Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we will be opening up the call for the question and answer session. (Operator Instructions) In order to allow time for everyone’s inquiries to be answered, please limit your questions to one. If time allows, we will re-open the calls to follow up questions. Thank you. Your first question comes from Neely Tamminga of Piper Jaffray.
Neely Tamminga – Piper Jaffray
Great. Good morning. Question for Phil on Jill. Do you think the weakness over the last weekend had something to do with changing the promotional cadence that the J. Jill customer is certainly used to? I think it’s usually a $20-off promotion, not 25% off. I’m just wondering, kind of, what was your thought process about why you changed it? What are you worrying about the J. Jill customer? Do you think it was a mistake? Kind of, you know, a little bit of your insight as to your transition here on J. Jill and just wondering why that culminated to a pretty significant change in their promotional cadence.
Philip H. Kowalczyk
Thanks for the question. It’s a very refined observation. The difference between $20 off sweaters versus 25% off was a very intentional strategy. It was also combined with a free cammie with a purchase of over $50. The concept behind the strategy was two-fold. One, many of our sweater offers includes some pricing, a full range of pricing, from opening all the way to the upper end. And if you offer just a dollar off promotion, the value of that decreases as you’re buying a more expensive sweater. So we wanted to be a little more democratic in the offer and provide 25% off whatever sweater you choose, whether it be at the high end or the low end.
The free cammie was a strategy which was two-fold. One, it’s probably one of the best cammies in the market place and the more guests, particularly over Thanksgiving where we would have more occasional J. Jill shoppers, we want to have them in the cammie because we think that’s a real loyalty driver.
Your follow up question was do we think it was a mistake. Well, if you look at the market place and look at everybody else who was promoting sweaters, I think the only mistake is if we’re offering 25% off and the rest of the market is at 30% to 70% off sweaters, yeah, I’d probably have that one back. But the idea going to the percent from the dollar, no, I’m perfectly happy with that and our guests was as well.
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