RH Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
June 13, 2024

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's RH First Quarter Fiscal 20 24 Earnings Q and A Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, you will have an opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. Please note that this call is being recorded and I will be standing by if you need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Alison Malkin.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our Q1 fiscal 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Gary Friedman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Jack Preston, Chief Financial Officer. Before we start, I'd like to remind you of our legal disclaimer that we will make certain statements today that are forward looking within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements about our outlook of our business and other matters referenced in our press release issued today.

Speaker 1

These forward looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings as well as our press release issued today for a more detailed description of the risk factors that may affect our results. Please also note that these forward looking statements reflect our opinion only as of the date of this call, and we undertake no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these forward looking statements in light of new information or future events. Also, during this call, we may discuss non GAAP financial measures, which adjust our GAAP results to eliminate the impact of certain items. You will find additional information regarding these non GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of these non GAAP to GAAP measures in today's financial results press release.

Speaker 1

A live broadcast of this call is also available on the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.rh.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Gary.

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you, Alison. Good afternoon, everyone. We're actually calling you live from New York at our guest house as we just got back from our opening at RH Madrid last night. I'm going to start with our letter to our people, partners and shareholders, and then we'll open the call to your questions.

Speaker 2

To our people, partners and shareholders, we are pleased to report that our demand trends inflected positive in the Q1 and continue to build momentum despite operating in the most challenging housing market in 3 decades. We believe our investments in the most prolific product transformation and platform expansion in our history has positioned RH to gain significant market share in North America, while building the foundation for our long term global expansion across the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and the Middle East over the next several years. Our results for the Q1 largely reflected expectations with revenues of $727,000,000 adjusted operating margin of 6.5 percent and adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.3%. Demand was up 3% in the quarter, slightly below our guidance as growth softened when interest rates once again exceeded 7% post the hawkish Fed commentary throughout April. While aggressively investing during a downturn has put pressure on short term results, it also positions us to capitalize on the long term opportunities that present themselves during times of disruption and dislocation.

Speaker 2

Those opportunities are beginning to materialize as a growing number of online furniture brands have ceased operations as the vast majority have demonstrated difficulty reaching profitability. We do expect the constantly changing outlook regarding monetary policy will continue to weigh on the housing market through the second half of twenty twenty four and possibly into 2025. Nonetheless, we remain confident that our continued investments towards transforming our product and expanding our platform will generate significant long term value for our shareholders. Every act of creation is first an act of destruction, Pablo Picasso. We have worked hard to destroy the former version of ourselves and are in the process of unleashing what we believe is an exponentially more inspiring and disruptive RH brand, inclusive of the most prolific product transformation and platform expansion in the history of our industry.

Speaker 2

Our product transformation plans for 2024 include the launch of our new RH Outdoor Sourcebook, the most dominant collection of luxury outdoor furniture in the market arrived in homes in the Q1 with 14 new collections. Outdoor trends continue to remain strong and we expect to gain significant market share in fiscal 2024. The unveiling of our new RH Modern source book arrived in homes throughout early June with 30 new collections across living, dining, bedroom and bathroom. We expect the launch of RH Modern will further accelerate our demand trends in the second quarter and throughout the second half of fiscal twenty twenty four. The second mailing of our new RH interior source book is now planned to be in homes starting July with new collections and improved in stocks, which should also provide an additional lift to demand in the Q3 and continue to build through the remainder of the year.

Speaker 2

We will be mailing an updated RH Contemporary source book in early August with new collections and a compelling value proposition, which we believe will also accelerate demand trends. A second mailing of the RH Modern source book and third mailing of our RH Interior source book are expected in the second half of twenty twenty four with additional new collections, refreshed galleries and improved in stocks. These mailings will result in a doubling of our source book circulation and customer contacts in 2024 versus 2023. Our data would suggest that the increased number of contacts alone should provide another lift factor for our business. As you know, we acquired Waterworks in 2016, arguably the most desired brand in the luxury bath and kitchen category.

Speaker 2

The Waterworks team has done an outstanding job over the past 8 years, further elevating the brand and building a highly profitable business model that can scale. Waterworks, like most other luxury brands in the home space, generates the vast majority of their revenues from the trade market, selling to architects, designers, developers and builders. While RH has a meaningful trade business, the vast majority of our revenues are generated by consumers. We believe there is a significant opportunity to amplify the Waterworks business on the RH platform by exposing the brand to a much larger audience similar to how we've expanded other trade focused businesses and brands over the years. Our plan is to launch with a 3,500 Square Foot Waterworks showroom in our largest new design gallery in Newport Beach, California opening in the Q4 of 2024.

Speaker 2

We will also be developing a Waterworks source book with plans for a test mailing in 2025. Waterworks today is just shy of a $200,000,000 business with mid to high teens EBITDA margin that we believe has the potential to become a $1,000,000,000 global brand on our platform. Let me shift your attention to the expansion of our platform. Our plan to expand the RH brand globally, address new markets locally and transform our North American galleries represents a multibillion dollar opportunity. Our platform expansion plans for 2024 include: the opening of 5 North American design galleries, including Cleveland and Palo Alto, which are now open, plus Raleigh, Newport Beach and Montecito, all with integrated RH interior design offices, restaurants and wine bars.

Speaker 2

The opening of 2 international galleries in Brussels, which opened in the Q1 and in Madrid, where we hosted a well attended opening event last night. Both galleries are located in beautiful historic buildings that elevate our product and render our brand more valuable. The opening of our 1st RH Interior Design Studio in Palm Desert, California. We believe there is an opportunity to address new markets locally by opening design studios in neighborhoods, towns and small cities where the wealthy and affluent live, visit and vacation as we've done in East Hampton and the Napa Valley as well as augmenting some of our design galleries in larger markets with additional design services and standalone design studios. Outlook.

Speaker 2

While we expect business conditions to remain challenging until interest rates ease and the housing market begins to rebound, We expect our business trends to accelerate throughout fiscal 2024. As previously communicated, due to the extensive transformation of our assortment, we expect revenue to lack demand during the year by approximately 4 to 8 points until we read and react to the new collections, reduce back orders and shorten special order lead times. Therefore, we will be guiding and reporting both demand and revenue growth each quarter during fiscal 2024, so shareholders and investors can accurately analyze our business. We believe it's also important to note that we are forecasting to end the year with an increased backlog of approximately 110 $1,000,000 to $130,000,000 due to revenue lagging demand throughout fiscal 2024, which will negatively impact operating margin and adjusted EBITDA margin by approximately 140 basis points. Additionally, investments in start up costs to support our international expansion are estimated to be an approximately 200 basis point drag for fiscal 2024.

Speaker 2

We continue to expect demand growth in the range of 12% to 14% and revenue growth of 8% to 10% on a 52 versus 52 week basis. We are forecasting adjusted operating margin to be in the range of 13% to 14% and adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 18% to 19%. For the Q2 of fiscal 2024, we are forecasting demand growth in the range of 9% to 10% and revenue growth of 3% to 4%. We are forecasting adjusted operating margin to be in the range of 11% to 12% and adjusted EBITDA margin of 17% to 18%. RH's business vision and ecosystem, the long view.

Speaker 2

We believe there are those with taste and no scale and those with scale and no taste. And the idea of scaling taste is large and far reaching. Our goal to position RH as the arbiter of taste for the home has proven to be both disruptive and lucrative as we continue our quest to build the most admired brand in the world. Our brand attracts leading designers, artisans and manufacturers, scaling and rendering their work more valuable across our integrated platform, enabling RH to curate the most compelling collection of luxury home products on the planet. Our efforts to elevate and expand our collection will continue with the introductions of RH Couture, RH Bespoke, RH Color, RH Antique and Artifacts, RH Atelier and other new collections scheduled to launch over the next decade.

Speaker 2

Our plan to open immersive design galleries in every major market will unlock the value of our vast assortment, generating revenues of $5,000,000,000 to $6,000,000,000 in North America and $20,000,000,000 to $25,000,000,000 and globally. Our strategy is to move the brand beyond curating and selling product to conceptualizing and selling spaces by building an ecosystem of products, places, services and spaces that establishes the RH brand as a global thought leader, taste and place maker. Our products are elevated and rendered more valuable by our architecturally inspiring galleries, which are further elevated and rendered more valuable by our interior design services and seamlessly integrated hospitality experience. Our hospitality efforts will continue to elevate the RH brand as we extend beyond the four walls of our galleries into RH guest houses, where our goal is to create a new market for travelers seeking privacy and luxury in the $200,000,000,000 North American hotel industry. Additionally, we are creating bespoke experiences like RH Janesville, an integration of food, wine, art and design in the Napa Valley.

Speaker 2

RH1 and RH2 are private jets and RH3 are luxury yacht that is available for charter in the Caribbean and Mediterranean, where the wealthy and affluent visit and vacation. These immersive experiences expose new and existing customers to our evolving authority in architecture, interior design and landscape architecture. This leads to our long term strategy of building the world's 1st consumer facing architecture, interior design and landscape architecture services platform inside our galleries, elevating the brand and amplifying our core business, while adding new revenue streams, while disrupting and redefining multiple industries. Our strategy comes full circle as we begin to conceptualize and sell spaces. Moving beyond the $170,000,000,000 home furnishings market into the $1,700,000,000,000 North American housing market with the launch of RH Residences, fully furnished luxury homes, condominiums and apartments with integrated services that deliver taste and time value to discerning time starved consumers.

Speaker 2

The entirety of our strategy comes to life digitally with the world of RH, an online portal where customers can explore and be inspired by the depth and dimension of our brand. Our authority as an arbiter of taste will be further amplified when we introduce RH Media, a content platform that will celebrate the most innovative and influential leaders who are shaping the world of architecture and design. Our plan to expand the RH ecosystem globally multiplies the market opportunity to $7,000,000,000,000 to $10,000,000,000,000 dollars 1 of the largest and most valuable addressed by any brand in the world today. A 1% share of the global market represents a $70,000,000,000 to $100,000,000,000 opportunity. Our ecosystem of products, places, services and spaces inspires customers to dream, design, dine, travel and live in a world thoughtfully curated by RH, creating an emotional connection unlike any other brand in the world.

Speaker 2

Taste can be elusive and we believe there is no one better positioned than RH to create an ecosystem that makes taste inclusive and by doing so elevating and rendering our way of life more valuable. Never underestimate the power of a few good people who don't know what can't be done. For the past 23 years, we've heard others tell us what can't be done. And for the past 23 years, we failed to listen. We avoided bankruptcy by while being accused of lunacy.

Speaker 2

While others have been shrinking and closing stores, we've been building the largest and most inspiring spaces in the world. When Wall Street didn't think our stock was worth buying, we bought 60% of it ourselves. When everyone told us we should be working from home, we were in the center of innovation, working on rebuilding our new home and it's almost ready for prime time. The largest product transformation in our history to the most inspiring retail experiences in the world, from couches to caviar, beds to Bellinis, architecture to airplanes, homes to hotels, guest houses. From Pittsburgh to Paris, Los Angeles to London, Boston to Brussels, Miami to Munich and San Francisco to Sydney.

Speaker 2

Soon the world will be within our reach. Never underestimate the power of a few good people who don't know what can't be done, especially these people. Onward, team RH. Carpe diem. Now operator, we'll open up the call to questions.

Operator

Thank you. Our first question will come from Stephen Forbes with Guggenheim Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hey, Gary, Jack, Allison. Obviously, Gary, nice to see the business returning to growth here. So I was curious if you maybe can help us contextualize the success of the new collections as you see it today, realizing it's early. But can you speak to sort of how many collections are showing signs of resonating with the consumer? And what maybe some of the early learnings are around the designs themselves as it relates to sort of product expansion opportunities or sort of broadening out the exposure right of the designs to different pieces?

Speaker 2

Sure, Steve. As it relates to resonate, 1, we have a lot of new collections being introduced. And so we are reading and responding to all those and trying to put those into context. And we have many more coming just in the modern book alone, which is just now getting into homes, and we're getting some early reads on that. I think the best news is we have a few collections that are new number one collections, big broad collections.

Speaker 2

And I tell the team here, get a new number one collection generally once every 7 to 12 years. It's something that really is a market mover that resonates broadly across the entire platform. And those things permanently move the business. The way we think about our business and think about our assortments, we talk a lot here about the thirds. We talk about the top third in assortment or the top third the top third in any part of our assortment, not just overall, but if you're looking in the dining business, the living room business, the bedroom business, the outdoor business, the lighting business, the rug business, etcetera, etcetera.

Speaker 2

And if you think about our business or any retail business and if you try to simplify it down to what's in the top third, what's in the middle third and what's in the bottom third and how to think about those thirds. If you can introduce newness in the top third, that will lift the entire company, right? It will lift the entire category, it will lift the entire company. If you introduce newness in the middle third, you're going to mostly be neutral unless it's in the top portion of that middle third. And we also talk about the top half and the bottom half, but the 3rd is really the way we mostly focus on this.

Speaker 2

And if you introduce anything in the bottom 3rd, you're going to likely pull down the company's business. The great news is we have the majority of the newness the vast majority of the newness is in the top half and a big percentage is in the top third. And in some cases, there's the top collections in the top third, and that's what's really going to pull the business forward. So we really like the early reads of the business, but you're always going to have a top third, middle third and bottom third. So you've got to be disciplined out of if you have 90 new collections, 30 well, not necessarily the way to think about it.

Speaker 2

But if you have 90 total collections, you're going to have 30, 30 and 30. So you have to kind of recalibrate and recalculate it. But our initial reads are really quite good. We're really excited about the vast majority of what we're introducing. And then as we think about how do you dimensionalize the best collection, the key is like how do you optimize it?

Speaker 2

You optimize it by one, moving from just the books and online into the galleries. That gives us the biggest lift factor. And then you look at things like how do you dimensionalize, is the collection fully dimensionalized? Is it in all the finishes it could be? Is it in all the silhouettes and functions it can be?

Speaker 2

There are other variations you can create within that collection. Or even if you have key items, it's the same kind of questions. How many finishes? How many fabrics? How are we presented it?

Speaker 2

How many times are we presenting it? How many sizes is it in? So on and so forth. So there's a lot of work to do. The work doesn't stop with just launching new product.

Speaker 2

Actually, one of the biggest ways to grow the business is dimensionalizing that product and optimizing that product. And so we've been going through since our new book started, really meaningfully hitting the market and the new collections last year, reacting to dimensionalizing and optimizing the assortment and getting its stock in those things. That's a meaningful lift factor. So lots of things as you think about it. So we're not here just watching it.

Speaker 2

It's really think about it as we're analyzing and then we're reprioritizing and we're reacting to it from the sense of how do we dimensionalize and optimize the best work and anything the top half, which will move the business.

Speaker 3

That's helpful. And then maybe just a quick follow-up, right? There's so many different contributors to demand this year and the idea of sort of scaling it as we move throughout the year. I don't know if you can maybe like help us digest the visibility into demand scaling into the back half. Like how many sort of factors do you have a large degree of confidence around?

Speaker 3

How many factors or what percentage of the demand scaling is still sort of a large sort of forecast? You think about like RH Modern's contribution to demand scaling? Like any way to sort of just shore up the confidence in the demand revenue build into the back half for investors here?

Speaker 2

Of course. Yes. No, really good question. First, I'd say, it's you've got to really think about kind of what's year over year or kind of season over season, first half versus second half? And how do you think about the lift factor.

Speaker 2

So there's 7 significant lift factors that we're focused on. And those factors have kind of multiple some have multiple dimensions. So the first is just the books year over year, right? So and the circulation year over year. So we have more than doubling of the circulation in contacts year over year.

Speaker 2

That's meaningful. You don't have that many times in the growth of a business. Usually, you only see that at the very early stages of business development when brands are in the early stages. The way to think about it, if you relate it to RH, because you say, well, we're not really in the early stages of this brand, but we're in the early stages of the product transformation and the platform expansion, right? So you want to think about what's happening because we were we had kind of pulled back during COVID and we had very little newness and we had little circulation in contacts.

Speaker 2

Now we're past the midpoint. We're at the probably the 2 thirds point of the product transformation. And you're going to see a past the halfway point. It's just with modern, we're kind of now past the halfway point heading to the onethree point. So we still have you're looking at the second half here.

Speaker 2

Modern is really going to impact the second half. You also have the outdoor book, right, that we had 14 new collections in. That's going to be meaningful in the second half. A lot of people think about outdoor as just a first half business. Yes, it's got a peak season, but we're a year round outdoor business.

Speaker 2

We're very different than anybody else in the outdoor business because of our new design galleries, which have anywhere from 24 to 36 collections presented year round. So we're a true destination for outdoor. So for us, you have to think about the outdoor business not as a seasonal business. Some companies, they bring out a collection or 2 on the floor and then they take them off or they set up some umbrellas and folding chairs and then they take them off. We're a year round outdoor business in a good portion of our galleries.

Speaker 2

And that portion of the galleries are growing. So you have the modern book, which is one of the 7 significant list factors. You've got the interiors book that's going to be mailed, significant list factor in newness and contacts, right? You've got the contemporary book in newness and contacts. You've got the second mailing of the modern book that will happen in the second half, the second mailing of the interiors book that will happen in the second half.

Speaker 2

Then you've got this factor of more than doubling the circulation in context in the second half. And then you've got the 7th one, which is really the increase in storm months in the second half versus a year ago. So we have 48 new store months in the second half of this year versus 12 new store months in the second half of last year, which is a 4x factor in new store months year over year. So this is really unusual, right? It's like I'd say if you took anybody else, any other furniture retailer or furniture and home furnishings retailer or home furnishings retailer, any of the mature ones, they may say, hey, we have 2 new collections year over year, furniture collections.

Speaker 2

We might have 3, Somebody might have 1. We have a massive amount. I don't have that data right in front of me, but it's like 40%. And we have they're going to have a maybe they're going to have a little bit of circulation year over year. We're going to have a doubling circulation in contacts year over year.

Speaker 2

They may have yes, so you're looking at circulation, you're looking at contacts, you're looking at circulated pages. And then the other one that I didn't mention as a significant lift factor, but it is really what are in stocks year over year, right? So we've had a lot of newness introduced. And I like to say, every plan we have in this company, whether it's new products, new every plan we have is some degree of brawn, right? When you're looking into the future, it's a plan.

Speaker 2

It's your best educated and informed guess. I've never seen anybody take the dart and hit the exact middle of the dartboard, okay? But the key is, are you directionally right? Are the darts in the dartboard? Are they moving towards the center?

Speaker 2

And how are you optimizing it? So we just have quite a lot of collections. I mean, when just I've told you we have a few things that are at the very top. When you get anything in the top third, you're generally not going to have enough inventory. I mean, unless you're you just take a lot of risk upfront.

Speaker 2

That's why we don't introduce a lot of newness in our galleries because it's expensive to transform our galleries to change other galleries, expensive to change out all the product. And we test everything in the books and online first. And we get a read. And when you get a read and something is a hit, you generally don't have enough inventory to move into the galleries right away. Or you might have, in our case, with take the biggest collection we have a new biggest collection in the history of the company, probably by a factor of 40%.

Speaker 2

And it might be more than 40% or 50% because we're in the process of dimensionalizing that and optimizing that, right? So it's moving into different big finishes, configurations, different materials and so on and so forth. And then we'll ride those things. So it's no different than think about the cloud sofa. The cloud sofa is by far the best selling sofa.

Speaker 2

It's the higher end of the market, the better end of the market by a factor of 3 probably of anything in the world. And the Cloud Sofa will move the market. We have what we believe is likely the Cloud Sofa of the wood furniture business. And the cloud sofa, we introduced it, and we had it in 1 fabric, and then we had however many fabrics in special order. And then we dimensionalized the cloud.

Speaker 2

So if you looked at the history of our source books once we introduced it, then we moved it We dimensionalized it to multiple sizes. We had we put it from the Lex fit to the we did the classic fit. We then put it in 16 in stock fabrics, right, and moved the business greatly. We dimensionalized it into different arm configurations. We did instead of a wide track, we did a thin track, we did a slope, so on and so forth.

Speaker 2

So all of those kind of moves are moves you make. And what's different and what might be hard for people to wrap their head around is, God, this is a mature business. And how do you move a mature business in a big way? You make big moves. The only way you can do this is making big moves.

Speaker 2

So that's really the key. We're I don't know anybody who's attempted a product transformation of this size and scale in a business at scale. I never have. I feel fortunate that I have years of experience in this category and I've got a team that has years of experience in this category doing this. But this is it's like a new company again and is what we're unveiling.

Speaker 2

And so when you think it's just a little different to scale, if we were building this in early, early stages, we might see a doubling of our business. But we're doing it at scale, so we think it's going to build into the 20 point range in demand build. And it could be bigger depending on how quickly we move, how well we dimensionalize and optimize the business and opportunities and then put the right aggressive marketing behind it, meaning store presentation, finishes we're presenting it in, where in our galleries, how in our galleries, how much space we're giving it in our source books, the amount of circulation it's going to get, what's going into advertising campaigns, e mail campaigns, so on and so forth. So that's how to think about it. So this is something I've never been through at scale, a move this big.

Speaker 2

And I'm sure you guys have never seen it scale. So but when you just do the math, which we spend a lot of time doing and you dimensionalize the math just like you dimensionalize the ideas, you can kind of build into these list factors and say the business should be here. And you've got some things that are more concrete. Yes, in the real you've got some super concrete things like store months year over year, 48 over 12 in the second half. We know what happens when we take a legacy gallery to a design gallery.

Speaker 2

We know what happens when we open a new gallery in a market. We're pretty close. We're within points of that. We've got a lot of data. And we're not doing a lot of really different things there.

Speaker 2

But we also have I would point out all the galleries this year that are new all have hospitality. So hospitality gives you an added layer of business also.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Sure.

Operator

And our next question will come from Steven Zaccone with Citi. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Great. Good afternoon.

Speaker 6

Thank you for taking my question. Maybe to follow-up on Steve's question, I was curious for commentary on pricing. Gary, you've talked about it in the past that pricing had gotten too high. And more broadly, the industry has gotten promotional. How do you feel about pricing now on the new product?

Speaker 6

Where are you seeing some customer adoption? And do you feel like some of the pricing challenges for the business are in the rearview mirror?

Speaker 2

Yes. Hi, Steve. Good questions. We've been doing a lot of work about around value, right? The way we think about our business and the way we think about how consumers respond is we're not in a portion of the market that consumers the first thing on the consumer's mind is price, right?

Speaker 2

No one walks into our galleries or looks at anything in our source book that they think the design is ugly and they buy it because of price. I don't think any of our customers say, hey, I don't mind how the product looks. At that price, I'll buy it. I think people come to RH because we are a design driven business. We are a curation driven business and we're an integrator of business.

Speaker 2

We sell you the end result. We sell you the whole method drill. And so we look through a lens of design, quality and value in that order. What is is the design great? That's what consumers are responding to.

Speaker 2

If the design is not great, nobody walks up to it or nobody gets clicks closer to it online to try to perceive the quality, right? If they love the design and they think it's really good quality, They make an equation in their mind for this design at this quality, what price is a good value to me, right? The consumer will then make that calculation. And so value is really the pricing is a result of design and quality. And so if the design is great and people love the design and they think the quality at the level they expect or above the level they expect, you've got a lot of room in pricing there.

Speaker 2

Now, of course, there's price elasticity. There's if you price things lower and lower and lower, you can appeal to a bigger and bigger market, right? If we price things higher and higher and higher, we might appeal to a smaller market, but you've also got a margin lever you're using in there, like what margin, where do I optimize size of business, profitability of business and so on and so forth. So we've done a lot of work. We feel like we're in a really good place.

Speaker 2

We feel for our design and our quality, we're at really good values. And in some cases, we're at disruptive values, If you look at it, you're always going to have some today's world, I don't know if I just read some famous designer just not just made a dupe of his own product, because he knew the product was going to get copied. We're in a world where the copies happen so fast, almost instantly, you can look at anybody's product. I don't care what excuse me, I've lost my voice from the Madrid party last night. I had to talk to I didn't have to talk to a lot of people.

Speaker 2

I did talk to a lot of people. I don't know if you think I was not happy talking to them, but I talked to quite a few people. So my voice is going a little bit. But the key here is how do you create an optimal model. And we're constantly testing those things.

Speaker 2

But the idea with the Duke is we I think it was Tom Dixon, maybe it was, right? He designed something, a light or something and then he immediately did a dupe of his own light at a cheaper price. And he said he wasn't going to waste. But I don't care at what level the market is, you're going to see it. If Chanel does something today, I mean, in a very short amount of time, you can go on Alibaba and see copies of almost anything in the world.

Speaker 2

You can see things online. I mean, they're just so fast. So but you can't always perceive the quality with the fast followers and knockoffs. But we kind of look at the most of the market that's most relevant. Where's our customer going?

Speaker 2

I don't think our customer is waking up searching the Internet for the best price. I think their time is really valuable to them. And they're shopping at higher end customers are shopping at places that are editing and integrating for them, that are selling them the end result. It's no different than just participation at restaurants, right? If you look at the wealthier people get, somebody else is making their food.

Speaker 2

They're either going to really nice restaurants or they might have a home chef, right, because time becomes more valuable to them. So they're not unless they're real a foodie and someone who that's their hobby is cooking for themselves. But generally, higher demographics are eating out more. And they're and they might be eating at home, but it's being delivered or they have a chef at home and somebody else is cooking for them. I think at the higher ends of apparel and home goods and other categories, people pay more when you do more work for them, when you create time value for them.

Speaker 2

And I think that's what we do. I think we are curators. We are integrators for the consumer, and we're selling them as close to an end product as you can. And in many ways, sometimes it's a complete end product. If they're engaging our interior design teams, we're doing their whole house in a beautifully integrated way.

Speaker 2

We're coming in and we're organizing the install and organizing lights being hunted by on ceilings and pictures putting being put on walls and so on and so forth. And a lot of our customers come home to a fully furnished detailed home and we'll go as far as they want us to go. In some cases, we're buying antiques for them and so on and so forth. So when you're doing that kind of work, people pay for it, right? But in a general sense, I'd say, I think our pricing is in a really good spot.

Speaker 2

Newness, you never know. You may think this is so good. It's so unique. Nobody else has it. I'm going to price it here.

Speaker 2

And you might have priced it too low, and it blows out too fast. And you could have got a higher margin. You might take prices up. You might have priced it a bit too high, and it's a little under what you thought, and you adjust the pricing. So you're always kind of trying to fine tune and optimize.

Speaker 2

So I wouldn't let like I made comments about the contemporary book, I don't know, what was that, 1.5 years ago. I mean, it's quite a long time ago. And I thought we were overpriced. We just didn't pay close enough attention and challenge enough about the fabrics on the sofas, things like that. We just had some things that were that just kind of went to a level where it's not that the product wasn't worth it.

Speaker 2

The product at that price created a smaller market than we would have liked. It's not that we're not going to sell product at that price. It's just you want to not make sure that's like we had some sofas that were introduced in a Holland and Sherry fabric that were only available in that fabric when we launched. It was in stock in that fabric. Well, that made a sectional in our source book $24,000 That was made in Italy.

Speaker 2

It was the highest quality it's highest quality you can make it in the world with Holland and Sherry fabrics. So if you would have made that same sofa to the trade and you would have made it in a workshop, it would have probably been 36,000 $40,000 We had it for $22,000 It was a good value. It was just a smaller market than we generally address. And so I thought we kind of jumped too far. We still have many of those products.

Speaker 2

We may have maybe shown them in a different fabric. May have optimized them as far as how we're buying them and have better values. And some of them, we may not have went forward with that. But for the most part, I mean, when I think about the main things, I think we still have them all. They're just smaller volume than we anticipated.

Speaker 2

And we wouldn't have made them like the very front of the source book. It's like we would have teased those things throughout, presented them as really, really unique items and communicating what we're capable of as far as design and quality and use them in that sense, but not to drive the business. So we made some mistakes. 1.5 years ago, we learned from them. We've now evolved and we have that data.

Speaker 2

We won't make that mistake again. Okay. I appreciate all the detail.

Speaker 6

Hopefully a quick follow-up here. But from a macro perspective, what are you most focused on here to see engagement in the category return? We've seen somewhat of an inflection in in luxury priced homes turnover. I mean is that the key metric you're looking for here? Anything else you could steer on the macro would be helpful.

Speaker 2

It's funny, I don't know what metric everybody is looking at because they vary greatly, right? There's Association of Retailers who have some number that luxury homes inflected up and other numbers say it was 2%. And so I don't know whose data is right. I don't think that there's been a meaningfully a meaningful move, a sustained move in the luxury home sales. It might be a little ticking up, and that's because some of the pricing is starting to come down in some cases.

Speaker 2

And it's starting to come down because of holding power, especially if you had a excuse me, especially if you had a developer, someone who is building homes to sell them or if you've got a home flipper who bought something to remodel and fix up and then they go to sell it. And in a market like this where you've got high interest rates, your consumer base shrunk meaningfully and you've got a burn rate depending on how long you hold it. But I don't think that there is a meaningful sustained move in the home market. I think you've got little ticks up here and there, and it's kind of bouncing around the bottom. And I think it will be until we have a meaningful move in interest rates.

Speaker 2

I think we began this year, everybody expected 6 interest rate cuts. I think that was the number that if you looked at how the market was betting, I think the Fed was pointing to kind of 4 cuts and the market priced in 6 cuts because they figure that that is always very conservative, right? And I think that where are we now today? The map says, I think, there's a 90 something percent chance based on yesterday's comments that we're going to have one interest rate cut. That's like way off.

Speaker 2

That's only a few months, right? Like not that many months, like way off. If you think about the Fed's forecast of going from 4 to 1, and I mean, think about last quarter, Powell went on, and I think he shocked the world. He said for the first time in his commentary in a while, I don't think we'll need to hike rates. Everybody is listening to him talk about they're waiting for him to say how many rate cuts we would have and he says, I don't think we'll need to hike rates.

Speaker 2

And then you got Jamie Dimon out there saying, you should not be cutting interest rates, you should not be cutting interest rates. I mean as much as the Fed is supposed to be independent, if the best banker at the world is the best bank in the world is on TV multiple times saying you should not cut rates, I think that has a little influence on what the Fed thinks. They may not listen to Gary Friedman's point of view, because I put it out there when I told them they were behind the curve on inflation. So they should call some business people. And we saw massive inflation and they thought, oh, it's what do they call it?

Speaker 2

Transitory. Transitory. And interest rates will go from 4 back to 2 in a couple of months, and they went to 9. And so we saw that coming. But I just think that there's a lot of noise out there right now.

Speaker 2

I think there's a lot of pressure on the Fed. I think the Fed is going to be massively data dependent, which means the Fed will be behind the curve, right? And so they were behind the curve on seeing inflation. I think they'll be behind the curve as it relates to assessing is inflation under control. And I think they'll be behind the curve as it relates to it's time to cut interest rates.

Speaker 2

So our view is probably a little bit more negative than it was a quarter ago. I think a quarter ago, we were feeling a little bit more optimistic that there'd be rate cuts to the housing market, would begin to meaningfully move in a sustained manner. I think it may not be until 25% or Q2, 25% maybe. So I think I don't think there's going to be a sustained inflection in luxury home sales at these interest rates. So yes, not with interest rates, like the balance it's just an affordability factor.

Speaker 2

You've got home prices up 50% or more, 50%, 60% from post COVID. Home prices went up 42% in the 2 years of COVID and then they've continued to compound the last 2 years. So you've home prices up roughly 50%, 60%. And now you've got interest rates 7 points 7% or higher when they were 2.6% to 3.3%. I mean, it's just simple affordability now.

Speaker 2

Yes, there's a silly way to buy a home at any price, they can. But the other thing you can't trust, by the way, that's wrong in the data externally is when they talk about cash sales. It's such a stupid number to focus on. They say, oh, like there's more cash home buyers. There's people wealthy paying cash on homes.

Speaker 2

I don't care how wealthy you are. Not a lot of people own their homes that don't have a mortgage on them. I'm relatively wealthy. I mean, The New York Times just reported I bought a couple of homes in Malibu. And did I pay cash for them?

Speaker 2

Yes. Did I pay cash for my Doug Hurley Hills home? Yes. Did I get mortgages put on them? Yes.

Speaker 2

But this association of retail real estate brokers who reports on any of this stuff, they record me as a cash buyer. No one's going to really pay cash. You're going to have a mortgage on your homes because you think your money can generally make more money somewhere else, right? And so that data is never right either. So you always get to parse out the data and say what is real credibility.

Speaker 2

I mean, because the data we get from the Fed isn't very reliable right now. Like, I don't know, there's some hard facts, but numbers on home sometimes, people are I saw reports that Redfin said luxury homes were up 2% or some of them. Another report said luxury homes were roughly 30%. I don't know which one is right. I appreciate all the color.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Thank you. It's Simeon Gutman. Guys, I want to ask about the gross margin outlook and if I can segment it into 2 pieces. 1st, the new product lines and launches and then everything else. I'm curious if gross margins are roughly stable.

Speaker 7

And then thinking about the guidance and the torque in it in the back half, is it simply better sales and then better expense leverage? Or is there some variability that could still happen with gross margin of the business? Thank you.

Speaker 2

I'd say gross margins are relatively stable. We do have a lot of new goods coming in. You're going to be right on some, you're going to be wrong on others. And you're in one of the worst housing markets in 30 years, the worst one I've had seen in my career. And so there's always going to be just a higher promotional environment than across the industry.

Speaker 2

And you're going to have to react to some of that stuff. So you're always going to carry a higher percentage of promotional mix during market times like this, right? Because you've got to kind of keep the inventory moving and so but I think we're pretty confident about what our margin mix is going to look like unless something happens meaningfully. If we're meaningfully wrong on demand, margins likely go down a little. If we're meaningfully right on demand margins go up a little.

Speaker 2

It's no different than buying a product that really performs well. You're going to have higher margins than it performs poorly. So but I'd say I don't think we have a lot of risk in margins in the second half. Simeon, just obviously, as you guys build your models and look at our margins, just note that there's we have growing or variability in our quarterly revenues. So it can only remain stable to the extent the revenues are the same in a sense.

Speaker 2

I think there's a different nuance here when you're talking about product margins versus gross margins, which have fixed occupancy. I know it's a firm grasp of the obvious, but obviously, when a quarter is lower, for example, like Q1, Again, if I'm building a model, I'm not taking Q1's gross margin and saying that's flat. I don't think that's necessarily what Gary was saying. We're going to have growing revenue throughout the year. You know our trends, so just build your models to make sure you're looking at fixed occupancy.

Speaker 2

Yes,

Speaker 7

that's helpful. So I guess just related to that and then I'll include the follow-up. I guess I meant that there isn't some piece of clearance that has to occur with older legacy lines like we're through that part and now the normal cadence of the business app and the variability will be based on the mix of promotions with current product, but we're through the worst of whatever clearance that you were trying to do to clean up the portfolio ahead of all these new launches. But we're not

Speaker 2

through the we're going through the biggest product transformation in our history. We're in the middle of that. I wouldn't say I don't know why you think we're through the worst of it. Like we're in the middle of the product transformation. We're just kind of going out of the second half of it.

Speaker 2

So, yes, the clearance doesn't just go away in a business like ours. This is in selling T shirts and sweaters where you put it on a clearance table and it flies off. The home business, when you're transforming it like we are and you're making big moves, you put things on clearance, but it's limited. People don't buy a new bed if they don't need a new bed. People will buy a new sweater if they don't need a new sweater.

Speaker 2

It's on sale. Well, to have another sweater, you don't buy another bed just because it's on sale. So sale and clearance in categories like ours are very different than other categories. So they take a longer time to move through and cycle through.

Operator

Our next question will come from Max Vergolenko with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Great. Thanks a lot guys. So first, just curious how much of the assortment in galleries today comes from the new launches over the past year versus the legacy product? And then when will we get more of the outdoor and the modern products inside the galleries? And then just how should we think about the evolution over the year as far as the new products being shown in the galleries?

Speaker 2

But we're in this level of new today on is that 60% new in the bigger galleries, 50% new.

Speaker 1

Yes, I think 50%.

Speaker 2

Yes, that's 50% new in the bigger galleries. And the legacy galleries probably about the same amount. So think about something like outdoor, we're generally not buying newness to put in galleries unless we think that it is a sure winner because that's how you can really negatively impact margins, right? If you buy something upfront really big and you think you're going to buy all the display quantity and you're going to buy it to that level of volume and you're wrong, you're going to be really wrong. So we're constantly for the most part, we're buying newness And we may buy it bigger and anticipate they want to be somewhat heavier that if it's if we're right and it's going to be big, we're going to move it out to the galleries more quickly than less quickly.

Speaker 2

But we're reading I mean, Modern is just kind of getting out there, right? It's the book's complete. It's all in home this week. Complete? Yes.

Speaker 2

So we started mailing 1st week of the month and it takes a couple of weeks to get in and get out there. And then we're kind of reading it, reading the online and in response to the books. And then we're probably about week 6 or something where yes, we have a pretty good sense of the early reads. As consumers, again, with this, again, think about a lot of our business is kind of already booked. A lot of our demand is already it's already kind of been decided.

Speaker 2

We've got projects that are in the pipeline that our designers are working on over 3 weeks to 3 month periods. And so they're building those orders. They've got all those quotes. And you may get consumer sees the newness and says, oh, change that or change this or a designer may say change this or change that. For the most part, that's work that's already done.

Speaker 2

So a big part of our demand is kind of already in the pipeline and takes you like about 6 weeks to kind of see what those early trends look like versus the early trends of other things. And then you start to kind of see it build. It usually takes us about 3 months to get the full run rate. And but we're making kind of early bets probably by week 6 to 12. Do we think that's going in the galleries and then we'll start to write new orders and those new orders will take 4 months to 5 months to get depending on how big we're buying, right?

Speaker 2

If it's like some of the collections that I said were just huge collections, those the vendor's capacity may take a while to ramp up on the one big collection that we think is the new redefining collection for us. That vendor had to open 2 additional buildings, 2 additional factories to ramp up to make the kind of demand that we're seeing. So that takes you a much longer time. There's a lot of factors to it. But I'd say, we're about 50% newness on the gallery floors today.

Speaker 2

And then you're because we have so much newness coming in, you're going to have other newness that comes in that might be better than the first newness you put out there. So you might transition that as you're going. So there's going to be a lot of data. Will there be something in the new modern book that displaces something that we just put into the galleries maybe? So the math will kind of tell us what to do.

Speaker 8

Got it. And maybe just a follow-up to that, but some of the books are being delayed or not delayed, but coming out a little bit later than you initially thought. And then 1Q was 1Q demand was a little bit softer than what you thought. So just given how the business does remain somewhat choppy and there has been a little bit maybe demand pushed out just given the timing of the source books. Curious to your level of confidence that

Speaker 2

you will be able to maintain the

Speaker 8

full year demand guide. And then outlet revenue. So if you could share what that revenue was in the first quarter outlet revenue. So if you could share what that revenue was in Q1, that would be great.

Speaker 2

Well, yes, we usually don't do one offs. Yes, we don't do one offs. We're not reporting it like we're not generally doing one offs things like that. But the let's see, the books kind of like book slightly later and level of confidence. Well, I think I talked a lot based on Steve's first questions about how we think about the lift factors in the business.

Speaker 2

And the lift factors all look good. And the key is going to be what is the consumer response to the newness and to the additional contacts. So we've got we have a lot of data on that. We don't have a lot of data on the newness. But we're generally taking a kind of down the middle view of kind of what it should be.

Speaker 2

So we feel confident that the numbers we're putting out there are achievable numbers. And if we get any kind of tailwind behind us, if for some reason we see some interest rate cuts or other things that price is dropping meaningfully in the housing market and the housing market picking up, that can be some tailwind. Can we have more headwind macro wise? I don't know, maybe. It looked a little worrisome when inflation about a couple of months ago was kicking up, would they have to raise interest rates?

Speaker 2

But right now, the latest report says no. But we feel generally confident about what we're doing. We've been here we've all been here a long time building this company and building this business. So we have a lot of experience doing it. But at the same time, I'd just say it's the first time we've been through a transformation this large.

Speaker 2

So it's unlike anything else you do that's new and different and innovative and inventive. There's the greater level of reward and a greater level of risk. So this is our best view today. Got

Speaker 8

it. That's helpful. Thanks a lot and safe travels.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question will come from Curtis Nagle with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks very much for taking the question. So again, maybe just changing gears slightly, Gary, just curious if you could get an update, I guess, on the progression and the timing of the Aspen ecosystem. And then the concept more generally, I don't think that's something we've talked about on the call in a little bit.

Speaker 2

I mean, that's what? Aspen Ecosystem?

Speaker 4

And more generally the concept, yes.

Speaker 2

Yes. Yes, it's going slower than we anticipated. Our development partner likes to say probably easier to develop on the moon than it is in Aspen and things are taking more time. Aspen was it's a small town and during COVID, they had a lot of disruption and it backed up everything and we got really slowed down because of that. And then they had a lot of turnover in their whole planning group and that's kind of slowed us down a bit.

Speaker 2

But we're up and moving. Our Mountain House is kind of on track. Our Mountain House is the name for the big gallery we're building there. It's on the best corner in Aspen. It will be a 3 level experience in 2 levels of retail.

Speaker 2

And we're going to I think got a whole world of our age kind of concept there because you get such a global customer coming into Aspen, well-being affluent global customer. And we've got a great restaurant hospitality experience. So that's on track for next year, right? So that will open next year. We're kind of at a standoff at the city on the guesthouse and some arguments on if the walls that they want us to keep is historic or not historic.

Speaker 2

And we believe it's not historic and proof of that, that slowed us down versus what we want to build. And then we are getting into process of the plans on the homes and things like that. We slowed some of it down just because of the uncertainty in the market right now, like do you want to build homes and put them in the market when the interest rates are the size. So but it will be progressing. It's all kind of going a lot slower than I think we thought.

Speaker 2

But COVID happened and you're in a small town and difficult to build and develop there and things are taking longer. And you also have an interest rate move. When you're a developer, we're now a developer, so so your cost of capital is going to be higher and things like that for us and for our partner. And so it's time usually on some of the homes and things like that, we're taking our time a little bit. We don't think that there's a long term value issue with anything in Aspen.

Speaker 2

If anything, we've had a great timing. We invested before the COVID boom, I mean, that's kind of before anybody had clarity on that. So we believe our portfolio and investment we made, we probably made 2 or 3 times our money already. So if we wanted to liquidate our portfolio today, everything we have is worth a heck of a lot more. But we didn't just do it for that.

Speaker 2

I mean, we did it to see what we can learn about the idea of spaces and places and so on and so forth. So but all good, we're excited about it. We'd like to go a little faster, but the mountain house is taking shape and moving quickly now finally. And we hope the guest house will resume construction soon.

Speaker 4

Okay. Great to hear. And then just a quick follow-up. I just want to make sure I caught your comment correctly. It sounds like I think you said, Gary, that in terms of just new products alone that could grow the business, I think, 20 points or more.

Speaker 4

I also heard maybe 2x. So just would you be able to clarify just, I guess, kind of the range or just maybe I just misheard?

Speaker 2

You mean as far as how we think it lifts factors, Curtis?

Speaker 4

Yes, exactly. Yes.

Speaker 2

Yes. I think when you start to take it all into account, right, we can see the factors getting us lifting the business in the 20 point range, right? And as we move through the second half and all the circulation hits and I'm just going to be a lot more people that are going to be aware of the business. And we have 48 store months versus 12 just in the second half. And we have a lot of new restaurants that they don't do 0, right?

Speaker 2

Where they may not do as much volume as the new galleries there. They're not bad. And even things that you might think are small, we're opening Waterworks, I think what our highest volume showroom is, is Bell Roads, right, LA, New York and LA. New York and LA and Palm Beach. I think LA is the center for one, I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 2

The totality with the modern hotel. Yes. And so we're opening a kind of a waterworks gallery within our Newport Beach Gallery. The Newport Beach Gallery is the biggest gallery we've ever built. And we're going to have 90,000 square feet.

Speaker 2

It's got like 40 collections of outdoor furniture. We've got, I think, 22,000 feet of outdoor furniture space and probably the best outdoor furniture market There are but we're going to have 3,500 feet of Waterworks and Waterworks doesn't have a footprint in Orange County. So it's like opening of Orange County generally for a lot of brands, you do about as much business as Los Angeles, right? And so Orange County is going to be big, but Water Works, even that, if it does anywhere near what the Water Works brand does in Los Angeles, it's a meaningful number. So they're really excited about it, and we're really excited about it.

Speaker 2

We're excited to launch it. We think it's going to be good validation. But there's just a lot, right? You've got modern book, interiors book, contemporary book, the 2nd mailing of modern, the 2nd mailing of interiors. There's a lot of newness when you count all that up, but there's a lot of also in getting in stock and all that stuff and the cycling, all those first round collections, we now have read and we're reacting to and we're ordering into newness.

Speaker 2

Some might have missed and we're marking it down and cycling it out. And then we've got a doubling of circulation and 4x in new store months. And it's just there's a lot of lift factors. I mean, as many as you have ever seen, as many as I've ever seen in this stage of business like this. So it's just it's different.

Speaker 2

I know it looks different. It should be different. So appreciate all the questions and none of them surprised me. You asked the same questions if I was you guys.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thanks, Seer.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Lasser with UBS. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Good evening. Good evening. Thank you so much for taking my question. Gary, are you getting as much of a lift from the newness and innovation that you've been introducing as you might have in the past? And does it make sense to delay further some of the introductions in light of how challenging the market is because maybe you would not get as much credit now from or recognition now from your customer given what's going on?

Speaker 2

I see, I'm making sure I get that right, Michael. Thanks for the question. Let's see here. And Mike, we're getting as much of a lift from the newness as you did in the past. Yes, in fact, in some cases, we're getting better lift, right?

Speaker 2

Like I said, you get a new in a business that's kind of our size and maturity, you don't get new bestsellers very often. You get a new one probably every 7 or 12 years, like a big furniture collection or a big upholstery collection, right? So we're getting, I think, as we're getting as much right as we kind of ever have. We always get a certain amount right and certain amount wrong. So I think we're probably similar to how we've been in the past.

Speaker 2

Maybe we're a little better because when you get a new all time number 1, you kind of go like that's kind of changes everything. So and then does it make sense to further delay some of the new introductions, I think was the question, right, in light of the challenging market? We're not really trying to delay anything. Usually, when we like we push the modern book by a month, which then kind of pushes the next book by a month. We didn't push contemporary, just pushed modern and interiors.

Speaker 2

We wanted to have a certain amount of spacing between those two, so we didn't overwhelm the customer with too many pages and too much product. But the reason we delayed modern is because some dots connected while we were working on it. It's a whole new design. It's a whole new format. And we're working with an exciting graphic designer from Madrid, who spent a couple of months living with us 2 or 3 months.

Speaker 2

And We just saw him last night at the party. But we some dots connected, and we figured out how we could make it, we thought, significantly better. And we said, look, do the math. Is it worth doing this and changing this? And we're going to take a 4 week delay.

Speaker 2

And we believed it was worth it. And I think it's the most exciting new book we've put out there ever in our history. I think it elevates CRH brand. I think it's going to attract a higher level of consumer and interior designers. And

Speaker 6

I think

Speaker 2

it's merchandised beautifully, it's graphically presented beautifully. So that's why we spent more time. I mean, I don't think like we usually don't like go, oh, yes, let's just kind of delay it. Like want to get our work done as we can. I think when you're innovating and inventing, you're going to see new things all the time.

Speaker 2

You're working on new things, you got new data, you turn and look around another corner, you see a new opportunity and you're dividing, okay, do we pursue that? Do we integrate that in? Is that how important is it? And we thought it was important in us to take 4 more weeks and work on the book and take it to this new level and actualize the vision we had. And that's it.

Speaker 2

I'm sure that's no different than anybody that's working on new products. I don't know if Apple knows exactly when the new iPhone is coming. There's not usually a schedule. We're introducing the iPhone on this date or we're introducing this iPod or anything on this date. You're while you might think it's just a book, it's a book with a lot of newness.

Speaker 2

We're trying to present it in the newest compelling way and you're kind of building and learning and making decisions. And that's why we took more time. We thought we could see a way to make it significantly better, and we said, let's keep going. Let's take the time. It's going to be worth it, because it's going to be how the consumer now sees it, how it's presented, what's presented, which way and for the whole life of the book.

Speaker 2

So the book is issued 4 weeks later, okay, there's a little bit of demand move from 1 month and does it move forward? If you thought it was worth 0, you wouldn't have done it, right? Like if you thought, hey, this is going to be X and we're going to move things around and take 4 more weeks and it's going to still be worth X, you wouldn't do it. But if you think it's now going to be worth Y and over the life of that book or those collections and how they're presented that way, you pick the one that you think is going to give you a better return. So that's how we make decisions like that.

Speaker 2

I mean, look, I almost I mean, I love what Elon Musk is doing and he's doing incredible things to change our world and change carbon footprint and the energy and make this world much more sustainable going and doing all kinds of nutty things, right? And creating places to live on Mars and ways to change the satellite networks and tunneling and all those things. But I was going to order that one of the Roadster came out, right? I was all excited. I wanted the Tesla Roadster, right?

Speaker 2

They wanted you to put to get the founders one. I think you had to put $250,000 down or something like that. And I almost did. I thought, but I got to wait like a year. Well, I don't know what is it, in 7 years it had been the test that the Roadster has.

Speaker 2

Now I'm happy I didn't give my money. But I'm being like that now that's a real delay. And I don't know why it delayed it that long. Maybe it's going to come out and be rocket propelled, it's going to be worthwhile. But usually, we don't have like massive delays on things.

Speaker 2

But you don't want to you don't want rigidity to get in the way of evolution and innovation and better ways. I just want to do the math and say, okay, if I think about this, let's say we have a new product and comes down the pipe and we're working on a book and a season and we're going to either going to launch that product and it's not going to come in for, I don't know, 3 months. And you say, gosh, wait for the next book. Yes, wait for the next book or you can put it in that book and you can get consumer the consumer can see it, they can order it and it's going to get in if the next book's a year later, it's going to get in 26 weeks early, not really 3 months late or something. It's all kind of simple math, the way we look at it.

Speaker 2

So we made a decision to make the book better. It took us 4 weeks longer. We think it's going to be better forever or it would have been not as good forever. So that's the lens we're looking through.

Speaker 5

Got you. My follow-up question is, it sounded like earlier in our conversation this evening that you mentioned consumer is buying more on promotion. So A, is that right? And B, is that persist? Does that change how you think about the path to RH's long term margin aspiration?

Speaker 2

Well, I think it's yes, I think it's massively down housing markets like this or down it's like if we're in a recession in any category or an entire recession right now, we're in a massive housing recession in anything that's tied to housing, right? Apparel has benefited based on that. Like instead of people buying homes and they're saving a lot of money not buying a new home, so it's easy to go spend some money on apparel. Hey, honey, we didn't buy that new home, but heck, do you want to buy a new purse? Sure.

Speaker 2

Yes, but it's an easy trade off. But it's you always are going to have a higher degree of sale goods in a down market, always. And because just demand is slower, you're going to have more markdowns, you got to keep inventory moving, so on and so forth. So that's all factored into the margin guidance short term, but it doesn't change the margin guidance long term. It's just based on the demand environment, how strong is the demand environment.

Speaker 2

I mean, as an example, the demand environment for our category in the COVID years was unbelievable. Margins went way up. The demand environment post COVID, not so good because up against those numbers. So margins go down. Then on top of that, you compound that you're in the worst housing market in 30 years and margins are going to go down again.

Speaker 2

So it's all relative to demand, nothing more than that. I hope that makes sense. Totally. Thank you very much. Okay.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Michael.

Operator

Our next question will come from Jonathan Matuszewski with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hey, good evening and thanks taking my question. Gary, can we get an update on how the brand is resonating with the end consumer in Europe? I think on the last call, you mentioned satisfaction with some of the momentum with trade customers. So acknowledged a bit slower progress with the end consumer. So anything you could share in terms of maybe what your customer insights group is seeing as it relates to brand awareness or intent to purchase or overall perception would be helpful.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Speaker 2

You're talking to the Consumer Insights group. We're all sitting around the table. Yes, what's great is we just got back before we went to RH Madrid for the event. We were in RH England for a visit there, and we sat with the team there for several hours just trying to listen and learn and just kind of we just celebrated our 1 year anniversary in RH England and just identifying opportunities. And we think that look, we've never done this before, right?

Speaker 2

So we don't we didn't know exactly, I don't know, what its goods look like. We could have guessed it what its goods look like, but we don't know. We're opening in new countries, never sold there. You couldn't even buy direct from our brand in any of those countries. So why would anybody know our age?

Speaker 2

And so we're just learning a lot about consumer awareness there, how do we build it, what are the right ways to market the brand. We always believe that the fastest way to build the brand, we think, is through a physical presence and people can see it, touch it, respond to it, be served in a way, have interior design services, all kinds of things And so I'd say after a year of being open in RH England, we're kind of where we thought we'd be. We're trending at a level. We're opening a gallery in the middle of the countryside that we said we're opening through a lens of conversation versus commerce. It's not where you would have started if you're trying to optimize commerce, right?

Speaker 2

London is where you'd start, but we knew London was going to be several years later. And we thought like let's do something inspiring and elevating and something that would create an incredible first impression and to the brand in that and we decided to open in a 17th century estate on 73 acres with a Deer Park and architecture and design library and 3 restaurants and wine lounge and a tea salon and a juicery and what else do we have there? Yes, we've got yes, yes. Stone exhibit, Sir John Stone exhibit, one of the greatest English architects that ever lived. And but there's a lot of wealthy people that are going to the Cotswolds and weekends out there and weeks out there, especially during summertime.

Speaker 2

And we want to create conversation. And we think we've created a really great first conversation. And the business trend in this 1st year now is kind of where we thought. I would say, Munich and Dusseldorf, Brussels, we're not really going to be 1st on our list, but we had an opportunity to get some good locations and a deal where Abercrombie was closing some of their flagships and we thought they were good locations. And we opened those.

Speaker 2

They wouldn't have been strategically in the order. We would have liked to probably be in Paris and London first, build the brand awareness. But yes, they were convenient, and we could get into them for not a lot of investment because a lot of the infrastructure and stuff was done by Abercrombie. And we've gotten open in those places, not knowing really what to expect. I think that for us, the real key is get open in Paris and London, is then Milan and even Madrid.

Speaker 2

Madrid is one of the biggest cities in Europe and the biggest city in Spain. So I think we're going to learn more. Just from our conversations yesterday with the team, we had some great feedback and great ideas on how to build the business and get more people to the gallery and so on and so forth. And some of them, we think, can work across entire not only entire Europe, but actually across the entire U. S.

Speaker 2

Market. So that was really great and incredible investment of our time and great insights from our people and some of the people in our design team. And so then just even things like products and having the right kind of products for the right markets, right sizes, the right the delivery times, what are we stocking in the UK versus what we're stocking in the U. S. And what sizes, what shapes, what things and how do we ship faster on certain things and supply chain lead times to different countries.

Speaker 2

So there's a lot to learn. But I'd say, I feel better and better about it as we go because we're learning more and more and we're we've got some really great people on the team, really smart, intelligent, passionate people on the team. We got a lot of great feedback yesterday. The teams in all the galleries, I think, are just outstanding. I think the galleries look great.

Speaker 2

I mean, we're in Madrid and it may have been the best work we've ever done from a presentation point of view and interior design and styling and stuff like that. I mean, just breathtaking. And I think Madrid like set a new standard in our company and gave us a vision of where to take all the galleries and how to execute at that level everywhere. And we think it will impact the whole company. So we're look, we're opening, we're learning, Our business is building.

Speaker 2

Every one of our galleries, the design pipeline is building. And we're in kind of spring summer period now. So we're going to start learning a lot more in England because when people really start going out there again. And we're learning across the platform. So I'd say all good.

Speaker 2

And hopefully, as we get Paris and London open and Paris will open next year in the spring and London hopefully at the end of next year. That was a little complex. We're stringing together 4 buildings and different floor plates and stuff like that. But right now, we believe it looks like next year. And I think those are going to really raise the brand awareness massively for us and then Milan after that.

Speaker 6

That's really helpful. Thanks, Gary. And then just a quick follow-up. In the prepared remarks, you mentioned a growing number of online furniture brands that ceased operations. We've witnessed this trend as well.

Speaker 6

Based on our observations, it felt like disruption was more concentrated at those mid tier price points. So are you seeing super premium online brands in your space vanishing? Or was that comment more so foreshadowing disruption that you see on the horizon for upscale competitors? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. I think there's a lot of I think mid tier is kind of like I don't know what's your definition of mid tier? Because we I think there's more online players that are going to what I call a higher end market. It may not be luxury market, but there's a lot of overlap, a lot of people doing a lot of look alike things at price points that are overlapping ours that we've seen. There's some from one of the ones that's having a lot of disruption, a lot of press is a lot of it's targeted to the trade and stuff like that.

Speaker 2

So many of the ones like we're referencing are what I call higher end brands that are targeting trade customers and higher end consumers. But there's a lot of them. Like out of the probably 100, I don't know, about 25% kind of 20% are probably blown up now or teetering on blowing up. But I think there's a market like this, especially when you have the compounding nature of really tough housing market with a really difficult credit market or capital market, like they just can't get easy money anymore. So there's no free money to kind of just grow brand and not make money.

Speaker 2

In a market like this, you got to profitability real quick because there's the odds of someone else giving you money is very low. And that's why I think a lot. Just going to be a lot kind of imploding. And even in the non online spaces, you've got furniture retailers, regional people blowing up. You've got higher end people like

Speaker 9

Mitchell Bold,

Speaker 2

didn't make it through the last management changes that they went through in their business in a market like this. So it's and I think we're going to see more disruption. It doesn't look like that the housing market is going to snap back anytime soon. So I think there's a lot of businesses that are undercapitalized, not making money, that you're going to see more and more disruption and that's going to all be opportunity. And we've got we're just so much better positioned today from a value point of view, the value of our product and the disruptive nature of kind of how we're attacking the market in some cases that we're going to be able to get some of that share.

Speaker 6

That's helpful. Thanks, Gary.

Operator

Yes. Our next question will come from Seth Basham with Wedbush Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Thanks a lot and good evening. Just to clarify, Gary, you seem a

Speaker 8

little bit more negative on

Speaker 9

the macro than a quarter ago, but you didn't reduce the outlook for the year financially. Is that just because you see more benefits from some of your initiatives? Or is there something else?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think we haven't really put a lot of factor in. The macro stuff can bounce us around a little bit, but I don't think it's going to unless there's a real another step down, I don't think it's going to move us off our list factors or builds in our business. So there may be some shorter term noise within quarters. Things might move a little bit.

Speaker 2

Housing market might be a little tougher or not tougher. If you look at mortgage applications and things like that, those can fluctuate a bit in and there. So there's some macro noise within a year. But I just don't think that we didn't really think that the macro was going to get a lot better. And so I think we're more right than that than wrong about what the macro is going to do.

Speaker 2

And I mean, even if we get one interest rate cut this year, if they go a quarter or even 50 basis points, it's not going to move the needle. And so but it's interesting. We might get a point that really thinks we're going to get it's a 95% chance for one cut. I don't know. There was a 95% chance for 5 or 6 cuts not too long ago.

Speaker 2

So I we'll give you our view on the macro, but we and we take it into account on our business. But we're not when you're bouncing around the bottom like we are in the housing market today, we kind of think we're going to probably bounce around the bottom for a while. We hope the bottom doesn't go lower. I mean, could it, it could. We're not really macro experts.

Speaker 2

We're kind of trying to interpret what we see and look at the trends and take all the data in and use our best views, but just directionally, is it going to get worse, is it going to get better? Right now, we don't think it's going to get worse, and we don't think it's going to get better. I think it's going to stay about the same through probably Q1 of next year.

Speaker 6

Got it. That's helpful. And just

Speaker 9

a related clarifying question. You previously had talked to peak inflection or peak year over year growth, first being Q2 this year. Now I'm not sure if it's back half of 'twenty four, whether you actually see the peak sometime in early 2025?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think the I mean, it's interesting, what we're kind of seeing that, we see a lot more now. And we're can connect a lot more dots now. We can we've got some real product winners and things that are emerging and we can see how to dimensionalize and optimize those now. So that yes, that's going to when I say peak well, let's first let's define peak inflection.

Speaker 2

I'm talking about kind of peak inflection of RH, sans the macro, right? Forget the macro. Like when like our product peak will look like what? So I'd say, I think it's likely for us looking like 'twenty four, early 2025, I think. It's but then again, I could you could say, oh, well, the peak is going to be 10 years from now because we're going to keep getting better, right?

Speaker 2

So it's not like we stop. But I'm talking about like the big moves we're making, I'd say, yes, there's more we can see today. And I'd say it looks more like kind of late 'twenty four, early 'twenty five, just because we can see more and more new insight. We've got a big development pipeline from a new product point of view, and we've got a really a pretty big development pipeline from a platform point of view, right? And probably in the next quarter or 2, we'll give you some updates on like just new galleries and how many we can do.

Speaker 2

We're feeling more optimistic than less optimistic about what that pipeline looks like. And that'll give us some more lift and things like that. And at some point here, we'll get Paris and London. We just got Madrid open. We'll have Milan open.

Speaker 2

And we'll start I think that business will all start to reflect. You'll get a there's a compounding effect of consumer awareness that happens with the brand. Like once you start to really acquire customers, customers to get more customers. If you're doing a good job, it's like you open a restaurant and certain amount of people come meet with you and opening night and the next night, next night and then they tell more friends, they tell more friends and pretty soon you've got a full restaurant, right? It becomes a compounding factor.

Speaker 2

And I think we're going to have a compounding factor in Europe, where our biggest when Europe starts to inflect from that compounding factor of awareness, I think it will grow faster than the core business. It will grow significantly faster. No different than kind of the compounding factor that's happening in our guesthouse. Our guesthouse, we ran it at relatively lower occupancy rates in the beginning because we only sent out one e mail and we wanted it to be about privacy and luxury and we didn't want to it wasn't about filling it up. It was about having to be full of the right people at the wrong time and a level of fireability to it and even accessibility to it, right, not making it too accessible.

Speaker 2

And now we've got we got this who's who of people staying here and because you get someone stays here and they tell 4 friends and then you get 2 of those friends that stay and they tell 4 friends and it just compounds. And pretty soon, something's doing significantly better. And I think that's an important thing about building a brand like ours. You got to build it the right way. Like the investments we're making now into physical locations in Europe, even in the U.

Speaker 2

S, especially Europe because Europe is new. The U. S. Is really hard to compare to Europe because everybody knows us in every market. Is no market we have in the U.

Speaker 2

S. That we don't have customers. We have customers in every market. And so when we open in a new market, we kind of know exactly what's going to happen within 10% variance. When you're opening a new country where no one knows you, there's you don't know what you're going to exactly do, but that awareness build is going to be exponential versus the builds in the U.

Speaker 2

S. Once it gets going, it's like that tipping point that people talk about it. What is it? Simon Sinek talks about it. The conversion point of a brand starts to get X percent of a market and it tips and your awareness starts to exponentially grow.

Speaker 2

So yes, but directionally that late 2024, early 2025 is what we see today. But I might be telling you 26, 27 because we see more and we're dimensionalizing more opportunities and optimizing more of the things and it's worth more.

Speaker 9

Helpful. Makes sense. Thanks for the color. And if I may, one last quick one for Jack. With the delay in the modern source book, what was the impact on margin in the first quarter from lower source book mailing costs?

Speaker 9

And will there be any negative impact in the Q2 from the delay relative to your prior expectations?

Speaker 2

Yes, we had minimal impact. Yes, nothing because we were going to start to get in the last week, I think. Yes, it was So then last week of the quarter. Minimal part minimal of the expense would have been Minimal, yes. It was most of the ad cost on us all of it was in Q2.

Speaker 2

Any other questions?

Operator

And our final question will come from Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey guys, good evening.

Speaker 2

So I have a couple

Speaker 8

of really quick questions that should be

Speaker 4

quick. So one, just and then again, this is a follow-up too, but Gary, you talked a lot about the tone of the business in your letter you mentioned this as strength in gear. Should we interpret the better trends lately as a direct reflection of the new products you have in the stores? Is that that's what's happening? And then the second question I have, just what explains the, I guess, the widening gap between sales growth and demand growth?

Speaker 2

Yes. No, I think that's you're right. It's I mean, the new product is creating the inflection point, right? And whether it's new product that's just in the books and online or it's new product we've also now put in the stores that is creating a bigger lift. And then the other piece of, I'd say, not to minimize is just getting in stock in the new product, right?

Speaker 2

It's you're just not going to buy it right and you're not going to really buy it for all stores right upfront. And so even if you decided to take an early bet and say, hey, I'm going to buy this one for half the galleries upfront, but your demand hits and it you're selling way more than you thought, it doesn't even get to those galleries. It gets to those galleries 6 months later. And then it doesn't get to all galleries until 6 months after that. And even if once you get it into the galleries, your list might be bigger and then you're out of stock again.

Speaker 2

So it takes a while when in a business like this to kind of get ramped up because the factories can't move that fast against big numbers. I mean, we're a big we're the biggest business at the high end. So it was easier when we were smaller to move more quickly, I'd say. It's harder to move more quickly when you start to have our scale because no one makes scale. So I said that one of the collections that we did that became out of the gate, you could kind of forecast it and just dimensionalize it based on the early demand trends that, wow, this is going to be our best collection.

Speaker 2

I mean the manufacturer had a triple the building like they had opened 2 more buildings of the same size that they were manufacturing in. They had to go from 1 to 3 factories. So that just takes a while. So you got to really think about in stocks. Like when we look at some of our lift factors, one of the biggest is, God, when we get in stock in that, when back orders come down, our back orders are record highs right now.

Speaker 2

And so that's really the gap between demand and sales is back orders and special order lead times and wait times. And then you've got you've got some permanent, not permanent, but like the issues in the Red Sea that have caused that caused us to go around the tip of Africa and to put almost 2 weeks, 10 days on the product, which basically is 2 weeks, that just creates a backlog itself. So a lot of our goods are going that way. And so you take 2 weeks and that's demand that doesn't turn into revenue and it doesn't turn into revenue. You don't ever catch up on that until we can access the Red Sea again, right?

Speaker 2

And so it's the manufacturer is catching up and it's getting in stock and it's shortening lead times and shortening special order turnaround times on new product. You're just going to create a big delta. It's kind of no different really than kind of COVID, right? Like you had a lot of demand happened and people can't ramp fast enough and then you've got a kind of a hangover for a while. We're going to have some of that kind of noise here until we kind of catch up and then go in a regular cadence of 15% to 20% newness.

Speaker 4

That's very helpful. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Brian. That was our last question, right? Okay. Well, thank you, everyone, for your time and attention today. We're really excited about this transformation of our business and the evolution of the brand and the platform.

Speaker 2

We think we're doing some of the best work we've ever done. And we there are people are just doing an incredible job bringing this new vision to life. And we think very our shareholders will feel really rewarded for this work that we're doing, and we appreciate all of your support. So thank you, and we will talk to you next quarter.

Operator

And this will conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
RH Q1 2025
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