That's because Nike apparel in Europe is sold in apparel stores, while in the U.S. Nike apparel is sold in sports footwear stores, where apparel is more of an afterthought. We just opened a Niketown in London. Our own stores show retailers how we would like our goods displayed. It's the one place customers can go to get almost all Nike products. No other Niketown stores are scheduled for Europe for the foreseeable future.
Japan is the most brand-conscious market in the world.
As in the U.S., we had grown too fast, with too many products and not enough attention to making them special. But Japan is coming back. Athletic shoes nowadays are much more complicated to design than anybody from the outside can imagine. It takes anywhere from six months to a couple of years to design a shoe. We have a group we call advance product engineers, APEs for short.