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Tiffany & Co (TIF)
Q2Â 2019 Earnings Call
Aug 28, 2019, 8:30 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good day, everyone and welcome to this Tiffany & Company Second Quarter 2019 Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. Participating on today's call is Jason Wong, Treasurer and VP of Investor Relations; Mr. Mark Erceg, Tiffany's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Alessandro Bogliolo, Tiffany's Chief Executive Officer.
And at this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Jason Wong. Please go ahead.
Jason Wong -- Vice President of Investor Relations
Thanks, Amanda. Welcome and thank you for joining us on today's call. Tiffany issued its second-quarter results earlier today with a news release and the filing of our report on Form 10-Q. Following some comments from Alessandro and Mark, we will be pleased to take your questions during the Q&A session.
Before continuing, please note that statements made on this call that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Actual results might differ materially from the planned, assumed or expected results expressed in or implied by these forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except as required by applicable law or regulation.
Additional information concerning factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially as well as the required reconciliations of the non-GAAP measures referenced in this presentation to their comparable GAAP measures is set forth in Tiffany's Form 10-Q filed earlier today with the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the news release filed today under cover of Form 8-K. Those filings can be found on Tiffany's investor website, https://investor.tiffany.com by selecting Financials.
I'll now turn the call over to Alessandro.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Jason, and welcome, everyone. Let me start by saying right up from that our second quarter results were mixed. The topline admittedly came in a bit light versus a lot ongoing going in expectations, but we are encouraged by the slight over-deliver we have achieved on the bottom line versus our internal forecast, which Mark will elaborate on during his prepared remarks. But first, let's spend some time putting our second quarter sales results in context.
Global reported sales did drop by 3%, but this was against the backdrop that included last year's strong 12% increase, a significant decline in both sales attributed to Chinese and all other tourists and meaningful business disruptions in Hong Kong. Let's take a few additional seconds on each of this. Last year during the second quarter of 2018, we generated significant US and global attention behind the holistic launch of PAPER FLOWERS in New York and our Believe in Dreams' campaign, which we believe drove a meaningful increase in both traffic and sales. We expect similar excitement behind our main product activation this year, but those will take place during the later stages of the third and the early part of the fourth quarter.
Second quarter sales results were also impacted by a continued sharp decline in sales to both Chinese and all other tourists, which we believe lower our reported sales by a couple percentage points. And Hong Kong, where we have 10 stores and which is our fourth biggest market relative to total sales only after the United States, Japan and mainland China has been presented with a unique set of challenges. Obviously, we hope for a quick and peaceful resolution to the unrest being experience there. But in the meantime, we must acknowledge that the current situation is taking a toll on our business. In fact, we estimate the during the second quarter, we lost nearly six full selling days due to unplanned store closures.
Despite all of this, our internal estimates indicate that during the second quarter, we grew constant currency retail sales to local customers on a global basis by 2%, which we believe is a much better indicator of underlying brand strength and our future growth potential. And within which, we once again posted strong double-digit growth with local customers in mainland China.
Having provided some short-term commentary on the second quarter, let's now pivot to something much more important. Our mid and long-term efforts to generate sustainable top and bottom line growth rates, consistent with our position as global luxury jeweler. We are now six quarters into the long and exciting journey, we effectively began at the start of fiscal 2018, when we took the bold decision to meaningfully increase investment spending to support our six key focus areas. As we stated then, and as we continue to believe now, those investments has been carefully designed to be self-reinforcing and to and to work in concert with each other over time in order to ultimately allow us to consistently deliver sustainable top line sales growth.
You have also heard us repeatedly state, that we do not expect to deliver sustainable top line sales growth until we have been able to introduce a sufficient number of distinctive new products, amplify and the bold marketing message with sufficient impact as to attract a significant number of new customers, reactivate lapsed ones, while continuing to delight our existing customers. Upgrade the key aspects of our physical store network, while also yielding experiential elements to our in-store environment, such as visual merchandising, jewelry styling bars et cetera. And develop through enabling technologies a seamless omnichannel customer experience.
We are making good progress on all of these fronts. However, as an illustration, since we believe there are new rent limits on the maximum amount of product newness we can be properly supported with 360 degree marketing and PR campaigns, as well as robust in-store execution. Without becoming confusing or distracting for our customers, we estimate that it may take until fiscal 2021 to properly refresh our product assortment with enough newness to generate balanced and sustainable growth across our entire product portfolio.
We are committed to reinvigorating the business the right way, as we aim for industry-leading levels of shareholder value creation, which we believe define long-term success. In the meantime, it may admittedly be a bit hard to see how the strategic investment decisions we have made so far are positively impacting the business. Given timing shift in new product launches as compared to last year, macroeconomic noise from lower tourism spending and the disruption taking place in Hong Kong. Therefore we thought, it might be helpful to spend a few minutes talking about how all of the decisions we have made over the past 18 months are working to get that in mainland China. A key strategic market which from the beginning of this journey we have identified to receive a high level of management focus and investment.
For example, mainland China is where we chose to disproportionately increase marketing spending and media penetration last year. It was also mainland China, where we took the decision to spend up our retail foundation information technology platform first, back in the first quarter of 2018. During the first half of 2019, we increased the high jewelry presence at our Beijing China World store, as well in a number of additional major stores, such as Shanghai IFC and Beijing Shin Kong Place. Then during the second quarter of 2019, we sold through limited quantities of special Tiffany keys diamond pendants on WeChat 520 or I Love You Day, supported by Liu Haoran, a famous Chinese actor with nearly 50 million web followers and we eabled may both e-commerce on our tiffany.cn website for the first time.
We believe that all of these actions, plus improvements in the relevancy of our messaging to Chinese consumers and the launch of PAPER FLOWER last fall has enabled us to significantly improve our brand power scores, surveyed by a third-party in mainland China across critical consumer segments, such as self-purchasing women, high spenders and gifters. This in turn, allowed us to improve our overall brand power ranking in China from fourth to second place during the past year. And even more importantly, we believe these actions plus others have allowed us to dramatically improve our business among domestic Chinese consumers.
For perspective, constant currency comparable sales during the first of 2019 grew 4 times faster than the first half of 2018, and second quarter 2019 sales grew more than 25%. In order to maintain this momentum, we had a number of really exciting and strategically important initiatives, some have already begun and others will take place in the second half of the year across Greater China, all of which are designed to continue to broaden our appeal among Chinese consumers.
Such initiatives can be grouped in four key strategies. First, we are strengthening our store network by opening or upgrading our flagship stores in three key metropolitan areas Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. In Beijing, the relocation and upgrade of our flagship store in China World took place in Q1. In the next two quarters, we expect to have two major flagship launches in Hong Kong and Shanghai respectively. In Hong Kong, we plan to open a three floor street facing flagship store at One Peking Road in the most popular shopping area in Hong Kong among Chinese tourists, which we expect to help close the gap with other major luxury brands, which have prominent stores in that area.
In Shanghai, we plan to relocate and enlarge store to arguably the most prominent corner location in the City at Hong Kong Plaza, an area of Shanghai, where other prestigious luxury brands have significant street frontage presence. With our three flagship stores in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, we expect customers to be able to more fully experience the refinement, assortment, service and ultimately the power of the Tiffany and Company brand.
Second, we are in the process of expanding our airport duty free store network. In Q3, we plan to open the first Tiffany in a duty free zone in mainland China at the Beijing Airport with a partner. Next month, we plan to relocate and upgrades our directly owned store at the Hong Kong Airport currently the smallest in our airport network to a full-sized duty free store. With these two stores, we expect to be able to more efficiently target the Chinese traveller retail segment.
Third, we are setting up our digital relevance with the recent e-commerce enablement of our China company website. This is important for us to be able to inform and influence purchasing decisions of customers when they have the finding which brand and specific product to buy. Apart from the addition long line sales opportunity, especially in third tier Chinese cities, where we don't have a physical presence, we expect these e-commerce efforts to increase traffic and conversion rates in our physical stores and increase the effectiveness of our digital marketing. We are also increasing our weight in the Chinese digital ecosystem with additional WeChat limited addition program we did for Chinese Valentine's Day in August and additional ones for the holidays and for Chinese New Year.
Fourth, we have three new marketing initiatives planned for the second half of 2019. First, we plan to open Blue Box Cafe's in both the new Hong Kong location at One Peking Road, as well as main Shanghai flagship at Hong Kong Plaza. This will be the first permanent Blue Box Cafe's in Tiffany stores outside of New York. And just as in New York, we expect it will generate substantial customer attention and store traffic. Secondly, we will be conducting a series of consumer facing diamonds of Tiffany brands across Greater China to educate consumers on our unparalleled cutting and polishing craftsmanship to reinforce our diamonds authority in these market.
Last and perhaps most importantly, on September 23rd in Shanghai, we will inaugurate Tiffany & Company Vision & Virtuosity, the largest ever Tiffany brand exhibition. The brand will celebrate its over 180 year history and heritage in unique experiential setting. Instead of being just a retrospective over 350 archival products, along with numerous and the right jewelry pieces and the exclusive previews from the 2019 Blue Book High Jewelry Collection will be displayed in a more experiential environment which maps the DNA of the Tiffany brand. We expect these initiatives to drastically increase the awareness and the depth of knowledge of our web brand among the Chinese, including importantly the Millennial segment.
Now that we have provided additional insight and now our efforts are aligning across Greater China. Let's shift back to the broader company for which we keep progressing on the roadmap that we shared with you about 18 months ago. Many of you have asked us about our excitement from the second half product units, which will be taking place all across the world. While we don't want to take the surprise away from our customers, we can mention that we have already pre-launched a colorful new extension to our iconic Tiffany T collection.
We have also already pre-launched in selected stores a reinvigorated men's line up. And as we mentioned on last quarter's call, we are moving forward with an additional fragrance offering later this year. So while we acknowledge that we still have much to do before the full effect of this strategic investments we have made and continue to make across the business are fully implemented across all product categories and key markets, we are very encouraged by the progress we are making, particularly in the areas where we have dedicated the most time and resources.
Let me now turn the call over to Mark. So he can share a few additional thoughts before we open up the call to your questions.
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Alex. Since you've likely already reviewed our filings and our prepared remarks expected to run a bit longer than recent quarters, and we want to make sure we leave plenty of time for your questions. I'm going to focus my comments today on just a few salient matters. First, gross margin in the second quarter was 130 basis points below year ago just like it was during the first quarter. There was a little bit of negative sales leverage on fixed manufacturing and other costs. But our factory loads are better balanced as we built inventory to support our second half launches in anticipation of a stronger holiday season.
So the real driver of lower gross margin in the quarter was a mix impact from a meaningful increase in high jewelry sales, which as you know is an area we've been focusing on this past year. And over the balance of the year, since our second half product launches should increase the sales mix for our gold and diamond jewelry collections relative to higher margin silver jewelry, we'd expect some additional pressure on gross margin. However, that should be more than offset by volume leverage as we expect to regain sales momentum and the absence of certain costs, such as the bankruptcy filing of a metal refiner we recorded in the third quarter of last year.
Looking even further out, we plan to invest even more behind our high jewelry offerings and have plans to continue introducing even more gold with and without diamonds and diamond products as part of our strategic efforts to put more emphasis on increasing our average unit selling price in the years ahead.
Importantly, our multi-year product and marketing plans call for moving a larger percentage of our overall sales mix to higher price points gradually by focusing on and growing gold and diamond jewelry collections and high jewelry at a faster pace than engagement in silver jewelry. That said, it is important to note, we still have plans for both engagement in silver jewelry to grow going forward just at rates below those expected to be achieved in high jewelry and across our gold and diamond jewelry collections. It is for this reason that some of you might have noticed, we refrain the product imagery on all of our e-commerce sites along with the products featured in our digital and social campaigns recently to showcase gold and diamond jewelry collections more prominently.
Second, SG&A expenses were well contained during the second quarter with total SG&A expenses as a percentage of sales dropping from 46.3% last year to 45.2% this year, a reduction of 110 basis points. Prudent cost management, particularly on the labor line, as we seek to create organizational efficiencies and ongoing global procurement efforts, which achieved a notable milestone in this past quarter with the implementation of our new Source-to-Pay solution in the United States both contributed. We also took the decision to hold back some advertising dollars in the second quarter, so they could be more effectively deployed against our strong second half product introduction plans.
Finally, from a store network perspective and in addition to the Greater China stores Alex referenced earlier, we just announced the opening of two stores in India later this fiscal year and next year. One each in Delhi and Mumbai through a joint venture with an Indian-based luxury retail leader and we are continuing to make good progress on the New York flagship transformation.
From a guidance standpoint, you may recall that the start of the year and again during our first quarter earnings release, we called for our first soft first half followed by a rebound during the second half, which would result in full year reported sales growth of low single digits. And while our first and second quarter sales results were a couple of points lower than we would have liked for reasons we have discussed, they have been generally speaking consistent with our overall expectations. As Alex mentioned earlier, tourism patterns are volatile and the situation in Hong Kong remains very fluid. In addition, the Japanese government has announced its intentions to increase its sales consumption tax rate from 8% to 10% in October of this year which have added even more unpredictability to an already challenging macroeconomic environment.
This is because in the past, business has significantly accelerated in Japan prior to consumer sales tax increases of this magnitude and then decelerated in the months thereafter. But whether or not the same phenomenon will occur this time around is very hard to predict. Against the backdrop of these uncertainties and after balancing our first half results against our strong second half marketing and product plans, we still expect to grow full year reported sales by low single digits. And relative to the bottom line, our guidance also remains unchanged at low to mid single digit growth and diluted earnings per share.
Now that said, if for example, the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong persist much longer at its current rate, we may find ourselves toward the lower end of our full year reported sales and EPS guidance range. And if the situation were to deteriorate even further or if the current level of unrest is maintained for the balance of the fiscal year, we may find ourselves below the bottom end of our ranges.
I'll now turn the call back to Jason and we can take your questions.
Jason Wong -- Vice President of Investor Relations
Thanks, Alessandro and Mark. Operator, we are ready to take some questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We will take our first question from Oliver Chen with Cowen and Company. Please go ahead.
Oliver Chen -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Regarding your comments on gold and diamond versus silver. Silver is a nice margin business and it's -- also featuring gold and diamond seems very brand appropriate, but how does that interplay with your thoughts on the evolution of the longer-term operating margin. Also as you spoke, so lot of your comments regarding the caution points and things happening geopolitically. What are your thoughts on the guidance level and being more conservative in guidance in light of the softer top line then you would have wanted? Thank you.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Okay. Thank you, Oliver. As for the gold versus silver evolution. Silver although is the smallest part of our business in terms of metal, where the order is -- the largest portion is platinum, the second is by far gold and silver is the smaller one. It's an important segment for us and this is a segment in which we believe, we believe it's part of our heritage of our portfolio and we have plans to grow it going further as any other segments. It's true that in this particular moment, we are experiencing a stronger momentum more in the gold rather than in the silver.
So it's something that is happening in this moment, but we know also that this trends can vary from season to season from time to time. And our efforts are both on -- both sides of the collections.
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes. I would just add that, the jewelry collections gold and gold with diamonds has a very strong gross margins and it's own right and we're obviously not saying that we don't want to see the concept business over business grow, we just want to see the gold and the diamond business grow at a faster rate. As far as the second portion of your question with respect to how we're thinking about the full year? Honestly at this point, it's playing out largely as we anticipated. We said, we have a software first half and a stronger second half driven by the product and marketing plan that we have in place. We feel good about those programs and we will continue to be very communicative with our owners about where we see the business trending. But right now, we see low single digit reported sales growth and low to mid diluted EPS growth in the current context with the caveat that have been provided.
Oliver Chen -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Okay. And just a follow-up, last year, there was an opportunity to do with the marketing earlier, the customer is quite dynamic and behaving earlier in some respects and the digital aspects has gotten very competitive online. So how will you approach that in terms of timing in key catalysts for marketing that's different this year versus last year as you approach the important holiday season? Thank you.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
We have been analyzing very carefully the results of last year and all the good things, and those are the things which could have improved. And we feel very confident about the plans we have for this year in terms of campaigns, content and timing.
Oliver Chen -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Best regards. Thank you.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Jason Wong -- Vice President of Investor Relations
Operator, next question.
Operator
We will take our next question from Matthew Boss with JP Morgan.
Matthew Boss -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Great, thanks. So as we think about your six strategic outline priorities and the 2020 timeline that you cited earlier. I guess maybe since taking the helm, Alex, what do you see as your biggest wins versus areas you would say are taking longer than you initially expected?
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Well, in terms of product, I have to say that it was very clear to me that with the 18 months developing time for new products in jewelry. And considering that, there is only a limited number of the new lines that you can -- newness that you can introduce during the year, it would have been a multi-year process. This is why you will remember that already in this -- when we announced the first quarter results last year, we were very clear mentioning a long and exciting journey, because it was clear to me that to revamp a product assortment on a brand like Tiffany, it's a multi-year process.
So this is -- this didn't come as a surprise. And I think on the marketing, we are -- we have been acting very quickly and effectively and that we changed the communication and we keep on tweaking and changing and evolving every quarter. So to be honest with you, the longest time needed is of course in efficiencies, and especially in the cultural shift, which are the two last priorities that we mentioned in our roadmap. And on efficiencies, we started seeing already some signs of managing cost more effectively in this quarter. But honestly, it's just the beginning, because this is a process that will take years in order to really show a significant impact on profit.
And the cultural change is something that is progressing well. But is obviously, the one that takes the most, because it has to do with human beings and 14,000 people in the company. But I have to say it's -- I mean, there was no situations where I feel that we had a problem or where we stop, we keep on progressing on the road map we put together.
Matthew Boss -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Great. And then, Mark, maybe just on the back half of the year embedded within your full year guide. How best to think about top line and earnings growth that you're expecting in the third quarter relative to the fourth quarter? Any guideposts I think would be really helpful.
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
No, I do appreciate that, but that's something that I think we would be a little bit reticent to provide. We obviously guide on the full year with respect to the quarters. We wouldn't want to be overly prescriptive there.
Matthew Boss -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Okay. Best of luck.
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question will come from Ike Boruchow with Wells Fargo.
Irwin Boruchow -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst
Hey, everyone. Good morning. Just two quick ones from me. I guess I'm trying to -- the first point maybe for Alex, just kind of marry the comments about the assortment refresh really not being completed till fiscal '21 kind of combined with the outlook for improving fundamentals and top line to the rest of the year. Why would you think that the top line and fundamentals can improve if you're thinking that the product assortment really won't be refreshed until next year?
And then a quick one for Mark, we've heard from some companies, I know that you guys are not a promotional brand, I understand that. But in terms of competitively, when you look across the globe, are you seeing some of the wholesalers and e-tailers, retailers being a little bit more competitive on pricing year-to-date, we've heard some rumblings of that. Any comment would be helpful.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Okay. Well, as for the product assortment. I mean, I don't want to be misunderstood in the sense that, it just an area on which we are progressing literally every quarter. And if you look also at the past 12 months, we have had important launches like PAPER FLOWERS, T True Diamond then we had return to Tiffany Love Bugs and we are now talking about colorful version of T, et cetera. So its a progress, a continuous progress. The point is that, what is important is that, is to reach a critical mass of newness in order to really see results being steadily growing because it's a process, it's a path, it's a journey. So I'm confident about the second part of this year, because we will be in a much better position that we were one year ago. But I expect, one year later to be in a much better position than we will be in the second half. So it's really a path with a steady growth.
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. The other thing the offer on that is, as you think about where we are at fiscal year-to-date, reported sales are down 2.7%. Contained within that is about over, slightly over two points of FX is great, which we think is going to be based on current spot rates. Largely a push, it might cost us 20 basis points or 30 basis points in the balance of the year. But nothing nearly consequential.
If you think about the comps that we're in and if you are starting to dial up against last year in Q1 and Q2, for both quarter, we posted plus 7s that is a plus 3 and in Q3 and it was flat basically in Q4. New stores is also going to be contributing a lot more in the second half than it did in the first half. You heard Alex talk about some very large stores that will be coming online, so that should be a contributor. And then of course, the biggest thing is just the product and the marketing and holiday plans and anything else that we've been doing. So we feel good about where we sit right now based on the way we've laid out the year.
As far as the question on price promotional activity. You're right, we don't engage in any of those types of activities. And frankly, while we continue to do these scrapes, we haven't seen anybody out there doing things in our particular space that gives us at this point any new cause for concern.
Irwin Boruchow -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question will come from Lorraine Hutchinson with Bank of America.
Lorraine Hutchinson -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Thank you. Good morning. It sounds like the newness will ramp and have a greater impact on sales starting in the fourth quarter. Do you expect to launch sufficient newness next year that you'll be able to continue to grow top line more sustainably from here on?
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Absolutely, that is exactly the plan. And I am glad, because thanks to a different approaches that's the company. Thanks also to the JW workshop that we have set up together for prototyping a new product. I have to say that the company has been much -- has accelerated a lot the pace of product design and development. And we are now in a situation where we have a very clear assortment already prototype for 2020 and we are working now on 2021. So we have really a long-term visibility on our assortment that was not the case just one year ago. So yes, I think the things have been working very well in this and we will have a very strong pipeline for next year and the year to come.
Lorraine Hutchinson -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Thank you.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
We'll take our next question from Omar Saad with Evercore ISI.
Omar Saad -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Alessandro, I just wanted to follow-up on the newness question. Sorry to beat the drum. You guys made the point in the prepared remarks that, there's a certain mix of newness that without overloading the system, overloading the customer and without too distracting. Could you elaborate on that? Are you saying there's too much newness now are not enough? Or the wrong kind of newness or you need more of a different type of newness? I'm just trying to understand what the bottleneck is?
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Thank you, Omar. The -- my assessment is that and it's quite clear in the market, that in the past few years, our number of introductions of distinctive new products was below industry standard. We have decided one and half year ago to increase that level to industry standard, that is, roughly speaking around the 15% of sales coming from newness. Now more than that would be too much, because experience has said so but also because there is only a number of new products that customers can absorb during one year. Because jewelry is different from fashion. It's not every season, everything changes. [Technical Issues]
And this was clear since the beginning, it's part of the rules of luxury jewelry and we are following on this path. So there's no slowdown, there is no acceleration we are just following the path that we have set and then very pleased about it, I have to say.
Omar Saad -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
I understand. Thank you. That makes it a lot clear. Could you also maybe discuss the decline in SG&A dollars. Are you guys pulling back on investment or marketing? How much of this is sustainable and should we worry about the need to invest, especially with the flagship renovation coming up making sure that there is dollars in the budget for that. Thank you.
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
That's a great question. This is what I would say. We did make a comment that [Technical Issues] some of the marketing spending in the second quarter in order to put that specifically against the large wave of product and marketing endeavors we have planned for the second half of the year. In total, for the full year, we have plans to spend in a dollarized basis, very similar levels of marketing funds in '19 we spent versus '18. And you'll recall that from looking at '18 we made an meaningful step up in the amount of marketing dollars that we are investing behind the business.
Towards the second quarter [Technical Issues] is specific concerned, while certainly seeing a little less in marketing versus year ago in the quarter of that in the prior period had to launch PAPER FLOWERS. [Technical Issues] derived by the labor items and the benefit items and all the other cost takeout items we affected in the quarter was much larger than any marketing shift that you might have seen.
Omar Saad -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Understood. Thank you, Mark.
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you.
Operator
We'll take our next question from Janet Joseph Kloppenburg JJK Research.
Janet Kloppenburg -- JJK Research -- Analyst
Good morning, everyone. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the tourists levels in North America. Did they worsen in 2Q versus 3Q. And if you could talk about the local North America customer and the performance there and your outlook. And just lastly, I believe your guidance had included an outlook for tourism in the United States to flatten out by the end of the year. And I'm just wondering what's embedded in guidance. If that's changed or not? Thanks so much.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. So about -- well, first of all, I would like to underline that the domestic sales -- the sales to domestic customers on a global basis were positive once again, plus 2% versus a plus 3%, the previous quarter. And it's a very important point because it's the largest part of our sales and this were the brand is [Technical Issues] for future growth. Having said so, it's true that on tourism, we have been suffering in the second quarter as well. I have to say that the decrease in sales to Chinese tourists on a global basis has been similar in the second quarter as well as in the first quarter.
And the same would apply to non-Chinese tourist, because also there, especially due to the strong dollar, there has been a decrease in sales to tourists. So it's something that was already done in the first quarter. And basically [Technical Issues]. Now as it refers to U.S. or North American consumers, we have experienced now since a few quarters quite a softer trend. This quarter the sales to -- domestic sales in the U.S. was slightly -- was slightly down. But I'm very confident that we told the marketing activities and the push we have in the second part of the year. If things remain the same, we will have a good performance, because we are really focusing on the second part of the year.
Janet Kloppenburg -- JJK Research -- Analyst
And just as a follow-up. Mark, just a clarification on marketing. I know that this second half will benefit from contraction in the first half. But overall marketing spend for fiscal '19, will it be relatively flat year-over-year? Or what will that dynamic look like? Thanks.
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, yes. For the full year, we expect the marketing dollars spent in 2019 to be very comparable to 2018, which had a significant step up from '17.
Janet Kloppenburg -- JJK Research -- Analyst
Great. Thanks so much.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
We'll take our next question from Erwan Rambourg with HSBC .
Erwan Rambourg -- HSBC -- Analyst
Yeah. Hi, good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. Wanted to come back on the Hong Kong. I'm just wondering if you could tell us what Hongkong is, as a proportion of either sales or profits and what you're losing in Hong Kong today? Do you think you're recouping it partly elsewhere, whether it's mainland China or Japan or Korea or elsewhere? And then maybe quite surprising timing for development of flagship in Kowloon and in the airport, will that help you mitigate the pain somewhat.
Secondly, I just wanted to from Mark have a clarification around how the pipeline of products in H2 plays out from a gross margin perspective. I understand your comment in terms of pressure for the long-term linked to the fact that you're going higher end. I'm not sure I understood what we need to have in mind for gross margin in H2, could that stabilize or could that rebound after H1?
And then thirdly, and lastly, if you have any updates on how the space, the temporary space near the flagship in New York plays out into the holiday season. What setup will you have for the holiday season in New York. Thank you.
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
I was trying. Line has been knocking down. I don't have to probably really ask people trying to hold themselves to one question. So with respect to Hong Kong, you know it's fourth largest market, it's critically important for us. We talked about the fact that we lost six store days during the second quarter, but that's just indicative of what's happening in that market today. Obviously, right now, there's a lot of folks focused on various matters and shopping may not be their primary concern. For us, Hong Kong is a country or it's a market that is mid-single digits of total sales. If that was to be down by 20% hypothetically, that would take one point off the full-year sales block. If it was down by 40% and it was mid-single digits, it would take off two full points for the year, is just to give you some sense of it.
As far as the gross margin question is concerned, we really talked about happening in the first quarter and the second quarter was very strong high jewelry sales, which has a lower gross margin associated with it and we talked about that in the past. As we think about the first half, second half inflection points on gross margin, one of the key things to note is that, we believe will restore our volume momentum and we'll get fixed cost leverage as a result of that going into the second half.
We also believe that there is some one-time items like the filing of the metal refiner that went into bankruptcy during the third quarter of last year and a few other items, some of which are related to obsolescence in a few other things that are coming to pass. We are confident that we can continue to expand our operating margin on a going forward basis once we get to a sustainable plot of sales growth because it involve the things that will do to the P&L as well as our cost takeout initiatives.
And then as far as the flagship store is concerned, why don't I let Alex address your questions about temp space.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Well, about the flagship store. It's as you know, it's a huge project that we are following very closely and we are now in the process of building the temporary store next door and we are evaluating the plans for -- not only for this holiday but also for then the shifts that we have to do the moving, the physical moving next year. So we are still working in the plans in order to maximize the benefit not only short-term but also medium term. So we don't have a clear decision at this point in time.
Erwan Rambourg -- HSBC -- Analyst
Thank you. But will that temp space to be opened for the current holiday season?
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Will the temp space be opened for the holiday season?
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
We are, this is what we are evaluating.
Erwan Rambourg -- HSBC -- Analyst
Right. Okay, OK.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Just to clarify, but the flagship store will be fully operating during the holiday.
Erwan Rambourg -- HSBC -- Analyst
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question will come from Marni Shapiro with Retail Tracker.
Marni Shapiro -- The Retail Tracker -- Analyst
Hey, guys. I'm excited about all the product launches in the back half of the year. If you could just talk a little bit about -- you've touched on the marketing effort, you've pushed the marketing into the back half of the year. Are these launches, global launches and is the marketing push global? Sometimes you launch things here in North America, sometimes and roll them out across the country. Can you talk a little bit more specifically about that?
And do the launches hit across multiple categories. So from silver through gold, fashion, through the highest end or are they more concentrated into the area where you're sort of leaning on any way, which is the more gold and fashion jewelry?
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you for your question. That is actually a great point, because in the past 12 months as we were in the process of accelerating our launches, we were forced to add staggered launches around the world while -- and this is the reason why we have postponed launches for the second part of the year in order to be able to have truly global launches. So the answer is, yes, there will be global launches worldwide in the second part of the year.
As for the kinds of products, let me say there is a good range of price points. Main focus is actually on gold, plain and with Diamond, but there are also newness in more entry price both in gold as well as silver as well as of course in the fine jewelry $20,000 up to I would say $80,000 that will be introduced. So it's quite, I would say, price-wise and as a kind of jewelry, it's quite widespread.
Marni Shapiro -- The Retail Tracker -- Analyst
Fantastic. Thank you, guys.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
And we'll take our next question from Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer.
Brian William Nagel -- Oppenheimer and Company -- Analyst
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. So the question I have, we spent or we talked a lot about today and in prior calls, just about the impact of the headwind of softer sales to foreign tourists in key markets. As you look at this issue, are there levers that Tiffany can pull or is the company more just at the mercy of this, whether it would be currencies or other factors. And I guess the levers, are there marketing levers? Or are there -- either shorter or longer term there to help really offset this top line headwind?
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Well, thank you for the question. It's actually tourists flows are important for Tiffany and for all luxury brands and this is something of course that goes beyond our control, because it as to do with exchange rates but also simply arrival of customers, tourists in different countries, et cetera. Now there are ways of course we have and we have put in place in order to try to address this. First of all is, when there are less -- there is lesser spending abroad to concentrate on the domestic markets. So try to get to the consumers in the local market where they are. And in this we have a strong position, because we have a network that is truly global. So we are capable to reach out to customers if they travel but also if they stay at home.
The second kind of activity we are doing and this was one of the examples I was making about China is, to be present selectively but in very important airport locations. Because, for example, this is the reason for having a store in the Beijing airport because Chinese tourists at that point can purchase at Beijing while they are flying out regardless of the destination of their flight. Or the reason for enlarging the Hong Kong airport store is because on Hong Kong is crucial point, where people not only as a final destination but also a connecting flight and is a very nice shopping environment. So this is another activity we have -- we can do.
And then the third we are doing -- and the third one is that of balancing our inventory. So for example, this is why I mentioned before during the prepared remarks, we have shifted high jewelry assortments to mainland China, to stores in Shanghai and Beijing, because as Chinese tourists tend to spend less abroad then they -- we have more availability of high jewelry products in the country in that way we can partially offset the sales approach.
Now all of this is what is in our hands. Of course, all this can only partially offset the new sales abroad, because it's normal but somebody when the tourist tends to spend more freely, more heavily and -- but this is what we can do and we are doing it actively.
Brian William Nagel -- Oppenheimer and Company -- Analyst
Thank you for all the color, Alex. If I could just slip one more unrelated question. Just any update on the engagement category. Particularly following the launch of the new setting a little while ago, and just how overall sales track there and any idea from a market share perspective? Thanks.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Well, about our engagement jewelry in constant currencies in the second quarter was basically flat, so I think it was down 1%. In the previous quarter, it was minus 3% I think. So it has been trading a little bit better, but it has been, let me say, basically in line with also the other collections. The other collections were at constant currencies at plus 1%, engagement jewelry was minus 1%. So I would say, it's in line with the overall trend, actually doing a little bit better than global sales.
Brian William Nagel -- Oppenheimer and Company -- Analyst
Great. Thank you very much.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
And our next question will come from Rick Patel with Needham & Company.
Rakesh Babarbhai Patel -- Needham and Company -- Analyst
Thank you. Good morning. So guidance assumes a comp improvement in the back half, can you provide some color by region in terms of where do you see the most opportunity to drive an inflection? And perhaps, where you anticipate sales softness will persist? You talked about or you touched on softness in the U.K. and Japan potentially continuing as pressure point, but curious how you're thinking about the other regions?
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
So I think what we would say at this point as we look across the geographic landscape, we would expect markets like mainland China to continue to perform well. Europe, while it has been kind of flattish. We do believe that the product and marketing plans we have there will allow us to grow comparable store sales and constant currency in those regions. North America is probably the single largest opportunity for us. Last year, we had a relatively soft holiday and with the programs we have in place this year, we really believe that we should be able to do a better job of connecting with the U.S. consumer. And given its size, that's clearly the largest opportunity for us.
Japan, we've talked about Japan and the consumption tax change there, that's a little bit of a wildcard. Back in 2014, when the consumption tax went from 5% to 8%, we saw a meaningful pull forward of business in the two month period prior to the implementation of that tax increase and then it kind of fell away. So how that breaks over the third and fourth quarters is a little bit of a wildcard for us. But generally speaking, we expect the regions to perform better in the second half than they did in the first for all the reasons we've cited.
Rakesh Babarbhai Patel -- Needham and Company -- Analyst
And can you also provide some color on the performance of your newly revamped websites. Are you getting the responses that you expected from consumers in terms of traffic and conversion. And is there anything to call out in terms of regions or categories that may be working particularly well online in light of your marketing pullback in the first half?
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Well, this moment is little bit of a delicate moment for our online sales, because as you know, we just replatformed during the end of April and May our website. So basically there is -- there are many newness, new features, new imagery, new copies that have been put in the website, which is totally new. So we had on one side, we are constantly learning from this newness. And we are AB testing in order to see what's better, what that can be improved, so it's a work in process. And especially, you know, that when you change completely your platform, especially also the wording et cetera, it has an impact on the on the surcharging engine optimization because of the algorithms of Google's and the other search engines that take a few months in order to recome back to the normal efficiency.
So all these to say that these three months had been a bit disruptive, quite disruptive I should say, with a negative trend in our online sales. But but we are, we were expecting that and we are seeing an improvement in that. This is the reason why we did all these changes during the summer in order to be ready for the second part of the year, which is when the most important season is also for online sales. Consider also that simultaneously, we have opened the China website as e-commerce so it could be another big effort. The start has been has been very positive, but it's just one month. But we are off to a good start.
Rakesh Babarbhai Patel -- Needham and Company -- Analyst
Thanks very much.
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
And we'll take our next question from Jay Sole with UBS.
Jay Daniel Sole -- UBS Investment Bank -- Analyst
Great. Thanks so much. Mark, I just have a question about tariffs. Did tariffs in China have any impact on gross margin in the quarter. And does some of the recent news from China about the increase in tariffs that they're making have any -- will that have any impact on the business going forward? Thank you.
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
That's great question. And the tariff is an area that we've been spending a lot of time. And it's important to point out just how much movement there has been. If you go back to before July 1st of 2018 and you look at the product types, whether it's silver or yellow gold, white gold, platinum, what have you, our all-in blended weighted average tariff was roughly 28%. Then in July of 2018 with the tariff cuts that went into effect, that dropped down to high-single digit percentage. We dial back around in September, mid-September of '18, it went up into the mid-teens and by June of this year, we are basically back to the mid '20s.
With the current discussion taking place, what could be triggered in December, what actually take us above where we were when this whole thing started. So instead of being at 28%, we could be in the low 30's potentially. So it's an area that we're watching very, very closely. Because of the way we shift product typically from the U.S, there is a bit of a lag effect in when that tends to hit us. We don't expect a large additional impact if those December tariffs were to take effect this fiscal. That said, we have used some pricing in the past to help mitigate some of these areas. But as the pricing also would go in the opposite direction to follow the tariffs down, we've had to be very flexible and responsive in marketplace.
The biggest concern that we have frankly on a longer term basis is the tariff differential between a company such as ourselves who manufacturers most things in the U.S. versus some of the European competitors. And that's where, when we got together last quarter, we talked about the fact that we didn't feel it would be appropriate to take pricing actions and maybe do that unilaterally and get ourselves into and uncompetitive price situation, so we did have to eat that last round of tariffs. Whether not we have to do something like that again, we have to make that determination over the next many weeks and months. But for now for the fiscal, I think we're in a reasonably good place. But longer term, it's an area that we obviously have a lot of concern about and are watching very closely.
Jay Daniel Sole -- UBS Investment Bank -- Analyst
Okay. Got it. Thank you so much.
Operator
And we will take our last question from Bob Drbul with Guggenheim.
Robert Scott Drbul -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst
Hi, Mark. Just a question for you on the systems investments that you're making. I was just wondering if you could just give us an update on any milestones that you're at with the systems piece of it and anything that we should be looking forward for the next several quarters. Thanks.
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes. No, that's great. Thank you. And Alex alluded to one of the big system thing that we just did recently, which was standing up our e-com platform in China. That took a lot of work by a lot of folks. And I think we are going to be very well served by that. And in the first quarter discussion, we talked about the advanced planning system we just stood up in the merchandising supply chain side of the house. And we did mention that we just stood up our source to pay system -- our Coupa system, in the U.S. this past quarter. So we are making good progress.
We still have a lot of work to do, but we have a very strong dedicated team toward making sure that we stand these things up one after the next to allow us to really start running the company with global platforms and global processes and global systems. And frankly that's also one of the things that ultimately will allow us to just be more efficient in total as we look to find ways to create additional investment dollars that we can put into top line growth.
Robert Scott Drbul -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst
Okay. Thank you.
Jason Wong -- Vice President of Investor Relations
Thanks, Bob. It's now 9:30. So in the interest of everyone's time, we'll now wrap up the Q&A session. Please note on your calendars that Tiffany expects to report third quarter results on Thursday, December 5th, before the market opens and we'll host the conference call. Thanks to all of you who were participating on this call and to so many of you for your continued interest and Tiffany. I look forward to hearing from you with any additional questions or comments as I begin my IR role here at Tiffany.
Operator, we can now conclude the call.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 61 minutes
Call participants:
Jason Wong -- Vice President of Investor Relations
Alessandro Bogliolo -- Chief Executive Officer
Mark J. Erceg -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Oliver Chen -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Matthew Boss -- JPMorgan -- Analyst
Irwin Boruchow -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst
Lorraine Hutchinson -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Omar Saad -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Janet Kloppenburg -- JJK Research -- Analyst
Erwan Rambourg -- HSBC -- Analyst
Marni Shapiro -- The Retail Tracker -- Analyst
Brian William Nagel -- Oppenheimer and Company -- Analyst
Rakesh Babarbhai Patel -- Needham and Company -- Analyst
Jay Daniel Sole -- UBS Investment Bank -- Analyst
Robert Scott Drbul -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst
