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Carter's, Inc. (CRI)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 26, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to Carter's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2014 Earnings Conference Call. On the call today are Michael Casey, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Richard Westenberger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Brian Lynch, President; and Sean McHugh, Vice President and Treasurer. [Operator Instructions] Carter's issued its fourth quarter and fiscal 2014 earnings press release earlier this morning. A copy of the release and presentation materials for today's call have been posted on the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.carters.com. Before we begin, let me remind you that statements made on this conference call and in the company's presentation materials about the company's outlook, plans and future performance are forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected. For a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to vary from those contained in the forward-looking statements, please refer to the company's most recent outlook -- I'm sorry, most recent quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Also, on this call, the company will reference various non-GAAP financial measurements. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measurements to the GAAP financial measurements is provided in the company's earnings release and presentation materials. Also, today's call is being recorded. And now I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Casey.

Michael D. Casey

Management

Thanks very much. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us on the call. Before we walk you through the presentation on our website, I'd like to share some thoughts on our business with you. Earlier today, we reported a record level of sales and earnings for the fourth quarter and the year. This was our 26th consecutive year of sales growth, a significant year of progress for our company. In 2014, we opened over 100 beautiful new stores in North America. We strengthened the presentation of our brands across all channels of distribution. We launched new e-commerce capabilities in Canada, completed the buildout of our multichannel distribution center in Georgia, and negotiated more favorable product costs for 2015. Despite the highly promotional retail market, we improved price realization. We leveraged SG&A and improved our operating margin. In 2014, we continued to gain market share, strengthening our position as the leader in young children's apparel. We invested in new systems to enable our growth plans, and we distributed over $120 million in excess capital to shareholders for a total distribution of over $600 million in the past 2 years through share repurchases and dividends. All in all, it was a very good year for our company. We expect 2015 will be another good year for us. We are planning good growth in sales and profitability this year, including margin expansion. As a reminder, we are focused on 3 key strategic priorities for our business. The first is to provide the best value and experience in young children's apparel. The second is to extend the reach of our brands, and the third is to improve profitability. We believe we've strengthened our market position by focusing on the things that matter most to consumers. More so than the previous generation, millennial moms say…

Richard F. Westenberger

Management

Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone. I'll review our fourth quarter and full year 2014 results, followed by our outlook for 2015, including our projections for the first quarter. Note that my remarks in our presentation materials, which have been posted to our website, present our business results on an as-adjusted basis, which we believe provides a meaningful comparison of the company's results. Full reconciliations of our GAAP to adjusted results are provided in the appendix of today's presentations. It's important to note that our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014 contained an extra week compared to 2013. This happens every 5 or 6 years, depending on the company's fiscal calendar. This 53rd week contributed approximately $44 million in net sales, largely consistent with our plan coming into the year. Additional information on the contribution of the 53rd week by business segment is included in today's press release. I'll begin on Page 2 with some fourth quarter highlights. As Mike mentioned, our fourth quarter performance delivered record sales and earnings. Consolidated net sales increased 13%. We delivered growth in all business segments, with higher revenues across our U.S. wholesale and retail businesses, and growth in international net sales. Our top line was slightly stronger than our prior internal forecast due principally to stronger replenishment demand in Carter's wholesale. On a comparable 13-week basis, consolidated fourth quarter net sales grew 7% versus the prior year. Adjusted operating income grew 24% despite a challenging retail environment and foreign exchange headwinds. The growth in our business, and our ongoing focus on expense management enabled us to expand operating margin by 110 basis points over the prior year. Adjusted earnings per share grew 30% to $1.32 compared to $1.02 in the fourth quarter of 2013. Moving to the detail of our sales performance in…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And for our first question, we go to Susan Anderson with FBR Capital Markets. Andrew Schmidt - FBR Capital Markets & Co., Research Division: This is Andy Schmidt, on for Susan. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the price and cost relationship in the fourth quarter. Was it in line with your expectations? And then also in 2015, it seems like the Braselton facility leverage should provide some meaningful benefit to results. I'm wondering if you could talk about that as well

Michael D. Casey

Management

Sure. The pricing was a bit better in the fourth quarter relative to last year. I would say it was a bit short of what we had hoped for. If you recall, the last earnings call, we were a bit behind our plan in October. Thankfully, business picked up in November and December, but what we didn't sell in October, we had to promote in November and December. So I'd say the pricing was a bit lower than what we had hoped for. And with respect to Braselton, Braselton pickup. They did a fabulous job over the holiday shopping season. We had a ramp-up from some portion of about 50,000 e-commerce units a day to well over 300,000 units a day, and they did that for about a week. So where we stumbled a bit in the third quarter with the transition to new systems. With a more experienced workforce and working out some of the issues with the system, the fourth quarter performance was much, much better. We delevered in the third quarter. We leveraged expenses in the fourth quarter, and the outlook for 2015 is good. So that's been a good investment for us, and we're seeing a good return on that investment.

Operator

Operator

And for our next question, we go to Taposh Bari with Goldman Sachs.

Taposh Bari - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Mike, I wanted to ask about the side-by-side investments that you're making. Some nice performance out of the OshKosh stores that are side by side. I was hoping you can provide some context on how the Carter's side-by-sides are doing? And then it looks like you're going to accelerate the store pace of the OshKosh stores in aggregate, given the side-by-side investment, just trying to get a better handle on your thinking behind that decision.

Michael D. Casey

Management

Sure. So the stores are working in line with our expectations. I think it's fair to say there's a bit of cannibalization on the Carter's store. We would say it's minimal though. Typically, the traffic is coming to the Carter's side of the store. It's -- our brand is top of mind for new moms. We're told that about 80% of new moms shop with Carter's. And as they come in to the story, they get an unexpected surprise to see OshKosh attached to it. So OshKosh is benefiting from the traffic coming into the Carter's store, but as the consumers' shopping, she's filling the basket with both brands now. So I'd say the trade-off is well worth it. We're picking up some portion of about $800,000 in annual sales from the OshKosh side of the store. We might be giving up some portion of about, maybe, 5% or about $60,000 on the Carter's side. So the returns on both sides of the house are very good, and we have finally figured out a way to develop a very profitable OshKosh store model, which enables us to open more stores. And that's going to be the growth for the OshKosh brand going forward, these retail stores and the benefit that we'll get from e-commerce as well. So it's been a great model, and it's got good growth ahead of it.

Taposh Bari - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Great. And I wanted to follow up on just your thinking about 2015. I get that it's going to be back-half-weighted, but it sounds like there are a lot of factors occurring, especially in the first half, given the port challenges. So Richard, maybe help us understand how you're thinking about gross margins directionally for the year. SG&A, are you planning on getting leverage? I think I heard you mention that you're expecting continued leverage on the DC. Some more context on those lines would be great.

Richard F. Westenberger

Management

Sure. Well, as we said in our remarks, the plan is weighted towards the second half. We are expecting product costs to be down in the second half of the year. So that's more of a disproportionate drive benefit in the second 6 months of the year versus the first. We are planning for gross margin expansion. We had planned that for the first half as well, but more modestly than in the second half. That maybe a little bit more under pressure now with the port delays, but our forecasts do show some improvement in gross margin in the first half. SG&A, at the moment, right now we're planning for the full year to be up in the high single-digit range. We're not planning for leverage. The deleverage that we're planning for it largely, a result of the continued growth of the higher cost structure direct-to-consumer businesses, and we're also investing in the business. So there's a handful of things that are continuing to push up our SG&A. We think they're absolutely the right decisions and investments to make in supporting the long term growth profile of the business. Depreciation is running a little higher. That's largely the effect of having expanded the store base, as well as some technology investments over the last couple of years. In the current year, we're going to spend a bit more on marketing to drive, we hope, a little bit more traffic to the stores -- store traffic has been an ongoing issue, not just for us, but for the industry. So we are going to spend a bit more to encourage the consumer to come visit us. And then we're spending on several fairly significant technology projects, which we think are the right thing to do for the business long term. We're improving our systems in Canada. We are spending on a broad array of technology initiatives in retail, which are intended to improve our omni-channel capabilities, and then we're embarking on a project to replace our core financial system. So on balance, we're expecting SG&A will be up in the high single-digit range. All of that will translate, we hope, if we deliver our plans to good solid expansion in our bottom line operating margin for the year and growth in EPS as well.

Taposh Bari - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Okay. Can I just squeeze one more in? If you can quantify, I know you gave us revenue impact from the extra week and FX for '14, but off of current rates, if we're to assume the current rates held steady, can you give us a sense of what that could mean for EPS in '15 and if you can -- if possible, can you help quantify what the EPS impact was from the extra week? And I'll stop there.

Richard F. Westenberger

Management

Sure. The 53rd week was worth $0.05 or $0.06 on the bottom line, around $44 million in net sales contribution. FX for 2015, we've estimated that it's going to impact sales negatively by about $20 million, and it's probably the better part of $0.20 per share on the bottom line.

Operator

Operator

And we go next to Stephanie Wissink with Piper Jaffray.

Stephanie Schiller Wissink - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division

Analyst

I just wanted to follow up, guys, on the unit growth guidance over the next 5 years, just to make sure that we're modeling this correctly. So when you open a side-by-side unit, that is actually considered 2 stores, one for Carter's and one for OshKosh, is that correct?

Michael D. Casey

Management

That's correct.

Stephanie Schiller Wissink - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And then just with respect to Topash's earlier question on the economics or the 4-wall unit performance of those side-by-sides, can you just help us think about modeling those going forward? How should we think about the revenue -- total revenue contribution? It sounds like up about $700-and-some thousand, net, but also, how do we think about the margin structure of that combined unit?

Michael D. Casey

Management

Well, I'd say, the economics for the Carter's boxes is typical to a standalone Carter's brand store. We would pro forma that to do around $1.2 million on the top line. With a 4-wall operating margin in the low-20 -- low- to mid-20% range, the OshKosh side-by-side box is a little smaller in terms of square footage, so the top line is not quite as robust as you mentioned. It's around $700,000 on the top line, driving a mid- to upper-teens operating margin on a 4-wall basis.

Stephanie Schiller Wissink - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division

Analyst

Okay, that's super helpful. And then just the last question on units versus price, it was interesting to see that your units are expanding. I'm just curious if you can give us some insight into the strategy to maybe expand the investments into separates versus the single-unit packs that you've been selling in the past on the infant side, in particular. But is that a strategy really to expand the separates business, and you're seeing the benefit of that in units?

Michael D. Casey

Management

Stephanie, I would say that the strongest business we have is actually multi-piece sets, and we continue to see that that's the -- millennial moms are busy. They want to make sure that things match up. We want to make it easy for them. So our strongest business is, actually, continues to be multi-piece sets, not only in baby, but in playwear. Our biggest business is when we're able to put that together, beautifully design it, so that she sees the way that the top complements the bottom, and of course, it's a heck of a lot easier for the dad to dress the kid too when we do that. So that's a significant part of the growth. We do have a good business in separates and playwear. There's an opening price business. There's a t-shirt business, obviously, that we have. I would say that our multi-piece garments, multi-piece sets and multi-piece items are the strongest growth as we go forward.

Operator

Operator

Our and next question, we go to Rick Patel from Stephens.

Rakesh Babarbhai Patel - Stephens Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Can you talk about just some color on the current trends? You're 2 months into the quarter now. Given where the guidance is, I guess, where's the negative surprise really been for the first quarter? Is it more of a mall traffic issue? Is it promotional pressure, and do you see this across both Carter's and OshKosh or is it one versus the other? Just some help there.

Michael D. Casey

Management

Sure. So I would tell you, I would say, January, our performance was particularly good. Sales were up over 10% for the total company. First couple of weeks of February were actually particularly good. We got clobbered over Presidents' Day weekend. That's when a lot of the storms hit, and so what we picked up in January, we may give back in February. The important thing for you to know is, probably, less than 7% of our profits come in January and February. The big month is March. March, probably, it's by far the largest month in the first 7 months of the year. So in April, we'll have a better view on business generally, and our concern on -- with these West Coast port delays, we were told earlier this week that about 80% of the product that we expected to have on March 1 for the Easter shopping season will be late. 80% will be there, 20% will be late. It could be as late as -- by as much as 3 weeks, and the Easter dresses sell better before Easter than after Easter. So we're keeping an eye on that. We're doing our best to get product in, and make sure that we've got beautiful assortment for our customers, but that's something we're keeping an eye on. But the big part of the quarter is still ahead of us.

Rakesh Babarbhai Patel - Stephens Inc., Research Division

Analyst

And just digging into that, the issue with the port challenges, is it limited to dresses [ph] or is it going to impact -- is it going to have an impact across the whole assortment or is it concentrated towards certain lines?

Michael D. Casey

Management

No, it's across -- it's our spring product offerings. So we had about 60% of our spring product offering coming through the West Coast. And starting last year when we anticipated an issue with the -- at the threat of the port strike, we started routing goods through the East Coast, about 40% of spring product is coming through the East Coast. So not all of spring is affected, but more than half is.

Rakesh Babarbhai Patel - Stephens Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Great. And just one more, if I may. On the wholesale side of the business, I think you were negatively impacted by a key customer pulling back in 2014. Do you expect that headwind to continue in the spring season or has that customer resumed their purchases? Just some help there.

Michael D. Casey

Management

Rick, I would say that we're back on track overall. We feel good about the growth in wholesale. We've got that business over a 2-year period, a 2-year CAGR for that business. We're going to grow that about 3% a year. And just checking through all of our customers, we've got 8 of the 10 customers showing good growth over that time period with an average growth of 3% or more. So there's always going to be some puts and takes with the help of customers, management changes, what have you, but I would say that we're back on track, and we're looking for growth with the customer that we spoke of some time ago.

Operator

Operator

We go next to Robert Ohmes with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Daniel O'Hare - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst

This is Dan O'Hare, on for Robbie Ohmes. So quick question about the international partner stores. Just wanted to get your take on what the strategy is longer term. How many partner doors do you think or stores do you think the Carter's brand has the opportunity for longer term, and then are there any regions or partners to call out as high performers?

Michael D. Casey

Management

Thanks for the question. I would say the bigger part of our international business is going to be driven by Canada near term, and hopefully, China long-term. The partners businesses that we described, we've probably got well over 20 partners in some portion of 60 countries. So we do a little bit of business with a lot of people, and they're very good business partners. These are retailers doing a great job, representing our brands throughout the world. And I would say that's got a good growth profile, but that, I would say, is the smaller part of our international business. The big dollars are going to be driven by the multichannel business up in Canada, a lot of growth there, and the next big opportunity is in China. So we're hopeful, by the end of this year, our Carter's brand is selling on Tmall, and we'll share more with you as that business launches this year, but we're excited about Canada. We're excited about China. Other parts of the world we're looking at are Mexico and Brazil to do something more meaningful on, at least, a wholesale basis, if not, a wholesale e-commerce and, potentially, retail basis.

Daniel O'Hare - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst

Got it. And then just one more, if I may. So looks like you're seeing solid performance with OshKosh at retail, pairing it with the Carter's brand, and I just wanted to know if there's any differences between what you're seeing at retail and in wholesale when like -- when you pair the brands together.

Michael D. Casey

Management

Dan, I would say, OshKosh wholesale, we got good results in the fourth quarter, and the accounts have been supportive of us overall, but we focused our efforts in direct-to-consumer. Candidly, we really wanted to strengthen that business, work on the product value, and the styling and making sure we're convenient for moms. So we put our energy into making sure that we have everything right in the direct-to-consumer business. And I think as we continue to strengthen that, we intend that that's going to help the business in our wholesale channel. But the accounts have been supportive, thus far. We having a choice, they put their dollars in the Carter's playwear because it was the better bet for them based on our performance. But our spring bookings are comparable to last year, fall is down a little bit. We're still booking in process there, but we're implementing some of the successes we've had in our retail stores. The good success is our World's Best Overall bars, which are performing well, Baby B'gosh, which we've had wonderful results with the launch of that product over the last year. So that will be infiltrating into the wholesale channel as we go forward, and we're exploring strategies on how we can leverage the successes we're having at direct-to-consumer, and bring those successes to our wholesale customers.

Operator

Operator

Our next question, we go to Kate McShane with Citi Research.

Kate McShane - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Analyst

If I could just wrap up the questions on February trends. Obviously, the weather has been very adverse, but just wondering if you've seen an increase in your online activity because of weather?

Michael D. Casey

Management

Good question. Actually, over the past year, we got -- we had winter -- bad winter storms last year as well, and we found it interesting when mom and dad are home, and it's snowing outside, they're less -- they're not anymore interested in buying spring product than they would be if they were going out to the store. So you don't see a correlation. When people are stuck home, they're -- and the winter's, the weather is bad. The -- we don't see us pick up online. I think what we saw last October, and what we're seeing, I think, at least in February, the consumer with the weather is just not inclined to shop for spring product in a big way, and so that's why we're hopeful that we see much better performance in March.

Kate McShane - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Analyst

Okay, that's helpful. And thank you for all the detail on 2015 guidance. I was wondering if I could just drill down on SG&A a little bit more in terms of the bucket of spend. Where are we seeing the biggest increase in your different buckets within SG&A and with marketing going up, are we seeing a meaningful increase of marketing as a percentage of sales?

Richard F. Westenberger

Management

I'd say the biggest buckets of increased spend continue to be just the absolute growth of our direct-to-consumer businesses, so opening what will turn out to be another 100 stores or so in North America. The continued growth of e-commerce, those drive a tremendous amount of operational expenses. Those are the single biggest buckets. From there, it's, Kate, probably the items that I mentioned; it's depreciation, it's spending on technology. We are continuing to invest in international, so you have the full-year effect of having staffed up that team, as well as some of the start-up costs from trying to develop the Chinese market. I'd say, the investment in marketing is relatively modest actually. We're going to test some things, and if we see good results, then we'll potentially think about investing more in marketing, but it's a fairly modest uptick in our marketing spend. I'd say, relatively consistent as a percentage of sales, might be up slightly year-over-year.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Tom Nikic from Sterne Agee. Tom Nikic - Sterne Agee & Leach Inc., Research Division: I was wondering if the 10% to 14% EPS growth that you're projecting for the year includes any benefit from share buyback and also just, generally, how should we think about the share buyback as a percentage of free cash flow or anything like that.

Richard F. Westenberger

Management

Well, Tom, the framework that we've laid out a couple of years ago that we've been following has been to deploy at least 50% of our free cash flow through return of capital initiatives. And that includes the dividend, the quarterly dividend that we pay, and then the balance to share repurchase. So I won't be precise around our assumptions for share repurchase. The guidance does imply a certain amount of share repurchase, and we intend to be active in deploying some of our excess capital towards share buyback this year. Tom Nikic - Sterne Agee & Leach Inc., Research Division: All right, great. And I was also wondering about pricing for this year. With product costs coming down in the back half of the year, I'm wondering if you're sort of less inclined to take pricing this year or if you are hoping that you can still push through pricing and sort of capture the cost savings in the back half of the year as well?

Michael D. Casey

Management

Tom, there's a couple of things. In the first half of the year, we're expecting prices to be up modestly, low single digits. A lot of that's a result of the item pricing that we implemented for fall, and those roll over into spring on a lot of the key items that are sold year-round in the Carter's business. So we would expect that we'd have some pricing for spring already happening, and we've sold that product to the wholesalers. So that will occur, I would say, low single digits. In terms of fall, I would say pricing strategy, probably comparable to last year from a strategic perspective, so costs are down. Pricing strategy would be similar overall. We always look to have AUR gains on how we operate our business, but in terms of raising prices on items, particularly, that's not the case for fall. We'd say, by and large, comparable to last fall.

Operator

Operator

And we go next to Steve Marotta with CL King & Associates. Steven Louis Marotta - CL King & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Just to try to put a finer point on the cost-price relationship you mentioned, the lower costs in the second half. Could you talk a little bit about that mid single digit, high single digit?

Michael D. Casey

Management

Cost reduction?

Richard F. Westenberger

Management

Product cost down modestly in the second half, Steve. I don't know that we want to be much more precise than that. Steven Louis Marotta - CL King & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Okay. And the other question I have pertains to CapEx, roughly $130 million is slated for fiscal '15. Could you break it out, please, between stores, IT, and any other large items?

Richard F. Westenberger

Management

Yes, the big buckets of the $130 million would be $60 million-or-so relates to new stores or remodels in the U.S. and in Canada, probably close to $50 million of technology that would include the retail IT initiatives, what we're doing with Canada, what we're doing with financial systems. And then kind of all other which would be supply chain distribution. Kind of everything else was around $20 million. Steven Louis Marotta - CL King & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Great. One last question. When do you plan on the new DC to run at peak efficiency? I know the fourth quarter was better than the third. Are you there now or do you think additional efficiencies will be hit in the second or third quarter of this year?

Michael D. Casey

Management

I think it's an ongoing process. We're expecting better leverage in the second half than the first half.

Operator

Operator

And we go next to Anna Andreeva with Oppenheimer. Janet Lynne Knopf - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: This is Janet Lynne, on for Anna. I just had a quick question on -- a follow-up on AUR if you could tell me how AUR performed in the fourth quarter. And then a question on international related to the exit of Target Canada. With Walmart taking over some of those stores, is there an opportunity to make up some of the lost revenues or are you expecting to see an increase in your own retail stores? Just some color there.

Michael D. Casey

Management

Good Janet, 2 questions. Q4, AUR was up low single digits. In terms of Canada, Target Canada, we'd worked hard on that initiative to support them the last 2 years. We did about $10 million of business up there last year, had good sell-throughs, and actually, we were a bright spot in their business. So we felt good about that, but we're going to move forward, expecting the demand over time will shift into other channels. Who knows where exactly, but our best guess would be Walmart would be an opportunity. We're talking to them about that, and then -- and hopefully, in our own stores and direct-to-consumer businesses up there. For Walmart, we launched that in '14. Our first full assortments hit those stores for this fall, so that's going to be a meaningful business for us up there in Canada, and we do plan to expand that as much as we possibly can, and believe that some of that Target business will certainly go in that direction. Anna A. Andreeva - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: Okay. And then have you seen any changes in demographics related to the birth rate?

Michael D. Casey

Management

It's modest. The information we have would suggest there's been a slight increase in the number of births, but it's -- I'd say it's comparable year-over-year.

Operator

Operator

And we go next to Evren Kopelman with Wells Fargo.

Evren Dogan Kopelman - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Two questions. One is more of a longer term kind of pricing ability to offset question. How do you think about it in the longer term as labor costs continue to go higher? Based on what you have seen historically in the industry with your peers, how people react to -- basically, if you could discuss your view on your ability to continue to offset cost increases. And then the second question, I think you mentioned the brand stores comped better than the outlets. Can you talk about what you anticipate for outlet traffic in 2015?

Michael D. Casey

Management

Sure. So first on the pricing. Thankfully, we're entering a more favorable cost environment. Cotton prices are lower. Fuel prices are lower. Capacity in Asia is greater because global demand generally for apparel is not robust. So we don't anticipate that there's going to be much need for raising prices over time. The thing we continue to keep an eye on is rising labor costs in Asia, and so that won't be an issue unique to us. So if we start to see some pressure on cost, we'll be thoughtful in terms of the price increase. Our focus, as you know, was -- is building our operating margin every year. We have no interest in operating a lower margin business. So if costs move up, we'll do our best to cover those costs with price adjustments. But thankfully, near term, we don't anticipate a need to have to do that. And then with respect to traffic to outlet, I think, generally, you have to assume that traffic will be -- is not going to be up. I'm looking at performance in December, thankfully, traffic to our stores was up in December. It was up in January, but what we saw is traffic was down some portion of 4% for both brands last year. We did see a pickup in traffic to the outlets in December with lower gas prices. We saw that for OshKosh, and OshKosh has a heavier mix of outlet stores relative to brand stores. So we saw good traffic for OshKosh, both in December and January. But consumers are making fewer trips to stores. They're more productive trips, they're shopping online, browsing at home, online and then coming into the stores, and well, it's a much more focused visit. So we're anticipating that traffic will still be a bit under pressure, and that's why we're doing some better things this with respect to marketing in the in-store experience.

Operator

Operator

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we have no further questions on our roster. Therefore, Mr. Casey, I will turn the conference back over to you for any closing remarks.

Michael D. Casey

Management

So thanks very much. Thanks, everybody, for joining us on the call this morning. We appreciate your interest in our business. We look forward to updating you again in April. Thanks very much. Goodbye.

Operator

Operator

And this will conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation.