Sabrina Simmons Quarter Quotations

In February, traffic worsened versus fourth quarter trends, which caused lower unit sales velocity. This led to significantly lower merchandise margins. Looking ahead, we are focused on driving traffic with improved product and new marketing campaigns that begin this week.

Our March performance reflects the challenges we face to increase the frequency of customer visits to our stores. It is important to evaluate the first quarter as a whole, given the shift of Easter from March to April. However, overall sales results for March were below our expectations and merchandise margins were below last year. Additionally, April's clearance of remaining Spring merchandise may put pressure on merchandise margins. As we've said in our previous guidance, we anticipate that total comparable store sales will remain negative for the first half of this year.