Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
[Operator Instructions].
Your first question will be from the line of Anthony Zicha of Scotia Capital.
Anthony Zicha - Scotia Capital
Hi, good afternoon, gentlemen. Laurence, could you give us an idea in terms of the retail sales, going forward, on the channel, and what do you expect them to be in terms of proportional?
Laurence G. Sellyn - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Administrative Officer
We already said that we had approximately 1.5 million dozens of retail sales in our budget for 2008, and that over a three year period, not including socks, we were looking at 15 million dozens of retail sales.
Anthony Zicha - Scotia Capital
Okay. And if we look at in the Europe, what was the primary contributor to the improvement, and 20.9% increase in shipments. Was it new customers or was it increased market share? Was there anything unusual?
Laurence G. Sellyn - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Administrative Officer
It’s a combination of allocating more inventory to the market in Europe, introducing new products to the European market, and one of our competitors in Europe, which is a major competitor repositioning itself in the market.
Glenn J. Chamandy - President and Chief Executive Officer
We expect also to have pretty big increases going forward into 2008 because of the fact of we have extensive product expansion in our line going forward into next year as well.
Anthony Zicha - Scotia Capital
Okay. And the last question, with reference to basic materials you mentioned that the energy cost and the inflation is going up. Are you able to increase the prices, like are they expecting the price increases?
Laurence G. Sellyn - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Administrative Officer
While we are seeing our price increase that we had announced in the screen print channel being successfully implemented. That would be related not just to inflationary cost pressures, but also to the very favorable supply demand balance in the industry.
Anthony Zicha - Scotia Capital
And sorry, one last one, with reference to retail initiative, your strategy, have the competitors reacted accordingly of the reacted to your entrance?
Glenn J. Chamandy - President and Chief Executive Officer
I mean, we’re not here to talk about our competitors at this point of time, to be honest with you. I think that we were focused on ourselves and we believe in our strategy. And so far, it has been very successful and we are very encouraged about our opportunities, going forward into retail. And we are continuing to chip away at different types of programs, and this new program we talked about potentially in the underwear will be a significant opportunity for the company’s lever as we go forward. And also with the acquisition of Prewett, it is also giving us a much bigger platform in which to expand our whole retail strategy with an expansion of their sales force which we combine their sales force and our sales force together. So, we are very optimistic about our whole retail strategy.
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