Boozt AB

STO:BOOZT

Earnings Call Transcript 2019-Q3

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to Boozt Q3 2019 report. Today, I am pleased to present CEO, Hermann Haraldsson; and CFO, Allan Junge-Jensen. [Operator Instructions] Speakers, please begin.

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Yes, hello, good morning. This is Hermann. Welcome to our Q3 presentation. If we go to the first page, which is the key highlights. Just briefly looking at the key highlights, we had 22% net revenue growth in the quarter, and which was Boozt 19% and Booztlet 90%. And as we say, growth was impacted by a bit softer apparel markets in Sweden and Denmark during the quarter. Positive is that the KPIs are trending in the right direction, Americas. Reported gross margin was down in the quarter due to less consignment sales and an early write-down on Boozt.com stock. But at the same time, we've seen that during the season, during the autumn/winter season, winter now, we have seen an improving gross margin. So that's a positive -- has a positive outlook also because it's supported by a very strong inventory position and our risk-sharing agreements. Our adjusted EBIT improved versus last year, mainly due to scale effects of marketing and admin and other costs. Also going to highlight that we have changed agreement structure with one of our largest partners. This impacts net revenue negatively, but it improves our net working capital going forward with approximately 1 percentage points. And we're adjusting the outlook for revenue to 23% to 26% mainly due to this change in agreement structure as well as we are a bit cautious going to this quarter. But at the same time, we are adjusting the EBIT margin outputs, which is now above 2.5%. And finally, we have a number of operational improvement initiatives, which will drive our margin progress forward at the same time as we will continue to grow with a high growth rate. Going to the next page, looking at the most important KPIs, the customer satisfaction. Trustpilot is at the same level 9.2 and 5 stars, same NPS, which is a very high 73 score. It's so good to see that our customer satisfaction remains at an industry-leading level. Moving to the next page on Boozt.com order development. We saw an increase in the number of orders of 17% in the quarter and 23% for the full year so far. And looking at the average order value, it's quite encouraging for us to see that it's slightly up for the quarter, up 1%. So we're actually quite close now to eliminating the effect on the order value that we saw from the, yes, the down in order value in Q1, which was due to the excessive returns in Q1. Going to the next slide, looking to the cohort development. We have now, over the last 12 months have more than 1.5 million customers. They are buying on average 2.44 times. And very encouraging, promising, we see an increase in true frequency. So basically, all our KPIs are strong and trending still in the right direction. With this, go to the next page, I would like to hand over to Allan for the financial update.

[Allan Junge-Jensen]

Thank you, Hermann. Allan speaking here. If we move on to the next slide, group results. As you can see, the growth was 22% in the quarter, whereas the growth for the first 9 months is approximately 26%. The gross margin in the quarter was primarily compromised by less consignment sales compared to last year. And for the first 9 months, it is evident that the gross margin has declined primarily as a consequence of more price investments in the market. To the right, you can see that despite the lower gross margin, the adjusted EBIT margin is improved 0.4 percentage points. And for the first 9 months, the adjusted EBIT margin is equivalent to last year. So if we move on to the next slide and talk about Boozt.com, our biggest segment. We grew approximately 19% in the quarter, but we show declining adjusted EBIT margin, of which half the impact versus last year is related to an early write-down of goods from autumn/winter '18, which accounts for approximately 0.4 percentage points. As for the deviation in the first 9 months, the main explanation can be found in too little operational leverage, in particular, fulfillment and staff costs. Our newest categories, Sport and Beauty show very strong growth and the inventory composition is considered very healthy, given the early write-down I just talked about of the autumn/winter stock. And going into this current autumn/winter season, it has started very well, with a decent sell-through, which allows us to take advantage of the many campaign buyers in the markets. Gladly, as Hermann also mentioned, the average order value is stable, which is the best denominator for being able to invest in future growth, while at the same time, increasing the expected margin. Okay, let's move on to the next slide, Booztlet.com. Our rising star Booztlet.com showed 90% growth versus last year's Q3 and also showed an adjusted EBIT margin increase of almost 3 percentage points which, though, can be explained by the fact that we had an early write-down of the goods coming from Booztlet.com. For the first 9 months, the growth is well above 100%, and the adjusted EBIT margin is still double digits, which is good. And we are leveraging a lot from low customer acquisition costs and a high share of shipping income. All in all, we believe that the Booztlet team is very ready for future growth, and we still believe in triple-digit growth in the fourth quarter of this year. This is also something that is supported by the current market situation, which gives us quite some comfort in that we can purchase inventory at attractive prices to fuel this growth. Okay. Moving on to the next slides. The other segments, I don't want to talk so much about it, just highlighting that it improved from last year as we have closed the Beauty store in Roskilde and also highlighting that we realized the better performance in the outlet store south of Copenhagen. We maintain our outlook for the full year 2019 of an adjusted loss of approximately SEK 15 million. Moving on to the next slide. Talk about cost ratios. Although we saw some improvement in the fulfillment cost ratio in this quarter versus previous quarters in 2019, we are still not satisfied. Including IFRS 16 depreciations, the deviation to last year is still negative 0.6 percentage points. The marketing cost ratio improved 1.7 percentage points versus last year's quarter, and the admin and other cost ratio improved 0.2 percentage points, including IFRS 16 depreciations. As the staff costs, as you can see, increased by 0.5 percentage points, the leverage on the admin and other cost ratio is primarily caused by leverage on OpEx. For the first 9 months, if you take a look at that, it is evident that the gross margin decline and the increase in the fulfillment cost ratio are the main reasons for delivering the same adjusted EBIT margin, after 9 months, as last year. Moving on to the next slide. Working capital, still high, 11.2%. But as you know from previous presentations, this is in line with expectations after the third quarter of a fiscal year. However, the shift in goods in delivery inflow, where we bought less campaign goods before the summer, has dramatically improved the operational cash flow in this quarter from a negative SEK 164 million last year to now a negative SEK 24 million this year. And that is also the reason why we are confident that the current goods inventory composition is very healthy. For the first 9 months, the operational cash flow is positive as opposed to last year, as this shift in deliveries in this year's -- or this quarter has, of course, a big impact on the cash flow for the first 9 months. Finally, you can see that we have capitalized the first SEK 65 million on auto-store expense Phase 3, and we expect the remaining part of this Phase 3 to be capitalized in the fourth quarter of 2019. And now back to Hermann, who will proceed with the presentation.

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Okay. Thank you. Going to the next slide. On the operational improvements, we, as you know, we have been doing hypergrowth over the last 5 years. That came at [ 150% ] and at the same time as we have been very focused on delivering outstanding customer service. And as you will see, that we have managed to grow at the same time as we've increased customer satisfaction. That was our main goal because as we always say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. So this is also why we have had quite a bit of redundancy in our operational processes to make sure that we could deliver on our promise. If -- also as this is quite a young set-up with investment in automation, but there are also still parts of the operations that can't be automated. And at the same time, we've also preferred stability with suppliers because when you're growing above 25% or 30% you don't want to rock the boat too much. Going forward, when we are seeing not hypergrowth but high growth, we can see now that there's a little less need for redundancy in our systems. Of course, we will continue the automation journey, but we are now starting to eliminate processes, inefficient, and eliminating this redundancy. And also at the same time now we have more oversight and can be more predictive or can predict more going forward. We have now started to renegotiate all our contracts with suppliers and starting to kind of use our weight in our negotiations and our strength. So this means that we are now entering this new level of operational improvements that we believe will give us some good advantages. Going to the next page. You can see that the adjusted guidance reflects that we are treading carefully into the next 5 weeks, and it is actually 5 weeks, at the same time as we see good operational improvements already. We are adjusting the net revenue outlook due to a changed agreement structure with a large partner, going into a consignment-like agreement. We don't call it consignment because it's not. The goods are still in our warehouse. So we are in full control of the customer experience. But this means that it's only the fee that we get as we have no inventory risk that we get as net revenue. It's a positive course for the networking capital going forward, and it's estimated will have an effect of one -- sales point also will be positive for the gross margin going forward. At the same time, we have seen a bit softer apparel markets, especially at the end of summer. And we've seen some weaker consumer sentiment, in Sweden and Denmark, especially. And this is also why we are kind of moving cautiously into the quarter, also not to chase unhealthy growth because we don't need it because we have a quite strong inventory composition and position. Also, finally, the Black Friday is a question mark. It's 1 week -- it starts 1 week later. And it's also, I would say, over the next 5 weeks, and the 3 weeks after Black Friday will determine what will be -- the growth will be and how optimistic it could be. But at the same time, we are upgrading our profitability expectations. This is mainly due to operational improvements that we see already. This is -- we've made some small first steps in our operations to drive increased profitability, both the short and long-term. And I think it's important for us to say that we are now entering the medium term, post the IPO. Next year, after Q4 release, we will issue new guidance for the coming years. But we want to reiterate that we intend to keep on investing in growth and at the same time, reaching our midterm EBIT margin of 6%. So therefore, if we go to the next page, the outlook, as we said before, we changed it slightly. We -- to adjustment of the net revenue growth to be now between 23% and 26%. But at the same time, we upgrade our expectations on EBIT margin to be above 2.5% for the full year. So with this, I would like to hand over to the operator again for the Q&A session.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Daniel Schmidt from Danske Bank.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Yes. So Hermann and Allan, can you hear me?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Yes.

[Allan Junge-Jensen]

Yes.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

A couple of questions from me then. Starting with the gross margin. I think you said, Allan, that the early write-down impact was 0.4 percentage points. And you also write that you hope to recoup this or more than recoup this within Booztlet.com and the autumn/winter season. And am I getting you right that you already did some of that recouping in September and in the Q3 report then?

[Allan Junge-Jensen]

Yes, that is correct. This is also the reason for the elevated adjusted EBIT margin in the third quarter for Booztlet, as I just mentioned. So that is correct.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Because it sounded like you said SEK 3 million or something like that. And does that mean that there will be something similar to recoup in Q4? Or is there sort of a situation here where already most of that has been taken?

[Allan Junge-Jensen]

There will still be some, but for the most part, the sell has gone relatively well on Booztlet.com. But there will still be a slight impact in Q4 on both segments.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Okay. All right. And then you write that fulfillment ratio has been negatively impacted by the implementation of new robotics or robot system and, of course, is something that you're doing in order to get more effective further out. Should we see further impact of that short term? Or is that going to turn into a benefit as we go into later part of this year and into 2020?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Daniel, this is Hermann. Yes, you're right that we implemented this robot system, which is actually a very big step for us because now we are in full control of all our processes. And obviously, we've done this to increase speed in the warehouse and to reduce the amount of man-hours needed, and we already are seeing the impact. And we will see more in Q4 and, of course, next year.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

So is it fair to say then that the sort of the costly part of that implementation is behind us and that we should start to see some of the benefits coming through in already Q4, is that what you're saying?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Yes. And then gradually into 2020 because it's going to take some time, I guess.

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Dan, actually not that long. It's -- once you improve processes, it's -- I'm not saying it's straightforward, but it's actually, once you've got the automation and the platform right, you can actually quite fast start to do these improvements. So we'll see it already next year.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Okay. And then just thirdly, on your outlook and your course. We've acknowledged that Black Friday is also later this year, as you say, and that is of course comprising the holiday season as well. And then you have this agreement structure with a big supplier and you're stating that sort of consumer sentiment in Sweden and Denmark has been a bit weakish. Is it fair to assume that all these 3 things are equally weighted into the downgrade that you're doing? Or how should we view it?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Yes. That actually -- the short answer is, yes. Again, we -- yes, it actually explains the consumer sentiment in the quarter because we've seen that there's been a kind of a bit of a bounce back in the beginning of this quarter. But again, it's just like last year, you have such a big part of sales left. You have Black Friday coming in 10 days, 12 days, was it, yes, 13 days, I think. And so that means that there's a lot of uncertainties when you have the partnership or this partner agreement so this is why we are a bit cautious going to the quarter.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Yes. And the last question on competition and Zalando in connection with the Q3 report. We're quite upbeat when it came to the Swedish market, and partly sort of stating that the fact that they're up with their warehouse. They have more Scandinavian design and the assortment is driving growth for them. Are you seeing anything of that? Or what's your response to that?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Yes, we see them all the time. So that's, of course, kind of it's -- I'm tempted to say business as usual. I don't know if the weaker consumer sentiment in Denmark and Sweden, or what we see as consumer sentiment is influenced by Zalando. But we've seen it simultaneously in Denmark and Sweden. So it's -- we haven't -- we don't feel that there's been a large, oppressive on us from their part month before. Obviously, they have their mid -- value to sale has been very low. I think so, but we -- I think it's just business as usual. It's an everyday competition for us.

[Operator]

And our next question is from Daniel Ovin from Nordea.

[Daniel Ovin, Senior Analyst]

So starting on the sales growth, on the sales growth outlook. So you took down your guidance for this year. And also, you've talked about that you've been in the high kind of hypergrowth environment. And so how should we think of this going forward? Do you see now the next few years, sales continuing to drop from your new guidance this year? And also, what is the main reason for this. It does not sound like it was competition. So do you see that the rate of online penetration is coming down? Or how should we think around that? And then following on to that, on the margin side, when your growth comes down, should we then expect that your margins continue rapidly upwards? That's first question.

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

This is Hermann here. I think it's important to highlight that the absolute growth is still intact. So we're growing by highly -- of course, the numbers of big -- the law of big numbers, sometime growth will come down. We will come up with a new midterm guidance, our Q4 report next year. But we intend to continue to grow. And we can see now that we can see the potential present improvements will allow us to keep on investing enough in attracting new customers. But -- and we still keep a growth, but it's far too early to go out and say anything about the growth going forward over the next 3 to 5 years, but of course, obviously still want to be the ones growing the most in the region.

[Daniel Ovin, Senior Analyst]

Okay. And then the second question then. Now you mentioned that you signed a new consignment deal with one of your biggest brands. So is this a shift in strategy, you would say? Do you expect more of those consignment deals will come over the next few quarters or years? And then going out further. Do you have any in mind -- any target in mind? Where do you think you want consignment to be? And then finally, any margin impact? Can you say anything of what you expect from margin increase from consignment deals?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Regarding the consignment, it's -- as we've said before, we have not been very interested in doing consignment deals because it limits our growth. When you are growing more than 20% brands. Then you go to the brands and ask them to commit more than -- 20% more inventory for the coming season or coming year. And they have the risks, so they are quite reluctant. We saw that when we started the company, when we went from a consignment model to an own-buy model. Eventually, I don't know if after 5 years or 10 years, a big part of our sales will be consignment. Because once you start growing as much and grow maybe 3% to 5% it's more predictable, and it's easier for us to make these agreements. But this is a test with a big partner to see how it works. It's very important for us that the goods are in our warehouse because we think that both -- economy-wise as well as customer experience, it has to sit in our warehouse. So before we have done this test and seeing the outcomes, then we will see if we want to kind of move more of the partners towards consignment. So that's the answer. Regarding gross margin, I don't think it's appropriate for us now to convey the message on what the impact is on gross margin. But the good thing is that network with catalysts, we expect to be 1 percentage points down.

[Daniel Ovin, Senior Analyst]

Okay. Then -- last question then, on the marketing cost. So I think that you previously said you expected the second half marketing costs to come up. And I think the mentioned 10% of sales -- for the full year has been mentioned. So now with this quarter, it looks like marketing cost continues down. So what -- how should we think of this? Are you planning a large marketing splash in Q4? Or should we revise that, that you're actually planning to continue to take down marketing? And also perhaps if you could say anything about this for the next few years. I mean, should we continue to expect that line to come down? That's my last question.

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Yes. We expect marketing actually to come up again in the quarter, and we still expect that our marketing cost ratio will be around 10% for the full year. It's been on low-end also because you don't want to chase too much revenue during the summertime if it's unhealthy revenue. And also if you don't have any stock issues, you sit a bit tight. But will I have been [ applying ] marketing a bit too much for them. We will see a rebound and also now with the operational improvements we see that will allow us to still be aggressive on marketing, both next year and the following year. So we actually tend to keep marketing at a very high level and still reaching our 6% EBIT.

[Operator]

And our next question is from Niklas Ekman from Carnegie.

[Niklas Ekman]

Yes. First question is on this consignment deal. You're not saying which brand this is. Can you at least say if this as a top 3 brand? And if you can give any kind of indication what the impact that has or what share of sales this brand represents today?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

We don't disclose the brands. And it's in agreement with the brand because it's a test, and we -- and so we don't want to kind of, yes, talk about which brand it is. On the impact of sales, it's maybe close to somewhere between 2% or 3% of our total sales this brand represents.

[Niklas Ekman]

Okay. So that would be a top 3 brand, for sure?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

It will be somewhere on top 3, top 5, yes.

[Niklas Ekman]

Okay. And am I right in assuming that this was on their initiative, not yours?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

It's actually been a mutual thing. We have been discussing with this brand on kind of innovative ways of working with them in the Nordics. So this is -- so that's kind been a mutual arrangement in, yes, with this brand.

[Niklas Ekman]

Okay. And also, a question on this write-down of inventory in Q3. You quantified the effect for Boozt.com, but not for the entire group. Has this had a material impact on group earnings in Q3?

[Allan Junge-Jensen]

Niklas, Allan here. No. Not a lot, when it's more related to the segment reporting. So when Boozt.com is making this write-down and transfers the goods to Booztlet, then it gives Booztlet an opportunity to clear those items at a higher discount and still realize a reasonable good gross margin. So there is a small impact, but you -- that's more due to the distribution of the write-down over the second half. But for the most part, the write-down on Boozt.com is captured by Booztlet, which is also shown in that they are realizing a better adjusted EBIT margin in Q3. So there is a small impact on group, but it's not the entire write-down.

[Niklas Ekman]

Okay. And also your comment on current trading. You're talking about a rising gross margin. But is it right to assume that you've also seen an accelerated sales growth in the start of Q4?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

This is Hermann. Yes, that's correct. The autumn/winter gross margin is good. The inventory position is very healthy, and we've seen that during the quarter sales growth has accelerated and is as we have expected. So, so far, so good. But again, we have 5 more weeks so we can either be happy or depressed after kind of 3 or 4 weeks, so it's difficult to say.

[Niklas Ekman]

Okay. And finally, just a question here. When you talk about the medium-term outlook here and a little bit of a shift in trend here with rising profitability and a little bit lower growth. You talk about growth below 25%. But looking at kind of 2020, do you think that you will already see growth rates falling below 20% for 2020?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Niklas, it's too early for us to say. We come out with new guidance in -- after Q4, and I try not to talk about kind of the growth expectations for 2020. So you will have to be patient and wait for the interim when we issue kind of the guidance for the year and for the next medium term.

[Niklas Ekman]

Okay. Okay. Fair enough. And just a quick question as well here, can you clarify the CapEx guidance for the full year?

[Allan Junge-Jensen]

Yes. It is unchanged from previous communication.

[Operator]

And our next question is from Michael Benedict from Berenberg.

[Michael Benedict, Analyst]

A few for me, but I can go one at a time. It's easiest. Would it be fair to say, in the coming years, you're sort of expecting a slip from previously -- I think previously, we had some leverage in marketing and deleveraging fulfillment. Would it be fair to say that's going to sort of reverse in the coming year?

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

You will see leverage in fulfillment, definitely. Marketing, obviously, we expect marketing slightly, over time to go down. But for the coming years, the marketing cost ratio will be quite stable, we expect. So it's not quite the reverse, but you will see difference in levers in the costs.

[Michael Benedict, Analyst]

Okay. Great. Very helpful. And then on the consignment agreement, could you give us some sort of steer on the consignment sales impact we should be modeling in for Q4 and FY '20 in terms of reconciling from transactional net revenue down to your actual net revenue?

[Allan Junge-Jensen]

Yes. Allan speaking here. It is difficult to say as the sales has not materialized yet. But we are estimating that, as Hermann mentioned, that the full year impact of this consignment agreement structure, which started on October 1, can have up to 1 percentage point impact on full year guidance. So it is, of course, a substantial partner also in terms of size.

[Michael Benedict, Analyst]

Okay. And that's a 12-month impact the 1 percentage point?

[Allan Junge-Jensen]

Yes.

[Operator]

And our next question is from Anders Wennberg from Catella.

[Unknown Analyst]

Anders here. A couple of questions if I may. First of all, the consignment deal you did in Q4, can you kind of explain to me what is different with that one compared to the one you had with ECCO a couple of years ago? Why this one is more attractive? And secondly, on translating it sounds like October is better in terms of gross margin, also a little bit steadier growth. How was September compared to July and August? Can you help us -- and how is November tracking so far? Obviously, there is the acceleration.

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Yes. Yes, this is Herman. When we did the ECCO deal, we were running the ECCO mono-brand store. So we were running the official ECCO store and as a kind of part of that agreement, we also sold ECCO on Boozt.com. With -- so this agreement is different in that way that for the consumer there's no difference, they still are buying with Boozt, and they're getting their shipments from Boozt. So the main difference is that we were running the official ECCO store at the time. Regarding...

[Unknown Analyst]

So you had a agreement of [ 2 ] upfront that said ECCO on it. And now the consumer is actually going to the Boozt store, Boozt.com

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Boozt.com, surely, yes. So this partner doesn't have any special preferential rights with regards to entry into Boozt or something like that. On the sales, it was mainly August that was disappointing, during summer, quite disappointing for us. So -- but I think that has been the main reason for the quarter being softer than expected. September picked up enough, maybe not as much as we had hoped for. And then October has been okay. And November so far has been very good. So it's -- just also want to say you have to judge a season by the full half year because you see fluctuations. You see changes in moods and even though we haven't mentioned the weather in end report. Also, when the season starts, if it's cold or if it's warm, that influences. But so far for the Q4, it's actually quite promising with a good gross margin.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. If you -- you reported in mid-August. We see the weakness in August when we had your 2Q report so id did actually happen second half of August.

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Typically, you end the end-season sales end of August. So our revenue to pretty is quite skewed or biased towards the end of the month. So it was -- we basically expected to sell more at the end sale, at the end of August than we actually did and also in the beginning of September, same type sales.

[Operator]

And as there are no further questions, I will hand it right back to the speakers for any final comments.

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Okay. Thank you. Before I close this call, I just would like to hand it back to Allan, who is on his last, as for now at least, investor call for Boozt.com.

[Allan Junge-Jensen]

Yes. Thank you, Herman, and I prepared a few words to say. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, Herman, in particular, for giving me a call back in 2010. You managed to convince me to take on a challenging task to be a part of a team who wanted to build the greatest fashion e-commerce company in the Nordics. And it has not always been an easy task. The challenges we have overcome together prove one thing in my mind. Great companies are built by people, and there's no easy recipe for success. No matter your challenge, you need to work hard to achieve your goals, and I believe we have done so. At least for now, because you and I also share the same value that you are never really done. There's always a battle to win tomorrow, which is why I'm also confident that the appointment of Sandra Gadd as new CFO will continue this path for the benefit of Boozt in the coming years. I also want to use this opportunity to thank my great colleagues who each and every day, make an effort to make Boozt a greater company. And finally, I look forward to follow Boozt as a shareholder because I believe you can do it. Your nickname the Hermannator is there for a reason. Thank you, Hermann, and back to you.

[Hermann Haraldsson, Co]

Okay. Thank you. And yes, we will meet and see you guys. Thank you.

[Operator]

This now concludes our conference call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.