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Wolverine World Wide, Inc. (WWW)

Q2 2020 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 5, 2020

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings and welcome to Wolverine World Wide Inc Second Quarter Fiscal 2020 Results Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Brett Parent, Vice President of Strategy and Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Brett Parent

Analyst

Good morning and welcome to our second quarter 2020 conference call. On the call today are Blake Krueger, our Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President; and Mike Stornant, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, we announced our financial results for the second quarter 2019. The release is available on many news sites and can be viewed on our corporate website at wolverineworldwide.com. If you would prefer to have a copy of the news release sent to you directly, please call Francesca Filandro at 646-677-1814. This morning's press release and comments made during today's earnings call included non-GAAP disclosures. These disclosures were reconciled and attached tables within the body of the release. During our call, we are providing adjusted financial results, which adjust for the impacts of environmental and other related costs and environmental cost recoveries, cost related to the COVID-19 pandemic including re-organization and credit loss expenses and foreign exchange rate changes. I'd also like to remind you that predictions and projections made during today's conference call regarding Wolverine World Wide and its operations are forward-looking statements under US securities laws. As a result, we must caution you that as with any prediction or projection, there are a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. These important risk factors are identified in the Company's SEC filings and in our press releases. With that being said, I'd like to turn the call over to Blake Krueger.

Blake Krueger

Analyst

Thanks Brett. Good morning everyone and thanks for joining us. I hope everyone on this call is safe and well. Earlier this morning, we reported second quarter revenue of approximately $349 million and adjusted earnings per share of $0.08. The company's performance significantly exceeded our expectations entering the quarter on virtually every financial metric. Our team's response to the challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has been extraordinary and the company is positioned to win moving forward. At the outset of the global shutdown, we immediately developed a six-point strategic game plan to tightly focus our efforts around protecting the health and safety of our team members and customers, supporting our communities and delivering strong business results, as well as positioning the company for the future. This plan and our team's execution behind it is working very well. And we are extremely encouraged by the company's results in the second quarter, which were led by the near triple digit growth of our ecommerce business. We strategically invested in digital and ecommerce capabilities for several years, and quickly prioritize these channels as the best path to reach our consumers and drive profitable growth during the shutdown. These investments enabled our online business to sustain accelerated growth throughout the quarter, with a number of brands like Merrell, Saucony, Wolverine and Cat Footwear delivering well over 100% online growth. The relevance of our brands, product offerings and stories, combined with effective consumer acquisition efforts drove an increase in organic traffic, while new consumers grew over 100%. The total online channel for our brands, including our own ecommerce business and the online business of our wholesale partners, accounted for about two thirds of our revenue in the US during the quarter. Growth in this channel delivered strong profit leverage, including nearly 600 basis points…

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Thanks, Blake. And thanks to all of you for joining us on the call today. I would like to start by briefly echoing Blake's comments regarding our global team. Their focus and hard work have driven the performance of our brands in the toughest of times. And it helped us to reinforce the financial health of the business. This has put the company on solid ground, and I'm very grateful for their contributions. On today's call, I will start by providing details on the company's second quarter results and then share an update on current business trends. Revenue for the second quarter was $349.1 million, down 38.6% compared to the prior year or down 38.3% on a constant currency basis. On this revenue performance, the company generated $115.6 million of operating cash flow, significantly exceeding our highest expectations entering the quarter. While the majority of physical stores were closed for much of the quarter, our ecommerce business excelled, growing 96% year-over-year at accretive margins. Our digital and ecommerce platforms delivered a crucial payback on our multi-year investment and proved their potential to drive the business at a larger scale. In total, these platforms represent in about two thirds of total US sales in the quarter. The company benefited from approximately $10 million of international orders that shipped at the end of the quarter instead of in Q3 as previously anticipated. On a regional basis, North America and EMEA performed the best driven by ecommerce growth, and the performance of consumer relevant product categories like hiking, running and work. Asia Pacific and Latin America were down more significantly, due to a greater dependence on casual lifestyle categories, and a more severe and prolonged impact from the pandemic in Latin America. Our diversified and nimble business model again played a critical role…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Jim Duffy with Stifel. Please proceed.

Jim Duffy

Analyst

Good morning, guys, terrific execution.

Blake Krueger

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks Jim

Jim Duffy

Analyst

I'm sure you guys are gratified by the return you're seeing on the investments you've made in digital capabilities. I want to start by talking about the increased use of digital in your business policies and go-to-market strategies. We're seeing changes across a number of industries with the pandemic that you guys look forward. Can you kind of shape maybe some of the P&L influence of increased use of digital capabilities in your operational strategies? How does this influence the kind of structural margin opportunity for the business?

Blake Krueger

Analyst

Well, I think it's going to – we obviously think it's going to be a benefit Jim. On the marketing side, obviously, there'll be a bit of a shift here from traditional marketing to digital marketing. But the ultimate goal here is to shorten the overall supply chain, not just for making shoes, but development, the hitting the consumers hands. You just simply have to be closer to the consumer and especially in challenging times like this you need to do that in order to take risk out of the equation. So we see digital as being a broad enhancer when it comes to that kind of operational discipline and in shortening the supply chain. It's hard to predict exactly the pockets and how much of the savings, SG&A savings will come out of the equation in that regard. But we believe it's going to be fairly substantial, especially when you consider traditional sourcing and product development, back and forth to China, Asia and other manufacturing centers. We believe that's going to eventually fall by the wayside and be replaced by digital capabilities.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Yeah and Blake mentioned in his comments, the fact that we think we can take a lot of those cost, product related cost out with the digital solution, virtual solution that we're already using, but had to test in an accelerated timeframe. But also it just helps us manage the inventory. We can be closer to the consumer, the decisions we're making about the inventory and when we make those really helps us drive down our exposure there. So we're seeing some really immediate benefits from that approach.

Jim Duffy

Analyst

Great and one number that really jumped out at me, you guys mentioned 600 basis points operating margin leverage in the owned ecommerce business. How about gross margins for the ecommerce business in the quarter, was it promotional? And can you speak to some of those leverageable expenses? I'm curious how much of that leverage related to add rates, which I think were depressed during the quarter, which may have helped customer acquisition costs.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

I think there are a couple of big drivers for us. Gross margins were up actually year-over-year nicely. It wasn't a – I mean, we were promotional with a couple of brands that needed to move some seasonal goods. But overall the promotional cadence was better than sort of normal. And I would say, from that standpoint helped us on the gross margin line along with the fact that we were introducing some new products in the quarter, which were at higher margin. So that was positive. The drivers on leverage really are a couple things, the way we run our e-com business, right; we have a platform that supports our entire portfolio. And that cost structure definitely is variable to a certain degree, but we were very much able to support the e-com demand, both in terms of the infrastructure with the e-com center of excellence and our warehouse customer service and other support services very well and that helped leverage the results there. And then you right, we did get some benefits from some depressed advertising costs but overall, the organic interest in our sites really allowed our marketing money to work a lot more effectively in the quarter. So our role as on that spend was with higher because we saw some very healthy organic – interest in organic search drive traffic to the site.

Jim Duffy

Analyst

Great, I'll leave it at that. I look forward to following up after the call.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Thanks Jim.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Chris Svezia with Wedbush. Please proceed.

Chris Svezia

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Hopefully you're well. Just first I want to go to Saucony for a moment, just to go there – just would you expect that to return to growth in the back half of the year just given the double – the strong backlog increase what you're seeing on e-com in response to product, just further color on that based on what you said about the backlog?

Blake Krueger

Analyst

Yeah, thought that that would be our goal, obviously affected somewhat by the timing of new product introductions. You can – there are a number of new product introductions that could fall at this point into Q4 or Q1. So it's a little bit up in the air. But Saucony has tremendous momentum right now driven fundamentally by innovative product and a lot of buzz in the marketplace. So we would expect certainly a return in Q3 to growth for Saucony.

Chris Svezia

Analyst

Okay, thank you. And just I guess Mike for you, just the exit rate for Q2 on revenue seems to be somewhere in that – somewhat less than 25% for that preliminary thought process you gave for Q3, which doesn't really imply too much of an improvement sequentially in terms of what you're seeing. Is that just because of a – just your concerns about COVID spikes in certain markets, how quickly that in America and some international markets come back, exact nature, just based on some of the other comments that you made hotel, sale seems to be slowly moving in the right direction is such as more caution about how this all unfolds or just any additional thought.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

For sure, I mean, we continue to be cautious here Chris. The wise thing to do, I think it served us really well, how we managed the business in Q2. June saw some improvement. We came out at the beginning of June with sort of our outlook at the point – at that point in time for the rest of the month and things proved out a little stronger. July was an improvement over June. But at the end of the day we still have some uncertainty that we were not able to control. So now, I would say overall though the trends in the business and the shift, it's probably most prominent and obviously, move from e-com growth to more traditional wholesale channels, but the demand there's been good in our at-once order trends in the last several weeks have been positive there. So there's been a kind of surge recovery there. And obviously, we'd expect that to maybe settle down a little bit in the back part of the quarter.

Chris Svezia

Analyst

Understood, final thing just for me real quickly, just on gross margin, I'm just curious, what you would characterize as normal or maybe you can break apart how much of the call 170 basis points improvement in Q2 is just high strength and mix. I'm just curious, does it turn negative or is it just normalized in terms of less of a game because you're selling in still full price product or not, don't have to be promoted?

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Yeah, that's a good question. Because I mean, I think normal for us it was really to just kind of talk about a normal mix. But we're – there was there was suppressed close out demand in the second quarter and some of that's going to shift into Q3. So that'll have a negative impact on gross margins just for the quarter. It's just a little bit of a timing shift there. But when you look at sort of the gains that we had in Q2, 170 basis points, two thirds of that, more than two thirds that was really from e-com mix and just first quality versus closeout mix. So I think we're going to see a big portion of that kind of come back in Q2 and get back down into the 40% to 41% range for the second – for the third quarter not Q2, Q3.

Chris Svezia

Analyst

Understood. Okay. Thank you very much, all the best.

Blake Krueger

Analyst

Thanks

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Jonathan Komp with Baird. Please proceed.

Jonathan Komp

Analyst

Yeah, hi, I appreciate the color on the recent transit. I just wanted to dig in a little bit more on the casual brand there, what you're seeing there just given a couple of them that lagged in the second quarter, maybe just the start there. If you could give more color what you're seeing.

Blake Krueger

Analyst

I think its several things Jonathan, I think one, everybody is aware of consumer trends right now. So there's some distinct consumer trends for us right now that are tailwinds for many of our brands and there's a few that are headwinds. So I would – a couple of our Boston brands, more than the rest of the portfolio, have a bigger US department store base in their business for example, that obviously, was not very robust in Q2. So that's having an impact. And there's been just on the consumer side a general focus on outdoor run, work, at home comfort, probably at the expense of dress, casual fashion and traditional casual shoes and we're certainly seeing that in a couple of our brands. We think that's probably going to continue here until the pandemic runs its course here over the next six or nine months.

Jonathan Komp

Analyst

And just to maybe clarify, I assume those brands expect down more than 25% the whole – just given the – some of the positive call outs you had in the other performance driven brands. Just trying gain –

Blake Krueger

Analyst

Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, that's correct. I would expect those brands to be down in that range. Certainly down more than some of our other brands that are benefiting from the tailwinds.

Jonathan Komp

Analyst

Okay, great and maybe bigger picture, when you look out with your crystal ball. Maybe this is a broader industry discussion, but just trying to think about how you're planning to fill – capture the lost sales here, maybe any thoughts on kind of big picture timeline? And related to that just with some of the cost discipline, do you think you need to get back to the prior sales levels to get - to achieve the same level of profitability? Or do you think some of the cuts that you're making are going to be permanent here?

Blake Krueger

Analyst

I think some of the structural changes will be permanent. I think there's been significant changes over a very short time in consumer behavior. Maybe five years of consumer behavior compressed down to six or nine months, especially around the use of technology and the changes that that's enabled. So we think that's going to be permanent. That requires our business and all businesses frankly, to be adjust and be agile and be fast and operate with some pace. And a broader picture with respect to the pandemic, it really varies by region-by-region and in the United States, state-by-state or even labor shed within a particular state. So we believe there's going to continue to be some volatility until there's a universal vaccine. I don't have a crystal ball though, I've been on a committee, advising our state's governor on with health experts and other CEOs on approaches to address the pandemic and lower the curb. But I think it's going to be six or nine months, a little bit of fits and starts. One of the things that has been surprising to us has been the quick spike in consumer trends, whether it's to the outdoor or running. Even in the running category there's been a tremendous influx, for example, of new consumers to the sport and subsequent surveys have shown that they're going to – the vast majority of those new consumers are going to remain with the sport. So we see some of those trends continuing on well past, probably the lifeline of this particular pandemic.

Jonathan Komp

Analyst

Okay, that's helpful color.

Blake Krueger

Analyst

Thank you. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Dana Telsey with Telsey Advisory Group. Please proceed.

Dana Telsey

Analyst

Hi, good morning and congratulations on the progress.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Thank you, Dana.

Dana Telsey

Analyst

As you've seen the ecommerce channel and digital accelerate, what do you think the opportunities are for gross margin potential versus the other channels? And how do you see it as being operating margin accretive? Thank you.

Blake Krueger

Analyst

Yeah, I would think one it's going to be gross for us anyway. I know it's different for certain companies, but our ecommerce business has always been accretive to our overall bottom line results. We do not even know we're going to have increased our investments in e-com and digital. We think that is going to be continuing to be the case. So we would see this shift to a more DTC ecommerce model benefiting gross margin over the long run more than we may have seen it have an impact a year or two ago and certainly a beneficial impact on our bottom line as well. And that – again frankly, that's taking into account increased investments that we know are going to continue.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Yeah. And Dana, you just – all you have to do is look at the second quarter results that we talked about earlier and really the ability at these levels at this scale, to enhance the operating margin by 600 basis points was pretty tremendous. And we had to chase some things and change some things in the middle of the quarter to respond to that demand. So I think it bodes well for our ability to leverage as you're inquiring about.

Dana Telsey

Analyst

And then if you think about inventory, which showed also nice improvement too. How do you think about inventory by brand as you move through to the holiday season? What are you seeing out there in terms of demand? Thank you.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Sure.

Blake Krueger

Analyst

We're certainly seeing spikes in demand behind certain consumer trends in some brands. We've got a few brands that are – a couple of brands that are chasing some inventory right now. We believe for Q4 obviously, when you have something as white hot as Endorphin is for Sperry, I mean Saucony right now, you never have enough inventory. So we're chasing some inventory for Saucony for sure, some of the more fashion boot product probably and the new boot product for Sperry as well. Overall though, the team did a pretty tremendous job of keeping the company in business, keeping our supply chain operational and hats off to the team obviously, for all those efforts in Q2. I would think with this – we are going to see at least domestically here probably continued shift to at once from future orders for a quarter or two at least. So it just puts a little more burden on us to have the right core inventory for those retailers and really over communicate with those retailers like we have been so we can really manage our business with them. Many of those retailers remain in a state of flux right now.

Dana Telsey

Analyst

Thank you. Look forward to seeing the continued progress.

Blake Krueger

Analyst

Thanks.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Thanks, Dana.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Matthew DeGulis with KeyBanc. Please proceed.

Matthew DeGulis

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. So with e-com up almost 100% and wholesale down, that's a pretty big delta. So I'm wondering your thoughts on it if this is more of a permanent shift and you'll be a much bigger DTC company moving forward. And what this does to your business on a predictability and inventory ordering perspective?

Blake Krueger

Analyst

I think it's going to be a permanent shift. It may not be as dramatic in the short-term as Q2. But we see that as a permanent shift, accelerating shift. I've read some predictions that overall consumer online will be up 50% or more this year in the US market, for example. So we don't see the consumer retreating from the use of technology, digital and in online. Certainly, the company is going to shift to have more of a DTC focus as we look forward here. And that's frankly, one of the reasons why we're investing so much in digital capabilities. We need that digital analytics, AI powered predictions to help us make the very best decisions when it comes to inventory. So they really – both of those go hand in hand at least for our best business.

Matthew DeGulis

Analyst

Thanks. And in the wholesale channel, I'm wondering if you can give us any color on how you're thinking about the back half of the year and if you could break that down by store type like family, sporting goods, online only, and the others.

Blake Krueger

Analyst

Yeah. We've seen stores are actually open up here throughout Q2, but we know that some states now in the United States, for example, I'll restrict my comments right now to the domestic market are experiencing a second wave or something approaching a second way. We have seen store traffic overall decrease in some of those markets in some of those states. And we think that probably will continue until trends reverse with respect to the virus. A little bit surprising in Q2, we had the rural channel, the Farm and Fleet's remained open fairly much as the central businesses throughout the country. I think that contributed to our relatively strong work boot performance in Q2. We continue to see the case. We think the sporting goods channel will continue to remain open and perform well. Mall based retailers it's a little bit more of a mixed bag there, depending on the state and in some cases, the city. So we know the consumer still has a level of fear or concern about going into crowded environments. You would know that from the news when you look at the beaches and some of the younger millennial parties, but we know that exists generally for consumers right now. So we think those environments will continue to be a bit challenged here for a while. And likewise, I think the family channel is a little bit mixed as well. Some areas open and doing fairly well and then some areas and states not so well. So we think we're going to see gradual improvement here across all channels as we roll forward. The big spike I think is going to be tied to a vaccine and some real headway on that front. But longer term and short-term we see the consumer continuing to focus online and they're using technology to make their life more safe and convenient.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

And Matt, one more thing, our digital pure play customers, right, they continue to do very well in this environment and were strong contributors in Q2. And as part of our traditional wholesale business that's become a bigger and bigger part of the overall mix and helped us deliver two thirds of our US revenue through the online channel in the second quarter.

Matthew DeGulis

Analyst

Helpful.

Operator

Operator

So our next question is from Erinn Murphy - Piper Sandler. Please proceed.

Erinn Murphy

Analyst

Great, thanks. Good morning. I guess two questions for me. First, just around the uncertainty of school starts and just the broader back to school season, could you just speak to how you see that impacting Sperry and Keds in particular in the portfolio and then I have a clarification on Saucony.

Blake Krueger

Analyst

I mean, the, unfortunately the – families with younger children and even kids going back to universities, the patchwork of approach to school openings this fall is causing a lot of concern and a lot of volatility. We do not anticipate any kind of universal approach there. As you know, Erinn, back to school is not really material to our company overall as a selling event. Our Keds business, our Keds Group, even that is more focused on younger children. So we don't think it's going to have much of an impact, but we think it's going to be from a consumer standpoint, a more volatile back to school season. We see parents investing in technology as many schools are focused on a virtual only format at least for the first semester or first couple of months. We see parent's spending on their home, whether it's a desk or to create a little bit of a school slash work environment. I think some of that is going to come at the cost of traditional consumer soft goods, especially in the apparel sector and a little bit in footwear. So it's a challenging environment. And it's different for every state. In Boston, our offices are open, but our onsite daycare is not open. In Michigan, our offices technically are not open now. We have still some pretty restrictive guidelines there, but our onsite daycare here is open. So there's going to be a number of challenges for parents and kids certainly this fall.

Erinn Murphy

Analyst

Okay, and then my follow up and maybe Mike, this is for you just on Saucony. I believe you're laughing, but taken up your Italian distributor, how did that impact the second half growth rates that you were speaking about earlier on the brand? Thank you.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Yeah, I mean, we definitely saw a nice benefit last year from the addition of Italy as the equator that distributor. So yeah, we're anniversaring some really nice numbers there in Q3. As Blake mentioned, we still expect Saucony to return to a growth position in the third quarter based on the momentum there. The order book, the trends that we're seeing in the category, so it's good that you called that out because we think that even strengthens the Saucony story that we're copying up against the addition of that business a year ago.

Erinn Murphy

Analyst

Great, thank you both.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Susan Anderson with B. Riley FBR. Please proceed.

Alec Legg

Analyst

Good morning. This is Alec Legg on for Susan. Thanks for taking our question. Just a quick follow up on wholesale orders. You mentioned they were trending positively the last few weeks. I remember last quarter you mentioned reducing inventory receipts by about 300 million this year. But as retailers have started opening it up, have you seen any categories or wholesale partners that have started chasing on categories? And do you anticipate that inventory receipt reduction to be less than 300 million this year?

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Well, we took cancellations back at that time, based on the uncertainty back in really March, April timeframe. And since then, obviously, gained more confidence, more certainty, more clarity from our customers to be able to go back and replay some of those cancellations. So overall, I think as I mentioned our outlook for inventory is still very positive. And we expect by the end of the year to still be down over $40 million year-over-year in inventory. But we have the ability to surge – if our spring demand were to pick up over the next 60 days and we needed to bring in some more spring merchandise for December and January deliveries and we still have some time to do that. So I would say that we have inventory – we have brands that – many of our brands have season less inventory. It's very good core product that sells year round and I think for some of our brands, like Blake mentioned around Sperry's both business – our boot business that did get pushed into Q4 a little bit, but other than that, our inventories are strong, our positions are and I think we're in a very good position, certainly for Q3. So far in the quarter, we've been able to fulfill the unexpected demand at a very high level. So we're confident in the inventory trends.

Alec Legg

Analyst

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Mitch Kummetz with Pivotal Research. Please proceed.

Mitch Kummetz

Analyst

Yes, thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to – Mike, I want to drill down on your outlook a little bit. First on sales and then I got a follow up on margins. So you mentioned that Q3 sales, you expect them to be down less than 25% and you also made the comment that July was better than June. My sort of back of the envelope calculation is that June was maybe down around 20%. So I'm kind of curious as to what you saw in July was sort of down teens or?

Mike Stornant

Analyst

June was down much higher that. But July was – and again, I won't quote the specific trends by month, but I would just say we saw a progressive improvement, especially in the wholesale side of the business in July, as we just started to see more and more reorder demand come as stores were opening or after the stores were open. So we saw that occur and saw some good trends and consistent trends for the month of July. In the same kind of – in the same ballpark as what we're talking about for the full quarter, slightly better in July than that, but overall, I think gives us good confidence because the out of the gate trends were in line, if not a little bit better than the overall look we're providing for the quarter.

Mitch Kummetz

Analyst

Got it, so what explains kind of the deterioration – the expected deterioration over the balance of the quarter? Again, is that just being cautious or is there something you're seeing that suggests that –

Mike Stornant

Analyst

No, I don't think there's significant deterioration, I think there's just – again, there's just – we know what the timing and phasing of when we sell a new product in the quarter and that just happens in certain months. And we're also – there's a dose of caution in there Mitch for sure. We just don't know what the last few months of the quarter here or the last six weeks at this point, will not fairly hold as it relates to all this uncertainty, but we feel good about the outlook based on where we are so far in the quarter.

Mitch Kummetz

Analyst

Got it just trying to better understand that and then on margins, I think you made the comment that on SG&A that 22 million in cost come back in Q3. So are you basically saying that from a dollar standpoint that like Q3 SG&A should be 22 million higher than Q2 or are there other factors to consider there?

Mike Stornant

Analyst

No, that's about the right way to think about it. I mean, part of that 22 million is obviously, variable cost though, right, as we serge up with wholesale revenue and our warehouse and customer service teams and all this infrastructure, more commissioned sales in the quarter things like that, marketing spend with our wholesale brands. But yeah, that's essentially the way to think about. It's not fixed costs coming back in, but much of the variable costs related to the new demands of the business in Q3 versus Q2.

Mitch Kummetz

Analyst

Got it. Thanks and continued success.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Thanks, Mitch.

Blake Krueger

Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And our final comment is from Laurent Vasilescu with Exane BNP Paribas. Please proceed.

Laurent Vasilescu

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Mike, I wanted to follow up on – I'm not sure if I heard it right, but are you projecting sequential improvement through 3Q to 4Q? I think you called out about 10 million of pull forward revenues to 2Q from 3Q. Are you anticipating any pull forward from 4Q into 3Q, just maybe some color on that would be very helpful?

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Sure. No, not at this point, we don't necessarily view there to be any major opportunities at the end of the quarter. And we tend to – in this particular case in Q2 is nice to see that we have some strong customer demands specifically in Europe, the International Business tends to be where we have some of that timing shift. And for us in the in the second quarter, it was really the strength of our European business that pulled some of that demand into Q2. But at this point, the outlook that we have wouldn't contemplate any significant shift from Q4 to Q3.

Laurent Vasilescu

Analyst

Okay, very helpful. And then as you push forward with your DTC strategy, I noticed in your filing this morning, you parsed out $4.5 million in new store inventory. Just curious to know what your store count is currently, is it still 96 or – and how many stores do you plan to open for the full year?

Mike Stornant

Analyst

We're not planning to open any additional stores for the rest of the year. I think the store count is in the low 90s right now. We've had a couple stores come off their lease naturally. And we wouldn't plan to be opening any new stores in the environment we're in today, but pretty good stable position at just over 90 stores and actually seeing as Blake mentioned, for all the reasons whether it's state-by-state or otherwise, but in the aggregate between our Merrell, Sperry and multi-brand stores, they're operating at a little above 70% of what the plan levels were for the third quarter, coming into the year. So not a complete return to normal, but in many cases with conversions being much higher than they were a year ago performing at about that 70% plus level right now.

Laurent Vasilescu

Analyst

Very helpful and then as a last question, following up on Chris's question on gross margins, I think you mentioned briefly that we should think about 40% to 41% range for 3Q. I understand that mix might be an impact, but just curious to know is FX cost anything we should think about as a downside to the gross margin?

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Not compared to Q2 really Laurent, it's really the mix for the common wholesale that will drive the gross margin and as well as I mentioned just some shift on closeout from Q2 to Q3. More there are some suppressed demand in Q2 and we just – stores weren't open, the retailers weren't open and we expect that to kind of come back in Q3.

Laurent Vasilescu

Analyst

Very helpful color, thank you very much.

Mike Stornant

Analyst

Thanks Laurent.

Operator

Operator

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brett Parent for closing comments.

Brett Parent

Analyst

On behalf of Wolverine worldwide, I'd like to thank you for joining us today. As a reminder, our conference call replay is available on our website at wolverineworldwide.com. The replay will be available until September 5, 2020. Thank you and have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.