Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) The first question comes from the line of Jeff Blaeser - Morgan Joseph & Co., Inc.
Jeff Blaeser - Morgan Joseph & Co., Inc.
A quick question on the G&A line in terms of the variability of it. If we were to see an uptick in sales next year or the year after, what kind of trends would we expect to see in the SG&A line or do you expect that to remain relatively steady in dollars?
Richard Cote
Our focus is obviously with the initiatives that we took last year and at the end of last year as well to really reset our business and clearly SG&A is an important part of that. We certainly would expect that marketing expenses would continue to be variable as a percent of sales but again this year we are looking at about a 13.5% spending and that is probably a good level going forward. The changes we have made we do expect to be permanent and then obviously we would look at the changes taking place which are more customary with inflationary increase to see salary increases and those types of things. We are not looking at rebuilding back to where we were. This is a new platform for us going forward.
Jeff Blaeser - Morgan Joseph & Co., Inc.
On the inventory side, do you expect to be able to sell that through? Any other liquidation expected going forward or is it kind of a work in progress depending upon the environment?
Richard Cote
I think it is going to be all of those. Clearly the key factor is as sales pick up in the second half of the year we would expect that would obviously come out of our existing inventory both from a standpoint of what we have and what we have built. We do expect to see a sizeable improvement in the second half of the year to the extent of excess liquidation sales to the extent we are able to do some of those that makes some sense. That is going to be minor. Again we would disclose that as that takes place.
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Jennifer Bennett – JMP Securities.
Jennifer Bennett – JMP Securities
Could you offer a little bit more color around the trends you are seeing with regard to retailer orders for the holiday season? Could you talk about those trends by market, the U.S. and internationally? You mentioned early on that you are seeing more weakness in Europe and I was just curious what your outlook for that is.
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