JJill (JILL) Risk Factors

Our success depends in part upon our ability to attract, motivate and retain a sufficient number of store employees, including store managers, who understand and appreciate our culture and customers, and are able to adequately and effectively represent this culture and establish credibility with our customers. The store employee turnover rate in the retail industry is generally high. Labor shortages and excessive store employee turnover will result in higher employee costs associated with finding, hiring and training new store employees. If we are unable to hire and retain store personnel capable of consistently providing a high level of customer service, our ability to open new stores and operate existing stores may be impaired and our performance and brand image may be negatively impacted. Competition for such qualified individuals and wage increases by other retailers could require us to pay higher wages to attract a sufficient number of employees. We are also dependent upon temporary personnel to adequately staff our stores and distribution and customer contact center, with heightened dependence during busy periods such as the holiday season. There can be no assurances that there will be sufficient sources of suitable temporary personnel to meet our demand. Any such failure to meet our staffing needs or any material increases in employee turnover rates could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Currently, none of our employees are represented by a union. However, our employees have the right at any time to form or affiliate with a union. Such organizing activities could lead to work slowdowns or stoppages, which could lead to disruption in our operations and increases in our labor costs, either of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We require our third-party suppliers to comply with all applicable laws and regulations, as well as our Terms of Engagement-Commitment to Ethical Sourcing, which cover many areas, including labor, health, safety, environmental and other legal standards. We monitor compliance with these standards using third-party monitoring firms. Although we have an active program to provide training for our third-party suppliers and monitor their compliance with these standards, we do not control the suppliers or their practices. Any failure of our third-party suppliers to comply with our ethical sourcing standards or labor or other local laws in the country of manufacture, or the divergence of a third-party supplier's labor practices from those generally accepted as ethical in the United States, could disrupt the shipment of merchandise to our stores, force us to locate alternative manufacturing sources, reduce demand for our merchandise, damage our reputation and/or expose us to potential liability for their wrongdoings. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, financial condition and results of operations.

We do not own or operate any manufacturing facilities and therefore depend upon independent, third-party suppliers for the manufacturing of all our merchandise, primarily through our use of buying agents. In Fiscal Year 2023, approximately 80% of our products were sourced through agents and approximately 20% were sourced directly from suppliers and factories. Our merchandise is manufactured to our specifications primarily by factories outside of the United States. Some of the factors that might affect a supplier's ability to ship orders of our merchandise in a timely manner or to meet our quality standards are outside of our control, including inclement weather, natural disasters, negative global climate patterns, political and financial instability, including the conflict in Ukraine and in the Middle East and the surrounding regions, and related sanctions, legal and regulatory developments, strikes, health concerns regarding infectious diseases (such as the outbreak of COVID-19), and acts of terrorism. Inadequate labor conditions, health or safety issues in the factories where goods are produced can negatively impact the reputation of our brand. Late delivery of merchandise or delivery of merchandise that does not meet our quality standards could cause us to miss the delivery date requirements of our customers or delay timely delivery of merchandise to our stores for those items. These events could cause us to fail to meet customer expectations, cause our customers to cancel orders or cause us to be unable to deliver merchandise in sufficient quantities or of sufficient quality to our stores, which could result in lost sales. We have no long-term merchandise supply contracts as we typically transact business on an order-by-order basis. If we are unable to maintain good relationships with our suppliers and agents and are unexpectedly required to change suppliers or agents, or if a key supplier or agent is unable or unwilling to supply acceptable merchandise in sufficient quantities on acceptable terms, we could experience a significant disruption in the supply of merchandise. We could also experience operational difficulties with our suppliers, such as reductions in the availability of production capacity, supply chain disruptions, errors in complying with merchandise specifications, insufficient quality control, shortages of fabrics or other raw materials, failures to meet production deadlines or increases in manufacturing costs. Currently, we source our imported merchandise from 11 countries. The top three by volume are India, Indonesia, and Vietnam and we also source some merchandise from China. In Fiscal Year 2023, approximately 46% of our products were sourced in southeast Asia. Any event causing a sudden disruption of manufacturing or imports from Asia or elsewhere, including epidemic or pandemic or the imposition of additional import restrictions, could materially harm our operations. For example, the U.S. government has imposed tariffs on goods imported from China in connection with China's intellectual property practices and forced technology transfer. Adverse changes in import costs and restrictions, including tariffs, or the failure by us or our suppliers to comply with trade regulations or similar laws, could harm our business. In this regard, the increasingly protectionist trade policy in the United States has introduced greater uncertainty with respect to future tax and trade regulations. If additional tariffs or trade restrictions are implemented by the United States or other countries in connection with a global trade war, the cost of our products manufactured in China or other countries and imported into the United States or other countries could increase, which in turn could adversely affect the demand for these products and have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations. These potential developments, market perceptions concerning these and related issues and the attendant regulatory uncertainty regarding, for example, the posture of governments with respect to international trade, could have a material adverse effect on global trade and economic growth which, in turn, can adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, many of our imports are subject to existing or potential duties, tariffs or quotas that may limit the quantity of certain types of goods that may be imported into the United States from countries in Asia or elsewhere. We compete with other companies for production facilities and import quota capacity. While substantially all foreign purchases of our merchandise are negotiated and paid for in U.S. dollars, the cost of our merchandise may be affected by fluctuations in the value of relevant foreign currencies. In addition, we are engaging in growing the amount of production carried out in other developing countries. These countries may present other risks with regard to infrastructure available to support manufacturing, labor and employee relations, political and economic stability, corruption, regulatory, environmental, health and safety compliance. While we endeavor to monitor and audit facilities where our production is done, any significant events with factories we use can adversely impact our reputation, brand and product delivery. Furthermore, many of our suppliers rely on working capital financing to support their operations. To the extent any of our suppliers are unable to obtain adequate credit or their borrowing costs increase, we may experience delays in obtaining merchandise, our suppliers increasing their prices or our suppliers modifying payment terms in a manner that is unfavorable to us. If we experience significant supply chain disruptions, the Company may not be able to develop alternate sourcing quickly on favorable terms, if at all, which could result in increased costs, loss of sales and a loss of customers, and adversely impact our financial condition and results of operations.

We lease all of our store locations, our corporate headquarters and our distribution and customer contact center. We typically occupy our stores under operating leases with terms of up to 10 years, which may include options to renew for additional multi-year periods thereafter. We depend on cash flow from operations to pay our lease expenses. If our business does not generate sufficient cash flow from operating activities to fund these expenses, we may not be able to service our lease expenses, which could materially harm our business. In the future, we may not be able to negotiate favorable lease terms. Our inability to do so may cause our occupancy costs to be higher in future years or may force us to close stores in desirable locations. If we are unable to renew our store leases, we may be forced to close or relocate a store, which could subject us to significant construction and other costs. Closing a store, for even a brief relocation period, would reduce the revenue contribution of that store. Additionally, the revenue and profit, if any, generated at a relocated store may not equal the revenue and profit generated at the previous location. Long-term leases can limit our flexibility to move a store to a new location. If an existing or future store is not profitable, we are nonetheless committed to perform our obligations under the applicable lease including, among other things, paying the base rent for the balance of the lease term, unless the lease has an early termination clause which allows us the right to close under certain specified lease terms. Some of our leases have early cancellation clauses, which permit the lease to be terminated if certain sales levels are not met in specific periods. However, even if a lease has an early cancellation clause, we may not satisfy the contractual requirements for early cancellation under that lease. Our ability to enter into new leases or renew existing leases on terms acceptable to us or be released from our obligations under leases for stores that we close could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our success largely depends on our ability to consistently gauge tastes and trends and provide a balanced assortment of merchandise that satisfies customer demands in a timely manner. We enter into agreements to manufacture and purchase our merchandise well in advance of the applicable selling season and our failure to anticipate, identify or react appropriately in a timely manner to changes in customer preferences, tastes and trends and economic conditions could lead to, among other things, missed opportunities, excess inventory or inventory shortages, markdowns and write-offs, all of which could negatively impact our profitability and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Failure to respond to changing customer preferences and fashion trends could also negatively impact our brand image with our customers and result in diminished brand loyalty.

Sales through our Direct channel, of which our ecommerce business constitutes the vast majority, accounted for approximately 47% of our total net sales for Fiscal Year 2023. Our business, financial condition and results of operations are dependent on maintaining our ecommerce business and expanding this business is an important part of our strategy to grow through our omnichannel operations. Dependence on our ecommerce business and the continued growth of our Direct channel subjects us to certain risks, including: - the failure to successfully implement new systems, system enhancements and internet platforms;- the failure of our technology infrastructure or the computer systems that operate our website and their related support systems, causing, among other things, website downtimes, telecommunications issues or other technical failures;- the reliance on third-party computer hardware/software providers;- the failure to provide a content-rich and user friendly website;- rapid technological change;- liability for online content;- violations of federal, state, foreign or other applicable laws, including those relating to data protection;- credit card fraud;- cyber security and vulnerability to electronic break-ins and other similar disruptions; and - diversion of traffic and sales from our stores. Our failure to successfully address and respond to these risks and uncertainties related to our ecommerce business could negatively impact sales, increase costs, diminish our growth prospects and damage the reputation of our brand, each of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The success of our growth strategy depends in part on our ability to acquire new customers in a cost-effective manner. In order to expand our active customer base, we must appeal to and acquire customers who identify with our brand. We have made significant investments related to customer acquisition and expect to continue to spend significant amounts to acquire additional customers. The more we invest in marketing efforts to increase the name recognition of our brand, we may experience diminishing returns on that investment of resources and future marketing campaigns may not result in the acquisition of new customers at the same rate as past campaigns. There can be no assurances that the revenue from new customers we acquire will ultimately exceed the cost of acquiring those customers. We use paid and non-paid advertising. Our paid advertising includes catalogs, paid search engine marketing, email, display and other advertising. Our non-paid advertising efforts include search engine optimization and social media. We obtain a significant amount of traffic via search engines and rely on search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Search engines frequently update and change the logic that determines the placement and display of results of a user's search and the purchased or algorithmic placement of links to our site can be negatively affected. A major search engine could change its algorithms in a manner that negatively affects our paid or non-paid search ranking, and competitive dynamics could impact the effectiveness of search engine marketing or search engine optimization. We also obtain traffic via social networking websites or other channels used by our current and prospective customers. As ecommerce and social networking continue to rapidly evolve, we must continue to establish relationships with these channels and may be unable to develop or maintain these relationships on acceptable terms. Additionally, digital advertising costs may continue to rise and as our usage of these channels expands, such costs may impact our ability to acquire new customers in a cost-effective manner. If the level of usage of these channels by our active customer base does not grow as expected, we may suffer a decline in customer growth or net sales. If we are unable to acquire new customers in a cost-effective manner, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our distribution and customer contact center is located in Tilton, New Hampshire. The distribution center manages the receipt, storage, sorting, packing and distribution of merchandise to our stores and to our Direct customers. Independent third-party transportation companies then deliver merchandise from the distribution center to our stores or to our Direct customers. The customer contact center handles all customer interactions, other than those in retail stores, including phone sales orders as well as customer service calls, emails and internet contacts. Any significant interruption in the operations of our Tilton distribution and customer contact center, our third-party distribution, fulfillment or transportation providers, for any reason, including natural disasters, accidents, inclement weather, technology system failures, work stoppages, slowdowns or strikes or other unforeseen events and circumstances could delay or impair our ability to receive orders and to distribute merchandise to our stores and/or our Direct customers and could impair our ability to respond to customer outreach. This could lead to inventory issues, increased costs, lower sales adversely impact brand loyalty and customer satisfaction, among other things, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.