Roots Corp Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Stephen MacLeod - BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst : I was just wondering if you could give a little bit of color on maybe how your stores were performing into fiscal Q1 to date -- or sorry, how stores in e-commerce were performing into fiscal Q1 to date ahead of these recent store closures that have just come up in Ontario and QuTbec.

Question: Stephen MacLeod - BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst : Okay. Okay. And then just sticking on stores or the sort of sales base. You talked about e-commerce, which has been a huge offset when the stores being closed, up 60% in the quarter. I think you said now running at about 50% of the overall sales base. Do you have any idea or any sort of target as to where you think e-commerce as a percent of total sales might settle once things sort of normalize coming out of the pandemic?

Question: Stephen MacLeod - BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst : Okay. That's great. And then maybe just finally, you've had some really nice gross margin improvement from your discipline around promotional activity. Is this something that was maybe in response to the pandemic backdrop? Or is this something that you intend to continue going forward? And maybe you can talk a little bit about what learnings you've had around promotional discipline that you can bring into future quarters and even coming out of the pandemic?

Question: Stephen MacLeod - BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst : Okay. That's great. And then maybe just one final one, if I could. I saw that you closed 2 stores in the quarter. One in Ottawa, 1 in Manitoba, I believe. Can you talk about your store network strategy going forward? If you have any targets for number of stores? Or are you being more selective on stores that you underperforming stores that you may be closing?

Question: Patricia A. Baker - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division - Analyst : I have a few questions. Meghan, you gave us a few steps from the consumer survey that you conducted in in November. Were there any other incremental insights that were particularly important from that survey besides the 2 that you shared with us?

Question: Patricia A. Baker - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division - Analyst : Okay. And I'm just curious whether or not you saw any mix shift in 2020 because it was such an unusual year between your men's or women's and kids business? Or was it pretty stable relative to how it had historically performed?

Question: Patricia A. Baker - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division - Analyst : Okay. And I just want to delve a little further into the results for the U.S. in 2020. Were you pleased? And with that rise in e-commerce there with the stores having been closed? Was that in line with your expectations? And was there any differential performance in markets where you had stores versus markets where you didn't have stores previously? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. APRIL 08, 2021 / 12:00PM, ROOT.TO - Q4 2020 Roots Corp Earnings Call

Question: Patricia A. Baker - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division - Analyst : Okay. Excellent. And then just one final thing, just putting the e-commerce penetration of 50% in perspective. Can you remind us what the penetration was at the -- in 2019.