33. Toxicology

As a result of our actions our sales and margin trends in the first half of fiscal 2009 were stronger than our expectations.We gained market share at our core wholesale accounts, we successfully launched the american living brand across more than 40 product categories, and we maintained our consistent mid single digit comp rate at our retail stores while preserving our profitability. The unprecedented economic challenges that emerged in september and impacted our second half of fiscal 2009 were clearly a game changer for all industries around the world.The corresponding pullback in consumer demand trends came fast and hard, and we were not immune.Interestingly it was the core luxury customer and tourists who retrenched the most.For us that meant our retail comps reversed their consistent multi year mid single digit growth rate and declined at a double digit rate as traffic levels dropped significantly and the environment became extremely promotional. The challenges at our retail store ralph lauren italia shop were balanced with the strength in other areas of our company. We also responded to the rapidly changing environment by implementing strong expense and inventory disciplines throughout the organization, including a company wide restructuring effort in the fourth quarter which we expect to benefit from as we move into fiscal 2010.Even as we've managed through such unsettled market conditions we continue to execute against our long term strategic objectives in fiscal 2009.The investments we make in our future growth initiatives are critical and we have the balance sheet and cash flows to continue to support them.In fact, the strategic investments we made over the last several years to expand our direct to consumer reach, grow internationally and develop new products that have helped us offset some of the impact of lower domestic shipments of our core products during fiscal 2009.The site sales grew 19% last year, approximately four times faster than total online sales and is in the ninth year of consecutive double digit growth. Europe was another area of remarkable strength for us during fiscal 2009.We maintained double digit constant currency growth throughout the year even as macro pressures intensified in the back half.Of course this growth rate is even more impressive given that we have grown our european sales more than five fold over the last seven years.We believe there is still much room for our wholesale and resale segments to expand their reach throughout europe.We are in the midst of a market redevelopment ralph lauren uomo sconti strategy in france which includes some high profile flagship store locations as well as revitalizing presentations of all our brands in many leading department stores.We just introduced lauren, our largest women's brand in terms of sales volume, into about 80 european doors.So the global potential for that brand is only just beginning. The timing of the transition allows us to begin building our hong kong based team that will manage southeast asia, and to plan for it system implementation and ralph lauren uomo hoodies store development initiatives ahead of going live in the region.We expect our most significant investment spending to be concentrated in the next two to three years as we grow from a handful of dedicated employees on the ground today to a couple hundred employees over the next three years. In conjunction with our accelerated investment to pursue market share gains worldwide, we continue to refine our global operating standards.We are a complex company with respect to the breadth of products we sell, the channels through which we sell them and increasingly our global reach.Our bandwidth spans the world's premiere fashion runways with our ralph lauren brands to the main streets of america with chaps and american living brands.And we not only design the product, we are sourcing it, flowing it around the world, marketing and advertising it and often selling it directly to the customer. Now that we have considerable more direct control of the various aspects of our business worldwide, we are identifying and researching opportunities to evolve our core processes and the way we work across divisions, brands and regions.These efforts are designed to enhance our performance in a manner that will allow us to drive greater efficiencies and best leverage our considerable growth prospects.