Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Robert Ohmes with Bank of America.
Robby Ohmes – Bank of America
I’m actually surprised the ASPs were still up just given the way Labor Day shift and late back to school worked for you guys. Can you comment on how you feel about ASPs heading into the back half of this year, and then I think you guys might be doing some work on spring ’10. Do you see a change in the way your business will drive the ASP versus unit volumes as you re doing those plans, and then also if you could comment on it, and I might have missed it, the plus 7% comps you’re doing? Obviously the Labor Day shift probably helped with that. Are you still benefiting from a late back to school now or have you seen following this past weekend here, have the business trends really dropped back of, maybe not as negative as they have been, maybe not as strong as plus 7?
Glenn Lyon
Let me start with the ASPs. We expect ASPs to remain flat or slightly up for the remainder of the year. That’s driven by a few different things. Of course the quality of the assortment but also based on the mix. As we put more and more impetus on the performance categories and our mix as I said, the average selling price of that product is higher, but we also benefit from well managed inventory and better margins, so things trade up. We have not engaged in all store sales and promotions. We take our markdowns on the poor selling products, and we try and get full retail on the best selling items. Robby, our focus continues to be to get more of the good stuff and more of the right stuff, and we’ll continue to do that right through this year. I hope that helps you on the ASPs.
Ed Wilhelm
In terms of the September month to date comps, clearly driven by a later Labor Day and the calendar shifts resulting for later back to school, we benefited the second week in particular which had the benefit of the Labor Day. It’s only a couple of weeks. If you look at August and September on a combined basis, we’re down about 1.7%, so as we said while plus seven is encouraging, we remain cautious on the consumer going forward, and we’re going to manage our business accordingly.
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