Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
Business Overview
Foot Locker, Inc. leads the celebration of sneaker and youth culture around the globe through a portfolio of banners including Foot Locker, Lady Foot Locker, Kids Foot Locker, Champs Sports, Eastbay, WSS, Footaction, and Sidestep. Foot Locker, Inc. and its subsidiaries hereafter are referred to as the “Company,” “we,” “our,” or “us.” We operate primarily mall-based stores, as well as stores in high-traffic urban retail areas and high streets, in 27 countries including the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia as of October 30, 2021. Our purpose is to inspire and empower youth culture around the world, by fueling a shared passion for self-expression and creating unrivaled experiences at the heart of the global sneaker community.
During the third quarter, we completed the acquisition of WSS. WSS is an off-mall, athletic-inspired retailer focused on the large and rapidly growing Hispanic consumer demographic, operating a fleet in key markets across California, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada.
We use our omni-channel capabilities to bridge the digital world and physical stores, including order-in-store, buy online and pickup-in-store, and buy online and ship-from-store, as well as e-commerce. We operate websites and mobile apps aligned with the names of our store banners (including: footlocker.com, kidsfootlocker.com, champssports.com, shopwss.com, footaction.com, footlocker.ca, footlocker.eu and related e-commerce sites in the various European countries that we operate, footlocker.com.au, footlocker.nz, sidestep-shoes.de, side-stepshoes.nl, footlocker.hk, footlocker.sg, footlocker.mo, footlocker.my, and footlockerkorea.kr). These sites offer some of the largest online product selections and provide a seamless link between e-commerce and physical stores. We also operate the websites for eastbay.com and eastbayteamsales.com.
Store Count
At October 30, 2021, we operated 2,956 stores as compared with 2,998 and 3,032 stores at January 30, 2021 and October 31, 2020, respectively. Store count as of October 30, 2021 includes 93 WSS stores.
Franchise Operations
A total of 136 franchised stores were operating at October 30, 2021, as compared with 127 and 126 stores at January 30, 2021 and October 31, 2020, respectively. Revenue from franchised stores was not significant for any of the periods presented. These stores are not included in the operating store count above.
COVID-19 Update
COVID-19 had a significant effect on overall economic conditions in the various geographic areas in which we have operations. We have made best efforts to comply with all precautionary measures as directed by health authorities and local, state, and national governments. Throughout 2020, the pandemic and the shelter in place orders negatively affected customer traffic into the stores that were operating, and certain stores required additional closures during the remainder of the year. We operated 97 percent of the possible operating days in the third quarter of 2021, as compared with 93 percent in the third quarter of 2020. For the year-to-date period of 2021, we operated 90 percent of the days as compared with 71 percent in the prior-year period.
Additionally, in September 2021, President Biden announced that he has directed OSHA to develop an emergency temporary standard mandating either the full vaccination against COVID-19 or weekly testing of employees for employers with 100 or more employees. We continue to evaluate the potential effect of this executive order on our business. As a result of the federal vaccine mandate, we may experience constraints on our workforce and the workforce of our supply chain, which could require us to adapt our operations.