NordstromRack.com app.

Its functionality, which enables a single log-in, shared shopping cart, and streamlined checkout process reflects our strategic focus on mobile enhancing the customer experience that we will continue to build on as we go forward.

As you can imagine, we're excited about NordstromRack.com and its ability to serve customers on their terms.

Leveraging the many assets and capabilities within our Company, in this case things like people, product, technology, stores, and supply chain, to provide a superior, seamless shopping experience is something you'll see more from us in the future.

Again, we're only a week old here and there's a lot of learning in front of us.

We are committed to expanding the merchandise offering as we learn more about what our customers want online, and transitioning over time to a more consistent offering relative to our Rack stores.

We're off to a good start and we'll keep you informed of our progress.

Now I'd like to discuss the announcement in our earnings release related to our credit card receivables.

As we've commented on in the past, our credit program is an extension of our brand and an integral part of the customer experience.

Because of this, it's critically important that we are able to manage all key aspects of this part of our business.

In addition, we have an outstanding team of Nordstrom employees that manage and execute our credit business extremely well.

That said, the credit environment has evolved, such that today we believe we can pursue an arrangement that allows us to maintain and enhance our customer focus while gaining greater financial flexibility through the potential sale of our credit receivables.

We anticipate any partnership to have a minimal impact on existing operations and jobs.

In conclusion, we feel encouraged by the progress we're making.

We're as strong in our conviction as ever about our customer strategy and the investments we're making to support it, and we look forward to continued progress throughout the year.

With that, I'll turn over the call to Mike.

Thanks, Blake.

Before commenting on our first quarter's performance, I'd like to reinforce Blake's comments by emphasizing the importance we place on the subject of relevance and our ability to evolve with our customer.

In today's rapidly changing environment, we are uniquely positioned to serve customers through multiple touch points, whether it's in-store or online, full price or off-price.

This is enabled through ongoing investments in all of our channels, and more importantly, through the synergies across channels.

Through these synergies, we are differentiated in our ability to better serve our existing customers and to attract new customers by creating a seamless shopping experience.

The launch of NordstromRack.com, which is integrated with HauteLook's online and mobile experience, is a great example of this.

We are encouraged with the opportunities ahead to further maximize our customers' experience through the synergies created by our ongoing investments in stores, technology, marketing, and supply chain.

Now, let's turn to our financial performance for the first quarter.

Our earnings per diluted share of $0.72 were above our outlook of $0.60 to $0.70 that we provided at the beginning of the year.

We delivered total sales growth of 6.8% over last year, with comparable sales increase of 3.9%.

We continue to be pleased with our inventory performance, ending the quarter with inventory that is current and on plan.

On a square footage basis, ending inventory growth of 10% over last year, outpaced sales growth of roughly 4%, primarily due to increased pack and hold inventory to fuel Rack's growth, planned increases in well-performing merchandise categories, and the build-up of inventory related to the NordstromRack.com launch.

Gross profit decreased by 124 basis points over last year, in part due to increased competitive markdowns.

In keeping with our long-standing practice of not being undersold on like items, we took additional markdowns in response to the heightened promotional environment.

More than half of the decrease in gross profit was associated with planned growth related to Nordstrom Rack's accelerated expansion and our Nordstrom Rewards program.

We continue to be encouraged with the momentum in our Nordstrom Rewards program, with over 275,000 accounts opened this quarter, an increase of roughly 25% over last year.

On the expense side, we demonstrated consistent execution, driving an improvement of 40 basis points in SG&A rate over last year.

This improvement reflected lower variable costs, in addition to overhead expense leverage on higher sales volume.

Next, I'd like to add some color on our long-term growth strategy.

As we previously shared with you, we plan to invest $3.9 billion in capital over the next five years as we focus on serving more customers through store and online growth.

An important element is our technology investments, which represent $1.2 billion or 30% of our capital plan.

Approximately 40% of our technology capital relates to infrastructure to support our growth plans and to facilitate enterprise-wide synergies.

This encompasses systems to support merchandising, Canada, Rack store growth, and marketing.

Another 40% is planned in support of our online growth, including expansion of our fulfillment network to increase speed of delivery and furthering our customers' mobile and personalization experience.

The remaining 20% is focused on increasing our relevance in stores with enhanced tools for our salespeople, such as our new texting platform, and point of sale solutions.

Over the last several months, we've made meaningful progress in our investments.

Highlights include delivery of the inventory system to support our upcoming entry into Canada.

In addition, our new fulfillment center in San Bernardino is now supporting our integrated off-price, online offer of NordstromRack.com and HauteLook.

Finally, our tools to produce better customer data analytics are providing greater insights into the acquisition and retention of customers, their migration between channels, and their shopping preferences, all of which we are incorporating into our efforts to create a better customer experience.

These investments contribute to us achieving long-term, profitable growth.

Our confidence remains high in our customer strategy, which we believe will generate top quartile shareholder returns through high single-digit sales growth and mid-teens ROIC.

Now I'd like to add to Blake's comments regarding our announcement on our credit card receivables.

Our credit business represents a core component in how we serve customers.

We continue to be pleased with the performance of our credit portfolio, as demonstrated through continued improvement in credit metrics, including delinquency and write-off rates, which are near a five-year low.

Due to a variety of factors, we believe the time is right to explore a potential partnership that could enable us to gain greater financial flexibility, while retaining our control over the customer experience.

As has been the case with others who have gone through this process, we expect the final outcome to take 12 to 18 months to complete.

During this time, we will refine our plan for the use of proceeds, consistent with our capital structure framework and balanced approach to capital allocation.

To assist us, we've retained Goldman Sachs and Guggenheim Securities to serve as financial advisors.

We will provide additional communication once this exploration process is concluded.

I'd like to wrap up by providing a few comments on our 2014 outlook.

We reiterate our earnings per diluted share outlook of $3.75 to $3.90 per share, which incorporates our first-quarter results, including the full-year impact of share repurchases.

Our top-line expectations are unchanged, with total sale growth of 5.5% to 7.5%, and a comparable sales increase of 2% to 4%.

Gross profit rate is expected to decrease 30 to 50 basis points over last year, compared with prior outlook's decrease of 10 to 30 basis points.

This adjustment reflects current performance and assumptions around the promotional environment in the near term.

As always, we look forward to providing updates on our progress throughout this year.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Rob.

Thank you, Mike.

Before taking the first question we want to ask that each person ask one question, and if necessary one follow-up, in order to give as many of you as possible an opportunity to ask a question.

If you have additional questions, please return to the queue.

With that, Elon, we'll take the first question.

Our first question is from Oliver Chen from Citi Research.

This is Prashant Rao in for Oliver Chen.

How you guys doing?

Good, how are you?

Good, good.

I had a couple questions.

First one, on your inventory guidance, if you could talk about going forward how you're thinking about inventory.

And sort of the nature of your current inventory and what you're thinking in terms of the next couple of quarters.

Sure.

Well, in terms of inventory guidance, we don't normally guide specifically as it relates to inventory.

But that being said, we continue to monitor the aging of our inventory very well and balance, improving our turns with the fact that we're funding growth businesses.

So I think you should see similar relationships as we go through the year, and certainly as we start to comp some of the growth, you'll see the inventory line up more closely with sales.

Great.

If I could, I'm curious about the Rack, the 6.4% comp.

I was wondering how much of that was traffic-led?

This is Blake.

We don't measure traffic per se but we've been really pleased with the conversion and the receptance from the customer on the product offering.

And so it is an improvement from the trend over 2013 and we're really encouraged by a number of things that have been focused on by the Rack team and how the customer is responding to it.

So we're hopeful that will continue throughout this year.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Barbara Wyckoff from CLSA.

Hi, everyone.

Good job in a tough environment.

Thank you.

Could you talk about the crossover from -- any crossover from Rack and HauteLook over the past year with the full-line stores?

And then also could you quantify the 17,000 customers, can you give us the last-year number?

Sure.

In terms of the crossover, Jamie, do you want to -- ?

Sure.

Are you asking about crossover between customers who shop in HauteLook and Rack and full-line store?

Yes.

We don't -- I don't think we have numbers that we share on that.

But I think it's safe to say that where we feel that we can create a lot of value and particularly relevant customer experience is when we can do things for customers that create those seamless experiences between those channels.

So an example of that is something we've within doing for a long time where you can buy something on Nordstrom.com, you can return it in one of our full-line stores.

Last year we enabled that with being able to return HauteLook items into our Rack stores.

And we know that when we do that, customers appreciate it because they appreciate the convenience and the speed of making that return easier.

We've got a number of things that we do that break down those seams between those channels, and as we make further progress on that we see more customer migration between them.

Barbara, this is Mike.

On the second part, I think you were referring to the 17 million members at HauteLook.

Right.

17 million, yes.

That number last year was roughly in the 14 million range.

Okay.

Thanks.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Dorothy Lakner from Topeka Capital Markets.

Thanks.

Good afternoon everyone.

Congratulations on the results and also on the Rack.com launch.

Thanks, Dorothy.

Just wondering on the full-line stores, it seems like the comp there was a little bit better.

And I know you've made a lot of progress in terms of the Women's Apparel offering, changes to the Savvy assortment, the Topshop introductions.

And just wondering how you're feeling about that segment of the business.

Obviously, Accessories has been strong kind of everywhere but wondering how you're feeling about Women's Apparel at this point.

This is Pete.

Women's Apparel, it's a story we've been talking about here for the last, gosh, 18 months or so, where we've improved to the point where we've been at par or outpacing the average growth that we're having amongst all divisions.

This last quarter we were right pretty much in line with the average.

So it's gone pretty well.

I think that it's fair to say that the things we try to do to evolve the departments to be more relevant and gain more customers has worked, but that journey's not ended.

We have to keep going.

I think probably the part of that equation when you look at Women's Apparel in totality is we've got to figure out a way of improving the Juniors part of the business.

It's a big business for us and it serves more than just a teenage customer, it serves young women as well.

And I think that we've got to make that better and when we do, I think it will benefit the entire Women's results.

And then just any changes, any update on what you're doing with Topshop, if you're planning on expanding that further.

It's been good for us.

We've learned a lot together.

We've had good growth and it's doing exactly what we hoped it would.

It's bringing in new customers.

It's making the customer we have happy.

It's kind of enabled the entire Women's business to grow.

It's lifted all boats.

So we've got it in 41 stores I believe now.

[Company clarification: Topshop was in 41 stores as of the end of fiscal 2013 and in 52 stores on the day of this conference call.]

And we were just in London recently and talking about how we can continue to expand, be in more stores, and I'm not sure what that ultimate number is.

But we'd like to be able to add more in the fall, say 20 more stores in the fall.

We haven't nailed all those plans down specifically but the spirit of intent align.

We're going to continue to grow that business.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Jennifer Black from Jennifer Black & Associates.

Congrats on a good quarter in a tough environment.

Thanks, Jennifer.

I have two questions.

One's just a follow-up to the question you just answered.

Would you think to shrink the square footage for BP because there seems to be a lot of overlap?

And then I just wondered if you thought you would have BP change for the Anniversary Sale because you talked about that a little bit on the last call.

And then I have one other question.

Okay.

In terms of shrinking square footage, I think the answer is probably no in that regard.

But if you look at what we've done in Women's Apparel in the way we've laid out stores through renovations and new stores, we've created way more flexibility so that we can find the appropriate amount of space to chase the business that's really working for us.

And I think anything that we can do to make that space more flexible, more dynamic is probably going to be a good thing for us.

But I think in terms of being able to serve that customer segment, we need to make that investment in floor space and in inventory I think to do a good job serving that customer segment, which is an important segment for us.

Now, the second part, I don't know if I -- if you can repeat that question, Jennifer.

Okay.

Do you think that you'll have the BP merchandise changed in time for Anniversary Sale?

Well, we'd like to think we've made all the necessary corrections to have it work super well.

The good news about that business is it turns pretty fast and we have the ability to react, and so we're on it.

We have a team that feels like we've addressed issues and we've learned from the shortcomings we've had in the last year or so.

So I think you should expect that business to improve, and it has relatively but we have a ways to go still.

So we're cautiously optimistic there.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Kimberly Greenberger from Morgan Stanley.

Thank you so much.

It looks like you had a nice sort of resurgence in sales here in the first quarter with the $180 million increase year-over-year.

It doesn't seem to be translating into net income growth.

I'm wondering if maybe you could just bucket for us the biggest reasons for that differential.

And then if you look at the year, do you think that we could actually start seeing some net income growth as we get into the back half of the year?

Thanks so much.

Kimberly, this is Mike.

Our performance in the first quarter as it relates to that is very consistent with our plans and what we shared last quarter, in that we are incurring costs to prepare for the launching in Canada.

We have those costs that are not accompanied by any sales right now, so that's putting some pressure on the P&L.

We also have had some significant amount of technology investments from an infrastructure standpoint that are playing out in the P&L.

And we also have a large Rack growth planned this year, and as we bring those leases online we're incurring the lease expense for that before the stores open.

So all those things are very consistent with what we've been talking about.

So nothing has changed materially from our plans and the performance that's reflected this quarter.

In terms of the back half of the year, some of that should normalize just a slight bit as those stores start to open and you start to see the anniversary of that.

But clearly the commitments we've made to grow our business and to invest in the future is what's impacting the P&L this year.

That's really helpful.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Neely Tamminga from Piper Jaffray.

Good afternoon.

My question is around the new Rack app that you guys just launched with HauteLook.

Just first off, I really commend the team for the checkout path.

I would completely agree with your assessment that it's very slick, very much on par with straight-up e-commerce guys out there, so well done.

But Mike, I'm wondering a little bit here on financially as it relates to how these sales are going to roll into the P&L.

Are we going to see some more restatements as to how you guys are going to be reporting the Direct sales with the Rack division, sales going Direct, or will it be its own Rack Direct or HauteLook?

Could you give us some sense of what you're doing?

Thanks Neely.

That's a great question because clearly how the customer looks at it and how the customer experiences it, isn't necessarily always the way it gets reported.

But in this particular case the whole online experience for Rack will be reported under the HauteLook numbers.

All that activity is being supported by the HauteLook technology platform and the controls all exist there.

And so currently that's how we're looking at it.

Great.

Thanks.

Thanks, Neely.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Joan Payson from Barclays.

Good afternoon and congratulations on the solid quarter.

Thank you.

I have a question about Canada and I guess any updated thoughts you have now that you've started developing, maybe what you've learned about the market in terms of how it's differentiated from the US.

And then any updated plans around your operating loss expectations.

I'll take that.

This is Erik.

We're up to our eyeballs right now preparing for our Calgary launch in September.

It's going real well.

It's a lot of work.

There's a lot of business process changes to go through.

And as you know, our strategy has been to open one store at a time and we're even more encouraged about that than ever.

We'll go in with one store and we have the five others planned out.

No doubt, we'll learn a lot.

The nice thing of going with one store is we're going to be able to scramble around and I think make those adjustments very, very quickly to what we learn from the customer.

So your question, have we learned more?

We think we have.

But I hesitate in saying too much about it because we really won't know until we open.

We go in with a lot of humility.

It's not easy to go to another country, and we have to win with the customers.

We're going in with an underdog mentality and we've hired a department manager at this point.

We're very encouraged with the quality of those folks, but they're on a hard track right now to get up to speed.

And the merchandise we're encouraged about.

We've had great reception from our vendor partners.

But again, we're going to go in very humble and see how it works, and I think we're positioned very well to respond quickly and be very nimble.

Joan, this is Mike.

The second part of the question was on the operating loss related to Canada this year.

And I think last quarter we talked about roughly $35 million, and we're on track.

We incurred roughly I guess a quarter of that in the first quarter, so no changes to that.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Edward Yruma from KeyBanc.

Hi, good afternoon, thanks for taking my questions.

I guess first, you guys have managed your credit card business extraordinarily well through the tough parts of the credit cycle.

I guess is there anything strategically that's causing you to rethink keeping those receivables on balance sheet?

Is it a financing environment issue?

And how should we think about the longer term return profile of the business ex-credit?

Sure.

Well, Ed, I'll take that.

This is Mike.

We've been pretty consistent over a long period of time emphasizing how important it is to serve our customers in a brand consistent way with our tender of products.

And we always felt that that was so important, that we were willing to carry that asset and basically earn a return that was noticeably lower than the rest of our business, because we felt there was great synergy there.

But that being said, we've seen a lot of changes in the industry over the last several years and we believe there could be an opportunity for us to monetize those receivables.

And at the same time continue to retain control over the customer experience.

So we finally have reached a point where we're going to explore that, and I'll underscore the word explore, because it's something we don't necessarily have to do.

It's something that we believe if we can successfully execute then it will be a win-win.

And so that's how we're thinking.

In terms of the impact to the return on the business.

If you do the simple math on it it's a multiple hundred basis point impact to return on capital post some execution and deployment of the capital that we would get out of that.

Great.

And a follow-up if I may.

On the promotional environment, I know you've been -- you've always had the mantra that you will not be undersold, and the full-line stores and clearly competitors are using promotions more aggressively.

Is there anything you can do from a merchandising perspective or relationship with vendor perspective to alleviate some of this pressure that you see in the marketplace?

Thanks.

This is Pete.

Yes, the competitive issue has been -- it's been made more dramatic by the fact that the online business has really made things more transparent.

And really better for customers, all the choices are out there.

And so the game's changing a little bit in terms of exactly how we compete.

But we want to stick with this idea that we want to have integrity and transparency with our customers and having the best price on stuff that we sell.

I think information is always helpful in terms of finding a path forward, in terms of when we work with vendors and what have you.

So we're talking to each other about the impacts of what all these competitive decisions mean and how we can grow our business together.

But it's hard to say much really beyond that, other than they have a stake in this as well.

And we have to be dynamic in terms of the way we look at it, make sure that we're making decisions that are in the best interest of the customer.

And that's the path we're on.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Paul Swinand from Morningstar Inc.

Good afternoon and thanks for taking all the questions.

Sure, Paul.

Just wanted to ask a little bit more about the inventory.

I think you alluded to that it was mostly pack and hold and that's in the Rack.

Is that primarily pack and hold from your own goods or is that just extra good deals that you got from vendors and decided you couldn't pass it up?

Paul, this is Mike.

The pack and hold refers to product that we're purchasing directly from vendors.

And yes, it's usually great opportunistic buys that we have that usually come toward the end of the season that we get some significant units at a great value for the following season.

So when you say following season you mean year-over-year.

Year-over-year season, thank you.

And then so eventually will that reverse or do you see that as sort of an ongoing strategy that would have just more inventory in general?

We've seen it grow pretty substantially over the last several years for a couple reasons.

Number one is we've made it a key strategic lever for us to get the best product and best brands.

But the second is with the growth of the Rack.

The Rack is growing at such a pace, we not only have the impact of that core strategy, but we have the impact of a significant growth in the business, which as you can see grew 20% last quarter.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Paul Trussell from Deutsche Bank.

Hi, good afternoon.

Great quarter, guys.

Thank you.

Just starting with the credit card, just to follow up on that.

Is the best way to think about the portfolio, Mike, still kind of make an assumption that 80% of the receivables is backed by debt?

So in a scenario in which you did receive proceeds and have a transaction, you would probably primarily use the proceeds to pay that corresponding debt down?

Well, I think on a more theoretical basis that's how some may view our balance sheet.

In fact, we only have a little over $300 million that's securitized against those receivables.

And as I said in my comments, if this should happen, we will go back and re-evaluate our capital structure.

We've always said we want to be 1.5 to 2.5 adjusted debt to EBITDAR.

We'll go back and look at that and see what makes sense for us if in fact we don't have those receivables on the books.

Understood.

And then just on full-year guidance, the 6.8% sales growth in 1Q was pretty close to the middle of your full-year guidance.

And obviously you're opening up a number of stores as the year goes on, including three full-line stores, one in Canada in 3Q.

I'm just trying to get some color on why the sales view was not adjusted higher?

Perhaps is there anything that we need to keep in mind?

And on a similar front, the gross profit performance obviously in 1Q is well below what you're modeling for the full year.

And just wondering why that dynamic will change so dramatically over the next few quarters on the --

Starting with the sales, first to make sure you know we have clarity, the full-year total sales guidance was 5.5% to 7.5%, and yes, we did reach the high end of that.

One quarter in our mind doesn't give us enough certainty and clarity that that's the trend for the entire year.

So we believe it's prudent at this point in time to stay with our initial sales guidance.

There's not enough material difference between baking that in and what the future could bring to make any adjustment.

So we stuck with that.

In terms of gross profit, clearly the first quarter we felt was pretty significant from a promotional standpoint.

I think there's some that believe there's an element of that that related to a very tough weather pattern that created some excess inventory in the system that was cleared.

We have accounted for some level of promotion going forward but certainly not to the same extent that we experienced in the first quarter.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Lorraine Hutchinson from Bank of America.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Just as a follow-up, the gross margin guidance may be a little bit lighter, you also changed your SG&A guidance and I was just curious as to what's changing on that line item for the year?

Yes, Lorraine, this is Mike.

Well a big part of that was some of the efforts in the first quarter allowed us some pretty good leverage and we see some of that continuing.

The most significant is we made some really good progress in some of our fulfillment efforts, which is a pretty significant variable cost.

And we see those activities somewhat continuing as the year goes on.

But it was mostly about first-quarter performance.

And then just to clarify on the gross margin, do you expect the competitive pressures to abate as the year goes on?

Well as I just stated, we don't believe it's going to be as significant as it was in the first quarter because of the seasonal transition and the tough weather patterns.

But I think frankly it's as good a guess as any as to whether that's going to continue.

Our next question is from Michael Binetti from UBS.

Hey, guys.

Congrats on a nice quarter.

Thank you.

I know we've beat you to death on the gross margin question at this point.

As you think about it, Mike, if you do see the competitive environment getting more promotional, which we are seeing in some of the more mid-tier retailers, what would your preference be to go after the share and the traffic at the expense of gross margins or would you try to protect margins?

I would start with our basic principle and that is we've always said on any like item, we're not going to be undersold.

And that's how we're going to operate.

We've been very consistent.

Our customers expect that from us and that's how we'll move forward.

That being said, we would hope that our product offering is substantially differentiated from some of those mid-tiers that you stated, so hopefully that gives us a little bit more strength in pricing.

Okay.

And then as I guess at a higher level as you think about moving into TheRack.com business.

What kind of things do you think about as far as measuring the incrementality of that business versus the risks that come up when you think about perhaps somebody switching from higher price point item on your full-price Nordstrom sale, a more expensive shirt for the same brand, I can find a less expensive version on Rack?

How do you think about protecting yourself from that?

We've certainly seen retailers who have had less good luck trying to isolate the channels like that.

Well I'll start by saying we're not interested in isolating the channels.

The reason we've invested the way we have is because we want to have a complete offering online, in-store, regular price, and off-pricing.

And we believe that that's going to allow us to engage with more customers.

And we also believe, particularly in the online and off-price segment that it's a great vehicle for us to acquire new customers.

And we find that a lot of those customers do migrate to our regular price offering as time goes on.

And we also have regular price customers that periodically love to shop at the Rack.

As long as we can continue to offer that more robust offering, we believe we're going to create more life-long customers.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Paul Lejeuz with Wells Fargo.

Thanks.

It's Tracy filling in for Paul.

I just had another question on gross margin.

When you mentioned the more aggressive promotions, was that primarily at the full-line stores, or did you find that at the Rack you also needed to be a little more aggressive on pricing?

And then secondly, does Rack.com, does that change your view of the ultimate potential number of stores you could have for the Rack business?

Thanks.

This is Pete.

In terms of the promotional pricing, it was really largely full-line stores, full-price business where we have -- not just stores but online too, but the full-price part of our business where that was an issue.

This is Blake, regarding your question on Rack.com and how it may or may not impact our aspiration for opening new stores.

We think it's a key component of complementing the customer experience for that store growth and that they go hand in hand, just like over the last 10 years with the full-line store customer having a corresponding e-commerce experience.

It's important in off-price online.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Liz Dunn from Macquarie.

Hi.

Let me add my congratulations on a great quarter.

Thanks, Liz.

I guess in looking at your business in the first quarter, I guess it would probably be fair to say that weather impacted you on the top line less than the rest of the retail space, given your geographic concentration.

That's a question although I stated it as a comment.

And if that's the case, did you not see the sort of improvement that other people are talking about in April and May?

Thanks.

Liz, this is Mike.

I guess to the extent that the math as a percent of total would suggest that we have less business in the areas most hit the hardest, I guess that the answer to that would be yes.

Those that were more concentrated in the Northeast corridor, certain areas of the Midwest would probably be hit harder.

But that said, our stores in those regions did experience some very difficult business during that period.

And I'm sorry, the second part.

Our business did get better as the quarter went on.

So the first month was -- February was the toughest month of the quarter for us and last month was the best.

Okay.

Great.

And then just one on the credit if I may.

Is the time period to get this deal done really in part influenced by your desire to just really get the right service agreement in place?

Because it seems like a little bit of a longer time period.

And then what are we to assume that you'll do with the cash?

First part of your question, the answer is yes.

We are going to be very focused on ensuring that we have an agreement that enables us to serve our customers at the highest level.

And the second part in terms of the cash, at this point in time we would evaluate that consistently with the way we've done every other use of capital.

And that is we have a pretty balanced approach to our structure as well as our allocation.

And should this happen and we realize that cash we'll be in a position to talk more about that.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Rob Wilson from Tiburon Research.

Mike, is it fair to say in your gross profit margin guidance that you're expecting a year-over-year improvement by the end of maybe Q3 or Q4?

I don't believe so.

I think when you look at our guidance for the year it's down over last year.

Your guidance says negative 30% to negative 50% but --

You're saying the math on the back half of the year?

Yes.

The math on the back half of the year is -- there's some volatility in there, but it's relatively flat.

What you're seeing is just a mix impact of the back-half quarters being better than the first quarter.

Okay.

If I could ask one follow-up.

Do you have a completely separate infrastructure in Canada?

This is Erik.

No, we have a President of Canada, Karen McKibbin.

We certainly have a dedicated team.

But for the most part we are leveraging our company assets across the organization to support that store.

Thank you.

Our final question today is from Mark Altschwager from Robert Baird.

Thank you and good afternoon.

Could you talk about your inventory strategy with the Rack e-commerce business and how much integration exists between the physical and online offering?

And obviously you're a company that's very focused on the customer experience, but with off-price inventory availability and breadth of sizes can sometimes be a source of customer frustration.

So just want to know how as the lines between flash sale and off-price online merge, how you're thinking about ensuring that positive customer experience?

Jamie, you want to take that one or do you want me to take it?

This is Blake.

I'll take a stab at it.

I think you nailed it.

It's not exactly obvious how to create a great customer experience on that.

I think one thing that we're excited about is the experience that our HauteLook team has in that space over the last five years of serving those customers, working with those brands, managing those inventories.

They've learned a lot.

They've done some pretty innovative things.

You combine that with our Rack team, our Rack merchants who have been running that business pretty darn well for a number of years now.

And have a lot of experience with a lot of the same vendors and how to manage inventories with a lot of units when you don't have a lot of depth.

And you don't have a lot of consolidation of clean sizements or those kinds of things.

So I think a lot of people who have tried this have run into a lot of those challenges over the years.

Again, what we're excited about is you take those two really talented teams, you put them together, and they've come up with what we think is a pretty compelling suite of offerings and experiences for customers in the off-price world that's really differentiated.

And Neely mentioned the app earlier.

We're really proud of what that team's built.

We think it's going to resonate with customers.

So far, so good.

And we're going to learn a lot and it's going to evolve over time, and we think it's going to be a big business for us.

Mark, this is Blake.

To add to Jamie's comments, on the selection I made a brief comment today that we feel compared to what's currently out there with some of our competitors that this is a superior offering.

But we're in early days, and a lot of this inventory is from the HauteLook side of the equation.

And our Rack merchants are now, over time, going to be adding the selection that we have on the Rack side.

So the selection, the amount of SKUs that we have will continue to build.

So we're really encouraged about what that means over the next couple of quarters.

Thank you for joining us today.

As a reminder, a webcast replay of this call along with our slide presentation will be available for one year on the Investor Relations section of Nordstrom.com under webcasts.

In addition, we provided an overview of our performance and growth strategy at the end of our slide presentation.

Thank you for your interest in Nordstrom.

Bye.

Thank you.

And this does conclude today's conference.

You may disconnect at this time.