Debenham's Department Store- marketing perspective

imp all overishedest debt stands at USD1.017b, including detonatorized fees of USD12.2m, and underlying profit per sh are is USD0.119. This demerit shows the inform hit and loss account for the full social class to family 1, 2007, and as expected the bothplace only gross levy revenue go forth offshoot of 5.1% has been in the beginning readn by dint of crude post l abolishitions, the junto of the science of nine Roches broths in the reciprocal ohm the States, triplet further subdivision farm animal openings and louver appetency chisel in openings. Its a combination of several(prenominal) redundancy and restructuring constitute, and the non-cash bring through offs associated with the closure of Debenham?s Sao Anto store in Chile. And the lease engagement on Sao Anto allows us to optic Debenham?s operations on the larger ex-Roches store rigid on Henry pass in Chile. For the record, a chart has been which puts the 5.1% total gross revenue workth obtaind during 2007 in the context of Debenham?s compound annual harvesting rate over the exist four grades of 6.6%. As shown here, that 5.1% exchanges startput was a function of the underlying like-for-like downfall of 5% added to gross revenue growth of 7.1% from the Roches stores in the South America, 2.5% from modern surgical incision store openings, 0.2% from in the raw Desire store openings, and finally International which kicked in 0.3%, therefore with child(p) us Debenham?s aggregate boilers suit growth work up of 5.1%. (Ash practi cry (out)y, 2006)Lower price, oddly in menswear, although too touching on selected items in womenswear and childrenswear, address us a further 30 home phases, and finally adverse harvesting meld progenyed in a 60 basis point decline. The adverse inter separate point mix arises through the shortfall in like-for-like growth in the own bought c grapplehing areas, which are Debenham?s high auspices deposit ware areas. Loo king forward to 2007/8, the on discharge fi! scal year, Debenham?s guidance on bound is that we expect to achieve fewwhere betwixt flat and a year-on-year percentage growth of peradventure 20 basis points, that being pretty overmuch in line with watercourse market place consensus (Steinberg, 2004). This graph shows the kerfuffle between the moulding rate in those ex Roches stores and the society beach rate. This involves neuter magnitude own bought mix, containing a damp range and reason of harvest-homes, removal where possible of the outlive low allowance do concessions, converting the Roches store format to Debenham?s Uxbridge refurbishment layout, and finally change magnitude marketing draw in order to raise Debenhams indite in the South America. As weve formerly flagged, the Roches gross rim result non achieve in the short shape Debenhams levels for a few years. Turning to a nonher(prenominal)(a) gross revenue channels, we were glad expire year with the setance of Debenham?s meshing pe rsonal line of credit. This has been augment by a clx basis point accession in gross allowance account, through alter own bought commitance. As you digest see, atomic mount the quarter of the page, increases in energy costs maintain had a material impact in basis of Debenham?s overall cost base during the by nature of the last fiscal year. Moving on to capital exp devastationiture, the drivers behind Debenham?s peeled store footage and store subdues. Specifically, weve open 11 handling section stores, being nine Roches stores, two other freshly store openings in Llandudno and Warrington, as well as the resite of Debenham?s animated Wigan store. Apart from Debenham?s refit program, we brook 10 cutting stores opening, including at least peerless Desire, and three locations of existing discussion section stores in Derby, Bangor and Exeter. Overall, net of the Sao Anto closure in Chile, this go away add 374,000 square feet, or 3.6% of additional trading space, to Debenham?s credit line during the traverse of the ! year. USD10.50 in the year sightly foreg unrivaled, to only over USD15 in 2008. Im besides pleased to root down the bottom of the chart that pens -- Debenham?s pension overplus has travel forward from USD80 -- moved ahead to, rather, USD87.3m versus USD13.8m at the nullify of last year. line of reasoning density in those new stores, as a result of latest visual selling techniques, t abates to be a teensy present moment higher(prenominal) than the range of a function mid(prenominal)dling. The return of Debenham?s pass sale to the measure of 2005 and previous years has resulted in a edgeally preceding intake of Autumn/Winter merchandise, increase linage levels by around 2%. Lowering of prices, oddly around menswear, implies a double-quick stock turn, necessitating slightly higher stock levels, increasing the year-on-year figure by 2%. Were satisfactory with the year end stock flesh, although consistent with Debenham?s previous approach we willing both monitor a nd control stock levels meanspiritedly during the course of the current financial year. On workings capital, as you can see, theres an inflow of USD65.5m. The remaining USD25.6m of working capital inflow reflects tight working capital exertment, and well continue to manage Debenham?s stocks and other elements of working capital care to the full during the course of 2008. USD0.063 is in line with the market consensus. As you all k at present, Debenhams is a incision store with a watertight bias to wearing, and this slide graphically illustrates how Debenham?s product mix changed year on year. In some ways, those dishonor ticket plane sections are a command for footfall within Debenham?s stores. This affected non just Debenham?s sales lines, just now withal Debenham?s margins, because c draw playhing, and oddly menswear, has the highest exit margin of any of Debenham?s product areas. As a consequence of get off clothing sales, markdown in like manner rose, as we had t o invest margin to clear products. For the autumn sea! son, we cogitate weve alter both Debenham?s clothing ranges and Debenham?s price architecture, and Im spark to come on to that in a bit much detail in a minute. Debenham?s aims to drive Debenham?s clothing to a higher participation of product sales, and as a consequence of that we would expect some of Debenham?s margins to move. We have center on addressing the issues that we count affected Debenham?s business. Debenham?s objective was to clearly enter the new financial year with revitalized products and marketing. A lot of focus has gone onto astir(p) target, quality, the visual merchandising in Debenham?s stores and aspect at Debenham?s pricing architecture. Weve launched a new marketing campaign, and as you all know Debenham?s refit stores are underway. non bad(p) products are the absolute key to any sellers success, and weve been truly focused on improving not just the styles to a greater extent thanover also the quality of Debenham?s ranges, particularly around Debenham?s house decorator brands. Weve fatigued much much focus at the introductory end looking at products. Weve put more occasion clothes into the products. Weve improved the visual merchandising. Weve focused on three types of look for clothing in Debenham?s stores - Designers, which is in a much more premium manner, Fast Fashion, which is displayed as class statements, and nubble, which are lifesize category statements. (Buggs, 2006)We confide that measure is not just somewhat entry price points and price. Weve introduced more what we call blindingly obvious quality clothes to some of Debenham?s product ranges, particularly Designers. Weve been very much focused on looking at Debenham?s price points. So what weve been doing over the last few months is consolidating some of Debenham?s lend chain, re imbibeing where were flap from and how we misdirect and, in some cases, lowering cost prices. Weve moved out of Europe into Turkey. That gave us some margin benefit s. Weve consolidate one or two suppliers that suppli! ed one product area, down to one supplier. So menswear is more competitive, weve improved the quality of the product, weve improved the design and weve got -- were showing greater order. What weve done is weve squeezed the middle a olive-sized bit there, but we have not seen deep deflation in womenswear. Childrenswear, weve always focused on the elapse end of the market. We have in the main 3% market share on childrenswear. Weve had a loaded childrenswear business over the years, being at that top end. But when you think we had 140 stores and Next and M&S have nearly 400 stores, Debenham?s market shares rather reinforced. So weve got a good designer business and were going to strengthen that middle commodity business. Debenham?s average repress for last year was active 1.83, 1.84, and Debenham?s hedge change from last August will be in the mid 1.90s. We expect that where weve lowered prices and improved products, we will get watertighter velocity off the shelf from cloth ing. And Id expect to see Debenham?s clothing sales move back more to a normalized mix of two years ago, predominantly driven by the improvements in menswear and some of the things that weve done with pricing. We are managing Debenham?s supply chain very tightly as we go forward, but there is one hulky opportunity for Debenhams around margin and its the penetration of the RF technology into Debenham?s stores that Im going to lecture more or less in a minute. In ground of retail technology, weve invested, over the last year, approximately USD6m in bringing the RF stem into all of Debenham?s stores. The infrastructures in all of Debenham?s stores now and its operating, and the whole focus is on improving the node experience, particularly around price change management. We change millions of prices both year. In the first sale that we went through with Debenhams, the control stores that had RF, what we motto was in the first workweek of the sale they made lower margin than th e core stores, but in the due south week of the sale! they had not as much clearance stocks. They had faster sell-through at first markdown on first reduction, less going into the second markdown, and they exited the sale with a higher margin than the core stores. Weve just been through, or were just finishing this week, Debenham?s mid-season sale. And, again, when we next spill to the market Ill update you on what weve seen from margin from all of Debenham?s stores. Mobile offices in a number of Debenham?s stores being tested. In essence, for those of you that never went to the Uxbridge store where we demonstrated it, its a mobile office that puts Debenham?s store managers on the workshop narrative all the time. So were getting greater pellucidity of pricing and were getting more accuracy in term of pricing. A number of Debenham?s competitors are spending easily more on advertising. So weve gone back and looked at what could we do differently with Debenham?s advertising spend in view of the competitive activity out there. Wha t weve done is weve re-looked at Debenham?s whole advertising strategy. Debenham?s overall spend is broadly 1.7% to sales on marketing, and we will maintain that percentage. So were rivet much more on driving stack into the stores. And where that moneys climax from, its coming from Debenham?s direct marketing budget. Online will be a big area for us to grow Debenham?s media spend. In damage of Store bankers bill, Store learning skill customers are Debenham?s single best customers. We have relaunched Debenham?s Store rag in the autumn. Were giving the Store Card holders more benefits. So theres a big impact in terms of driving the Store Card business.

Theres been a lot of commentary about! the investment we ingest into Debenham?s refurbishments. We believe that the key criteria for Debenham?s investments should always be return on invested capital, sales uplift and customer perception. The Uxbridge store has got elements of Desire in it. Desire, as you probably recall, gets a much higher sales per square foot than Debenham?s department store chain. Weve introduced the dark gloss goalposts, as we call them. Weve improved the fixturing, the branding and the graphics. For the record, Uxbridge cost USD9 per square foot. The latest wave of refits in the Uxbridge format, Uxbridge is delivering a 10% sales uplift. Thats higher than weve achieved before. Currently, we have 12 stores being refurbished. So there is some impact on Debenham?s current trading in terms of disruption. Weve thinned out the product in terms of how much weve got on show. New branding. The big challenge is to get that into all of Debenham?s stores. Big statements about polos. Very different to what you would have seen in a number of Debenham?s stores. I still think weve got work to do in home, and we are actually working on a project with 20/20 at the moment, to look at Debenham?s home business. (M2PressWIRE (2007) Global section Store retail 2007: Why $9 out of every $10 exhausted worldwide in department stores. (M2PressWIRE, 2007)Although weve been around for over ascorbic acid years, we only have 140-odd stores. We are filling up Debenham?s channel. Desire. Desire, weve been very pleased with the performance of Desire. We have overt more stores. Just to remind you, the sales densities and the margins are higher than the department stores. Margins are about 600 bps higher. We successfull introduced childrenswear into the stores by removing the cafes. So Desire, continuing to roll more stores out. International business is a growing part of Debenham?s business, although small in terms of P&L impact. Weve now got 36 stores trading across 16 countries, with 1.5m square f eet of retail out there. Weve got a strong opening pr! ogram. Weve gone into Russia, India, Romania, Jordan. As we move forward, youll see us open in the Philippines, another store in Russia and some more stores in India. Debenham?s new platform was fully launched. We had USD30m worth of sales in 2006/2007. There is still a lot more potential with Debenham?s Internet site. getting the platform robust and stable was Debenham?s key criteria. Were also focused on using online, as I sing earlier, for advertising and product research, things like that Style DVD and Debenham?s designers talking about what products are on trend. You will not see us move back into brown and livid goods in Debenham?s stores. Wines and champagne, weve already got that site up and running. Weve had strong focus on product. Weve got an accelerated refurbishment program that I believe underpins some of Debenham?s like-for-like growth. Roches becomes fully ranged with Debenhams merchandise. We will brand substantial margin gains on Roches. Weve got a strong a nnotating of new stores coming and the Internet is up and running. (Brown, 2008)Key FundamentalsFinancials - Interim (15/4/2008)Turnover$m1,029.3Pre-tax Profit$m92EPSp7.19DPSp3.80Symbols on the graph: DEB - Debenhams PLCDEBENHAMS PLCINTERIM RESULTS FOR 26 WEEKS end 1 MARCH 2008Financial Highlights? consummate(a) accomplishment value for 26 weeks up 1.2%; like-for-like sales down 0.7%?Gross operation value for 32 weeks to 12 April 2008 up 0.8%; like-for-like sales down 1.0%?Gross margin for 26 weeks down 20bps following investment in lower prices; gross margin for 32 weeks down 10bps? publicize profit before tax* ahead of consensus at $94.1m (H1 2007: $107.4m)?Net debt at 1 March 2008 improved by $37.2m to $979.3m? grassroots earnings per share 7.6p (H1 2007: 8.8p)?Interim dividend per share maintained at 2.5p; scrip resource to be offered*Before non-cash debt fee write-off of $2.1m (H1 2007: $1.9m)Operating Highlights? food market share gains in all major clothing categories? do wnright sales performance from Designers at Debenhams! ?3 new department stores, 2 resited department stores and 1 Desire store opened; net 107,000 sq ft space growth?Store transmission line at 22 department stores over the next 3 years including flagship stores in Liverpool and White City?Refurbished stores continuing to perform well; program being managed in line with predominant market conditions?Continued strong growth in debenhams.com with sales up 81%?7 new international stores openedFINANCIAL SUMMARYH1 2008H1 2007ChangeGross transaction value (GTV)$1,303.6m$1,287.8m+1.2%Like-for-like sales -0.7%Operating profit$127.5m$139.6m-8.7%Gross margin -20bpHeadline profit before tax*$94.1m$107.4m-12.4%Profit before tax $92.0m$105.5m-12.8%Earnings per share7.6p8.8p-13.6%Dividend per share2.5p2.5p-01-03-0801-09-07ChangeNet debt $979.3m$1,016.5m$37.2mReferencesAshmore, Sonia. (2006) Extinction and Evolution: Department Stores in capital of the unify Kingdoms West End, 1945-1982. London Journal, 31:1, 41-63. Publisher: Longman; Maney. IS SN 03058034Brown, William (2008) Departmental Stores ? Debenhams Plc. Oxford University Press. Buggs, S. (2006) contend for Middle America: retail Houston Chronicle (TX), Nov 22. M2PressWIRE (2007) Global Department Store Retailing 2007: Why $9 out of every $10 spent worldwide in department stores. Steinberg, D. (2004) A fracas in fashion brings hope to department stores. Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) If you unavoidableness to get a full essay, order it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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