SG&A expenses were $32.5 million, a reduction of 8.2% from last year’s third quarter. The decrease in SG&A expenses was driven by the reduction in store count. SG&A expenses as a percent of sales was 40.8%, compared to 38.6% for the same period last year. Net interest expense was $481,000 in the quarter versus $513,000 last year.

We ended the quarter with 360 stores and 2.1 million square feet in operation, versus last year’s 376 stores and 2.3 million square feet. We finished the quarter with the $175 million in inventory, 2% below last year’s $178 million. On a per square foot basis, inventory was $82 compared to $77 last year.

We ended the quarter with $86 million in cash, compared to $60 million last year. During the 13 weeks ended November 2, 2013, the company repurchased 302,000 shares of common stock at an average price of $4.57 per share for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $1.4 million, leaving approximately $20.6 million available for purchase under the program.

Now, I’ll turn it back over to Bob.

Bob Higgins - Chairman and CEO

Thanks John. We’ve been disappointed in our results, needless to say. Despite the challenging results there were several highlights for the quarter, we continue to deliver strong comp sales in our Trend category.

We continue to improve gross margin rates in the majority of our merchandise categories through disciplined price management. We opened five stores during the third quarter, year-to-date, we’ve opened 14 stores.

As John mentioned, we ended the quarter with cash of $86 million and the company continues to repurchase shares under the stock repurchase program established by the Board of Directors. Given the competitive changes occurring in our industry, the company is establishing strategic initiatives to combat industry issues due to technology changes and capitalize on just in purchasing preferences by consumers within the broader entertainment industry.

The overall goal of the plan is to transform the merchandising mix and shopping experience, both in our stores and online by adding new entertainment related products to compliment our core product lines and appeal to a broader customer base.

Our brand promises to make the latest and greatest entertainment accessible to people in an easy, fun environment, which will support the expansion of our store base while improving profitability in our existing stores.

As part of developing the plan, we will be evaluating the resources and investments required to test and implement initiatives to transform our stores, and provide our customers with a new and improved shopping experience that will drive increased sales and profits.

As we move forward with the plan, we will share further details on future calls. I’d like to thank you for your time today and hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season. But before that I’d just like to open up the call now to any questions that anybody might have.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And we have a question from the line of William Myers of Miller Asset. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

William Myers - Miller Asset

Thank you for taking our questions. Could you — have you any indication of — what are your feelings about how the holiday season is shaping up at this point?

Bob Higgins - Chairman and CEO

It’s really too early to tell without even, Thanksgiving weekend and so it’s really hard to tell. If we look at our monthly sales, October was the best of the three months but that doesn’t tell you anything. So it’s really too hard to tell and we are going to have a fair number of — the majority of our stores will actually be open [on Thanksgiving]. We are not sure exactly what time yet, but