What has it been like to navigate the biggest consumer spending downturn in decades?
A. It is an especially important time to be clear in our communications, in how we are going to focus our efforts. We made a conscious decision to moderate some of our behavior: expenses, capital, inventories. We wanted to maintain our focus on some of our key principles like our key brands. And we actually wanted to accelerate our investments in some categories, like Sephora and customer service, rather just saying it’s going to be a tough economy and everything is going to change. Q. How have your consumers’ habits changed? A. We are dealing with a middle-income consumer (who) has been the one with the most changes in terms of discretionary behavior. The bottom quartile is very focused on the daily needs. The top quartile has resources and is not concerned about the day-to-day things. There is this new normal. People are going to be very pragmatic. That plays to our strengths and it just encourages us to be sharper on prices. Q. How prepared do you feel about the holiday shopping sea
