School Specialty, Inc. F1Q09 (Qtr End 07/26/08) Earnings Call Transcript

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2008-08-21 13:43:14.0

Tags: School Specialty Inc.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Mark Marostica with Piper Jaffray.

Dave Vander Zanden

Hi Mark.

Mark MarosticaPiper Jaffray

Yes, thank you. Good morning. My first question is related to the order flow that you commented on. I just want to get a sense, with the orders that you have in hand busy season to date, if you compare that to your typical busy season, are you ahead, behind? Just give us a sense of where you feel you are related to a typical busy season at this time. I'm just trying to get a sense of the visibility on the remainder of the busy season.

Tom Slagle

Yes, Mark, this is Tom Slagle. If we look at what we call the open and the booked orders, we see that running ahead of where we were at this point prior year, which is again what builds our outlook, if you will, on to Q2. But as I think we mentioned during the call, we saw some of those orders shifting, some of the shipment dates shifting. So, it is clear to us that we have those in the bucket. It's a matter of now getting them out the door, which we are beginning to do here in August and will through the remainder of Q2.

Mark MarosticaPiper Jaffray

Got it. Moving on to the headwinds on the gross margin, as we look into Q2, would you expect to see a similar gross margin headwind that you saw in Q1? And specifically, do you expect to get any relief in Q2 from being able to adjust furniture pricing or consumables pricing relative to the increase in raw material costs?

Dave Vander Ploeg

Yes, this is Dave Vander Ploeg talking. We have obviously spent a lot of time studying that headwind question to really understand what drove the 160 basis point reduction in gross margins in the first quarter. We do believe with the analysis we have done and the steps that we have taken really in a number of areas that we will begin to see gradual improvement in the gross margin. Certainly won't make up the entire delta by any means, but we will start to see improvement in really each of the subsequent quarters going forward.

Mark MarosticaPiper Jaffray

And then specifically on transportation costs, can you remind us what transportation costs are as a percentage of revenue?

 

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