Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Jeff Blaeser - Morgan Joseph & Co., Inc.
Jeff Blaeser - Morgan Joseph & Co., Inc.
Based on the sales comps and store expectations, is it fair to assume a larger percentage of 3Q new openings versus 4Q?
Edward J. Record
Yes. Although we will open a few stores in November this year, we will open slightly more in the third quarter.
Jeff Blaeser - Morgan Joseph & Co., Inc.
D&A was a little bit higher. Was that the new DC opening? And any projections for the full year?
Edward J. Record
There was clearly the new DC coming on line but also the impairment charges that were booked in Q2 which will not obviously continue in Q3 or Q4.
Jeff Blaeser - Morgan Joseph & Co., Inc.
I believe in August is the Texas tax-free weekend. Would you expect the current environment to boost that weekend up a little bit on a relative basis?
Andrew T. Hall
I think the Texas tax-free weekend is passed us. We can’t really be very explicit about it. I would tell you that sales event is getting a little long in the tooth and I would tell you that the results of that weekend are consistent with the past few years’ results.
Operator
Our next question comes from David Mann - Johnson Rice & Company.
David Mann - Johnson Rice & Company
On the new DC, can you just walk through the ramp up of the DC? How many stores it’s handling now? How that will progress and when would you begin to start perhaps leveraging that or getting some benefits from that?
James R. Scarborough
It opened July 5. It opened with roughly 150 stores and that’s where we expect it to stay throughout the rest of the year. It will cause some headwinds as we talked about in gross margin in Q3 but by Q4 we expect it to be up to the same productivity as the other two DCs.
Andrew T. Hall
And your question about when will we start seeing benefits, we’ve already started seeing benefits. We’re getting the transit time from DC to that northern band of stores has already been reduced by a full day. So the benefits were immediate. There is some ramp up headwind from a SG&A standpoint but we are already getting operational benefits as we speak.
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