Grove Collaborative Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
March 6, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • Grove delivered a second consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA along with a record net revenue per order of $66.83 and positive operating cash flow in Q4 2023.
  • The company took significant cost‐optimization actions, including a San Francisco lease amendment expected to save $5.8 million through 2027 and the closure of its Missouri fulfillment center to improve operational efficiency.
  • Under its sustainability pillar, Grove has achieved plastic neutrality by collecting 15 million pounds of ocean-bound plastic since 2020, avoided 10.8 million pounds of single-use plastic since 2017, and launched a digital badging system to highlight 100% plastic-free or low-plastic products.
  • Grove began transforming its customer experience by removing gated subscriptions and default carts, introducing incentives for first-order conversions, and launching a loyalty-focused VIP program to expand its total addressable market.
  • For 2024, Grove guides net revenue of $215 million to $225 million with a 0%–1% adjusted EBITDA margin, expects sequential revenue growth in H2, and plans to increase advertising spend as a percentage of revenue while expanding product selection and sustainability innovation.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Grove Collaborative Q4 2023
00:00 / 00:00

There are 4 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good afternoon and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Grove Collaborative Holdings, Inc. 4th Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Following the speakers' remarks, we will open your lines for your questions.

Operator

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Hosting today's call are Grove's CEO, Jeff Yerkeson and CFO, Sergio Cervantes. Before they begin their prepared remarks, I will review the forward looking statements Safe Harbor. Some of the statements made today about future prospects, financial results, business strategies, industry trends and Grove's ability to successfully respond to business risks may be considered forward looking. Including statements regarding the impact of transitioning order volume to other facilities, 2024 product launches and category expansion, changes to our customer experience and their impact, including an increase in addressable customer base, improved first order conversion and a reintroduction to less active customers, our guidance for 2024 net revenue and adjusted EBITDA margin, revenue growth in the second half of twenty twenty four while being adjusted EBITDA profitable and our ability to invest in an advertising as a higher percentage of revenue.

Operator

Such statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. All these statements are based on Gro's view of their market and their business as they see today. As described in their SEC filings, the underlying facts and assumptions for these statements can change as the market and their business changes. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in their recent filings with the SEC, which are available on Grove's Investor Relations website at investors. Grove.co.

Operator

During today's call, they will also discuss certain non GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non GAAP items to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in their earnings release, which is also available on their Investor Relations website. I would now like to turn the call over to Jeff Yerkeson to begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. I'm excited to be here with you and to share updates about our financial performance for the Q4 as well as the full year 2023. I recently passed my 6 month milestone at Grove and continue to be impressed by our team's contributions, dedication to our mission and our incremental results. I remain confident in the strategy that we put into place in November of 2023 and more importantly, I am deeply excited about our future.

Speaker 1

We seek to be the most trusted brand for conscientious customers. We want to make the right choices for their families in the plan. To achieve that, we must deliver profitable growth. And I'm proud of our team's incredible progress over the past few months as we continue to prioritize profitability, while putting the customer at the center of all that we do. The creation of a leading sustainable brand is a catalyst for our future growth, which we'll accomplish by creating and curating the most efficacious and planet first products.

Speaker 1

In particular, Q4 2023 was the start of a critical business transformation as we evolve our customer experience, create incentives for customers to build the most wallet and planet friendly box possible and roll out a robust product pipeline prioritizing sustainability and convenience. As we mark our 10th year as a B Corporation, I'm thrilled with the changes to date and those to come as we continue our laser focus on our 3 strategic pillars customer, sustainability and profitability. I intend to touch on profitability and sustainability first, but will dedicate most of my remarks to share how we will drive growth by focusing on improving the customer experience. Beginning with our profitability pillar, I'm incredibly proud of the Grove team and their dedication to deliver positive adjusted EBITDA results for the Q2 in a row. Q4 2023 also marked a new record for net revenue per order at $66.83 and positive operating cash flow for the second out of the last three quarters.

Speaker 1

These serve as additional proof points of our focus on profitability. Our sustainability mission requires that we operate a sustainable business. We've internalized this ethos as we continued our ongoing review of operating costs and took action to improve our margin and increase our operating leverage during the Q4. We took additional action during the Q1 of 2024 to further reduce our operating expenses. Specifically, we entered into an amendment for our San Francisco headquarters lease, subject to our landlord's lender approval.

Speaker 1

The amendment terminates our existing lease, provides for our lease of the 1st floor of the building at a lower cost and requires us to pay a $4,800,000 termination fee. The amendment will create approximately $5,800,000 of cash savings through May 2027, the end of the original lease term. We also evaluated our fulfillment center ecosystem and made the decision to close our Missouri location to optimize for cost and operational efficiencies. We expect minimal transportation impact for our customers as we transition the order volume to our fully operational Nevada and Pennsylvania facilities. Our bicoastal 2 node network still has sufficient capacity for revenue growth for the foreseeable future.

Speaker 1

These savings will be reflected in the P and L throughout the coming quarters. With respect to our sustainability pillar as our foundation, mission and point of differentiation, we continue to focus on research and development to create and curate increasingly sustainable products, working with partners and vendors on scalable alternative materials that can help us to transform the consumer products industry. Q4 marked a significant milestone for the company when we announced that we have collected £15,000,000 of single use nature and ocean bound plastics since 2020 through our partnership with plastic recovery platforms. This is the impact of our plastic neutrality commitment through which for every ounce of plastic shipped to growth customers, we collect the equivalent amount of plastic pollution through our ongoing partnership with Repurpose Global. We've also helped to avoid £10,800,000 of single use plastic since 20 17, including £1,700,000 in 2023 alone by offering a broad assortment of products that contain less plastic compared to other household brands.

Speaker 1

We also launched our digital badging system on products that meet Groves beyond plastic standard. Our customers can now look for 3 badges on our website, including 100% plastic free, 95 plus percent plastic free, and no single use plastic to help them make educated purchasing decisions and reduce their consumption of single use plastic. These digital badges expand our transparency efforts by sharing the plastic content of our Grove brand and third party products, while guiding customers to shop reusable products or products containing little to no single use plastic. We are providing more information to our customers on our website to make their sustainability journeys easier to navigate and enable progress over perfection on our mission. The cornerstone of our sustainability mission has been reducing the amount of single use plastic sold in everyday consumer products.

Speaker 1

Our key measurement to understand product progress is plastic intensity, which we define as pounds of plastic per $100 of our net revenue. We hope other brands and retailers become equally inspired to measure and reduce plastic throughout their business. Plastic intensity across the entire growth business was £1.07 of plastic per $100 in net revenue in the Q4 of 2023, an improvement from £1.11 in the Q3 of 2023 £1.08 in the Q4 of 2022. For growth brands only, across online sales and retail partners, Plastic intensity was also £1.07 of plastic per $100 in net revenue in the Q4 of 2023, an improvement from 1 point £14 in the Q3 of 2023, but up from £0.98 in the Q4 of 2022. Our GroveCo 100% recycled plastic trash bags were the primary driver of the year over year plastic intensity increase for our Grove brand.

Speaker 1

Finally, with respect to the customer pillar, we 1, improved the VIP experience 2, continued momentum with GrowthCo product innovations 3, saw accelerated growth within health and wellness and 4, most importantly, we began the transformation of our new customer acquisition model. The Q4 saw improvements to our website and to our product recommendations as well as special pricing for our VIPs. We plan to continue making changes to our site while offering our best customers our VIPs, exclusive benefits and more value for their loyalty. For our growth branded products, our team is focused on leading the industry with 50 plus no way ingredients like terabens, phthalates and phosphates that are not included in any of our products. We continue to innovate in both products and with award winning packaging.

Speaker 1

In Q4, we launched our GroveCo Bottle Wash Power Packs, a new pod product that removes stains and lingering odors in hard to clean containers, serving as an entry point into a niche category with an opportunity for growth. We have a number of planned launches throughout 2024 that will enable customers an easier entry point into our product platforms with ready to use items at a more accessible price point on many of the shelves in the 7,500 brick and mortar locations where GrowthCo products are sold across the country. For our 3rd party brand partners, we intend to offer relevant products that a conscientious customer would want. Customers continue to ask us to enter new categories. For instance, 89% of customers we surveyed in a study would trust Grove over other retailers to meet their health and wellness needs.

Speaker 1

So in the health and wellness category, we established a dedicated health and wellness advisory board composed of medical clinicians and practitioners to help guide the ongoing expansion of the brands and products we sell using the latest research and science. Between Q4 2022 and Q4 2023, we grew the percentage of orders containing a health and wellness product by more than 75%, showing continued momentum in the category going into 2024. This is valuable because the higher average retail prices and regimented nature of wellness products translates to a customer lifetime value that is approximately 3 times higher for a customer that purchases wellness products versus one that does not. We are continuously evaluating our pricing and category offering in health and wellness, turning growth into the destination for our customers' wellness needs. We are in the midst of transforming from a sustainable cleaning brand to a trusted household brand to meet more of our conscientious customers' needs.

Speaker 1

In Q4, we welcomed the Ancient Nutrition, Compostik, The Honest Company and Wish Gardens brands to our collaborative, as well as dozens of new products from existing third party brand partners. We will continue to expand assortment within our core categories and into adjacent ones where we have earned our customers' trust. In Q4, we also began a journey to remake our customer experience to be more clear, customer friendly and focus on our priorities of sustainability and value, while also providing more transparency around our subscription process. During the transition, we have seen and will see lower first order conversion rates. As a result, we spent advertising at a stable percentage of revenue in the 4th quarter when compared to the 2nd and third quarters.

Speaker 1

At the end of February, we launched an updated customer experience for new customers. We adopted an improved approach for the first order experience by removing gated access and default subscriptions and creating incentives for customers to opt into a program to subscribe to individual products for increased savings. We will also offer discounts for repeat orders and free gifts to incentivize basket building. The transformation represents a significant shift in our subscription model. These changes will allow us to better match best practices across e commerce that I have seen throughout my career and drive growth and new acquisition channels.

Speaker 1

We are optimistic that the various changes to the overall experience with reduced friction and even more transparency will increase our total addressable market, improve first order conversion and reintroduce less active customers to the growth During this transition, we further reduced advertising spend in the Q1, but we intend to increase our spend as a percentage of revenue throughout the year as we optimize the experience. Now turning to 2024, you will continue to see us prioritize profitability, but we also expect sequential revenue growth in the second half of the year. We plan to accomplish these results by 1, expanding product selection. We will follow our customers' needs by building on our demonstrated success and category expansion in the health and wellness space. 2, we are optimizing our growth model.

Speaker 1

We will move from the gated first order experience to one that is shopping focused and provides incentives for customers to subscribe to items and build the most planet friendly and wallet friendly orders possible. We expect this to reactivate and reenergize our 5,000,000 customer base and further increase our total addressable market and appeal to all conscientious customers. 3, we are prioritizing innovation. We will continue to launch new sustainable products to our online platform and 7,500 brick and mortar retail locations. For example, we are launching a new ready to use product assortment that will enable customers to experience GrowthCo at a lower entry price point than our current durable and concentrate offering.

Speaker 1

And lastly, we are doubling down on sustainability, our point of differentiation. This is what connects our team. It's why customers trust us and it's what sets us apart. We are the 1st plastic neutral retailer in the world, but we aim to do more by further serving our customers through education and new products guided by our Beyond Plastic Standards. I'm incredibly excited about the strategy that prioritizes our customers and puts our sustainability mission at the forefront of everything we do.

Speaker 1

I will now turn the call over to Sarkil to review our financial results in more detail. Sarkil, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jeff. Similar to previous calls, we will provide quarter over quarter comparisons in addition to the year over year changes. We continue to believe that sequential comparisons reflect trends in the business and provide a measure of effectiveness of the steps we have taken to position ourselves for long term sustainable and profitable growth. Starting with the top line, net revenue in the 4th quarter was $59,900,000 down 3.1% from the Q3 of 2023 and 19.2% year over year. The ongoing impact of our reduced advertising strategy persisted, which optimized spend to ensure adequate return on investment as we transition our first order experience and aggressively push for profitability.

Speaker 2

For the Q4, total orders were down 5.8% quarter over quarter and 23.7% year over year to $900,000 and active customers were down 9.7% quarter over quarter and 33.2% year over year to $900,000 Both total orders and active customers continue to be impacted by lower advertising spend. Offsetting the decrease in total orders, DTC net revenue per order was up 2.4% quarter over quarter and 5.4% year over year to 66.83, another record high, surpassing our previous record of 65.24 from last quarter. The sequential year over year improvement was driven by a mix shift to existing customer orders as well as an increase in the number of units for existing customer order as we expanded our product offering and optimize our pricing. Gross margin was up 60 basis points quarter over quarter and 7.40 basis points year over year to 54.4%. In the Q4, the inventory reserve reduction contributed 130 basis points to gross margin compared to 20 basis points in Q3 2020 3 and a negative 4.70 basis points in Q4 2022.

Speaker 2

The year over year improvement was further driven by a decrease in supply chain costs and a mix shift to existing customers. When compared to Q3 2023, the inventory reserve reduction was offset by higher product costs due to a seasonally higher discount rate and a higher percentage of third party products. Group brand products as a percentage of net revenue was down 30 basis points quarter over quarter and 70 basis points year over year to 44.5%. The sequential and year over year decline were largely due to a decrease in growth brand products in existing customer orders as we continue to expand our 3rd party product offering, especially our product selection in the health and wellness category relative to growth brand products. Our advertising expenses decreased 4% quarter over quarter and 43.6% year over year to 3,900,000 dollars The year over year declines reflect our pullback in advertising spend and focus on efficiency.

Speaker 2

While the sequential decline was due to a reduction in retail specific advertising as we balance growth and profitability in the channel and also balance the efficiency of our DTC advertising as we began transforming the 1st order customer experience. Product development expense increased 27.3% quarter over quarter, but decreased 0.5% year over year to 4,600,000 dollars The Q4 2023 amount includes a $700,000 year to date reclassification from SG and A and $100,000 of restructuring charges. Excluding the reclassification and restructuring charges, product development expense was stable quarter over quarter and declined year over year. SG and A expense increased 7.9% quarter over quarter or decreased 38% year over year to 32,100,000 dollars The current quarter SG and A includes $3,300,000 of restructuring expenses. Stock based compensation also increased $1,500,000 when compared to Q3 due to a one time true up recorded in Q3.

Speaker 2

If you exclude both of these items, Q4 2023 SG and A is lower than the prior quarter, mainly due to lower fulfillment costs from fewer orders. Similarly, the year over year decline is due to lower fulfillment costs from fewer orders, but also lower personal and professional services costs as we right size our cost structure throughout the year. Adjusted EBITDA for the 4th quarter was positive 1000000 compared to positive $200,000 in the Q3 of 2023, a $9,500,000 loss in the Q4 of 2022. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 0.2% compared to 0.3% in Q3 2023 and minus 12.9% in Q4 2022. This is the 2nd quarter in a row that we delivered positive adjusted EBITDA.

Speaker 2

We are pleased with these results, demonstrating our ability to manage our cost structure effectively despite the decline in credit. Net loss in the quarter was $9,500,000 compared to a net loss of $9,800,000 in the Q3 of 2023 and $12,700,000 loss in the Q4 of 2022. Turning now to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $94,900,000 in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, an increase of $200,000 from the previous quarter. The increase is mainly due to $1,100,000 of operating cash flow offset by $500,000 of capital expenditures.

Speaker 2

As this relates to working capital trends, we finished the quarter with an inventory balance of $28,800,000 dollars down $3,900,000 from the end of Q3 2023 as we continue to right size our inventory ownership. We did not make any draws on the asset based loan facility during the Q4 after having taken the minimum draw of $7,500,000 in Q1 2023. Based on current inventory and accounts receivable balances, we have $8,100,000 of capacity available. Now turning to our outlook. For the 12 month period ending December 31, 2024, we expect net revenue of $215,000,000 to $225,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA margin of 0% to 1%.

Speaker 2

While our guidance has revenue declining on an annual basis in 2024 compared to 2023, we expect to deliver sequential quarterly revenue growth in the second half of twenty twenty four, while also being profitable an adjusted EBITDA basis for the full year. We further expect the transformation to the customer experience that Jeff described previously allows us to invest in advertising at a higher percentage of revenue starting in the second half of the year when compared to the first half. I look forward to providing updates on our progress in the coming quarters. I would now like to turn the call back over to Jeff for some closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Sergio. Having completed my 1st 6 months in the role of CEO, I have an immense amount of gratitude for our Board of Directors, leadership team and Grove employees for being part of this incredible journey. And because of their guidance, partnership and hard work, we've been able to accomplish an incredible amount in just 6 months that should make us all proud. At Grove, we aim to transform our industry and turn consumer products into a force for human and environmental good. And when you consider that 89% of ocean plastic is single use plastic and only 5% of plastic is recycled, Our mission is more critical now than ever.

Speaker 1

And the path to achieve our mission and transform our business relies on our strategy to stay focused on our conscientious customers, win with our sustainability differentiation and pursue our mission by running a sustainable, profitable, growing business. And we're already seeing the results of our transformation underway. 2023 prioritized profitability and saw a number of incredible milestones for our company. We have a plan in place that we believe will make us profitable and growing sequentially by the end of 2024. While I'm excited about the results from this quarter, I can say with certainty that this is just the beginning as we look to make a number of changes that will benefit our customers, our shareholders and our planet.

Speaker 1

We are now happy to answer any questions you have. Operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Susan Anderson with Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 3

Hi, good evening. Nice job on the quarter. Great to see that profitability continue to improve. I was wondering, so on the 2024 top line guide, maybe if you could just talk about, I guess, the cadence amongst the quarters. It sounds like you expect revenues to increase sequentially as we go throughout the year.

Speaker 3

I guess should we expect Q4 to be up year over year by the time we get there or how are you guys thinking about that? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Susan. Look, we said we are going to be profitable and growing in 2024 and we still believe that's true. We are confident in our plan that we have in place and what you will see is quarter over quarter on an ongoing basis continued growth. In terms of year over year, we are not giving guidance to it, but we're optimistic that the transformation that we were talking about to the core customer experience will be a catalyst for growth and we'll update our revenue guidance accordingly throughout the year. But right now, we are currently guiding towards sequential growth.

Speaker 3

Okay, great. That sounds good. And then maybe if you could just talk a little bit about the mix of sales longer term, I guess, between 3rd party brands and then your growth brand, as you add, I guess, more third party brands to your platform as the categories expand, I guess, has that changed in terms of your thoughts of where that mix will be? And then just in terms of the categories on the website, you've definitely added a lot of new categories. Is there anything else left that you want to expand into?

Speaker 3

Or should we think about it just adding more brands to those categories?

Speaker 1

Thank you for the question again, Susan. So I just want to emphasize one thing, which is in my time in this role, I am not working backwards from an ideal per share percentage for GrowthCo products. I want us to go find the best products in the world for this conscientious customers and put them in front of our core customers. What I'm energized by though is, we've got some great GrowCo product coming. So even as we add 3rd party selection, I believe there is a great opportunity for that GrowCo product to still jump out.

Speaker 1

Among JumpAlt and differentiate itself from other product on our in our store. So, we are not giving guidance to it. But what I think you will see is the growth product being of tremendous value and tremendous efficacy.

Speaker 3

Great. And then maybe if I could just add one last one. Not sure if you could give any color on just how Grove performed at sell in the quarter? And I guess, are you expecting any additional expansion there at wholesale for the Grove brand in 2024?

Speaker 1

Thank you. So, we did really incredibly well. I am proud of the type of product launches that we have. You will see at the end of Q1, early Q2, new product hitting the stores, hitting target shelves. You will see 70% more retail doors open in 2024 year over year.

Speaker 1

And so from our perspective, we are launching the right type of products. Excited about this GrowthCo bottle wash power pack. We're excited about the retail door expansion and we still firmly believe in our strategy of this omni channel brand where we're meeting our customers where they are.

Speaker 3

Great. That sounds good. Thanks so much. Good luck the rest of this year.

Speaker 1

Thank you so much, Susan.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to CEO, Jeff Yerkeson, for closing comments.

Speaker 1

Thank you very much Appreciate your time this evening and thank you for your support. Have a great evening.

Operator

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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