Despite some setbacks, yoga retail phenomenon Lululemon Athletica Inc. continues to defy its doubters after reporting an almost 50-per-cent jump in quarterly profit to $57.2-million and boosting its 2012 outlook, resulting in its shares soaring more than 12 per cent.

Chief executive officer Christine Day said the retailer is learning from its mistakes, including problems of bleeding colour dyes and discontinuing a popular pair of loose-fitting pants, which prompted customer complaints.

Lululemon was forced to apologize about the bleeding garments on its Facebook page in July. On Friday, it said it would bring back its so-called still loose-fit pants in a reinvented way.

It was such a mistake to ease out the still pant, Ms. Day told analysts. But customers can rest assured weve heard their feedback.

Lululemon manages to respond to problems and even profit from changes it makes to correct them. At the same time, it has turned another snag into part of its business model: Although it is getting better at stocking enough products to keep up with customer demand, it still limits the merchandise it carries on its e-commerce site to create higher demand, minimize clearance sales of excess inventory and ensure customers dont show up at yoga class just to find everyone else dressed in the same Lululemon outfit.

Even so, the retailer grapples with complaints about bleeding clothes and other snafus, which surface quickly on Facebook and other social media, becoming an instant public-relations challenge.

As customer Reyna Yamamoto wrote on the retailers Facebook page earlier this year: In the future could you please test your dyes before production and make sure they dont bleed? I have been staying away from so many of your recent colours lately because of this.

Ms. Day said on Friday that while Lululemons Paris pink hue and other bright neon colours posed problems, the difficulties didnt materially hurt Lululemons financial results.

She said the problems were isolated and the the company hired a colour expert who taught Luulemon a lot of great new tricks ... So the silver lining in having an issue with Paris pink was that it created actually more opportunity.

By making some changes and working with manufacturers and mills, we feel very comfortable now with the product and being able to do our strategic intent, which is push colours and maintain quality, Ms. Day said.

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