LPP SA

WSE:LPP

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Magdalena Kopaczewska, executive]

Hi. Welcome. Magdalena Kopaczewska, Investor Relations, LPP; and Przemyslaw Lutkiewicz, Vice President of the Management Board.

Welcome to our results conference for the third quarter where we will tell you what were the key interesting events that happened since our last meeting. We will discuss our financial results and tell you more about our plans. At the end, there will be a Q&A session. And let's start with key corporate events.

A lot was happening in our brands. Sinsay brand opened its design center in Barcelona, which will support our Gdansk team in designing women's collection dedicated to the online channel, where we want to offer our customers with a wider range of products, and the activity of the center will help us learn the taste of the customers where we are planning to further develop. This idea came from the fact that Barcelona is the hub of talent and people interested and involved in fashion. And what is interesting, it was not very difficult to get the talent on that market.

When it comes to Reserved brand events, there was a collaboration on the collection with Blanca Miro, very recognized on the Western market, which is not insignificant for our development in those countries. The collection is based on high-quality fabrics, and it was inspired by Vintage style 70s fashion. And our designers visited Vintage stores in Italy where they could get inspired by authentic 70s' pieces. This capsule collection is dedicated to our flagship -- selected flagship stores and in e-commerce channel.

Again, I would like to emphasize here that our online offer is broader because the Internet does not limit us in terms of floor space and gives us opportunity to present more pieces, and therefore, we can have the opportunity to cater to more needs of our customers.

Our newly created product line, Reserved Home, is also within this trend. We have established a team of designers within the company who are now responsible for this line within Reserved brand. The key product group will be textiles like sheets, curtains, pillows, blankets, but the offer will also include pottery or decorations. The idea was inspired by, what I mentioned earlier, the broadening of our offer online, but also the success of the younger brand home line, namely Sinsay.

It's worth mentioning that Reserved Home as opposed to Sinsay Home will direct its offer to quite a different group of customers, namely the ones that are willing to pay a bit more, but still placed within this medium range.

Now Przemek will tell you more about the remaining events, and I will come back in the Q&A session. Thank you so much.

[Przemyslaw Lutkiewicz, executive]

Ladies and gentlemen, online channel is a very important part of sales in many companies. When we talk about e-commerce, we know that we use smartphones on an increasingly intense basis to buy goods. Within e-commerce -- smartphone e-commerce, what is important is the use of applications because apps are cheaper for the companies. They are cheaper way of gathering customers and they allow for better personalization of the offer, and this is what companies aim at.

Within our company, apps are available right now in 2 brands, in the Reserved and Sinsay. We have over 3 million users in Reserved brand application, and it accounts for 45% of online sales in Poland alone. So this shows how popular the apps have become and how good it is to further develop them for the cost reasons, of course, and on the other hand, for the convenience of the customers and increasing efficiency of e-commerce.

E-commerce is further developing in our company. So you can see we added a new country of our online market, Serbia. Logistics is more difficult there, but it's a big 10 million country. And immediately after the opening of our stores -- of the 5 brands online stores, we have recorded increase in turnover, so the customers that were waiting for this opportunity to buy online.

Now, if you take a look at the map, let me remind you, the green color, this shows offline and online presence. Blue shows only online, and this orange color, we -- this is only online presence. As you can see, almost 1,000 stores in Poland. Since the new openings, this is over 1,000 stores right now. You can see that there is a decrease in the number of stores year-on-year by almost 300 due to the closure of the Russian market. But we have been opening and launching new stores -- over 50 new stores in Poland and over 150 new stores abroad. Also, in the markets where we have been present for quite a long time now, we have been developing further. Sinsay has been the most frequently open stores, and then we have Cropp and House following. The least number of stores, Reserved openings.

Let's move on to financial results. Brief introduction. Let me just remind you that the sale of the Russian business changed the financial statements. In the first quarter of this year, we showed the Russian company as the assets held for sale. In the second quarter, we disclosed this as discontinued operations and sold. Now we are focusing on the continued operations, so all the countries apart from Russia, and discontinued operations have been discussed in the following slides in this presentation.

Of course, discontinued operations will be showed till the end of the year, but none of these elements in the third or fourth quarter will not be shown in these slides because all the operations and new write-offs and reserves concerning the receivables for the Russian business, they will be shown in the continued operations.

So moving on, discontinued operations. Let's have a look at our achievements in this year. For the 9 months, we recorded almost 50% increase in revenues. We are present in 38 countries, online in 32 countries and offline in 25 countries. Both distribution channels have performed well. We had positive like-for-likes. We have been opening new stores, and we have observed significant double-digit growth in online sales.

Our revenue in the third quarter was comparable to the one that we generated in the second quarter. On the right-hand side, you can see almost a 40% increase year-on-year, and the biggest one is recorded by Sinsay brand. Of course, this brand has been growing the fastest in terms of new openings, but also online has been developing quite strongly. It's worth mentioning that Sinsay is right now our biggest brand in terms of volume of sales, PLN 1.7 billion as opposed to reserve of PLN 1.4 billion.

In Reserved, it is worth mentioning that there was a good collection and good sales result in the men's line. This is the coming back to the more formal clothing, and it has been received very well by customers. In our remaining brands, Mohito deserves quite a good recognition for casual clothing. Customers prefer this casual look, so good revenues in online and offline for Mohito.

Moving on to e-commerce. Over PLN 1 billion e-commerce revenues in the third quarter. Dynamics over 20% year-on-year in Poland and abroad year-on-year has been increasing in a similar -- at a similar pace. In Poland, what helped were, of course, the applications for Reserved and Sinsay abroad. We have less applications, but I will later tell you about our plans for the future.

Now based on mobile websites that we have dedicated for e-commerce, we were able to nicely increase revenues in Romania, Bulgaria and Czech Republic. Right now, the online activity accounts for 25% of our whole revenues. Still, what is important is the mobile trend in online. Almost 90% of the visits is done via mobile devices. 70% of purchases took place via smartphones.

Looking at the share in terms of foreign and domestic revenues. After selling the Russian business, we came back to the 50-50 ratio. So Poland, which before was the minority of revenues, came back to the 50%. Now, developing stores abroad, and our presence abroad, we have observed that in the last 2 quarters, the share of abroad in the whole revenues has been on the increase. It was 60% of the third quarter -- in the third quarter.

On the right-hand side, you can see that our floor space dropped by 11% year-on-year. Of course, the reason is obvious, the selling of Russian business. But in the countries where we have been operating as usual, there has been an increase in floor space, 11% in Poland, over 23% abroad. Key countries apart from Poland are, of course, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, but also Germany, and we will be developing in -- further in the western European countries.

It's worth mentioning that Ukraine in the third quarter recorded good results. 222 operating stores in that country. Of course, these are stores that are operating in a very specific regime, shorter working hours. In case of some bombing alarms, people get evacuated, and of course, there have been problems in terms of infrastructure and attacks of the Russian military.

But most of the shopping centers have their own power generators right now, and this trade has been functioning quite well. People want to go back to normality. Our employees want to work and customers want to buy. The competition is less stringent. We have resumed normal deliveries to those stores and the stores have been recording good results. That was also why we decided to make a reverse write-offs on stores -- on the operating stores. It was reversed in the third quarter, which helped us to increase the results of the quarter.

Moving on to the margin. It's quite a low level, 51%, 52% this year. Why so low? Because last year we experienced a high base, especially in the second half of the year, over 58%. Then there was a bounce back after the COVID. We had less goods and we sold the goods at regular prices. So the margins were higher.

Now the situation is different. On the one hand, there are additional promotions because we had more goods purchased for the eastern European market, and we had to sell them on the other markets. On the other hand, we have the growing share of Sinsay brand with, obviously, lower margin. So this, in turn, contributes to the lower overall margin. There was high foreign exchange rate of dollar as opposed to the Polish zloty.

When we look at the goods, that we had quite a lot this year. You can see this in this right-hand side graph. The value is shown here. We have been working hard in the third quarter to sell the inventory that was left. We managed to sell or decrease the value of the inventory for the PLN 1 billion.

What is important is also, this line that you see on the right-hand side, in the last quarter, there was over PLN 3,000 inventory per square meter. It’s quite high. These are higher results than we would want. Our normal level should be PLN 1,700 per square meter. In the third quarter, as you can see, we managed to decrease this level to PLN 2,200. So we are going -- heading to the right direction. We need 1, 2 quarters for the inventory to go back to the regular levels that we used to. Also, what is important is that the majority of the inventory, 90%, are the winter and autumn collections. So they will be sold in the fourth and the beginning of the first quarter of next year.

Let's move on to the costs now. Cost of own stores, they have been inflationary, growing, plus 15% to PLN 196 million, as you can see on the left. All the components of the costs have been growing. On the one hand, there was an increase in rental cost. So the rentals have been increasing, and this was due to various factors. There are a lot of turnover-based rentals among our contracts. So when turnover was higher, then the rental was higher in turn. There was an increase in the foreign exchange rate, euro to zloty, and indexation of the rental costs to the inflation rates -- current inflation rates. Unfortunately, in the eurozone, they were higher.

Second element is the personnel cost. There was an increase in minimum wage this year, and it is going to increase next year. In other countries, we also observed this trend. There is an increase in the number of employees. So due to our good results, of course, we need more employees to cater for that.

We have also energy costs, which has doubled year-on-year, as I see our bills for energy. On the other hand, there is material cost, services cost. They have been growing on an inflation basis as well. You can also see the SG&A cost on the right, almost PLN 400 per square meter in the third quarter. We have been looking very closely to this OpEx to sales element, which for the last 2 quarters, has been at the level of 41%, 42%, and these are the levels where we would want to maintain this relation.

Apart from the stores, it was marketing costs that have been quite high. So performance marketing, buying clicks from Google or Facebook, and logistics costs that were higher than usual. Higher inventory was resulting in growing logistics costs to manage the -- handle and store these goods. So higher costs year-on-year. We are going to work, and we have been working on decreasing these costs.

Now let's move on to the next slide, profit and loss account. We are comparing apples-to-apples. So now we are talking about continued operations. We are pleased with the revenues in stationary traditional stores. Online stores have also been okay and almost 40% revenues increase year-on-year. Gross margin, as I mentioned, was lower. SG&A costs were increasing higher than sales. This is not a good trend. We have been working on this to decrease the cost.

There have been several initiatives. First of all, decreasing the expenses on performance marketing, we wish to put more efforts to our applications. They have been more cost effective. On the other hand, we have ideas how to decrease logistics costs. It's about reorganizing our warehouse chain and also decreasing -- changing the organization of work, which will contribute to lower logistics costs.

On every cost level, we have been reviewing the expenses and starting from the easiest cuts like business trips to considerable matters like management at stores levels, use of energy in stores. We have introduced new systems that make it possible to more effectively manage the power use, so switching off the heating in the stores.

There is the net profit in -- at the level of PLN 500 million, so reverse on the write-offs on -- of stores. We can also see the negative -- there is net activity result about PLN 400 million net profit. It's a bit less than last year.

Moving on to the 9 months continued operations. You can see almost PLN 12 billion increase by 47% year-on-year. The margin is lower year-on-year, but what is pleasing is the -- for the 3 quarters, the increase of cost is a bit lower than the increase in sales, 48%. We are going to try in the further quarters to have a less increase in costs. EBIT we have over PLN 1 billion, slightly more than last year. And when we add this financial activity and minus the tax, we have the net result as -- at the level of almost PLN 1 billion. This is considerably more than last year.

A few words now about working capital, our inventory liabilities. On the left-hand side, you can see the inventory and trade liabilities and trade receivables. Last year, trade liabilities were considerably higher because these were lower. This year, we can see higher trade liabilities because we sold the Russian business, but we have the receivables from the former company, over PLN 1 billion, and they have been decreasing by PLN 100 million. This debt has been serviced as planned, and the receivables have been paid by the company.

Inventory, a bit higher than we would wish, because we introduced -- we got the goods earlier because of the broken supply chains to avoid any risks. We have actually got the goods earlier. Now the supply chain is stable and we are able to work just-in-time regime, so basically to obtain the goods when we need them. This is the plan for the fourth quarter and next year to adapt the supplies to the actual needs to decrease the inventory levels. Today, we have 3 -- over PLN 3 billion. We can decrease PLN 500 million from the inventory within the next 2 quarters.

Now our goal has been to rotate the goods in days. You can see this on the right-hand side where we have shown trade liabilities, and then inventory, as you can see in the yellow color, shows trade receivables in days, and the blue, cash conversion cycle is shown as well.

For many quarters, this cycle had been at the level of 80 days. Right now, it is got shortened to 22. I believe that in the coming quarters, it will come back to 80 days level. We need 2 quarters to make the situation better with inventory and working capital.

As you can see, the cycle for inventory in the second quarter, it was 175 days. In the third quarter, we have 167 days. 140, this will be the level that we are aiming at, for the next year to improve the rotation of the goods, managing the goods in this just-in-time system.

Talking about indebtedness. On the left-hand side, you can see our net debt calculated according to IFRS 16. This amounted to PLN 4.5 billion. But if we took out our lease debt relating to rentals, and to compare this older standard, this would be considerably lower, and it would amount to PLN 1.1 billion. Let me remind you here at this point that we have also a bank deposits, guarantees, and they are not calculated as cash. This is PLN 1 billion. So if we added that in this methodology, our debt would be less, quite low. The company is safe when it comes to indebtedness.

On the CapEx side, as you can see on the right, in the third quarter, our CapEx was almost PLN 300 million. It was 10% more year-on-year. The biggest part of CapEx account for our stores. There have been a lot of investment in the third quarter to build a new logistics center, in Jasionka near Rzeszow. This is our fulfillment center, and it is dedicated to the southern European markets, and it is also for the Ukrainian market. This logistics center have been operational right now. I will tell you more about this during our next conference. So more outlays in this quarter, and in the fourth quarter, they will decrease.

Summing up this 9 months of the year, we are quite pleased with the dynamics in both online and offline channel, positive like-for-likes. In the offline channel, there have been new stores opening, and the chain has been developing well. Our e-commerce was PLN 3 billion sales revenues. There are some turbulences in terms of -- trade liabilities still exceed inventory. This is what is pleasing, and safe indebtedness ratio.

Now a bit about our outlook and plans for the 2023. About the fourth quarter, that was very successful Black Friday and Black Week. As you can see in the slide, our double-digit revenue growth in offline, 13%, and online 31%. So the customers were willing to buy our goods on discounted prices. Positive like-for-likes in every brand were recorded in November, so double-digit results. December also started positively. We are prepared for the sales peak which has started just now before Christmas, and huge sell-off promotion actions between Christmas and New Year's. And in January, the last month of this year, the sell-ups are planned.

Just a few words about our targets for this year. This is the end of the year. We have been maintaining our goals of PLN 16 billion revenues. This is 40% increase year-on-year for continued operations. We will finish the year with 1,671 stores -- 1,900 stores, and the first quarter of next year will be the 2,000 store opening, and since it has been developing and -- we'll continue that.

Online revenues, it would be PLN 5 billion. We needed to correct the plan to have the PLN 4.5 billion value. E-marketing spending is going to be decreased. We want to work on the profitability of e-commerce market, finding new customers, and we are unfortunately facing some slowdown in the economy. So we are focusing on liquidity and better management of goods. Our margin is lower, that's true, and it's obvious, but -- and it will be on the similar level in the fourth quarter, and operating margin will be between 8% and 9%. CapEx now at the level over PLN 1 billion, PLN 700 million for stores.

Of course, there are some opportunities ahead. Thanks to Sinsay brand, we are able to attract more customers also from other brands in the value-for-money segment. This segment has been developing very well also in competitors. This segment has been growing very fast in the whole Europe.

We see favorable impact of mobile applications for online sales. We are going to increase the use of applications. There are systems in place already to personalize the offer for customers. Thanks to these systems and applications, we are able to get to know the taste of our customers better and direct marketing content better.

We believe that our collections are adjusted to actual needs and tastes of the customers. Of course, there are also risks. There are risks related to higher inflation that affects consumer behavior and the change. So the clothing budget will be not as extensive as before. There are no Eastern opportunities here because of the Russia closure. So our job for the fourth quarter -- we see the volatility of exchange rates. Zloty has been unfavorable in relation to U.S. dollars and euro.

But looking at the next year, we want to enter the Western markets, what we already announced, the openings of Sinsay brand stores in Italy and Greece. Next week in Italy, there will be the first Sinsay store opening. In Greece, in January, there will be the Sinsay store opening. So this is all according to plan.

Let's not forget about our other brands. Reserved, we'll have 3 new stores in London. There will be 1 store opening in Dusseldorf and 2 stores in Milan, so the flagship stores which considerably help to perceive the brand and attract new customers and build brand recognition for the online customers. This is very important.

Taking into account the floor space development and the new markets that I just mentioned, it is important for us to saturate the markets where we have been present for many years now. So Poland and also Central Europe, we want to increase our floor space by 18%. Biggest increases, of course, we see abroad 23%. But in Poland, we are able to grow by 12%. The countries where there will be a considerable increase is Romania, Czech Republic, Croatia, Bulgaria and Finland. There will be new Sinsay stores opening in Finland.

On the right-hand side, you can see that next year, we will rebuild the floor space. It will be bigger than in 2021. So after losing Russia on the other markets, we are able to regain the floor space. You can see the positive outlook for the coming years, 2024, '25. Still, we see the possibilities of floor space development, especially in Sinsay brand, 10% to 15% year-on-year.

So further development of apps. We have been discussing that already. Reserved app is available in Poland and Germany and Romania, and Sinsay available in Romania and Poland. The plan for the first half year of the next year is to launch these in the Czech Republic and Hungary and Slovakia. In the second half of the year, we will have rollouts in other countries as well.

Let me briefly tell you about how we want to manage our working capital. We want normalization because this year was difficult because of the war in Ukraine, and we had to manage our inventory in a different way than usual. So we would need 2 quarters to normalize the inventory levels, to reach the level of 1,700 meters -- PLN 1,700 per square meters. When it comes to receivables, they will be repaid over a longer period of time. So we would need some time for the Russian company to repay their receivables. And liabilities, we are coming back to the normal levels here. We're counting on the negative working capital to generate higher

[Audio Gap]

Now a little analysis of the targets. So increase in floor space, priority, the Sinsay brand, and positive like-for-likes. We believe that we are able to give a double-digit offline revenue growth. Also, we are counting on a double-digit increase in online. Margins should grow. The ones that we recorded this year, because of the higher dollar are lower. When our margin -- gross margin gets better and cost management gets better, the operating margin should be better as well next year. CapEx, a little bit over PLN 1 billion, out of which PLN 800 million for stores, a little bit less for infrastructure. Investments in logistics, but of course, considerably lower, and PLN 80 million for IT.

We see opportunities in terms of assortment development, what Magda was mentioning, so Reserved Home, and expanding the online collections in Sinsay. This has been already done, so more products for the online customer. We have been observing lower marine freight prices, and more possibilities to negotiate purchase costs with our factories. In Asian factories, there are less orders, so the factories are more willing to provide better conditions for the purchases. We have been raising prices twice this year, and we are planning, unfortunately, to raise prices also next year in the spring/summer season. We saw the customers accepted the higher prices, and we believe that this acceptance will continue.

The most important risks that are worth mentioning, the economic slowdown. We have been very much observing what's going to happen in the first half of the year. This will be quite important to what might happen later on. If the inflation keeps growing at this pace, the customers will, in turn, have less income to spend on clothing. Of course, the geopolitical situation in Asia is important. The tension between Taiwan and China, if something happened there, this will inevitably affect our business, and we would have to change the strategy accordingly.

So ladies and gentlemen, summarizing, we are facing a difficult time. There was a good third quarter. The fourth quarter will be good still. As a company, we are prepared with our business model. We are prepared for the slowdown. We have very strong IT department. We have been introducing new e-commerce solutions, new IT solutions. We have been working in this omnichannel model, combining traditional stores with online. I can say that we have twofold type of business, so mainstream Reserved and Mohito brands, and then value-for-money segment, Sinsay. So these 2 elements quite -- of quite different business models under one roof. So there is this liquidity situation that is safe. We have other possibilities of using credit lines because we don't currently have quite high indebtedness.

This is all on our end. Now you're invited to ask questions.

[Unknown Executive]

Can you please comment like for Reserved and Sinsay brands?

Yes, of course. Like-for-like, Sinsay brand for the last quarter was 1 digit, also 1 digit in the Reserved brand. Okay. I wanted to just give recognition to Mohito, double-digit like-for-likes, and the men's line in Reserved has also recorded double-digit like-for-like.

[Unknown Executive]

Second question. To what extent the increase in inventory, 33% per square meter year-on-year, results from quicker

[Audio Gap]

I would say that 2/3 of this amount -- of this number account for a quicker -- getting the stock in the stores, and the rest is after the Eastern market.

[Unknown Executive]

In the fourth quarter, are you expecting negative impact on liquidating the surplus collection on the margins?

The impact on the margin has been throughout the year. We will see what the sales season brings us. The margin will not -- they will be on a similar level, like in the previous quarters. We believe that attractive pricing and promotion, but smart promotions on our end, will cause the inventory to be normalized in the first quarter of next year at the latest.

[Unknown Executive]

Next question is about receivables. You already mentioned that -- the payoff of receivables from the Russian business. Are they planned in the similar pace as in the third quarter? Are they aligned with getting rid of the collections?

There are receivables for the stores and collections. The schedule expects the receivables to be regulated next year. The pace will be according to schedule, PLN 200 million, PLN 300 million from quarter-to-quarter.

[Unknown Executive]

Next year, purchasing and factoring level, will they come back to the previous levels relatively? Are there less possibilities of financing working capital in this way?

Still, the situation has been quite specific with working capital. You notice that there is less use of factoring limits than before, because we ordered the goods before we already paid for the goods. So using this limit is lower. And now what is expected is selling the goods and changing the goods into cash so that the cycle is straightened up. The lesser use of the limits doesn't mean they are lower. They are as they used to be. Simply because of the changes in working capital, there is temporary less use. These limits will be on the increase, starting with new collection orders. So we see the possibility of further obtaining financing this way by reverse factoring.

[Unknown Executive]

What specific actions are planned as part of decreasing the rotation of stock?

First of all, just-in-time inventory. So if we have 1 million pieces of a blouse, let's say, we divide this into 200,000, 200,000. So not everything comes to the warehouse at one go. That -- it is more divided in time. So we come back to a just-in-time approach. When the goods reach the warehouse, they are immediately sent out to the stores. So quicker obtainment of goods. The supply chains are working properly like before the COVID. The ships, they operate according to their normal schedule. So we can come back to normal planning without building buffers in our system. Now we are able to flatten this structure and all the deadlines. So we will be able to decrease the rotation in days.

[Unknown Executive]

Next about rentals. Given the high inflation, turnover-based rental seem less effective, knowing that you're quite a considerable –-?

we prefer the model for the percentage of turnover-based rentals because, of course, we share the success with our landlords. If we sell less, we don't want to pay more rent. So this model for us is going to be maintained.

[Unknown Executive]

Is it possible to attach rent to profitability?

I haven't -- we haven't used this model anywhere. It's not common on a larger scale. We will stick to the turnover-based rental.

[Unknown Executive]

Now the question about bonds. You have been planning to issue bonds. What is the current status of the issuance?

Yes, we have been planning, and we are planning this. This is not something that we have to do. We want to have the best market conditions for the issuance of the bonds, and the market is not -- the prices are so high. So it doesn't make sense to sell the bonds now. We are moving this in time -- this issuance date. But generally, a third, fourth quarter of next year is the plan.

[Unknown Executive]

Can you discuss the gross margin drop?

More or less, 60% of the drop results from discounts, and 40% higher foreign exchange rate.

[Unknown Executive]

Next also about rentals. Are you planning to aggressively negotiate rentals? Or will the rentals increase according to inflation next year and the company -- can the company negotiate any savings here?

It's a tough issue because this inflationary increase is in the contracts already. The inflation hasn't been so high only this year. This inflation can be a considerable increase 10%. For the time being, we have to respect the contracts, and we are not planning any mass conversations with our landlords. But yes, in some cases, we will talk to the landlords to decrease the inflation level that it's now in the contract.

[Unknown Executive]

What are the sales trends in Germany and the Great Britain right now? What are your plans on these markets?

We have observed positive like-for-like results in Great Britain and Germany in our reserved stores. We have also observed good double-digit growth in online sales in this market. The plans to further develop online sales, especially in the German market, these are considerable volumes, and thanks to online sales in Germany, our business is profitable. So this is a good prognosis.

Opening of stationary stores next year, so 1 store in Germany and 3 more in Great Britain, will, in turn, result in greater brand recognition and support the online channel. So the omnichannel strategy here. We have heard that there is economic slowdown, of course, and it will come quicker and hit stronger in the Western Europe. But still, we want to have more exposure in the Western European countries that are more stable, and build brand recognition supported with the e-commerce channel and applications.

[Unknown Executive]

What will be the logistics and warehouse chain reorganization like in your company? I wouldn't like to disclose the details because it's also about some trade talks and negotiations. But looking at our warehouse chain, which is now very well developed, and looking at the volumes that we have been handling in various countries, it seems that we could have less -- lower number of warehouses than today, and use the stores more to send out goods to the customers.

[Unknown Executive]

Now question about RFID in Sinsay. Historically, more operational effectiveness was attributed to RFID system. From what I understand, this technology cannot be used in Sinsay stores because of higher cost. What about the increasing share of Sinsay? Doesn't it threaten the operational effectiveness in the future?

It's better to use the technology because we manage the goods better and we get the information quicker on where the goods were sold. So this is a easier handling of the stores. And in 4 of our brands, this has been developed well. In Sinsay, it's still too expensive technology for Sinsay brand.

Talking about possible less effectiveness in Sinsay, of course, the lack of this technology shows that Sinsay's effectiveness is lower, but it's not at all that technology decides about profitability of the brand completely. You have to manage the goods in a different way, even when you talk about shipments to the customers. You need more buffers in stores. But for the time being, we are not planning to implement this technology, and the effectiveness of Sinsay today is good, and we are pleased about that.

[Unknown Executive]

Revenues per square meter in Sinsay, it's higher than in Reserved by 15% despite the fact that the value of the goods are higher than -- in Reserved than in Sinsay. Are your observations similar? Doesn't Sinsay cannibalize Reserved, especially in the current surroundings of the lower price point at Sinsay?

[Unknown Executive]

This is a difficult question. Let me start from the end. Let's put it differently. Sinsay has a large circle of very faithful customers. When it comes to cannibalization, we localize Sinsay stores in different places than Reserved stores. Reserved are present in bigger cities, shopping malls, while Sinsay is in retail parks. Of course, customers move from brand to brand, but we have 5 brands in our portfolio, and our brands have to compete among themselves. So who has the better -- the best product at the best price wins. So we're not afraid of that.

We also have similar observations that financial ratios for Sinsay sales, lower cost. This is all true for Sinsay, and that's why we have been developing this brand mainly. In Reserved, the focus is on online development. So we see 2 different distribution channels, but we are pleased that both brands are -- in our portfolio, Reserved is very fashion-oriented and brings in all the trends -- all the fashion trends for all the other brands. So it's worth having a lot of different brands in the portfolio to observe the trends, and they have been changing year after year.

The customer of Sinsay and Reserved, these are 2, like, different types of people. There is a common area, common collections that attract both the customer of Sinsay and Reserved, but product department, at least, say that these are 2 different types of customers.

[Unknown Executive]

Let's move on to the next question. The dynamics of sales that you mentioned during Black Week, are they based on restated?

[Unknown Executive]

Yes.

[Unknown Executive]

And the dynamics, can they be a reference to the -- to those obtained in other weeks?

[Unknown Executive]

So let me understand. Well, other weeks of December, No. It seems to me that, no. The Black Friday and Black Week was very good, but December dynamics are a bit lower. The data is comparable without Russia.

[Unknown Executive]

In the coming quarters, can we expect faster increase in the offline segment and online similarly to the third quarter?

[Unknown Executive]

I think so because now the customers we have observed moving away -- shifting away from offline -- and customers are more willing to -- from online to offline. The customers can try on the cloud and see them live. This trend has been visible this year. And it will be -- it seems to be continued -- continuing next quarters. We see less marketing effectiveness. So I think, similarly to the pandemic situation where the customers had only the online channel, we observed this shift of interest to the offline right now.

[Unknown Executive]

Can you comment on your idea to decrease the logistics costs? When will the effects be visible?

[Unknown Executive]

I cannot tell you in detail what they are about because this is confidential. The effect will be visible starting from next -- from the second half of next year.

[Unknown Executive]

It seems that these are all the questions that you have asked for today. Thank you so much for all the questions. As this is the last meeting this year, we would like to wish you all the best. Have a calm, good holiday season, and see you next year during our fourth quarter results conference, so the annual results conference. Have a good Christmas. Thank you so much.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]