1-800-FLOWERS.COM Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
November 2, 2023

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 1800flowers.com, Inc. 2024 First Quarter Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please also note today's event is being recorded.

Operator

And at this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Andy Molloy, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good morning, And welcome to our fiscal 2024 Q1 earnings call. Joining us today are Jim McCann, Chairman and CEO Tom Hartnett, President and Bill Shea, CFO. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that some of the statements we make on today's call are covered by the Safe Harbor disclaimer contained in our press release and other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those contained in our press release and public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company disclaims any obligation to update any of the forward can be found in the tables of our earnings release.

Speaker 1

And now, I'll turn the call over to Jim.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Andy, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. This morning, I'll share a few of my thoughts on the current environment and then I'll turn the call over to Tom, who will provide a business update. We will conclude with a financial update from Bill and then we'll open it up for your questions. As we announced this morning, improvement within our Gourmet Foods and Gift Baskets segment.

Speaker 2

We began to turn the tide last fiscal year and are benefiting from certain macro trends And then I started to refer to the mean of sorts along with other favorable trends that Bill will discuss in more detail. Beyond these improvements, our organization has been executing on several key initiatives, including our Work Smarter initiative that is focused on operating more efficiently through the use of technology and automation and also includes our logistics, labor and inventory optimization Work smarter is an evergreen initiative that we expect to provide benefits and be increasingly effective in the years ahead. Beyond Work Smarter, we've made great progress on our relationship innovation efforts, which Tom will highlight to you in a few minutes. It is important to remember that our fiscal Q1, which is historically our smallest quarter by far, is comprised of everyday gifting occasions with no major holidays. As we turn our sights to the holiday period that we are now just beginning, we expect our sales trends to improve as our business has historically proven to be more resilient during holiday periods.

Speaker 2

Quite simply, we believe consumers tend to view holiday gifting as being more of a necessity rather than a purely discretionary purchase. They may trade up or trade down, but we'll look to buy gifts for the holiday periods. As Tom will discuss in more detail, we have never been better positioned to serve our customers and help them find the perfect gift for everyone on their list. We have introduced new product offerings, launched new tools to help our customers who may be lost for words better express their sentiments and we have broadened our price points both lower and higher to serve more budgets. We've also had a helping hand from Mother Nature, who provided quite a bit of snow near Medford, Oregon this last winter, which helped us produce our best pear crop in the Rogue Valley since 2019.

Speaker 2

The pears, our number one seller this season, are simply beautiful and delicious. Our Royal Riviera Pairs are available for sale now and if you haven't already, I highly recommend you place your order today. I'll now turn the call over to Tom. Tom, please take us through your business update.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Jim, and good morning, everyone. Our Q1 adjusted EBITDA loss improved $5,500,000 over the prior year to a loss of $22,500,000 Our results benefited from certain improving macro trends in our Work Smarter initiative that led to the 4 50 basis points improvement gross profit margin and lower expenses, which mitigated the 11% sales decline. Heading into the fiscal year, we anticipated the bifurcation Our sales trends would persist with consumers moderating their spending on everyday gifting occasions while continuing to shop for the major holiday events. Our view was informed by our trends over the past fiscal year and the broader macro environment in which consumers continue to remain pressured by persistent inflation, higher interest rates and more recently, the resumption of student loan repayments. Knowing this, we expected ourselves to be the most challenged during the Q1 as there are no major holiday occasions during the quarter and to begin to improve as we head into the holiday season.

Speaker 3

For the quarter, we attracted 680,000 new customers. Existing customers represented 70% of our revenue and our AOV increased It's not surprising that in the current environment, our higher income customers are Performing better represent a greater portion of our customer base and revenues, which in part contributed to the AOV increase. And now I'd like to share an update on some of our relationship innovation developments, which encompasses everything from new or enhanced product offerings, our merchandising efforts as well as user interface enhancements. We had a number of developments here and I'm excited to share a few of them with segments, including those who are attracted to higher value, higher price point offerings, as well as those who are more price sensitive in the current environment. For For our customers looking for higher value offerings, we are offering new product bundles that combine a variety of products from our family of brands and delivering them in Our continued focus on enhancing the customer experience led us to streamline the process to create a better experience for both the gift giver and the gift recipients.

Speaker 3

Customers can select from an increased selection of multi brand bundles that will be sent to their gift This is possible due to the investments we have made in our systems in our multi brand distribution centers over the last few years. And by leveraging our fulfillment network, we expanded our last mile delivery capabilities to offer customers same day delivery of not only floral, but also certain confection bundles. Customers can now order beautiful 1-eight 100 Flowers Bouquet and bundle it with our Sherry's Berries Cheesecake Bites or Birthday Cakes that can be delivered on the same day to help them celebrate a special occasion. Furthermore, we continue to add more options to our assortments. One that has been a standout is providing our customers with the option to choose 1 or 2 bottles of wine to go with some of our key gifts, Making it simple for our customers to add a second bottle of wine with their order has resulted in our customers adding a second bottle nearly 50% of the time.

Speaker 3

Speaking of making things simpler for our customers, just in time for the holidays, we're launching a new feature within our checkout process to make it easier for gift givers to express ourselves. We were very innovative in our use of AI to offer customers free gifting tools to help them express themselves with their moms and dads during Mother's Day and Father's We've taken that a step further and now empowering customers with who may be lost for words with generative AI to help them craft the perfect message to Incorporated seamlessly within the checkout process, customers can respond to intuitive prompts, including recipient details, The occasion and desired tone to provide just the right message for their recipient. This truly gets us to the heart of who we are, the This effort is part of our ongoing AI roadmap to increase the use of this technology throughout our platform and enhance the user experience. For our corporate gifting partners, we're excited to leverage our acquisition of SmartGift and launch SmartGift for Business. This new offering revolutionizes the way organizations can build more and better relationships with their key stakeholders.

Speaker 3

Market for Business provides an all in one system that tracks campaigns, measures success and provides recommendations for future efforts to help organizations We are excited about the opportunities these enhancements present as we continue to grow our offerings and provide customers with a unique experience that they can only get from our family of brands. As you can see, our Worksmart and relationship innovation efforts are having a clear and beneficial impact on our business. They are the driving principles of our business and we look forward to providing future updates on our progress in these areas. Now I'll turn it over to Bill to provide the financial review.

Speaker 4

Thanks Tom and good morning everyone. EBITDA metrics to revert to their mean over time. This includes returning to organic revenue growth and a gross profit margin in the low 40% range. Part of this reversion will be led by the external macro forces such as the broader consumer environment and commodity prices and part will be led by our own Worksmarter and Relationship Innovations efforts that we expect to grow sales, increase margins and tightly manage expenses. As Jim and Tom highlighted, our Q1 performed according to our expectations and we saw improving revenue trends, a significant improvement in gross margin and a reduction of expenses that led to a $5,500,000 improvement in adjusted EBITDA.

Speaker 4

Let's take a moment to review each of these. Our quarter over quarter revenue trends improved with revenues declining 11.4% for the Q1 as compared to 14 Gross profit margin, which was a real standout this quarter, increased 4 50 basis points over the last year to 37.9 This was led by 830 basis point improvement in our Gourmet Food and Gift Baskets segment. Gross margin benefited from several factors, our automation efforts to operate more efficiently and better inventory management. We expect these variables to continue to be a tail Throughout the fiscal year, even as we cycle against the gross profit margin improvement that we began to realize in the Q2 of last year and to a greater in the second half of the year. Gross margin improvement combined with our reduction in operating expenses enabled us to improve our year over year adjusted EBITDA loss by

Speaker 3

As we look out to

Speaker 4

the holiday period, while the current consumer environment remains complex And discretionary consumer spending remains pressured, we believe that consumers will be more inspired to shop for the holidays. Our first quarter revenues declined 11.4% as compared to the year ago to 269,100,000 Gross profit margin increased 450 basis points over last year to 37.9%. Gross margin expansion was led by improvements across each of our business segments and most notably within the Gourmet Food and Gift Baskets segment, which increased 830 basis to 31.5%. Beyond the gross margin improvement, we also reduced our operating expenses by $3,300,000 or 2.3 percent for the quarter as we remain steadfast in managing what is in our control and reducing expenses despite higher labor costs and inflationary increases. As a result, our 1st quarter adjusted EBITDA loss improved $5,500,000 to $22,500,000 as compared to the prior year despite the top line pressure.

Speaker 4

Net loss for the quarter improved to $31,200,000 or $0.48 per share as compared to a net loss of $33,700,000 or $0.52 per share in the prior year. Now let's review our segment results. Our Gourmet Food and Gift Baskets segment revenues declined 9.3 to $98,100,000 compared with $108,200,000 in the prior year. Our wholesale revenue component was roughly flat compared with a year ago. This segment's gross profit margin expanded 830 basis points to 31.5 compared with 23.2 percent in the prior year period, improving on lower ocean freight costs, a decline in certain commodity prices and the company's strategic pricing initiatives and better inventory management.

Speaker 4

Segment contribution margin loss improved by 7,000,000 to 11,000,000 compared with the segment contribution margin loss of 18,700,000 in the prior year period. This improvement primarily reflects the gross profit margin improvement combined with more efficient marketing spend. Our Consumer Flow and Gift segment, revenues decreased 12.3 percent to $142,200,000 compared with 162,200,000 a year ago. Profit margin expanded 140 basis points to 39.6 percent, compared with 38.2% in the prior year period, improving our strategic pricing initiatives and lower ocean freight costs. Segment contribution margin was $8,800,000 compared with segment contribution margin 10,800,000 in the prior year period reflecting the lower revenue.

Speaker 4

In our Bluemeds segment, revenues for the quarter decreased 13.5 in the prior year period, primarily reflecting strategic pricing initiatives, lower ocean freight costs and product mix. Segment contribution margin was $9,400,000 compared with $9,500,000 in the prior year period as the gross margin improvement helped offset Turning to our balance sheet. Our cash and investment position was $8,400,000 at the end of the first quarter, seasonally low as we prepare for the holiday period. Inventory was $280,600,000 compared with inventory of $342,600,000 at the end Same time last year, benefiting from this component of our Work smarter initiative that is focused on operating more efficiently with lower inventory. In terms of debt, we reduced our total outstanding debt by $67,500,000 as compared to last year.

Speaker 4

We We had $197,500,000 in term debt and borrowings of $35,000,000 under our revolving credit facility in preparation for the upcoming holiday season. This compares to total outstanding debt of $300,000,000 at the same time a year ago. We expect borrowings under the revolver to be fully paid during the fiscal Q2. Regarding guidance for fiscal 2024, we continue to expect Total revenues on a percentage basis declined in the mid single digits as compared with the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $95,000,000 to 100,000,000 and free cash flow to be in the range of $60,000,000 to $65,000,000 Now I'll turn the call back to Jim for his closing comments before we open it up for Q and A.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Bill. That was a good review. For us, the main takeaway from the Q1 was that so far this year, essentially it's unfolding as we expected, And we are on a path of a multi year aversion to the mean journey. While everyone's crystal ball on consumer behavior for the holiday period is a bit cloudy right now, With the enhancements we have made going into the holiday period, we have never been better positioned to help our customers celebrate the holidays with the important people in their lives. As Tom highlighted, we are providing consumers with a broader array of gifting options and price points to help them find the perfect gift for anyone on their list.

Speaker 2

We look forward to helping them nourish their relationships. After all, we know that the greatest gift of all is having more and better and more meaningful And now, we'd be happy to open the call for your questions.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. Our first question today comes from Michael Kupinski from Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 5

Thank you. And congratulations, you actually did better than what I was looking for in the quarter. It looks like revenue trends were a little bit better and The adjusted EBITDA came in better, so congratulations on that. I have a couple of questions. How many new that you've gained in the quarter, you mentioned that the higher income customers were actually performing better.

Speaker 5

Can you kind of give us a sense of those new customers that you're adding? Are they the higher income customers that you're seeing?

Speaker 2

Hi, Michael. This is Jim. Thanks for your question. The questions, I'm pleased that you're pleased, but we're not we would like to have done better on the top line this quarter. Everything else seems In terms of new customers, we're not sure, I'll ask Tom to give you the data here.

Speaker 2

We're not sure if it's at the existing customers who are tend to be higher economic performers are doing better or just at the lower end Customers that are more economically challenged are just not there for us. Tom, how would you interpret that?

Speaker 3

Yes, Michael, we don't have Exact figures on our new customers for this quarter, but our targeting efforts are more and more refined to go after our better cohorts. So I would Expected that our new customers continue to evolve towards a higher demographic, if you will, higher household income.

Speaker 5

Yes, it's certainly the quarter we

Speaker 4

did introduce new product offerings both at the high end and at the low end, but with our AOVs being up a lot of that is Driven by more customers buying

Speaker 2

the higher end products. So the question I guess that Michael is asking is it just that they're More high end products or there's fewer customers for the entry level price points? Correct.

Speaker 4

Probably a little combination of both.

Speaker 5

And then it seems like you stepped up your marketing. Can you talk a little bit about pricing for marketing? Are you seeing weakness in the pricing? Is that Another reason why you're stepping that up or can you give us a sense of your marketing campaigns?

Speaker 2

Michael, I don't think we really stepped up In this quarter, in fact I think we're keeping our powder dry because the CAC, the cost of acquiring a customer is still pretty stiff, isn't it Tom?

Speaker 3

Yes, I think it certainly has moderated from where it once was and depending on the platform and we use a ton of them in a ton of We market, there are some that are higher from a CPM, etcetera, basis and some are a little lower. So You know I think overall the environment is certainly not what it was a year or 2 back As far as being that level of efficiency. So it's more expensive now. It's more expensive now, yes. Got you.

Speaker 5

And we

Speaker 2

did step up on marketing this quarter, did we? No.

Speaker 5

Okay, great. That's all I have. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Michael.

Operator

Our next question comes from Anthony Lebiedzinski from Sidoti. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 6

Hi, good morning. How are you guys doing?

Speaker 2

Good, Anthony.

Speaker 6

This is by the way, this is Stefan Gill on for Anthony Lebiedzinski. Sorry about that. I guess my first question is on which Commodity costs, have you seen the most declines in and which ones are still pressuring your costs?

Speaker 2

Bill will have the actual data, but When we talk about reversion to the means, Stefan, it's hopefully a multiyear reversion. We've gotten some benefit this quarter and actually for the last couple of quarters from a macro point of view, Things have reverted comfortably and ocean freight which was a kick in the head for us a year ago has actually come back to Almost pre pandemic levels. So that one has almost come back completely. So it's reverted. Hopefully, it stays there.

Speaker 2

The Commodities piece is the one that took off after the ocean freight thing hit us and we do a lot of baking and we make a lot Baked goods, chocolate products, all of our food products require cookies for example require a lot of Butter and eggs and those commodity costs went through the roof. They've moderated some, but they're not backed. They haven't reverted back to their more I'll let Bill look at the actual data.

Speaker 4

Yes. So as Jim was alluding to, things like butter and eggs, Even we have come off there, the significant highs. Actually back down to Others are working their way down. Commodities like sugar and cocoa, big ingredients in some of our product lines are That's still very high. And obviously a big one is fuel and while fuel has moderated a little bit over where its highs Sorry, a year ago, obviously we all read about fuel and it's still very high versus historical norms.

Speaker 6

Thank you for the color. I guess my second question is, in the past, Carlos, you have talked about optimizing logistics with your shipping partners, mostly FedEx. So as you prepare for the busy holiday season, how should we think about potential benefits from this initiative?

Speaker 2

Well, I think we have a program that we've referred A few times this morning called our Work Smarter program, which Bill has been quarterbacking with a team of people across the And you'll see them you'll see that they've done lots of things. For example, we opened our East Coast Large distribution center for a multi brand operations. We opened that in Georgia a year and a half ago. We Spent a great deal of time and money on an automation project there in the last year and we're seeing the fruits of that now, so that's one example. So Freight out of our finished goods will come from that facility, which might have either come from our Ohio facility, which covers the Midwest or our West Coast facilities So there is a significant freight savings by having a national footprint of major distribution centers And we've also coordinated and distributed our products on our raw ingredients basis into a finished goods across the country as well.

Speaker 2

So we have deep freezer space in now in Ohio and in Georgia and we've had it for a long time Bill, give us a little bit more color on what our work smarter initiatives have yielded particularly in the area that Stephane is asking us about in

Speaker 3

terms of First off, we have

Speaker 4

a great working relationship with our carriers and We do have contracted long term contracted rates that do have modest increases every year, but there are certain components of the rates that aren't capped, they're variable. And so they're a little more variable. Fuel is One of the bigger ones. So we've embarked on a number of initiatives, logistic initiatives to help offset Those rate increases. Jim was alluding to the opening of Atlanta not that long ago.

Speaker 4

But a lot of it is the placement of inventory around the country, making sure we're with as close On delivery. But WorkSmart is much broader than just from a logistics standpoint. It Really is a number of work streams that we have that all of our working more efficiently through the use of technology, automation. It includes logistics that we talked about labor, inventory and inventory management.

Speaker 2

And we can't go much further in the call without mentioning AI, So that we're consistent with every other company on the planet.

Speaker 4

Good, absolutely. So certainly from Manufacturing and distribution from an automation standpoint, we've talked about these in the past. The capital efforts We've done at both our Ohio, Medford and Midland, Oregon and Atlanta Facilities, we've invested within our service center platform from an automation standpoint using some AI, but Certainly from a chat standpoint using bots from a self-service portal to improve the customer Experience with from a WorkSmart standpoint, inventory management bringing our inventory down More in line with where our current demand is, has saved us money from both a working capital standpoint as well as from an inventory write off Why

Speaker 2

don't you touch on that inventory point? It might help Stefan understand that what we've the achievements Last year

Speaker 4

at this

Speaker 2

time inventory levels versus this year and how we spread the inventory out to meet where we anticipate demand to be which gives So freight savings and enables us to lower our overall inventory investment.

Speaker 4

Yes, the inventory is down around $60,000,000 or so, a little more than $60,000,000 at the end of the first quarter This year versus it was a year ago and we have a better place around the country.

Speaker 2

Well we think we do.

Speaker 4

And we're producing it in a more efficient manner, closer to the Using it in a more efficient manner closer to the holiday. So it's we're saving on labor. We're ultimately saving on freight costs by having it better

Speaker 2

That help you, Stefan?

Speaker 6

Yes. Thank you. And I guess that leads to my last question. Can you talk about seasonal labor availability and labor rates the current holiday quarter and how does that compare to last year?

Speaker 2

Sure. It's a good story for us, Stephan, In that 2 years ago, so Christmas of 'twenty one, we really struggled. We wound up Season with 2,000 positions we never filled and that just kicked us in the head from a labor cost point of view because it required so much overtime. Last year we filled those spots better and we just got reports as recently as Monday of this week that we're really not having a problem with Anywhere in the country. Now I will caution you that when we talk about reversion to the mean, we have no illusion that on Because the labor side that there is a reversion to the mean to get back to pre COVID levels.

Speaker 2

We were pre COVID $12 to $13 an hour bill for entry level seasonal holiday help and now it's much 'twenty or so and that's not going back. That G and D is not going back So our planning anticipates that labor cost overall will be a constant. I will say though the asterisk there is, it's not higher

Operator

Our next question comes from Alex Fuhrman from Craig Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks guys for taking my question. Jim, it sounds like you're pretty optimistic about your positioning for the holidays. Can you talk about what you're doing To attract consumers this holiday season that might be watching their spending a little more than in prior years?

Speaker 2

Well, I don't mean to betray optimism, but we're hopeful. Maybe that's a better The things we're doing and I'll let it's not I won't be the only answer on this question. I'll ask Tom and Bill to contribute. But Tom mentioned in his remarks, Alex, about how we are broadening the range of our price points on products. I think that We have a lot of opportunity on the high side to offer a more attractive products that the average Consumer wouldn't go for, but the well heeled customer who really wants to make a splash will find attractive.

Speaker 2

And frankly, we just Always surprise ourselves all these years later about what the elasticity in demand would be at the higher price points and so we're making an effort to go after that. On the other hand, as we look at we were just chatting before we started this morning about the comments that Brian Cornell from Target had made on CNBC this morning about what they are experiencing. And it's very similar to us in that The tighter walleted consumer is struggling right now and you can see that I was reading in the Wall Street Journal Go by Greg Ip about how the University of Michigan Long Running Consumer Sentiment Index is at recession like levels And it just seems to me, I told everyone here this story that when I was in LA a couple of weeks ago, I was running around a lot and I Ubered everywhere. I had maybe 14, 12 to 15 different Uber rides over the course of the 4 days. I was running around LA and Every single driver that I had, all of them nice, the experience was good in every case, every single one of them chatted about How they were under pressure.

Speaker 2

Cost fuel, they pointed frequently to the gasoline price signs on the roadway. We were on Lincoln Boulevard a lot and it started with a 7 and they talked about the cost of fuel, they talked about the cost of housing rent for them and they talked about food cost and that consumer 62% I read in the Wall Street Journal piece, 62% of consumers are working paycheck to paycheck, 62% of Americans. And that's they don't have the discretionary dollars to say, oh, let me go buy a birthday gift for $50 from 1 But our thought is when it comes to Thanksgiving, when it came to Halloween and especially when it comes to Christmas, they move from Discretionary items to need to buy items. And Tom, I think you would add that we've added a lot more price points that would be Affordable and attractive to a consumer who is struggling a bit.

Speaker 3

Yeah, Alex, it's Tom. We've definitely doubled down In the lower price points, we on the Harry and David brand, we have a number of new products at a $29.99 price point. We've on our 1-eight 100 Flowers brand, we've also entertained and have a number of lower price points We've ever had on the site and especially around our other brands where they are start off at Lower price points were in a $15 to $19 price. We don't the bottom line is and Really reinforcing the ability to price shop by price, etcetera in those brands. So We understand that a certain segment of our customer base is under pressure.

Speaker 3

We want to meet them where they are and so they can convey their expression For the holiday, so we're really focused on that.

Speaker 4

But we've also introduced some higher price point items and some bundled products that Combined some of the things that are more affluent consumer and customer wants to buy and we've seen some positive To those items.

Speaker 2

Tom, why don't you shine a little light on what the bundle product that Bill referenced that we're seeing some good traction.

Speaker 3

Yes, we mentioned on the call earlier, we have new products with Harry and David, Christmas Party products that are $7.99 products. We have Ultimate Hearthside gift basket that's $500 So we've kind of seen consumers gravitate a segment of our consumers gravitate towards these higher prices

Speaker 2

And so we're continuing to advance some of that catalog. Wine is a category we've Especially Alex, Tom has mentioned it a couple of times now. We really only sell, we're a winery. We grow grapes, we make wine and so It's a decent margin product business. Right now we really only sell it as an add on and what we discovered and Tom mentioned that earlier on in his What we discovered is customers like the idea of being able to add a bottle of wine onto their food basket gift or onto their bakery gift collection.

Speaker 2

And increasingly when we make it available to them and affordable, they're going for the 2nd bottle to make it a really nice package. So the bundles are where we're seeing some

Speaker 4

Really good traction. That's terrific guys. Thank you all three. Always good to hear your effective on the consumer especially heading into this holiday season.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Alex.

Operator

And ladies and gentlemen, at this time, I'm showing no additional questions. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Well, thanks everyone for joining us today. We want to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season. As I just mentioned, we are hopeful that it's the Consumer will be there and we have the right mix of products and services for them. You've heard all the things we've done to invest in our logistics

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll conclude today's conference call and presentation. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your

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