Midnight Tulle Wunder Under Crops, It’s Fleecing Cold Pullover, Featherlight Singlet, Black Restless Pullover, Speed Tight V Variagated Knit, White/Black Ombre Swiftly Tech LS

Well, surprisingly, it seems people *are* still buying – even though there seems to be A LOT of complaining lately about the majority of the designs, the jacked up prices and downhill quality, etc. It may be that profits are up simply because of all the price hikes and everything being priced so high now, so even if there aren't as many people actually buying or people buying as much as they used to, they are making up for it with the increased prices on what they are selling perhaps?

That makes sense, Lulumum, thanks for the explanation. There sure seemed to be a lot of that kind of thing going on over the past few months. I've even read about people receiving randomly handed out surprise gift cards at yoga/pilates/barre studios, cross fit gyms, etc.. Not to belittle anyone who chooses to use them, but so glad I don't fall for this kind of thing. I don't think anything will ever change as long as people are still buying and they company is being rewarded from it obviously since their profits are up when things seem to be at their worst.

Check out Laurent Potdevin's instragram post from today. The caption reads 'Our @ivivva crew came to cheer me up right before our earnings call.' Their profits are solely based on increased margins and huge incentives (outside of the typical markdown analytics) to get customers into the stores to purchased 'full price' by incentivizing with across the board 20-25% off all merch. I'd be interested to know how many units they sold this year over previous years for that modest earnings increase.

@4:04am, while I agree that Nike produces much that is mass market, it also produces niche items and plenty of designer collaborations with performance fabrics. It just depends on where you find your gear. The Nike at Macy's or a kohls or a sporting goods store will tend to be the mass market stuff. The stuff found in the Nike stores in NY or SanFran. will be higher end and more edgy. I have a ton of Nike that does NOT have a swoosh logo slapped on it. While I agree that much of what potvedin has come out with this past year has been dull,plain and lacking all of the details of past Lulu that many of us all loved, I don't think it's fair to paint a broad brush and slam Nike as the purveyor of all that is ugly and plain. At my Equinox gym women mix andwear everything from Nike and under armour to Lululemon to a few Carbon38 brands and some niche yoga brands. They usually are not dressed head to toe in one brand.

Well I certainly am not eating humble pie based on these quarterly reports. It's not surprising to see gross margins increase when they jacked up prices and gave us cheaply produced product. But why are people buying this stuff, well it's LLL and people are still wanting LLL whether they actually love the product or not. I know that I have been guilty this year of making a couple of purchases for the simple reason of just wanting to buy something, that is no longer the case. I have also returned more product this year than ever before. Their strategy of pricing product extremely high has worked for them because when they move it to WMTM it generates sales even if the markdown is slight. This is really quite a remarkable strategy in that consumers who wouldn't normally buy due to the high price or are on the fence as to whether they want it or not, are enticed by the idea of getting it at a marked down price however small that reduced price is. Hell I was so wanting a new rulu top that I ended up spending $60. on a marked down rulu top that I would have returned if given the option. Which takes me to their other genius strategy of putting more product on WMTM which becomes a final sale. Why not mark it down $20.00 knowing it can never be returned. With a lot of their less than desirable designs this year, how happy they must be to sell them even at a markdown because it can't be returned. However, I believe a lot of sales this year have been driven by consumers still hungry for LLL even if they are less than thrilled with the designs and quality. But I think this company can only ride on the coat-tails of past reputation for so long especially if they keep producing product that is so generic and basically lacking anything special about it. The logo can only take them so far then they will have to earn sales based solely on their look, quality and performance.