Why We Will Always Have Product Availability

The question of whether there is enough merchandise available in the vendor marketplace for TJX to buy opportunistically as the Company grows has been asked of us since we opened our first stores over 30 years ago. Today, with over 2,700 stores and growing, our answer remains the same – availability is never an issue! Our vast vendor universe, which numbers over 10,000, and $20 billion buying presence are major factors in our ability to continually source great product for our stores. We operate 12 buying offices around the world and source from over 60 countries. In our vendor universe, approximately 25 vendors comprise our top sources for product each year, but this group changes from year to year and represents only approximately one quarter of the total product we buy. We opened over 2,000 new vendor doors in 2009 alone, and as we expand our vendor base, we are becoming even more meaningful to the vendor community as any one vendor represents a smaller percentage of our purchases. Once a vendor door is open, it typically stays open over time as we establish long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with our vendors. We have noticed that from time to time, specific vendors will be quoted as saying that they will not have product for the off-price channel, which creates a stir on Wall Street. But no one vendor is representative of our overall vendor universe. We have over 600 people in our merchant organization and continue to hire the best talent in retailing, running a best-in-class merchant training program. We have extreme flexibility with no walls in our stores, so we can easily move in and out of categories as consumers’ tastes change. Whether the vendor marketplace is running with leaner inventories or excess inventories, TJX has opportunity. Leaner inventories mean the retail environment is less promotional, which raises our pricing umbrella and widens the value gap between TJX and traditional retailers. Excess inventories in the vendor marketplace lead to lower costs of goods for TJX. Either way, we win!