Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Christopher Svezia - Susquehanna Financial Group.
Christopher Svezia - Susquehanna Financial Group
When you step back and just looking at your guidance for a second, and you're looking at that fourth quarter, particularly on the Wholesale side, I was wondering would you add some color about why you feel as comfortable as you do about that business rebounding into maybe a mid-teen ranges. The comparison is pretty favorable. Is that primarily the driver or is there a readjustment, or do you see something in backlog trends or something along the line to give you that comfort level that's going to show that level of rebound in the business on the Wholesale side?
Diane Sullivan
Again, as I said, while the visibility is not perfect, as we look at a number of the brands in our portfolio, we do see some momentum building. So for example, if we think about our businesses with Sam Edelman and Via Spega and Vera Wang, you know, there are some new businesses there that are being launched that we didn't have really in the fourth quarter of last year, as well as we see momentum building on those key brands.
In addition to that, our core businesses of Naturalizer and Dr. Scholl's, as we look to the fourth quarter and we see some things happening as we turn, shift into 2010, we see some opportunities for wins there as well.
And then, along with celebrity brands, between Carlos and Fergie, which is again, really a new launch and some momentum, we think that there is opportunity. We feel like we kind of dealt ourself to win but clearly the consumer has to show up for us to really take advantage of all of that.
Mark E. Hood
I think the only thing I would add to that is we had a very significant decline, 25%, in Q4 last year, which was impacted negatively by the ice storm on our January shipments, so I think some of those factors of the new brands and momentum brands that Diane talked about, along with the comparison, give us confidence for those numbers in the fourth quarter.
Christopher Svezia - Susquehanna Financial Group
Are your retail partners willing to take in, kind of be accepting of more inventory, now that they've kind of lowered the decks and kind of gotten to a kind of more sustainable level in terms of the inventory levels they want to have? Are they being more receptive to taking in that product?
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