Key questions and answers from the second quarter earnings call conducted by The Dress Barn Inc. (DBRN: chart) on February 27, 2008.
Gary Giblen (Goldsmith & Harris):
Are accessories and jewelry growing more or less as you’re aiming to or is that recession impacted?
David R. Jaffe: During times when there is a little bit of an economic downturn that those businesses are gaining importance and that is basically the way we are planning it for the spring season. We are focusing on growth in those categories for spring in Dress Barn stores.
Gary Giblen (Goldsmith & Harris):
Is competitive activity rational or are people panicking because of the consumer and doing any unusually crazy promotions?
David R. Jaffe: We saw some craziness during the holidays but for good cause. It was really tough and a lot of us had too much inventory that we just had to clear out. What we are seeing at this point going into spring with everyone having fresh inventories seems to be much more rational, most of the retailers seem to have their inventory issues under control and with the early Easter and with hopefully a little good weather maybe the business will stabilize a little bit.
Janet Kloppenberg (JJK Research):
Do you think that maybe sales are better here because the build to Easter is earlier than it was last year at this time?
David R. Jaffe: No, because we are not yet seeing the build to Easter yet.
Janet Kloppenberg (JJK Research):
Given the tough comparison coming up in March, had you built in any new promotions or marketing events to maybe get you through that with a strong trend?
Lisa Rhodes: Yes, we are up against a strong March. We ran two mailers, one in February and one in March. This year based on the Easter shift we did not run the February one, we are anniversarying it with a BOGO which allows us to make the March mailer about 80% larger than it was a year ago.
Janet Kloppenberg (JJK Research):
Are there any opportunities for rents to look more attractive or locations to be offered to you that you did not think you could previously attain?
David R. Jaffe: Not quite like that, but we are seeing opportunities in two ways. There are a fair number of either closing a lot of stores or going bankrupt and liquidating and so we are seeing that type of fire sale on locations that in some cases are of interest to us.
Christopher Kim (J.P. Morgan Securities, Inc.):
Comment about some costing pressures on sourcing partners?
Keith Fulcher: Yes, we are definitely seeing some upward pressure in prices especially out of China and what our focus has been to make sure that that product is special and there is details on our merchandise.
Shaun Smolarz (Sidoti &Company, LLC):
What are some of the ways that you are controlling costs?
David R. Jaffe: The big variable cost we have is our store payroll. Unfortunately most of our 95% plus of our rents are fixed so once you get past your cost of goods sold, your occupancy expense, the next biggest expense you have is your payroll. We have this new campaign internally we call Faster Better Cheaper trying to come up with new ideas to cut costs.
Shaun Smolarz (Sidoti &Company, LLC):
What do you think has contributed to the business showing some recent improvement?
David R. Jaffe: We were able to transition well, we took our lumps back in December and January so as we came into February the inventories were very good so we were able to bring out spring merchandise.
Shaun Smolarz (Sidoti &Company, LLC):
Does the current expansionary economic fiscal monetary policies give you any more optimism over the short term?
David R. Jaffe: Over the short term, no. Over the long term, even if you look at the rebates that they are promising everybody later this spring, it takes a while for those to filter out and anything done on a national basis.
Erin Moloney (Merriman Curhan Ford):
Any more thought on possibly launching e-commerce business for either of the chains? 
