Welcome to the Bed Bath & Beyond's Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2015 Results Conference Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode for the duration of the call. This conference is being recorded. A rebroadcast of the conference call will be available beginning on Thursday, January 7, 2016 at 6.30 PM Eastern Time through 6.30 PM Eastern Time on Monday, January 11, 2016. To access the rebroadcast, you may dial 888-843-7419 with a passcode ID of 41275600. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the conference over to Janet Barth, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Adrianne, and good afternoon everyone. Joining me on today's call are, Steven Temares, Bed Bath & Beyond's Chief Executive Officer, and Sue Lattmann, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements including statements about or references to our internal models and our long-term objectives. All such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we say during the call today. Please refer to our most recent periodic SEC filings for more detail on these risks and uncertainties. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements as events or circumstances may change after this call Our earnings press release dated January 7, 2016 can be found in the Investor Relations section of our Web-site at www.bedbathandbeyond.com. Here are some key points from the press release. Third quarter net earnings per diluted share were $1.09, in line with the preliminary estimate of $1.07 to $1.10 provided in our December 22 press release. Net sales for the quarter were approximately $3 billion, an increase of about 30 basis points over the prior year or 70 basis points on a constant currency basis. Comparable sales decreased approximately 40 basis points or were relatively flat on a constant currency basis. The Company is modeling fiscal fourth quarter 2015 net earnings per diluted share of approximately $1.72 to $1.86 and is now modeling fiscal 2015 full year net earnings per diluted share of approximately $4.91 to $5.05. I will now turn the call over to Steven for his perspective on our third quarter results. He will also discuss our operational results and the progress we have made on some of our strategic initiatives. Later in the call, Sue will discuss our third quarter financial results in more detail as well as review some of our key modeling assumptions for the remainder of fiscal 2015. She will also provide some preliminary modeling assumptions for fiscal 2016.

Thank you, Janet, and good afternoon everyone. As you see from our press release and consistent with our prior announcement on December 22, our performance in the third quarter reflects the recent retail trends we have been experiencing. As we said, on the one hand we experienced softer in-store transaction counts, and on the other hand sales from our customer facing digital channels demonstrated strong growth in excess of 25%. These mixed results were against the backdrop of the overall softness reported in the macro retail environment during the quarter. During the third quarter, we experienced a low single digit percentage decline in our comparable sales consummated in-stores. At the same time, in our customer facing digital channels, we are pleased that we have seen continued growth in both number of visits to our selling Web-sites as well as in the number of orders placed on both desktop and mobile. In our mobile channels, we set new record highs across all key performance indicators during the third quarter, including traffic, orders, sales, average order value and conversion. Global sales during the quarter increased more than 2.5x compared to the same period last year. These results directionally follow the trend of strong comps in our customer facing digital channels and softer comps in-stores. As consumer shopping preferences continue to shift, we remain focused on providing a seamless customer experience across all of our retail channels so that our customers can interact with us however, wherever and whenever they choose. In our December 22 press release, we anticipated comparable sales through Christmas to increase approximately 1%. Comparable sales from the beginning of the fiscal fourth quarter through Christmas were actually slightly ahead of that plan. Sue will have more to say on our modeling assumptions for the fiscal fourth quarter and full…

Thank you, Steven. I'll begin with a review of our third quarter results and then provide an update on some of our key modeling assumptions for the remainder of fiscal 2015 as well as provide a few modeling assumptions for fiscal 2016. Net sales for the third quarter were approximately $3 billion, about 30 basis points higher than net sales in the prior year period or approximately 70 basis points higher on a constant currency basis. Comparable sales for the third quarter decreased approximately 40 basis points or were relatively flat on a constant currency basis, reflecting an increase in the average transaction amount and a decrease in the number of transactions. As Steven said, sales from our customer facing digital channels demonstrated strong growth in excess of 25%, while our comparable sales through stores declined in the low single-digit percentage range. Gross profit for the third quarter was approximately 37.8% of net sales, compared to approximately 38.4% of net sales in the corresponding period a year ago. Gross profit as a percentage of net sales decreased primarily due to an increase in inventory acquisition costs. Also contributing to the decrease as a percentage of net sales was an increase in coupon expense, resulting from a slight increase in the number of redemptions and a slight increase in the average coupon amount. Selling, general and administrative expenses for the third quarter were approximately 27.9% of net sales as compared to 26.4% of net sales in the prior year period. Of the increase in SG&A as a percentage of net sales, approximately 45 basis points was attributable to a nonrecurring benefit relating to credit card litigation settlement in the third quarter of 2014, which was not anniversaried this quarter. This nonrecurring prior year benefit was approximately $0.05 per diluted share based…

Thank you, Sue. As we said before, the retail environment continues to evolve. We are driving change through significant investments in our business, across our organization, including our Web-sites and apps. While these investments currently place pressure on our operating profit, we believe this is an opportune time for our Company as we continue to position Bed Bath & Beyond for long-term success. As we begin the New Year, I would like to thank our more than 60,000 dedicated associates for all their efforts. Through their passion to succeed and satisfy our customers and through the differentiated products, services and solutions we provide, we will continue to do more for and with our customers wherever, whenever and however they wish to interact with us, and further our efforts to become the destination for our customers' needs and wants as they express their life's interests and travel through their life stages. Thank you for listening in today. We wish you all a very healthy and happy new year. Sue, Janet and Ken Frankel will be here tonight to answer any of your questions. Thank you. [No Q&A session for this event]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.