Before we begin, I would also like to remind everyone of the company's safe harbor policy. Please note that certain statements made on this call regarding the company's expectations, beliefs, and views about its future financial performance, brand strategies, and cost structure are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements are intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements relate to the company's anticipated revenues, expenses, earnings, gross margin, capital expenditures, brand strategies, and cost structure, as well as the outlook for the company's markets and the demand for its products.
The forward-looking statements made on this call are based on currently available information, and because its business is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, some of which may be beyond its control, actual operating results in the future may differ materially from the future financial performance expected at the current time. Deckers has explained some of these risks and uncertainties in its earnings press release and in its SEC filings, including the Risk Factors section of its annual report on Form 10-K and its other documents filed with the SEC. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as the date hereof. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release or update the results of any revisions to forward-looking statements.
I would now like to turn the conference over to the President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chair of the Board of Directors, Angel Martinez. Please go ahead, sir.
Well, thanks, operator, and welcome to everyone joining us today. With me on the call are Zohar Ziv, Chief Operating Officer, and Tom George, Chief Financial Officer. We believe that great brands endure through periods of adversity, and that's what we witnessed as 2012 came to a close. When consumers eventually came out and shopped, albeit later than anticipated, it was clear to us, based on the sales results, that the desirability of the UGG brand has not waned despite some of the recent challenges facing the business, and we believe that it is still strong and in demand. Beyond the results, there were other highlights from the fourth quarter that speak to the health and relevance of the UGG brand and give us added confidence about the future.
They include the UGG brand being the number one searched term online during the 2012 shopping season, beating out popular brands such as Apple's iPad and Kindle's Fire, and our e-commerce orders increasing 33% during the four-day period following Thanksgiving, that is bookended by Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the biggest shopping days of the year. These metrics support the findings from our marketing study earlier in the year that indicated intent to purchase and brand interest increased meaningfully from our inaugural study that was run in 2010. The strength exhibited by the UGG brand is encouraging given the number of significant challenges that we faced in 2012. To recap, we experienced increased cost pressures from a dramatic spike in sheepskin prices. We battled macroeconomic headwinds in Europe and dealt with another year of record warm temperatures.
With all these challenges, we still grew overall sales for 2012 and generated respectable earnings and margins, especially when you take into account the increased sheepskin costs, which alone created approximately 450 basis points of gross margin pressure, which was worth approximately $1.19 in diluted EPS. Starting with the UGG brand U.S. wholesale, sales were softer than expected as a result of higher than expected cancellations. All in all, though, we are pleased with the brand's domestic wholesale performance in light of a second consecutive warm winter. While warm temperatures did impact early demand for the core classic and cold weather boots, which drove the cancellations that I mentioned, sell-through accelerated as December progressed and the weather got colder. Meanwhile, sales of our slippers, specialty classics, and casuals delivered consistently solid weekly sell-through throughout the quarter.
With regard to classics, it has become more evident that as a greater percentage of sales are generated outside the moderate year-round climate of California, particularly in the Northeast, that weather is playing a larger role in sales trends. This is important to understand for two reasons. First, it reinforces our belief that the recent change in the brand's growth profile has been driven by external factors, namely weather and higher price points from the increase in sheepskin costs and isn't reflective of consumer sentiment. Second, going forward, we believe it's likely that an even higher percentage of classic and cold weather product sales are going to be concentrated in the fourth quarter. We are adjusting our supply chain resources accordingly while also introducing new fall products for the transitional period between summer and the holiday selling season.
In terms of our international business, in Europe, the UGG brand's performance varied noticeably between the U.K. and our direct and distributor businesses on the continent. Our U.K. business was driven by several strategic changes, including an improved distribution network and enhanced in-store and out-of-store marketing programs, which led to an increase in reorders, helping deliver a fourth-quarter sales gain for our U.K. wholesale business. Our recent results, which included significantly less promotional activity, are an encouraging sign for the UGG brand in the U.K. and extremely rewarding given the effort that went into restructuring this business following the challenging situation that we encountered after taking back the distribution in early 2011.
We now plan to focus on improving our wholly owned operations in Benelux and distributor business elsewhere in Europe, both of which suffered from excess carryover inventory in the channel following last year's mild winter and difficult macroeconomic conditions in the region. Turning to Asia wholesale, our UGG brand closed out a solid year in Japan, fueled by a broader product offering with key accounts. This was offset by declines in distributor sales as a result of the transition to a new distributor in Korea, and later deliveries of spring product across the region versus a year ago. Now to our retail division, which posted fourth quarter sales of $135 million, an increase of 37% from a year ago, driven by 30 new stores, partially offset by a low single-digit comp store sales decline.
Comps came in favorably versus our outlook for a low double-digit decline, with Japan and U.S. outperforming expectations. Please keep in mind, our comp store base is still small, especially in the international regions, and therefore, this comparison may not necessarily be indicative of the global retail performance. U.S. same-store sales were flat on top of an 11% increase a year ago. Like many retailers, we experienced soft traffic patterns during much of the fourth quarter. Despite this, sell-through of slippers, specialty classics, and men's products were solid, with late-season demand for classics helping reverse early declines. At year-end, we had 26 U.S. locations, 18 of which are in the comp base. Japan retail store performance improved due to an improved inventory assortment versus a year ago and a positive consumer response to new merchandise offerings, particularly men's and kids' footwear and accessories.
We ended 2012 with 14 stores in Japan, up from 10 a year ago, of which seven are in the comp base. Japan comp store sales increased in the high teens. Total retail sales in Europe benefited from the addition of new concept stores, including our first two stores in Paris, several in and around London, such as Piccadilly, Knightsbridge, and Richmond, as well as new outlets in Liverpool and Portsmouth. While fourth-quarter comps were down double digits due primarily to the redistribution of traffic from new store openings in London, our European retail in total generated strong profit gains. At the end of the year, we had 11 locations in the U.K. and the two new stores in France. Of these, four are in the comp base.
Finally, in China, comp trends were similar to Q3, down mid-teens as we continue to see consumers migrate to our newer stores due to their locations and accessibility to many of the large suburbs around Beijing and Shanghai. Total retail sales increased 62%, driven by the nine new stores we opened since the end of last year, which in aggregate are performing above expectations. We currently have 20 stores in China, six of which are in the Q4 comp base. For all stores open at least 12 months at December 31, 2012, average sales per square foot was $1,600. This figure compares to sales of approximately $1,700 a square foot for the trailing 12 months ended September, with the difference driven by the addition of our Canadian locations as well as several China stores, countries where store productivity levels are below the company average.
Total square footage at the end of 2012 was approximately 210,000 square feet, compared to roughly 130,000 square feet at the end of 2011, representing an increase of about 62%. As you'll be able to compute, new stores are generating sales per square foot below our original or early fleet of stores. New store productivity is still very high, in the neighborhood of $1,000-$1,200 per square foot on an annual basis. This is how we are modeling new stores going forward, along with a four-wall operating margin in the mid-20s versus mid-30s for the earlier stores. The average new store investment is still around $1 million, with a payback that is in line with our historical performance of one year. In terms of our e-commerce channel, the UGG brand's e-commerce business increased 30% in the fourth quarter from a combination of positive developments.
These included increased traffic on our existing websites in the U.S., the U.K., and Japan, higher conversions on classic and fashion product, an increase in mobile sales, and the addition of two new sites, one servicing the Benelux and France, and another covering the rest of the European Union. This channel was our most consistent in 2012, particularly in the second half when weather in specific regions was a big factor in sell-through in our stores and wholesale accounts. With advancements in technology reshaping the way the consumer shops, along with our focus on reducing the impact of weather on sales, we are implementing several new initiatives, which I'll detail later, to capitalize on the current momentum and increase the penetration of e-commerce in 2013.
Quickly touching on our other brands, the Sanuk brand had a very strong fourth quarter with sales up 39% versus a year ago, led by marked success in a number of key national accounts. The acceptance of the Sanuk brand's expanded collection of colder weather shoes and boots was very positive. While at the same time, consumer demand for sidewalk surfers and sandals, particularly in the warmer regions of the U.S., remained robust. These trends were mirrored on our own website, sanuk.com, which finished the year well above expectations, driven by all categories and gender-specific products. For the Teva brand, there were a number of factors that negatively impacted the brand's fourth-quarter performance. The biggest being the difficult comparison with a year ago, when we shipped a large amount of core sandals ahead of scheduled price increases in January 2012.
These early shipments accounted for nearly 90% of the decline in Teva brand's Q4 domestic business. The bottom line is we did not experience the reorder business we'd expect given the solid sell-through of Teva brand collections. We believe consumer demand is there, but in light of the softness in the outdoor industry, retailers have no appetite for additional inventory. Before I turn it over to Tom, I'd like to emphasize that while I was not pleased with our results in this challenging year, I am satisfied with the significant progress that we made as a company this year, improving our product lines, refining our operational capabilities, and focusing our management teams on the significant growth opportunities that lie ahead of us. While it was a challenging year, we have stronger brands, stronger people, and a stronger foundation for growth.
Thomas will now review the numbers and outline our guidance.
Thanks, Angel. Today's earnings release contains a good amount of detail about our fourth quarter sales performance. Angel has covered each brand, channel, and geography pretty thoroughly. I'm going to limit my discussion primarily to gross margins, operating expenses, the balance sheet, and guidance. Gross margin for the fourth quarter was 46.3% compared to 51% in the fourth quarter last year, slightly lower than our expectations. The 470 basis point decline is primarily attributable to an increase in product costs for the UGG brand and relative to expectations of a gross margin of approximately 47%. The small decline is due to increased closeouts, markdowns, as well as product mix.
Total SG&A expense for the quarter was $141.9 million or 23% of net sales, compared to $131 million or 21.7% of net sales a year ago. The dollar increase versus a year ago was mainly due to $12.2 million of additional expense related to our retail operations, most of which is for the 30 new retail stores that were not open during the fourth quarter last year, as well as increases in marketing e-commerce expenses, partially offset by lower performance-based compensation, lower legal expenses, and the positive impact from foreign exchange rate fluctuations. SG&A expenses were below our projections, primarily due to savings in retail incentive expenses. Operating income for the fourth quarter was $144.1 million, compared to $176.8 million last year.
The decline reflects the reduced gross profit as well as the increased operating expenses. We recorded income tax expense of $43.3 million in the fourth quarter for an effective tax rate of 31%. Fourth quarter diluted earnings per share of $2.77 compared to $3.18 a year ago and exceeded projections. We achieved our EPS projections despite the sales shortfall due to lower than projected operating expenses and a lower outstanding share count as a result of our repurchase activity. During the fourth quarter, we bought approximately 932,000 shares of our common stock at an average price of $38.64 per share for a total of $36 million. These purchases were funded using our cash position and borrowings from our credit facility.
For the full year, we repurchased 4,514,000 shares at an average price of $48.89 per share for a total of $221 million. At the end of 2012, we have $79 million remaining on the $200 million authorization announced in July. Turning to the balance sheet. At December 31, 2012, inventory increased 18.5% to $300.2 million from $253.3 million at December 31, 2011. By brand, compared to December 31, 2011, UGG brand inventory increased $46.5 million or 23% to $248.3 million. Teva brand inventory decreased $1.4 million to $27.8 million.
Inventory for the Sanuk brand decreased $1.6 million to $14.5 million, and our other brands' inventory increased $3.4 million to $9.6 million. I'd like to provide more detail regarding the comfort and quality of the UGG brand inventory. At December 31, 2012, in-line and carryover products represented approximately 80% or $200 million of the UGG brand inventory. The remaining $48 million is inventory available for our outlets or the closeout channel, and we believe has been valued appropriately. This number has been included in our forward margin guidance. Regarding orders for in-line and carryover product, as of December 31, we had orders for approximately 60% or $120 million of the inventory.
Although it is still early in the fall 2013 pre-booking process, nevertheless, when complete, we expect a significant amount of the remaining $80 million of in-line product to be pre-booked for 2013 with the balance available for our retail stores and e-commerce business, which combined has grown to over 25% of our business. Regarding the approximate $47 million year-over-year increase in total inventories for all brands, approximately $16 million is due to higher unit cost, and $10 million is due to 30 more retail stores compared to a year ago. At December 31, 2012, our cash and cash equivalents were $110.2 million, compared to $263.6 million at December 31, 2011.
At December 31, 2012, we had $33 million in outstanding borrowings under our recently expanded credit facility compared to zero at December 31, 2011, and $275 million at September 30, 2012. The decrease in cash and cash equivalents and increase in borrowings year-over-year attributable to $220.7 million stock repurchases over the past year and $61.6 million of cash payments for capital assets, which includes $34 million for retail expansion, $11.6 million for the new headquarters facility, $7 million for IT infrastructure and maintenance, as well as other expenditures offset in part by cash provided by operations. Now moving to our outlook. Based on current visibility, we expect 2013 revenues to increase approximately 7% over 2012 levels. For the full year, we expect UGG brand sales to increase by approximately 4%, Teva brand sales to increase by approximately 6%, and Sanuk brand sales to increase by approximately 15%.
Our other brands combined are expected to be approximately $40 million. While we continue to strategically address the impact of weather conditions on our business, our top-line guidance assumes a net mild winter similar to the one we just had, as well as for the UGG brand, a similar amount of reorders and cancellations as we experienced in 2012. At December 31, 2012, our backlog was $323 million, down 17% from $387 million at December 31, 2011. The decline is primarily attributable to lower pre-bookings for UGG brand domestic wholesale business. We believe the decline is due to the timing of customer orders as customers are starting to be more cautious with the timing and amount of pre-booking due to now two years in a row of inconsistent weather. Thus far, we've been pleased with retailer response to several collections led by specialty classics and slippers.
With that said, due to the inconsistency in winter weather and its impact on our retail partners' overall business, we have developed conservative assumptions with regard to the remainder of the booking period, which closes in late April. Looking at our bottom line, we currently expect 2013 diluted earnings per share to increase approximately 5% over 2012 levels. Embedded in this guidance are gross margin assumptions of 46.5% for the full year. The projected 180-basis-point improvement over 2012 levels will be driven primarily by lower raw material costs, namely sheepskin. The 11% reduction in our sheepskin price is expected to help gross margins by approximately 150 basis points on an annualized basis, with the entire benefit coming in the second half of the year and mostly in the fourth quarter. 2013 gross margins will also benefit from a greater contribution from our retail division.
Our guidance also assumes SG&A as a percentage of sales of approximately 34%. The main components of our increased spending are as follows. The full-year expense associated with the 30 stores we opened in 2012, 24 of which opened in the second half of the year. Costs associated with the approximately 30 new stores we plan to open in 2013. We will also make additional investments in marketing our Asia wholesale and retail infrastructure that we believe are important to the long-term development and growth of the company. Our capital expenditures in 2013 are expected to total approximately $85 million, with $30 million for the corporate facility and the balance of $15 million for retail stores, IT, and other maintenance. Capital expenses for 2012 were $62 million, including approximately $12 million for the new headquarters. We're still planning to refinance our new corporate headquarters by securing longer-term financing.
For the first quarter of 2013, we currently expect revenues to be flat compared to the first quarter of 2012 and a diluted loss per share of approximately $0.12 per share. As a reminder, a significant amount of our operating expenses are fixed and spread evenly on an absolute dollar basis throughout each quarter. This includes the cost associated with the 24 new stores that were not open until the second half of 2012. Therefore, due to the aforementioned increases in SG&A, we expect our earnings to decline in the first half of 2013 as compared to the first half of 2012, which are typically our lowest volume sales quarters. We expect our earnings to increase over 2012 in the back half of the year.
More specifically, we expect the Q2 loss to be close to double last year's loss. With regard to back half earnings, based on the growing contribution of retail, we expect an even greater percentage of second half earnings to come from Q4. I will now turn the call back over to Angel.
Thanks, Tom. As you've heard, there were several aspects of our fourth quarter performance that we believe demonstrate the vitality of the UGG brand and bolster our confidence about the future. With that said, some of the challenges we faced in 2012 have not fully abated, namely uncertainty around the weather and timing of an economic recovery in Europe. Mindful of these obstacles, we plan to make strategic investments during 2013 in the areas of the business we think are critical to the ongoing development of our brands and channels, while at the same time mitigate risk from the external factors beyond our control. Let me outline our business plan for the coming year. From a product perspective, I think I've touched on several of the initiatives, but here are the priorities.
Introduce more transitional UGG brand product to drive excitement and demand during a historically slow retail period between back to school and Thanksgiving. Leverage the popularity of classics to attract new consumers via a broader selection of specialty classics and classic derivatives. Improve the accessibility of UGG brand's fashion boots through more attractive opening price points. Expand our men's and kids' businesses. Reduce our dependence on sheepskin by further enhancing proprietary supply chain technologies and other initiatives, which I will discuss momentarily. Develop more regional specific product and continue to evolve the Teva and Sanuk brands into year-round businesses. In terms of distribution, we're taking a harder look at the wholesale channel with a long-term view of possibly narrowing the UGG brand's domestic account base.
At the same time, we're moving forward with expanding our global retail footprint in 2013, as our stores generated significant profitability in 2012, and on average, pay back in approximately one year. At this point, we have signed leases for seven locations, two in Asia and five in the U.S. This includes our first company-owned Sanuk brand store, which is scheduled to open in Santa Monica in April of 2013. We're currently in negotiations for additional stores and have a sufficient pipeline to open stores approximately equal to the 30 we opened in 2012. With the addition of Dave Powers, we've gained important insights and identified opportunities in store operations and merchandising that we'll be applying to the business. These include smaller format stores that carry lower operating expenses, and they're less expensive to build out.
Within the stores, we are focused on telling better stories around the product lines, using enhanced visual merchandising, increasing the number of store exclusives, and maintaining better inventory assortments of key styles. We're also redeveloping our outlet strategy to take better advantage of these highly profitable locations. For e-commerce, we're investing in mobile capabilities, elevating our CRM program, and enabling some omni-channel tactics such as pickup in-store. We're developing product customization, which we plan to activate this year. Finally, we plan to launch our site in China this summer and are continuing to evaluate new market opportunities in Europe and Asia. Investments in marketing are also a priority, with a targeted spend as a percent of sales consistent with 2012.
We continue to shift a higher percentage of resources toward digital programs and away from print in an effort to enhance our direct connection with consumers and increase our return on investment. In the international markets, we've made initial progress fine-tuning our brand message, but there's still work to be done improving our marketing insight and capabilities to ensure each program and campaign is resonating with consumers in our different geographic regions. In the past year, we've gathered some important consumer insights, particularly in China, which will be helpful in shaping our product and marketing strategies going forward. In terms of personnel, there are some key positions that need to be filled in 2013, primarily in the Asia region, as well as our global direct-to-consumer operations.
Based on current momentum and the near and medium-term opportunities we believe exist in Asia, we're allocating more international resources to Asia versus Europe this year. With regard to our supply chain, we're very excited about a new proprietary process developed over the last two years that we believe could have a meaningful impact on future sales and margins. Our innovation team was tasked with exploring and developing alternative materials that had to enhance the consumer experience while also helping us mitigate the unpredictability of material costs. The result of the innovation team's effort is UGGpure , a pure wool material with improved feel and consistency, which will first be used in linings and some footbeds this year. With UGGpure , we expect we'll be able to lower our product cost and pursue profitable new growth opportunities, some of which were previously not economically viable.
UGGpure gives us another important key to further unlock the lifestyle nature of the UGG brand well beyond footwear. Last and most importantly, we continue to monitor and adjust our UGG brand inventory commitments, which will reduce our working capital requirements, thereby freeing up cash. We expect to have inventory levels more in line with our back half 2013 sales forecast by the end of the second quarter when they are projected to be down versus the same date last year and flat with the end of 2012. The ultimate level will depend on certain factors, particularly how our new transitional product pre-books, as these styles will need to come in by the second quarter for delivery in Q3. I want to close by acknowledging the effort put forward by this organization in 2012.
For our business to persevere through such a challenging operating environment is a testament to the strength of our people and their commitment to our consumers and our shareholders. Thank you to everyone for your continued support. Operator, we're now ready to take questions.
Yes, thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. In the interest of time, please allow yourself to one question and one follow-up question. Once again, please press star one to ask a question, and we'll pause for just a moment to assemble the queue. We'll go first to Randal Konik with Jefferies.
All right, great. Thanks a lot. I guess the question is for Tom. Tom, you gave a very interesting statement regarding your top-line assumptions for 2013. You said that 7% outlook growth includes a similar winter kind of assumption to this year. Now, to clarify, does that kind of incorporate similar amounts of closeouts, similar amounts of at-once pre-book, et cetera? How should we be thinking about that there? Because, the way it kind of looks to me is that the probability would increase in year three, that the winter theoretically could get better. Then second, we have almost like a car analogy here where almost women haven't been buying UGGs for two years, so the replacement cycle could actually get better in year three here. Just trying to get a level of what should we be thinking in that similar winter comment regarding the top line?
How should we be thinking about that? That's my first question, then I have a follow-up. Thanks.
Randy, what we've assumed in the guidance, we're pretty cautious here in light of the uncertainty around the weather. We've really assumed minimal reorders similar to what we experienced in 2012, i.e., minimal reorders. We've assumed similar cancellations that we received in 2012. We received a fair amount of cancellations, a relatively large amount relative to our historical pattern for cancellations. That's the assumptions that we put into it. At this point in time, where we're at in the pre-booking process, we wanted to make sure we were cautious on our domestic wholesale business.
This is Angel, I think, the replenishment component is something to keep in mind. We are the number 1 in terms of footwear, gifted item at the holidays. As we saw with the onset of colder weather, people did rush out to replace some of the UGG product.
Primarily, it was a lot of slippers and a lot of the new styles, some of the classic products. As a matter of fact, in The Daily Beast today, I just saw this, there was an article on the resurgence of UGG classic. I always wonder where we went. I don't think that we went away, but people are rediscovering it. That bodes well. It's just still right now, consumers are challenged by the multiple opportunities they have to buy product, not just in retail environments, wholesale environments, obviously, but in online, et cetera. We're sort of trying to evaluate all of that stuff in our assumptions.
That's fair. It does feel like the visibility and predictability at least is starting to come a little bit more into focus here. My follow-up question would be definitely around the comp store sales number. If we look at the comp in the fourth quarter down three-ish, versus, the third quarter down 13, would you argue that because it's the holiday quarter, that speaks to that strength of the brand? What did you see in the quarter that did it progress up until Christmas? Or how did the comps in the quarter kind of play out? It was a big beat versus expectations. I'm just curious there, your thoughts.
I think first of all, weather was a key factor. I think, certainly the back half of December, the weather did improve to what we call UGG weather, and it was a big, significant factor. I think consumers are putting off their purchasing to, as we said, beginning last year even, buy now, wear now. They're just developing a habit of buying closer to the market, which is, I think, part of why we've made the decision that our expectation is that we're gonna see more of our business weighted to the fourth quarter than we had seen in the past. I think that this is also a component of the omni-channel strategy that seems to be emerging in so many different manifestations. It's still hard to understand the full impact of omni-channel on consumer behavior, on the impact to conventional wholesale customers.
Consumers want what they want, they want it now, and they want it in every easy way they can get it. That has a ripple effect on a lot of assumptions and a lot of investments that people make in terms of inventory levels, et cetera. This is all still shaking out, and we're being cautious, but I think we have our eyes open, and we're working very hard to project the impact of what I would almost call a revolutionary change in the wholesale environment and consumer behavior around omni-channel.
All right. Thanks. Tom, can you just hear this question? Just a clerical question. The headquarter CapEx that you're guiding for in 2013, are we to assume that there's no headquarter CapEx in 2014?
Yes. Let me also clarify something. On the 2013 CapEx of $85 million, $30 million of it's for the facility, and I think I misspoke and I said $15 million for everything else. It's really $55 million for everything else. You're correct.
Right. $30 million of that could theoretically is going to go away in 2014, improving free cash flow cycle.
That's right.
All right. Got it. All right. Thank you.
We'll go next to Bob Drbul with Barclays.
Hi. Good evening, guys. The first question I have, Angel, you mentioned the potential to narrow the account base on the U.S. wholesale business. I wonder if you could expand on that a little bit, maybe like the magnitude that you think might be necessary. The second question that I have is essentially around pricing on the classics. Can you just talk about the pricing strategies heading into 2012, both in the U.S. and some of the international businesses on a lot of your marquee styles?
Well, first of all, our classic pricing, let me start with that. The classic pricing is something that our research has said consumers have an expectation of quality with the UGG brand, are willing to pay a premium price, but when we push the price beyond a certain point, we start seeing a negative effect. We saw that last year. We expect that we'll be able, with UGGpure and other improvements in supply chain, in design, and development, that we'll be able to hold our price structure now and actually evolve our pricing to fill in, and our product line to fill in some areas where we're leaving opportunity open to the competition. That's a worldwide statement.
We feel that in markets like China, for example, we are priced quite high, and I think that we're speaking to a very high-end luxury consumer, and there are people out there with knockoff product, selling at 20%, 30%, 40% below, driving a very big business on the tails of UGG. We feel that that's an opportunity for the UGG brand, and we're going to be developing product to address that. What was the first question again? Sorry.
Distribution.
Oh, distribution. I said before that as the brand has evolved and our men's business, our kids' business, our year-round business, it requires a commitment of inventory, requires a commitment on the brand by a retailer. Where we get those commitments and we see that kind of support for the brand, we have partners for life, if you will. However, there are some environments where we're not happy with the brand presentation. We're not happy with the support for the year-round elements of the business and the support for the men's product. We have to reevaluate whether or not those are long-term participants in the brand success going forward. Consumers today expect a full brand experience when they have a brand they love, like UGG. They don't want to see a piecemeal representation and a brand that gets cherry-picked and put out there at retail.
We're taking a very hard look at that. It's a very important part of what we'll be doing. When you walk into an Apple retail, you expect to see a full array of Apple products. You expect to see all the new stuff. You expect to see it celebrated in the presentation, and that's what we'll have with the UGG brand.
Great. If I could just add one more question is, on the share repurchase was pretty solid. Can you maybe give us an update on the board's perspective or the company's perspective on the capital structure and the willingness to sort of take on significant debt or any level of debt to continue the repurchase authorization?
Yeah, Bob, I think the board is open to being more flexible from a capital structure point of view and incurring some debt. That being said, we're cautious about the business and don't want to incur too much debt. Obviously, the seasonality in the business, the third quarter especially, there's a large consumption of working capital, thereby, some good-sized draws on our working capital line. I think net, there's sort of a general trend of being more open to some borrowing related to the share repurchase. That being said, we see a lot of opportunity within our own business to continue to reinvest in our own business vis-a-vis repurchasing stock. I think the last 12 months where we repurchased $221 million of stock, I think that sends a strong message about our confidence in the business itself.
Thanks very much, Tom.
All right.
We'll go next to Erinn Murphy with Piper Jaffray.
Great. Thank you for taking my question. On holiday, I had a question for you on the marketing plan as we think about 2013. What mediums and regions will you be weighting your investment towards, and how should we think about the new customer acquisition and then revenue growth prospects from some of these marketing initiatives? Then I have a quick follow-up for Tom. Thank you.
Sure. Well, I mentioned omni-channel earlier, and it's pretty clear that that is becoming the driver of marketing strategy. The ability to have a relationship one-on-one with a consumer today, intersect that consumer in every way they care to shop and they care to access your brand is really critical, and it's global. That's not just the U.S. That's what's happening all over the world. It really requires us to reallocate our marketing expenses in a way that puts us where we need to be over the course of the next few years so that we're not missing that opportunity to offer all of our brands, offer consumers access the way they want them, when they want them. This is, as I mentioned, a revolutionary moment, I think.
I think that we're still, all of us, everyone in the industry, and I think all of retail, is still assessing the impact. I think it has broad implications for how retailers sell product in the future, how brands put their products out there. The idea of running magazine ads like we used to run, it's like the old adage, 50% of it works, I just don't know which 50%. That's been way obsoleted now because we can run digital advertising, digital marketing, and we can tell you precisely that day how well that performed and where and to what extent it was a good investment. We're orienting ourselves toward this future, and that's what's happening.
Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. Tom, just a quick clarification on the guidance. I just want to make sure I heard it correctly. The first quarter loss per share of about $0.12, and you said the second quarter loss about 2X of what was last year. Was that correct?
That's right.
Okay, I guess the implicit guidance for the back half would be somewhere in the kind of mid 20% year-over-year growth rate. Maybe just help, from the visibility that you have here, kind of help us appreciate the re-acceleration of growth in the second half. Is part of this kind of tied to the higher retail weighting in that second part of the year as you see the flow through of the new store openings? What are some of the other catalysts? Is it replenishment, like Randy spoke to earlier, or some of the other things that you're seeing at this point? Thank you.
I think the biggest drivers are, you hit on it, the retail stores. We'll have another fourth quarter. Just a point of reference, in the fourth quarter, the typical retail store does about half its annual revenues, and it does about three-quarters of its annual operating profit, all in the fourth quarter. This year's fourth quarter, we'll have another year of openings we had in 2012, and then we'll have another 30 stores. That's the big catalyst as well as we have some more e-commerce business expected over the course of the year. It's really driven in the back half, and a lot of that's driven by some new initiatives in e-commerce, as well as our international e-commerce site. Sanuk and Teva have some growth in the back half of the year, especially the fourth quarter. With Teva, it's more closed-toe footwear.
In Sanuk, it's more of a more rounded out fall line. I think that's it.
We'll go next to Omar Saad with ISI Group.
Thanks. Good afternoon. Angel, could you maybe give us a little bit more color or insight into some of the interesting comments you made at the end about this pure product? You also made some comments about bolstering kind of your transitional product offerings. We're hearing more and more from some of the cold weather sensitive brands out there, given changing weather patterns and retail order patterns, hearing more and more about an emphasis on transition product. Are the two related, or maybe address them separately?
I think as we look long term, yes, they are related in the sense that transitional product is at lower price points. Generally speaking, it's not the twin face sheepskin product that classic is, classic predominates in on the fourth quarter. We already know, because of our success with extensions of our moccasin program, for example, and a variety of other styles that we've done, the consumers are amenable to it. We have really kind of been tiptoeing around it. We really didn't have the capability, given the sheepskin pricing issue, to address the breadth of price points that are required in order for us to fully exploit the development of that kind of a product line. UGGpure allows us to have a lot more flexibility. It is, in every way, superior to the current feel of our product.
As good as our products feel, we feel we've hit on something even better, and consumer testing has already demonstrated that it is preferred to a significant level in terms of its suppleness, its softness, et cetera. There are some things, and you'll see them in the lines, in the foot beds or sock liners, as we say, and used sort of minimally as we've been wrapping up on this new material approach. It's pretty exciting because it does give us less of a dependence on the availability of sheepskin in the global market. That's not to say we won't be continuing to create product using the conventional materials. It just means that we'll be far less dependent on the sheepskin, the twin face that we've been using.
The other thing that it does is that it gives us a chance to explore some lifestyle products and home products. We've been dabbling in that, again, the same reason that we haven't pursued it more aggressively, when we would create these products, we'd find ourselves almost priced out of the real volume opportunities at still a quality premier level, but our prices were too high. This now allows us to fully evolve that whole idea. We're pretty excited about that.
Thanks. A quick question on SG&A. I think you got it to 34% range this year, up a bit from last year. Not that too long ago, you guys were at a 25%-ish type rate, mid 20s-ish rate. Great to see you guys ramping up investment in brand and management team and infrastructure and framework. How do you think about it long term? Is that kind of a level that seems, that feels right to you for relative to sales, or did you see enough significant opportunities out there where you're going to continue to aggressively invest and maybe continue to delever a little bit?
I think when you think about SG&A long term, you sort of also need to look at what the gross margin may look at long term. With the increase in the direct-to-consumer and some of these other initiatives around input costs, I think there's opportunity to expand gross margins, obviously, above our current level. That being said, we need to be able to invest to drive the growth, I think we need to, on a longer-term basis, look at the company, more similar to other multi-billion dollar global multi-channel brands. When you net out there, you net out to a new view on operating margins, more in the mid-teens on a longer term basis, on a much larger company.
Understood. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
We'll go next to Taposh Bari with Goldman Sachs.
Hey, guys. I guess I just wanted to start on same-store sales. Tom, do you mind giving us some clarity as to what your assumptions are for same-store sales for both the full year and first quarter guidance?
Yeah. For the full year, again, we want to be cautious there. We're looking at full year total company same-store sales assumption of relatively flat and sort of embedded in that is some improvement in China and U.K. Still some work to be done there, but at least I started to identify some of the issues there. That's that. The first quarter, another thing on the full year number is Japan. Some tough comparisons there and some of the newer stores going to the base. We don't expect the same store sales in Japan to continue at the high clip they've been. That's the full year number in flattish. In the first quarter, we expect some modest kind of growth in the first quarter, but we're still relatively small in the first quarter as well.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Angel, I just wanted to ask you more of a high level question. Obviously, you had a very difficult 12-month period you're coming out of. Looking back, there obviously been some pretty nasty macro headwinds, including sheepskin, weather, Europe. Anything company specific, strategically that you think you could have done differently looking back in retrospect?
Well, we could have invested in better weather predicting. We have for quite a while, as I mentioned in my comments, for the last two years, we've been working on this innovation of UGGpure. It's not something that we have been shy about. We put a lot of resources against this. It's been an important thing. I wish we'd have been even more aggressive there. It has proven to be validated as a very important thing going forward. Now, if I'd have known how it all have come together, I really would have been even harder driving against that. I guess I would also say that this transitional product that we're now doing, I would have liked to have begun that process earlier.
In a sense, it's very difficult when we knew what the known components of pricing and raw material costs were what they were a year ago. UGGpure is still not fully evolved, it was even hard then to get as aggressive about the development of the transitional product. Innovation is the key to our success in the future, this is really how hard we push on innovation is something that I've learned we need to push even harder. I think we need to get the entire organization focused on innovative ideas in every single component of our business. I think that, frankly, with all of those things that went down in 2012, the first few months, we were a little shell-shocked.
We kept sort of saying to ourselves, "This really can't all be happening at the same time." We were caught, perhaps a little bit flat-footed. Well, that's not true right now, I'll tell you that. We're in full sprint mode, I think that's a major lesson learned.
Helpful. I just wanted to take in one more, if I can. For the first quarter guidance, flat revenue growth, that seems you're going to have 30 more stores year-over-year. I'm just trying to understand where the gap lies, because it just seems like a very low number.
Yeah. Taposh, again, I mentioned sort of a modest view on comp. We do have 30 more stores. At the same time, our wholesale business is under pressure in the first quarter compared to the year-ago quarter. That albeit last year was a difficult winter in January and most of February. We still had more classic boot kind of sales the first couple of months of last year than we've been experiencing this year.
Also, there's one other thing that comes to mind when you ask the question, what would we have done differently? I don't think looking back that we would have pushed our suggested retail prices in line with our increases in material costs. We were trying to protect our bottom line, I think it cost us, I think that's a lesson learned. I think in the end, it's something we've always said, but it's hard under fire to hold to it. The consumer rules, the consumer wants what they want, you have to be super careful not to go beyond a point where consumers feel that you've overstepped a boundary. We knew that, we were conscious of that. We wanted to satisfy all of you guys, all of our shareholders. I think we got caught a little bit there.
I think that's a lesson learned going forward.
Thanks for the honesty and good luck in 2013.
Thank you.
Thanks.
We'll go next to Mitch Kummetz with Robert W. Baird.
Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. Let me start. I just want to get some clarification on the backlog. I think you guys said it was down 17%. I didn't hear as of what date that was. If you can remind me of that. Could you also say, what % of your fall pre-book is actually captured in that backlog number? You mentioned that you'll take orders over the next couple of months. Can you say kind of what sort of projection on the overall fall pre-book is baked into your guidance for the year?
Yeah, Mitch, this is Tom. The backlog numbers I talked about were as of the end of December 31.
Early in the pre-booking process, another thing we've seen this year, I kind of mentioned it on the call, is seem to be the customers are viewing the product and ordering the product later than we saw last year. Last year, by the end of December, we had a good amount of customers, still although early, that already viewed and written some of the product. On the pre-book, still early, we're pleased with how some of the product's been booking. The pre-booking process goes through the end of April.
We've got a good amount of it in. We feel we've taken a cautious look in terms of where the pre-book's going to end by the end of April, when we've developed our guidance.
Just to follow up on that, either can you tell me where you think it will end, or could you at least say sort of what is your wholesale outlook embedded in your guidance? Obviously, you guys are opening up stores. You expect some good growth from that. Your e-commerce business is trending very well. It sounds like the wholesale has been a bit weak, the backlog's a bit weak. Maybe we'll see that pick up with some later ordering. If you could either say kind of what's baked in on the wholesale side for your 2013 guidance, particularly on UGG.
Yeah. I think the wholesale guidance, again, being cautious here with all the other assumptions I laid out, for UGG for the total year, we're assuming at this point in time, the wholesale guidance could be down mid to high single digits.
Okay. That's helpful. As my second question, on this UGGpure, is there any way you can say, like, what percentage of your COGS you think that will represent for the year, what kind of impact does that have from a gross margin standpoint, in terms of kind of that 150 basis point? Is that on top of the 150 basis points that you're just benefiting from lower sheepskin costs, or is this kind of embedded in that, or how should we think about the impact of UGGpure from a margin standpoint on this year's numbers?
Mitch, this is Zohar. I'll take the first part about the usage of that. Right now, we are using it at lining and socks material.
It's a significant amount of the usage that we've had. That can be about a quarter of what we're using, we're not using the whole thing at this time. As we continue to develop and to develop the product, you will see a greater usage of the UGGpure in our products.
Okay.
Mitch, the 150 basis points I talked about of improvement in the margin related to sheepskin, that does include, a portion of that, of the 150% is related to UGGpure , albeit we're at the early stages of that, really.
Got it. That's great. All right. Thanks, guys. Good luck.
We'll go next to Scott Krasik with BB&T Capital Markets.
Yeah. Hi, everyone, congrats to a better ending to a tough year.
Thanks.
Angel, you talked about transition product. What sort of reception have you seen specifically to the transition product, in your bookings? Are customers interested in you guys playing a big role now in August through October, in non-classic product? That's my first question.
Well, I'd say yes. The transitional product, we're just now calling it that. That's like a working name. The casual product that we have been showing has booked extremely well. It's booked extremely well for Q3. We really feel like we've got momentum there. We've also had ballerinas doing very well, the Driving Mocs, our smoking slippers. Those are all transitional products. They're not sheepskin dependent per se. They have sheepskin touches, they have been well-received. We have had as well, excellent sell-through on those products this fall when we introduced them in a more complete assortment than we had in the past. I think that really bodes well for the retailer and the consumer reception to this idea.
Okay. Thanks. You alluded to the fact that the retail stores you're opening now run at a little bit lower productivity and the returns are a little bit lower. Is that a function of where you've opened these stores as you, maybe as Europe improves on a macro basis or you have some better brand recognition in Asia, could it get better? If it is at these levels, does it make sense to keep opening stores the way you expect to?
Yeah, Scott, this is Tom. A good amount of it, there's obviously a lot of different dynamics depending on what region you talk about. Our first Class of stores, so to speak, the first 48 are just great locations and are very productive. In terms of, does it make sense to open more stores? Look at those, even with the productivity below the best, the freshman class, so to speak, they're great returns, great operating margins, great returns on capital with those one-year paybacks. That coupled with some of the earlier trends we're seeing out in the marketplace, wholesale versus retail, that Angel talked about, it makes a lot of sense to do this.
Also keep in mind that the stores we've got in Asia have been pretty much located in what you might call luxury environments. These are really premium malls. The neighbors are high-end neighbors, if you will. The consumer is now evolving. The middle is coming up. More malls are developing that cater to what you might call upper middle class or middle, solid middle class people in Asia, particularly China. We have opportunity to expand beyond the luxury locations that we've been in, which is fine for those have been great for brand positioning and image, but I think that we have now got an opportunity to access more consumers, just a lot more consumers for whom the brand, and in China, it's called UGG, that's how they refer to it. UGG is considered a premium high-end brand, high quality.
Our goal really has to be to make sure that we're merchandising the product line appropriately for the Asian consumer, not even Asian, for the Chinese versus the Korean versus the Japanese. Also making sure that we're hitting the price points we need to hit because this is really a critical component of our growth going forward.
Okay. No, that's great. Oh, just if I could sneak one in on Pure. Is the material something that you could put into made-for-outlet product? Is it that similar to sheepskin that you could use it to change the margin structure across the board?
I'm not going to speculate on exactly what class of product we put it in. I would just say that as a material, it is softer, it is more consistent, and the perception is it's higher quality than even the natural stuff that's out there. Which as much as we select for the best hides, a lot of the shearling material itself, it feels a little coarse by comparison. This is a significant enhancement to our product consistency.
All right. Good luck, guys.
Thank you.
We'll go next to Corinna Freedman with Wedbush Securities.
For taking my question. I wanted to ask about the longer-term plan for 2016 to get that additional $1 billion. Does the lower retail productivity change your thinking there? Does the reduction in the wholesale base change your thinking there? If there's any update you can give us on that 2016 plan. Thanks.
Yeah. With the innovation we talked about with UGGpure and some of the recent learnings we have in our retail business, especially in Asia, at this point in time, we're sort of going through the update process of our longer-term plans. I really can't comment or update any long-term plans at this point in time. I will fall back on what I said earlier with these opportunities we see and the UGGpure innovation and even with the lower productivity, the great returns on capital and great operating margins we see there, albeit we're going to have to invest in the right OPEX and the right infrastructure to be able to grow a global brand. We obviously still feel there's great opportunities long run, long term.
I just have one follow-up question about the NPD POS data that comes out monthly. Can you address any inconsistencies that you might be seeing on your side of the business versus what is being recorded, and do you expect that to inflect anytime soon? That's my last question. Thanks.
Well, I guess a couple things to talk about NPD data. It doesn't cover our entire distribution base. It obviously doesn't cover our retail stores or our e-commerce. Some of their categories blur the lines in terms of where UGG falls and where UGG doesn't fall. I think, we've talked about how the sporadic weather, how that's impacted weekly sell-through, not only our wholesale channel, but our own retail stores. It's one thing to look at. It's certainly, in our mind, not the most important thing to look at.
Thanks a lot.
We'll go next to Eric Tracy with Janney Montgomery Scott.
Thanks. Good afternoon. I guess if I could just touch on the supply chain and given the retailers changing ordering patterns in later, I get the transitional product being layered in, but maybe just speak to the supply chain adjustments that are being made to try to smooth that and again, just deal with that change.
The change we're making is specifically timing of bringing the inventory when it's needed and building the transition product that Angel was talking about. Also just more responsiveness from our suppliers. In other words, being more current with consumer preferences. This is a business historically that was wholesale driven. We built product for introduction twice a year. We went to trade shows two times a year. The consumer wants fresh product every 60 days at a minimum, and you have to be much more reactive, especially when they seem to have access to sort of every presentation of product across the internet. A fashion thing happens or a color happens or a trend motorcycle boot pop, and they pop big, and they pop everywhere. We have to be current, we have to be aggressive, and that's what these changes are going to guarantee.
I guess if I could just follow on this conversation between wholesale and be it retail or just DTC. Angel, as you think about the model longer term, what is the right percentage of the mix, be it domestically or globally? How far do you want to vertically integrate, not alienating the wholesale partner, but even on lower new store productivity, clearly, it's a massively accretive sort of move to move in that direction. Again, maybe just sort of speak to the longer term structure.
I think it will always be very important for us to be in a wholesale environment. Right now, and I'll just throw a number out, I wouldn't ever see us less than 50% of our business being wholesale as it's been historically. How long before that happens? That's up to the consumer, what they want, and whether or not, in many cases, we even have the wholesale partners who make the transition to omnichannel. I think one of the things that I know about the footwear business, it's really important for you to be available in-store with multiple brands. Obviously, in our own environment, it's only going to be UGG. The true test of competitiveness is when you're in a Nordstrom and you are up against all the other great brands and you perform on that level. That's what's unique about the footwear industry.
People go to a store, they want to try on a variety of products. If they're looking for a boot or a loafer or a driving moc, they don't just want to try on yours. You have to win that battle at retail, it's what I call the last three feet. That is always going to be a critical component of success for this company long term. That's a key element of the footwear industry. Our job is to be in the best environments, where the brand is presented consistent with our expectations and the consumer value that is placed on those brands. Wholesale will always be important. It will always be a key component.
Frankly, over time, as retailers evolve to the new realities of consumer behavior, the partnership that we have with them is going to be absolutely critical because it's going to be a multi-legged stool. You're going to have the internet, you're going to have wholesale, and you're going to have our own retail, and all three things have to work in concert for that consumer to be satisfied. It means that we have a lot of collaboration with our customers. That's why it's so important that we make sure we have wholesale partners that are committed to the same vision for the brands as we are.
Okay. If I could just sneak in one last sort of near-term question. I'm trying to somewhat reconcile, I guess, the trends you're maybe seeing year-over-year through January and February relative to seemingly much more beneficial weather, just being very cold across the country. I guess still sort of working through the inventory, but maybe just speak to what that dynamic is and again, why maybe the sell-through isn't as strong.
Well, whenever the weather gets cold, we see very strong performance in our stores and on our internet sites. It's become just a very precise barometer. It's amazing, actually. This wasn't necessarily the case when we were in an environment where, let's say our business was concentrated in California, and we have cool nights in California, even in the summertime. Our business was pretty stable because people put on UGG in the evenings to go out on a cool evening. Well, it really did change the dynamic for our brand in ways that we began to understand a lot better with the real extreme swings in weather.
The real extreme swings in weather sort of highlighted this consumer behavior and really created for us a need to really diversify the product offering and do some things that if the consumer loves UGG, they love it for the comfort, they love it for the quality and the luxury. We want to make sure that there's a version of UGG that they can wear in most weather environments.
Okay, appreciate it. Best of luck.
Thank you.
Thanks.
We'll go next to Christian Buss with Credit Suisse.
Yeah, hi. I was wondering if you could provide some help with us in understanding what the incremental expenses on the SG&A front are associated with the new store openings sort of sequentially over the course of the year.
Well, Christian, it's Tom. In terms of the year-over-year guided OpEx versus where we were at in 2012, really most of the year-over-year increase is really related to the retail stores as well as our e-commerce business. That's it, net. When you're talking about 24 stores that now are open, excuse me, the 30 that we opened in 2012, they're obviously going to roll in starting the first quarter of this year. As we open the roughly 30 more stores in 2013, most of those will be in the fourth quarter. I think another subset of that retail and e-commerce, give you a little granularity, is our e-commerce business, which is about 10% of the total overall OpEx increase for the year. There's a fair amount of variability in the e-commerce business, and we're looking at some good strength in the e-commerce business.
Hopefully, that gives you some, the typical retail operating expenses or the amortization of the leasehold improvement, the supplies, the labor, those kinds of things.
We could be seeing a step up in the incremental SG&A expense year-over-year in the first quarter and through the balance of the year. Is that correct?
That's right. Yeah.
Okay. That's helpful.
Yeah.
I wanted to ask, the guidance for other revenue is for basically a doubling of other revenue year-over-year. Could you talk to me about how you get there?
Yeah. The biggest drivers in that are the couple brands, although we see growth in every one of the brands that's in that other category, the biggest growth is in the Ahnu brand, as well as our new brand, HOKA. Those are the two biggest drivers.
Yeah. Just to give you a little color on HOKA.
Yeah.
HOKA One One is a running shoe brand that was developed for ultra-marathon running. We're talking 50, 100 mile races in the mountains. It has tremendous momentum in running specialty, extremely authentic brand. We have been looking for an opportunity in the athletic aspect of footwear. We don't play in that arena. That's the biggest piece of the business when it comes to footwear globally. We wanted to make sure it was an authentic brand, preferably a running shoe brand. We're pretty excited about HOKA. It's still young, it's still small, but it's evolving very quickly. They're extraordinary shoes. They really are amazing products.
Will that revenue flow in starting in the first quarter, or is that weighted later in the year?
On that one particular brand, there's more in the back half than the front half. It's fairly and fairly even.
Okay. Thank you very much, and good luck.
All right. Thanks.
We'll go next to Howard Tubin with RBC Capital Markets.
Thanks guys. Just really quickly. Angel, you spoke about looking at your outlet stores differently and redeveloping your outlet store strategy. Any more detail you can give us on that?
I think outlet stores for us have been something that we've been a little bit opportunistic on. We haven't put the focus on an outlet strategy as compared, separate and distinct from a first line store strategy. If you look at some of our outlet stores, I think they're wonderful looking stores. It's a great shopping experience. We're going to be focusing more on the merchandising of those stores as distinct and separate from our concept stores. We're going to be more aggressive about locations as they pop up, opportunities that may surface in malls that we feel we need to be in.
We have been putting the priority on concept stores in the last few years, but the outlet stores are very profitable, as you know, and they provide a great opportunity for access to the brand by consumers, especially now when we can create price points that enable us to be more flexible there. Creating product for those stores that really fills the UGG expectation by consumers is a good opportunity.
All right. Thanks.
All right.
We'll take our final question from Camilo Lyon with Canaccord Genuity.
Thanks, guys, for squeezing me in. I had a quick question. With respect to the transitional product, how are your wholesale accounts splitting their open-to-buy dollars between the classic UGG orders that they had in years past versus the traditional product? Is there a shift in allocation of dollars? Are you getting a bigger share of that open-to-buy? If you could just shed some color on that'd be great.
I think over the last few years, we've seen our classic business remain pretty much flat to the total. The growth has been coming from a lot of the new styles, including the casual styles that we've done over the last couple of years, and transitional product sort of falls into that domain. It opens up the business to more seasons for the retailer. At first, in, let's say, about 4 years ago, when we really first started developing this product, there was a big question mark as to whether we could sell product beyond classic slippers and classic boots. The consumers answered that question. They've really said they love the brand. The brand can come at them from everything from sandals to driving mocs , as I mentioned earlier. We're not seeing a retailer. It's not an either/or, it's an and conversation.
We're taking market share from people that we have not, in the past, competed with because of this development of our casual product. UGG Classic is UGG Classic. That is a business almost in and of itself. It's, as we said, heavily fourth quarter. It's a big gift item. The casual product is bought for a very different purpose, although people still expect it to perform like UGG.
Okay. The casual product then going to have lower ASPs since it's selling earlier in the season. Should that have an impact in how we should look at the overall back half ASP picture?
I'd say, generally speaking, yes, because it is, by nature, it's not boots. Boots are more expensive. The nature of the product, ballerinas, driving mocs , and those kind of things are lower price point products.
Got it. Thanks a lot. Good luck for 2013.
Thanks.
This does conclude our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to the speakers for any additional or closing remarks.
Well, thank you all for participating on the call. 2012 was a very difficult year, a very tough storm that we weathered as a company. As the old saying goes, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," and we are definitely stronger as a company. We're stronger as all of our brands. A lot more focused, and I think it bodes well for the future. I'm incredibly proud of our team around the world and the way we've managed through all of the challenges. All of us are very excited about the future and the kinds of things that we now get to do with all of our brands. Thank you all very much.
Thank you