News 
Market Data 
Discover
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
HOTT is flagging...bullish above $9
HOTT - Daily Candlesticks
|
Followers
|
5
|
Posters
|
|
|
Posts (Today)
|
0
|
Posts (Total)
|
101
|
|
Created
|
07/04/06
|
Type
|
Free
|
| Moderators | |||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||
If you want a general idea of their product lines and audiences, visit their homepage.
The music-licensed apparel industry essentially began in the 1960s with bootleggers selling tee shirts at concert venues. Over the years, artists began to realize the commercial potential of licensing their likenesses and logos to tee shirt manufacturers and others who produced assorted merchandise.
The music industry and music merchandise industry have been significantly impacted by the availability and accessibility of the Internet and digital technology. This is in stark contrast to past decades when the vinyl record cover and a few magazines of modest circulation were the primary source of young people’s information about their music and favorite bands. Today’s media enable fans not only to listen to music and artists 24 hours a day, but also to experience a full sight and sound package of appearance and attitude.
As a result of today’s media reach, both emerging and well-known artists and the fashions they inspire are much more visible. We believe this increased visibility has contributed to a rise in demand for music/pop culture-licensed and music/pop culture-influenced apparel and accessories.
Hot Topic’s target customers are young men and women between the ages of 12 and 22 who are passionate about music and pop culture. We believe our music/pop culture-influenced merchandise appeals to teenagers from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and that our customers are broadly representative of the teenage population in the United States.
Our second retail concept, Torrid, was developed based upon feedback from plus-size female Hot Topic customers who wanted a store that catered to women like them. We concluded there were a significant number of young women consumers who were plus-size and unable to find and buy a broad enough selection of fashion forward clothes in comparison to their smaller sized friends. We launched Torrid in the first half of fiscal 2001, with the opening of six locations across the country, and a website, www.torrid.com. Our Torrid store target customers are plus-size females aged 15 to 29, who are primarily influenced by fashion trends and by pop culture. We believe our Torrid store assortment allows young customers wearing sizes 12 to 26 to match the style, excitement and selection available at other non-plus-size fashion retailers.
Our e-space music discovery concept, ShockHound, was launched during the third quarter of fiscal 2008. ShockHound encompasses multiple music genres and offers four core elements: online music downloads, a music merchandise retail store, exclusive editorial and video content, and social networking.
Hot Topic Business Strategy
Our business strategy is built on the foundation of pop culture and its relevance to our target teen customer. Within pop culture, we believe music plays a primary and integral role in the minds, activities and preferences of our target customers. Elements of Hot Topic’s business strategy include:
Focus on Music, the Differentiating Cornerstone of our Brand
We continue to be committed to positioning ourselves firmly at the forefront of rock music, the core of our business. Music has continually evolved and the move to digital formats has impacted how teens learn about and access music. Today’s teenagers have diverse tastes across all genres of rock music. At Hot Topic, we continue to position our brand to be the authentic, credible voice for new music. Our music strategy has evolved to be much less dependent on major artists and now focuses on a wide offering of band merchandise through the support of emerging rock artists. Many of these new artists are initially identified by our associates and customers. Our music assortment reflects this declining dependency on major artists with most of our products now focused on emerging and mid-tier bands.
Focus on Unique Music/Pop Culture-Oriented Merchandise
We believe that fashion and products associated with popular music artists and pop culture trends have a significant influence on our customers. We have developed a unique strategy focused exclusively on offering music/pop culture-licensed and music/pop culture-influenced merchandise in shopping malls, lifestyle centers
and entertainment centers around the country as well as on the Internet. Accordingly, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on the growing teenage population and demand for music/pop culture-influenced merchandise.
Continue to Operate a Fundamentally Regular Price Business
Our strategy of reducing the number of our promotional events reinforced the integrity of our regular prices during fiscal 2008. Consistent with the past fiscal year, our strategy continues to be to limit the number of promotions that drive short-term sales increases, and to remain committed to controlling the number of promotionally priced items in order to preserve the integrity of our product offerings and prices.
Continue to Uphold Ourselves as a Merchandise ‘Item’ Destination with a Primary Focus on Tees
Consistent with the past fiscal year, we continue to selectively invest in merchandise classifications that we consider to be key items that are fundamental to our business and we maintain a high in-stock position in those items. We believe that our in-stock position in key alternative classifications results in fewer missed sales and creates an impression in customers’ minds that Hot Topic is the destination where they can consistently find unique items typically unavailable at other retailers. We also have allocated a more significant portion of our inventory to tee shirts, both licensed and non-licensed, to reinforce that Hot Topic is the destination for music, novelty and fashion tees.
Continue to Actively Manage our Inventory
Our disciplined approach to the management of inventory has resulted in overall inventory levels remaining the same as in the previous fiscal year. Through diligently managing inventory and the merchandise mix of categories, we are able to capitalize on emerging trends and licenses. A significant reduction in our obsolete inventory has enabled us to maintain a fresh merchandise assortment.
Emphasize Superior Customer Service
Our associates are trained to provide a value-added customer experience. Sales associates are encouraged to engage with customers, provide information about new music and fashion trends and stimulate the customer’s interest in, and knowledge of, the Hot Topic product offerings. We believe that a high level of employee product knowledge and a commitment to music and fashion create credibility with our customers and differentiate Hot Topic from other teen-focused retailers. In addition, we regularly test new merchandise in select Hot Topic stores before chain-wide distribution and order a majority of our merchandise not more than 60 to 90 days before delivery, which allows us to react quickly to emerging trends.
Torrid Business Strategy
Our goal for Torrid is to become the leading specialty retailer of fashion forward plus-size young women’s apparel and accessories. Elements of Torrid’s business strategy include:
Focus on the Assortment of Current Fashion Trends
Our Torrid merchandising team focuses on providing a fashion forward merchandise assortment that reflects the influence of current fashion and pop culture trends. These influences provide the inspiration for hip, trendy apparel and accessories to which our customers relate. We believe that Torrid is the first shopping mall concept to offer a complete store assortment of fashion forward apparel for plus-size young women and we are committed to having the right assortment for our customers.
Listen to the Customer
Torrid buyers actively solicit customer feedback through frequent visits to store locations, in-store comment cards, emails and postings. We use this input, along with other fashion market intelligence, to interpret new fashion trends and pop culture influences as we develop the fashion forward merchandise assortments that reflect the Torrid brand. We test new trends and styles frequently to gauge customer response.
Emphasize Customer Service and the In-Store Experience
We provide training and coaching for Torrid store associates that emphasize one-on-one service for our customers. We reward sales associates who achieve and surpass sales goals in a variety of ways throughout the year. We believe that many plus-size customers have been unable to find sufficient quantities and selections of fashionable apparel in line with current trends. Through our focus on customer service and leading-edge fashion, we seek to create a compelling shopping environment that the young plus-size customer is looking for. We believe that the warm greeting, extensive fashion offerings and helpful suggestive selling by our team members create a welcoming and exciting store environment that will be attractive to, and preferred by, the Torrid customer.
ShockHound Business Strategy
At ShockHound, we offer a compelling online vehicle that enables our customers to discover music in an entirely new way. We recognize that the way everyone is learning and acquiring music has changed and we believe we can meet customers’ appetite for a wide variety of digital music while offering a more comprehensive online music experience. Typical with a concept in its very early stage, we are focused on reaching a wide audience.
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
The number of shares outstanding of the Registrant’s Common Stock was 43,951,326 as of March 23, 2009.
|
