Warby Parker Q1 2025 Earnings Report

Warby Parker EPS Results

• Actual EPS: N/A
• Consensus EPS: $0.12
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: -$0.02

Warby Parker Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $225.46 million
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Warby Parker Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 5/8/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 8, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:00AM ET

Warby Parker (NYSE:WRBY) (NYSE:WRBY) is a vertically integrated eyewear company that designs, manufactures, and sells prescription eyeglasses, sunglasses, contact lenses and related accessories. Since its founding in 2010, the company has built a direct-to-consumer model that combines online retail with a growing network of brick-and-mortar showrooms. Its core offerings include a Home Try-On program for eyeglasses, virtual try-on tools, and on-site eye examinations at select retail locations.

Headquartered in New York City, Warby Parker serves customers across the United States and Canada through its e-commerce platform and more than 200 retail stores. The company controls its entire supply chain—from frame design and lens production to wholesale and retail distribution—allowing for competitive pricing and consistent quality. Its product lineup spans a range of frame styles, materials and price points, catering to diverse consumer preferences.

Throughout its history, Warby Parker has emphasized social responsibility. For every pair of glasses sold, the company has partnered with nonprofits and vision care organizations to distribute a pair to someone in need. This “Buy a Pair, Give a Pair” initiative has funded millions of vision screenings and corrective eyewear in underserved communities worldwide, reinforcing the brand’s mission-driven ethos.

Warby Parker was founded by Neil Blumenthal, Dave Gilboa, Andrew Hunt and Jeffrey Raider, who sought to disrupt the traditional eyewear industry by combining design, technology and social impact. Currently, Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa serve as co-CEOs, leading a management team focused on omnichannel growth, innovation in lens technology and expansion of telehealth services. As the company continues to scale its retail footprint and digital capabilities, it remains committed to providing accessible, stylish eyewear backed by strong customer support.

Warby Parker Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Q1 Revenue & Profitability: Q1 revenue rose 12% YoY to $223.8 M with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding to 13.1% (+190 bps) and the first positive GAAP net income quarter as a public company.
• Updated Guidance: Full-year 2025 revenue is guided to $869 M–$886 M (13–15% growth) with adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.5–11%, modestly below initial targets due to macro conservatism.
• Tariff Mitigation: The company is accelerating supply-chain diversification to cut China-sourced COGS from ~20% to <10% by year-end, applying low-single-digit price increases and strategic expense cuts to offset an estimated $45–50 M tariff impact.
• Omnichannel Expansion: Plans include opening 45 new stores in 2025—including five Warby Parker shop-in-shops at Target—and AI-driven enhancements helped e-commerce achieve its strongest 5.5% YoY growth since 2021.
• Customer & Product Diversification: Active customers grew 8.7% to 2.57 M (accelerating for seven quarters), with contact lens sales up 25.1% and eye exams up ~40%, lifting average revenue per customer by 4.8%.

Presentation

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to today's Warby Parker First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. My name is Bailey, and I will be your moderator for today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. I'd now like to pass the conference over to Jacqueline Berkley, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead when you're ready.

[Jaclyn Berkley, VP - Head of Investor Relations at Warby Parker]

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Here with me today are Neil Blumenthal and Dave Filboa, our Co Founders and Co CEOs, alongside Steve Miller, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, we have a couple of reminders. Our earnings release and slide presentation are available on our website at investors.warbyparker.com. During this call and in our presentation, we will be making comments of a forward looking nature.

[Jaclyn Berkley, VP - Head of Investor Relations at Warby Parker]

Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied as a result of various risks and uncertainties. For more information about some of these risks, please review the company's SEC filings, including the section titled Risk Factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 10 ks. These forward looking statements are based on information as of 05/08/2025, and except as required by law, we assume no obligation to publicly update or revise our forward looking statements. Additionally, we will be discussing certain non GAAP financial measures. These non GAAP financial measures are in addition to and not a substitute for measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with U.

[Jaclyn Berkley, VP - Head of Investor Relations at Warby Parker]

S. GAAP. A reconciliation of our non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable U. S. GAAP measures can be found in this morning's press release and our slide deck available on our IR website.

[Jaclyn Berkley, VP - Head of Investor Relations at Warby Parker]

And with that, I'll pass it over to Neil to kick us off.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Thanks, Jacqueline, and thank you all for joining us today. Our team delivered a strong start to 2025, driven by continued progress against Warby Parker's strategic priorities. We grew revenue 12% year over year, reflecting consistency in our two year stack growth and delivered profitability above guidance with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.1%, marking nearly 200 basis points of year over year expansion. We also reached a significant milestone by achieving our first quarter of positive GAAP net income as a public company. This start to the year provides a solid foundation as we execute on our strategic initiatives for the remainder of the year and beyond.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Key to this is our continued focus on customers, both customer experience and customer acquisition. We are pleased to have delivered seven straight quarters of accelerating active customer growth and we intend to build off this momentum while continuing to benefit from strong retention, high value repeat purchasing and the power of our brand. Looking at the remainder of the year, we plan to continue investing in marketing in the low teens as a percent of revenue while leveraging sophisticated analytics to optimize media spend. As some other advertisers pull back, we intend to capitalize on opportunities while keeping a close eye on demand signals and adjusting spend accordingly. We're pleased with the trends we are seeing with in network insurance customers, and our Versant integration continues to ramp in line to slightly ahead of expectations.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

We'll also continue to lead with product innovation. So far this year, we've launched seven collections including our first rim lift collection. Reacting to customer demand, we also introduced a new premium light responsive lens, which is exceeding expectations. We plan to drive further expansion in glasses and progressives growth by expanding exam coverage, designing and launching new frame collections and introducing lens enhancements. We believe glasses growth will complement continued rapid growth from contacts and exams and that our holistic range of products and services allows us to attract new customers and significantly increase their lifetime value.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

And finally, we'll further invest in scaling our industry leading omnichannel model while delivering exceptional experiences. Our real estate and store teams opened more stores this quarter than in any prior Q1, a strong start to a year in which we expect to open more stores than ever. New stores are performing in line with our expectations, while driving new customer acquisition and compelling returns. We are on track to open 45 new stores this year, including our previously announced shop in shops with Target, which will open in the second half of twenty twenty five. You'll also see us continue to innovate and invest in our online experience, which drove accelerated growth in our e commerce channel in Q1.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

We are excited about early test results from our new AI powered personalization features, which will roll out more broadly later this year. Dave and I also want to share the decisive actions we've already taken to mitigate the impact of higher tariffs before Steve discusses our financial performance and guidance in more detail. We faced dynamic environments like this before, and each time we've proven our team's ability to adapt with speed and agility, whether it was managing through tariffs in 2019, the COVID-nineteen pandemic starting in 2020, or the recalibration of our cost structure in the years that followed, our omnichannel model is resilient and has emerged stronger and more efficient each time. We are confident in the playbook that we're already leveraging as well as the tenured team that we have in place to execute it. As we look ahead, we have three main priorities.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

One, to continue to serve our customers by delivering both exceptional value and service two, to continue investing in growth and executing on our strategic initiatives and three, to actively mitigate the impact of tariffs and maintain a strong financial profile. Let me walk you through our plan to do so as well as the progress we've made to date. I'll start first with the adjustments we've already made to our supply chain, demonstrating its flexibility as well as the depth of our vendor relationships. For background, we operate a global diversified supply chain designed to optimize cost and speed while maintaining strict quality standards. Over the past several years, we've significantly enhanced our capabilities by expanding our supplier base and geographic reach while investing in our own U.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

S. Optical labs. As input costs shift or disruptions arise, we're well equipped to make rapid adjustments, and we've done so in recent weeks. As we've shared last quarter, approximately 20% of our COGS originate from China, down meaningfully in the past five years. More recently, we've accelerated this work, which we estimate will reduce our China sourcing by over half to less than 10% of COGS by year end.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Every pair of Warby Parker glasses and sunglasses is designed in house at our New York headquarters. We produce frames in various countries across Asia and Europe and purchase lenses from partners in Asia and The U. S. We've reallocated frame production away from our Chinese partners to other trusted partners in Europe and Asia and have a healthy balance of frame inventory in place. Many of our more complex lens types are purchased in real time, giving us the flexibility to shift production across a global network.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

We've already moved a significant portion of our lens sourcing out of China, primarily to U. S. Partners. The speed and efficiency of this transition reflects the strength of our supplier relationships. In short, we've dramatically accelerated a multiyear supply chain diversification strategy that was already underway.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Our vertically integrated direct to consumer model gives us enhanced control and visibility, and our long standing vendor relationships, many over a decade, enable the speed and agility that continue to serve us well. And now I'll turn it to Dave to cover off on the remainder of our plan.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Thanks, Neil. The second prong of our mitigation strategy is making selective price adjustments while still ensuring we deliver exceptional value to our customers. From day one, Warby Parker was built on the belief that buying glasses should be seamless, affordable and fun. As frustrated consumers ourselves, we questioned why quality eyewear was exorbitantly expensive with opaque pricing, and we set out to change that paradigm. Our pricing model reflects that philosophy, delivering exceptional value without the hidden markups.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Our entry price of $95 includes premium acetate frames and prescription polycarbonate lenses with anti scratch, anti reflective and anti smudge coatings, features that are often treated as add ons and upsells elsewhere. Over the years, we have expanded our assortment while maintaining our commitment to accessible and transparent pricing. We've introduced additional lens types and lens enhancements like progressives, blue light filtering, anti fatigue and light responsive as well as premium frame collections using a range of materials and more complex constructions at higher price points, including $125 1 hundred and 70 5 dollars and $195 Our customers have responded positively to these additions with no signs of price resistance, which has resulted in steady increases in average revenue per customer. While much of the industry has relied on price increases to offset soft unit volumes over the last several years, we've taken a more customer centric approach and have rarely raised like for like prices. As a result, we believe our value gap today is even wider than when we started the company.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Our $95 single vision prescription glasses are the same price as when we launched in 2010 compared to hundreds of dollars elsewhere. And our highest price point items like our $395 Precision Progressives rival products that often retail for well over $1,000 So So while we don't take price increases lightly, a component of our tariff mitigation plan is to make targeted and strategic price adjustments to a subset of our products, where the new prices still enable us to offer exceptional value relative to comparable offerings elsewhere. At the April, we rolled out a handful of targeted price increases across some of our lens types and accessories, while maintaining pricing across most products and services, including our entry $95 price point. In aggregate, we estimate that these changes will reflect a low single digit price increase across our Glasses business. While it's still early days, we are seeing promising signs from a conversion and product mix standpoint, in line or ahead of our expectations.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Importantly, our pricing model is built to support flexibility, enabling customers to select options across multiple dimensions, including frame style, lens type and enhancements. This optionality allows us to make future price adjustments as needed, while still delivering compelling value and continuing to grow our market share. The third prong of our mitigation efforts are strategic expense reductions. Looking ahead, we will be taking an even more disciplined approach to expense management. We're planning to preserve investments in marketing and other growth driving initiatives while taking a strategic approach to reducing other corporate expenses.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

These efforts are helped by the realization of meaningful productivity gains from our use of AI and automation, which is helping us operate more efficiently. Overall, we're tightening our operating expense management without compromising our long term priorities. Before I hand it over to Steve, I want to thank our team for their swift and decisive action. Our ability to move quickly and deliberately has been and will continue to be a competitive advantage. This type of environment actually presents an opportunity for Warby Parker.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

We operate in a resilient and defensive consumer category, one that provides essential products and services, has grown through economic cycles and present significant white space. Our brand speaks to both value conscious and design driven consumers with a median household income of over $100,000 and we benefit from trade down dynamics when times are uncertain. We have consistently outperformed through challenging periods in the past and believe we're well positioned to continue gaining share and expanding profitability with many levers in place to drive growth. Our strong balance sheet gives us the flexibility to keep investing and to act opportunistically when the time is right. And our vertically integrated direct to consumer model gives us unique advantages, control over our supply chain, real time visibility into consumer behavior and a nimble mindset that's built to move quickly.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

And with that, I'll pass it over to Steve to review Q1 as well as our outlook for the remainder of the year.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Thanks, Neil and Dave. I'll begin with a detailed review of our first quarter performance. Then I'll outline our updated guidance for the full year and our outlook for the second quarter of twenty twenty five, reflecting the current operating environment, including tariff impacts and our mitigation plans. Starting first with Q1. Revenue for the first quarter came in at $223,800,000 up 11.9% year over year.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

As a reminder, the prior year period included an extra day of revenue due to the leap year of roughly $2,000,000 and we are lapping our second highest quarterly growth last year, which was up 16.3% year over year. Retail revenue increased 14.8% year over year and e commerce revenue increased 5.5% year over year, its highest quarterly growth since 2021. Now looking at customers, we finished Q1 with 2,570,000 active customers on a trailing twelve month basis, representing a consistent acceleration in growth to 8.7% year over year. We've seen sequential improvements in year over year active customer growth for the past seven quarters, reflecting the positive returns from our marketing investments and strategic initiatives. We also continue to see strength in average revenue per customer which increased 4.8% year over year on a trailing twelve month basis to $310 This was driven by factors including a higher mix of premium lenses like progressives, continued growth in both contact lens and eye exam sales and uptake of our higher priced frame collections.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

By product, glasses revenue grew 9.1% year over year and we saw continued strength in our holistic vision care offerings with contact lens revenue growing 25.1% and eye care growing approximately 40% year over year. Contact increased from 9.2% of revenue in Q1 twenty twenty four to 10.3% in Q1 twenty twenty five. Eye Care increased from 4.7% of revenue in Q1 twenty twenty four to 5.8% in Q1 twenty twenty five. Turning to our stores, we opened 11 new stores in the quarter, our highest number ever for Q1 ending the period with two eighty seven stores. This represents 42 net new stores opened over the course of the last twelve months.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Retail productivity was 99.8% versus the same period last year. As a reminder, we define retail productivity as the year over year change in retail sales per store for the average number of stores open in the period. This metric covers all stores and is impacted by factors like opening cadence and doctor hiring. For stores that have been opened greater than twelve months, we observed strong year over year growth in Q1 in spite of the weather disruptions and closures throughout the first part of the quarter. Our new stores continue to deliver strong unit economics performing in line with our target of thirty five percent four wall margin and twenty month paybacks.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

For stores open more than twelve months average revenue per store was $2,200,000 and our performance was in line with our target thirty five percent four wall margin. Overall, we continue to be pleased with the performance, growth and productivity of our fleets. Over the course of the past year, nearly every new store included an eye exam suites, bringing our total number of stores with eye exam capabilities to two forty seven stores or 86% of our total fleet. From a channel mix perspective, retail represented approximately 70% of our overall business in Q1 consistent with recent quarters. Moving on to gross margin.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

As a reminder, our gross margin is fully loaded and accounts for a range of costs including frames, lenses, optical labs, customer shipping, optometrist salaries, store rents and the depreciation of store build outs. Our gross margin also includes stock based compensation expense for our optometrists and optical lab employees. For comparability, I will speak to gross margin excluding stock based compensation. First quarter adjusted gross margin came in at 56.4% compared to 56.9% in the year ago period. The modest year over year decrease was primarily driven by the continued scaling of contact lenses and fixed cost deleverage from new store openings.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

These factors were partially offset by increased penetration of our higher priced frames and lenses and lower outbound customer shipping costs as a percent of revenue. Shifting gears to SG and A. As a reminder, adjusted SG and A excludes non cash costs like stock based compensation expense. Adjusted SG and A in the first quarter came in at $110,300,000 or 49.3% of revenue. This compares to Q1 twenty twenty four adjusted SG and A of $103,400,000 or 51.7% of revenue representing two forty basis points of leverage year over year.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Within adjusted SG and A, marketing spend was $27,900,000 or 12.5% of revenue compared to $24,900,000 or 12.4% of revenue in Q1 twenty twenty four. With roughly consistent marketing spend as a percent of revenue, disciplined expense management drove leverage across our non marketing adjusted SG and A categories, which include salaries for our stores and customer service employees and general corporate expenses, including our headquarter salaries and general operating expenses to support the business. Non marketing adjusted SG and A declined by two fifty basis points from 39.3% of revenue in Q1 twenty twenty four to 36.8% of revenue in Q1 twenty twenty five. This reflects our commitment to continued cost discipline and drove our higher flow through in Q1 above the high end of our guidance range. Turning now to adjusted EBITDA.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

In the first quarter, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $29,200,000 representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.1%. This compares to adjusted EBITDA of $22,400,000 or 11.2% of revenue in the year ago period, reflecting expansion of 190 basis points. This result was driven by relative gross margin stability paired with significant non marketing SG and A leverage. Turning now to our balance sheet, we generated $13,200,000 in free cash flow in Q1 twenty twenty five and ended the quarter with a strong cash position of $265,000,000 We will continue to deploy capital deliberately to support our growth and operations. We also have a credit facility of 120,000,000 expandable to 175,000,000 that is undrawn other than 2,000,000 outstanding for letters of credit.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Turning to our outlook for 2025. We recognize that we continue to operate in a very dynamic macro environment concerning both global trade policies as well as the potential impact on consumer sentiment. We're paying close attention to how these factors may evolve and we have confidence in our ability to remain flexible and make adjustments as needed. Our guidance reflects both our response to these external factors including tariffs and a generally more conservative outlook due to increased uncertainty around consumer spending the remainder of the year. Let me specifically address the estimated impact of tariffs assuming the current increased tariff rates of 145% for China and 10% for rest of world.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

As we just discussed, we have reduced our exposure to China over the last five years and have accelerated our efforts to do so in this environment. As of our last earnings call, we disclosed that China made up roughly 20% of our total cost of goods sold. At that time, we expected the incremental 10% tariff announced then to account for 20 to 40 basis points of gross margin deleverage for 2025, which factored in moderate geographic shifting of suppliers and savings from negotiating cost sharing with our vendors. This equaled approximately $3,000,000 Given that the total incremental increase on most China sourced goods now stands at 145%, we have accelerated and expanded our mitigation efforts as Neil and Dave shared. Assuming current tariff rates hold for the remainder of the year, we estimate that the gross impact to our business in 2025 before considering the extensive mitigation actions taken to date would be roughly $45,000,000 to $50,000,000 Due to our actions to date across multiple areas of the business and our plan for the remainder of the year, we believe we will mitigate the substantial majority if not all of the potential 45,000,000 to $50,000,000 exposure.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

The actions we've taken fall into three main categories. One, shifting sources of supply and realigning our vendor mix globally two, implementing strategic pricing changes without disrupting our core value proposition and three, reducing operating expenses to support profitability and to ensure continued cost discipline. We continue to maintain a very disciplined approach to managing operating expenses as evidenced in Q1 To support our profitability goals in light of the current environment, we have slowed the pace of hiring, reduced discretionary expenses across a range of categories and are diligently managing our operating costs such as continued labor optimization across our stores including eye doctors and our customer experience team. Importantly, we have largely maintained our planned marketing investment and are still planning for marketing spend in the low teens as a percent of revenue for the full year, reflecting our confidence in the efficiency of our marketing programs and their role in driving longer term growth. And as a result of these proactive measures, we have dramatically reduced our COGS exposure to China and we estimate that by year end depending on where tariffs land, we expect to decrease our exposure by as much as a half or from approximately 20% to less than 10%.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Taking all these factors into account, the macroeconomic backdrop, the tariff impacts and our mitigation efforts and our operational adjustments, we are providing the following updated outlook for the full year 2025. Net revenue between $869,000,000 and $886,000,000 representing approximately 13% to 15% growth year over year. Adjusted EBITDA of $91,000,000 to $97,000,000 representing adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 10.5% to 11%. We are committed to delivering at least 100 basis points of year over year margin expansion within our long term guidance range and up to our original guidance of approximately 11% or 150 basis points of year over year expansion. 45 new store openings including the five previously announced shop in shops within Target stores slated to open in the second half of the year.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

As a reminder, our previous guidance range of revenue growth of approximately 14% to 16% year over year reflected a continuation of the trends we observed in the second half of twenty twenty four and early Q1. It assumed customer led growth paired with a moderation in average revenue per customer, a full year of additional in network lives and mid single digit growth in e commerce. Our updated range of 13% to 15% growth reflects a moderately more conservative outlook for the second half of the year with the midpoint of the range representing a continuation of recent trends. Versus our original guidance, we're projecting a modest acceleration in average revenue per customer given our pricing actions. Our updated range now assumes a modest reduction to store productivity as well as our e commerce channel growing low to mid single digits.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Our store openings have been on track including our Target shop in shops and we continue to see encouraging results from our Versant integration. As it relates to gross margin, given the impact of tariffs and our mitigation efforts to date, we're projecting a potential impact to gross margin of approximately 200 to 300 basis points for full year 2025. We continue to expect stock based compensation as a percentage of net revenue to normalize in the 2% to 4% range for the full year. For Q2 twenty twenty five, we're guiding to the following. Net revenue between $211,000,000 and $214,000,000 which represents growth of approximately 12% to 14% year over year.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Adjusted EBITDA of $20,000,000 to $22,000,000 representing approximately 10% margin at the midpoint. This range contemplates the mitigation efforts that are already underway, which we expect to continue to phase in over the course of the year. We'll provide updates on our progress during each quarterly call. Thank you again for joining us this morning. With that, Neil, Dave and I are pleased to take your questions. Operator, please open the line for Q and A.

[Operator]

And The first question today comes from the line of Mark Auschwager from Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Mark Altschwager, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co]

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I guess first, I was hoping you could give a little bit more color on the change in your revenue outlook for the year and what's driving that slight downward revision. What's the change in consumer behavior that you've seen recently here? And what is incorporated in that related to price increases specifically? Thank you.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Great. Thanks, Mark. I can start and then Steve can provide a little more color on the specific guidance. But I think at a high level, we're taking just a more cautious and conservative approach to guidance for the rest of the year, given that we know that consumers have a lot on their minds these days with unusually high volatility in terms of, you know, new cycles and financial markets and eroding customer sentiment and and confidence. And what we found, during COVID and kind of other periods of uncertainty and low consumer confidence that, you know, that that can impact shopping behavior and, and could create more volatility in traffic.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

And that doesn't necessarily mean that our our customers would go elsewhere, but that there is some potential for the elongation in in the purchase cycle. And and so we've we've seen, you know, relatively consistent, consumer behavior over the last few months, but did want to build in some conservatism just given potential risk to the broader economy.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Yeah. That's exactly right. And at at a high level, we think given some of the uncertainties still evident in the macro environment, we thought that it prudent it'd be prudent just to maintain a conservative position on how we project the rest of the year. So we made a moderate change to how we're projecting full year growth. Originally, we were projecting up 14% to 16%.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

We took that down a notch to up 13% to 15%. And at the midpoint of our guidance, we wanted to be very transparent to call out that that represents really a continuation of recent trends that we're seeing in the business, which implies the high end would imply an increase or acceleration in some of the recent trends that we're seeing and at the low end, a deceleration. So we try to set up an architecture that just provides transparency into the current velocity of the business, bearing in mind that we are operating in a more uncertain environment. And so we wanted to take that as an opportunity to notch our projections moderately more conservative.

[Mark Altschwager, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co]

Thank you. And then the follow-up, appreciate all the detail on tariffs. In light of the changes in the mitigation playbook, anything else we should consider regarding the shape of the year from a gross margin, EBITDA margin perspective? And then bigger picture, the margin guide, EBITDA margin guide now a bit below the 100 to 200 basis point annual target at the midpoint. Still quite reassuring given what you're dealing with on tariffs, but as we think beyond 2025, is that still the right framework? Thank you.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

So the shape of the year from an EBITDA perspective, if we look at what our EBITDA pattern was last year, Q1 was the highest and Q4 was the lowest and it was roughly a step down from Q1 to Q2 to Q3 to Q4. I would anticipate the shape of this year to look not dissimilar, but there might be more parity in the middle of the year given some of the changes that we're in the process of phasing in as it relates to tariff mitigation. But I think it would be safe to say that same pattern of highest margin first quarter, lowest margin on a relative basis from an EBITDA perspective, final quarter of the year would still hold for our business. As we thought through all of the mitigation actions that we're taking, again, which involves strategically shifting our vendor mix across the globe. Number two, taking very selective price increases across our glasses business.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

And three, maintaining a very disciplined approach to operating spend, which you saw reflect very positively in our q one financials where we had a higher degree of flow through from managing non marketing SG and A in particular. And we feel very confident still being within range of our long term adjusted EBITDA margin improvement, which is up 100 to 200 basis points a year. Our original guidance called for up a 50 basis points. We're ranging that now at up a hundred to a 50 basis points depending on a range of factors, including where tariffs ultimately land. So that element of our long term guidance is is certainly intact.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

And as it relates to gross margin beyond 2025 toward the end of this year, once some of the dust has settled around all of these trade actions that are in the process of being worked out will provide updated perspective on where gross margin we believe will settle.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Oliver Chen from TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Oliver Chen, Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at TD Cowen]

Hi, Neil, Dave and Steve. We're seeing so much market and financial volatility. Are you seeing a similar amount in relation to your customer traffic and your thoughts on consumer confidence so far? And then as we think about the e commerce guidance, what's happening there with traffic relative to conversion? And any details you can share? Thank you.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Thanks, Oliver. This is Neil. We are seeing pockets of strength and pockets of volatility as pertains to customer behavior. As we look at Q1, some of the pockets of volatility were from typical causes like weather. We actually lost more operational hours due to weather, in q one this year than last year.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

It was actually up 68%, so significant. And when there have been announcements out of Washington, we've also seen, at times, changes in traffic patterns and customer behavior. That being said, we tend to be a benefactor of disruption in the markets because of our value proposition. Right? Most of our customers are coming from more expensive optical shops, whether those are chains or independents.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

And when there are drops in consumer sentiment, that just puts us in an even greater sort of competitive positioning. So we are confident that we'll continue to emerge stronger from the current environment just as we did, during COVID and during other times of volatility. But in general, we're seeing consumer traffic hold up and conversion and consumer behavior hold as well.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

And then as it relates to ecom, we continue to be pleased with the progress that we're seeing in serving customers across channels and having digital capabilities that are unique in the category. And as a result, saw the highest quarterly growth in q one since 2021 and, you know, continue to benefit from strength in our contact lens business that is primarily online and a lot of our newer tools that make it easy for people to purchase classes without having to do a home try on. So leveraging our virtual try on capabilities and increasingly AI driven recommendations, And so continue to see both traffic and conversion head in the direction that we'd like to see.

[Oliver Chen, Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at TD Cowen]

Okay. Thanks. To follow-up, Target's very exciting. So would love your thoughts on how you thought about the stores and locations that you're choosing and the key hurdles that you'll be looking for in terms of goals nearer and longer term and how that will impact the model longer term? Thank you.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Sure. Well, we're super excited about our partnership with Target. We're in the process of designing our stores, and we're going to learn a lot of this initial cohort of five stores that are strategically sort of positioned. You know, as we think about opening stores across a range of dimensions such as store design, hiring, our assortment. This is strategy is really gonna be a continuation of what we do every single day.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

There are gonna be aspects that are actually easier in that, right, the formats are gonna be very consistent, but feel, just like any other Warby store. So that could make, you know, a rollout easier, for example, for our store design team. You know, the stores are gonna be staffed with Warby employees, right, in markets where we already are are present. Like, the point of sale that we're using is is Warby, so it's the same training protocols and systems that our team has grown to love and that enables us to, you know, provide these exceptional experiences. So we're we're excited.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

We're gonna learn a lot in the first five train the first, five stores, and that will help us, you know, grow going forward. We view this as complement complement complementary to our standalone store growth and, you know, be evaluated similar to a new store that expands the overall white space and access to a broader set of consumers.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Brook Roach from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Savannah Sommer, Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Hi, good morning. This is Savannah Summer on for Brook Roach. Thank you so much for taking our question. Can you discuss what you've been seeing in regards to marketing spend efficiency? Should you see increased efficiency on that line item, how much, if any, should we expect to drop to the bottom line for the full year? Thank you.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

So, yeah, we continue to be pleased with the efficiency of our marketing investments, and we've seen consistency in our acquisition costs as we've ramped up spend over over the last couple of years. And while we have seen some fluctuation in media pricing with costs rising on some platforms, we've been able to find efficiency on other platforms, and that just underscores the fluid and diversified media mix that our team employs to optimize spend, ranging from more traditional channels like TV and direct mail to real time options across digital channels to working closely with creators on on bespoke content. And, increasingly, we're using AI based models and sophisticated methods to allocate and analyze spend. We also have the advantage of the direct to consumer brands that we have access to so much real time data around what's working and what's not so that we can we can optimize. And we are hearing that in in light of tariffs and and the current environment that, you know, some advertisers are are calling back on spend.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

And and so we are opportunistically looking for areas that that we can lean in and and continue to highlight our our differentiated value proposition and are increasingly kinda spending time through paid media promoting not only our our e com business, but also our nearly 300 stores. And in the in the current environment are also really focused on highlighting our advantage pricing and value proposition, given that, the rest of the category has and will continue to take price more than we have.

[Savannah Sommer, Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Thanks so much for the color. I'll pass it on.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Janine Stritcher from BTIG. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Janine Stichter, Managing Director & Analyst - Consumer Retail & Lifestyle Brands at BTIG]

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I was hoping you could just comment on what you're seeing out of your insurance paying customers versus your non insurance customers. And then can you update us on the penetration of customers who have insurance versus those who use it at Warby Parker? And maybe elaborate on some of the initiatives you're working on to bridge that gap. Thank you.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

So, we continue to be pleased with the progress. We're in making it easier for customers to use their insurance benefits with us and, are seeing, positive early signs from our our Versant integration. The the vast majority of those Versant members still haven't used their benefits with us, and and, we view, all of these partnerships as multiyear tailwinds that will ramp over time, rather than a step function increase at at the time of of integration. And we see for our our longest standing insurance relationships that utilization continues to to increase over over many years alongside increasing revenue per per member per year, and we expect that that same behavior with with FirstEn and and are, you know, seeing early positive signs there. We continue to find that our insurance customers spend more with us in in each transaction and also repeat more frequently.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

So, you know, people like using their benefits, and they know that they can get even more value coming to to Warby Parker than than going other places. And, you know, it's still an area where we're we're under underpenetrated relative to the rest of the category and remains a really big opportunity for us, but we're pleased with the progress that we've made, especially over the last couple of years.

[Janine Stichter, Managing Director & Analyst - Consumer Retail & Lifestyle Brands at BTIG]

Thanks so much and best of luck.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of David Yu from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[David Yueh, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Thank you. Two for me, please. Could you please break down the expected sources of leverage in EBITDA, especially with regard to gross margin and SG and A in the second half? And how might these be impacted by tariffs and demand trends? And then number two, can you also quantify, each of the tariff mitigation buckets among supply chain, reallocation, selective pricing and expense control? Thank you.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Yeah. Sure. Starting with the first question in terms of sources of leverage across our p and l. If you look at q one for a good example, we saw very modest deleverage in gross margin year over year from 56.9% to 56.4%, and yet we increased adjusted EBITDA margin by a 90 basis points largely by maintaining a very disciplined approach to the nonmarketing elements within SG and A.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Marketing spend as a percent of revenue, which is within SG and A was really flat at roughly 12 and a half percent in both periods. And so that 90 basis points of leverage was really concentrated within our non marketing SG and A elements. We're planning for significant leverage to continue to come from non marketing SG and A. And as we pack unpack what is in that category, if we think about, '1 this year as a frame of reference, roughly 25 of that is marketing spend, 75% are, the non marketing elements, which include salaries for our store employees, salaries for our customer experience employees, and then all of our corporate expenses, including HQ salaries, and all of the the dollars that that we deploy toward vendors. And so we'll continue to make sure that we're driving, cost savings and leverage from those elements within, within our s g and a cost stack.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

In addition to that, in response to this tariff environment, there are two actions that we're taking that will directly impact gross profit to the positive to offset some of the impacts that we expect to continue to see from tariffs in the short term, that is one, shifting our vendor mix globally and two, very selected price increases. We have not broken out the specific mitigation associated with each of our actions. So from price increases, from reorienting our supply chain across the globe and from operating expense reductions, but we have communicated that in aggregate, plan to mitigate all if not $2,000,000 in tariff exposures at the current a 45% China rate and 10% rest of world. That persists for now. If those rates change, and we're optimistic that they will, we'll continue to evolve our plans just to take into account the reality of the current new environment.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Dylan Carden from William Blair. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Dylan Carden, Research Analyst at William Blair]

Thanks. I guess that answers my question. The language around success in mitigating tariffs, guess you kind of answered it. I am curious kind of what you're seeing as the countervailing force as far as the repurchase cycle. I know you're less exposed to managed care, that's part of the strategy, which it seems to be recovering faster.

[Dylan Carden, Research Analyst at William Blair]

But how do you think about sort of the latent demand for this category kind of through this year? Thanks.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Sure. Thanks for for the question. We're we're seeing similar trends as we have, over the past few years One of the things that we're very focused on, is controlling what we can control. So as an example of that, as we think about tariff mitigation, right, we know that tariffs are likely going to shift.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

So how do we, construct systems that are adaptable? And what we mean by that is, how can we, quickly, strategically, change pricing in a selective way when that makes sense? How can we strategically shift, aspects of our supply chain, when that makes sense? And we view speed as a competitive advantage, as we sort of and this is in line with our belief that we have to control what we can control. And when it comes to the consumer, right, if we continue to deliver best in class, service, if we continue to provide, incredible value, and we think that the value that we're providing, you know, that price to quality ratio is actually only increasing as we look at competitors raising prices that we're going to see consistent to improve repurchase cycles relative to the category.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

So we continue to see strong AOV, strong conversion, and, you know, we've continued to demonstrate category growth irrespective of what our, what's happening in the market sort of writ large.

[Dylan Carden, Research Analyst at William Blair]

And price, I mean, take tariffs aside for a second. You mentioned there that or you mentioned in the prepared remarks that you haven't really taken price on the opening or the entry level offering since founding. I mean, price a broader opportunity here? I know that you sort of introduced newer pricing with newer launches, but is there kind of a tariff, ex tariff price opportunity in this model more broadly? Thanks. Yeah.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

We we we do believe so, but we're also conscious that we operate in a industry that has historically taken price liberally at every opportunity, and and that's continued in this current environment. And, frankly, that's created a price umbrella that has enabled us to offer better value and take market share since since we launched, and we can we plan to continue to do that for for many years to come. And, really, our our focus has been on building long term sustainable growth. And in order to do that, the most important factors are are building consumer trust around our brand and ensuring that our customers are delighted and offering exceptional value and great pricing is a core part of that that customer promise, and and we don't plan to deviate from from that approach. But that said, there there is a very big umbrella here, and and we found that when we do introduce higher price point products, our customers are willing to spend more with us, and we tend to primarily serve high income customers.

[Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

And so as we launch products like Precision Progressives starting at $395, we've we've seen a very strong uptake and and lots of kind of customer satisfaction from from those products. And so, you know, in in this environment where some of our input costs are are going up, we have, you know, selectively adjusted pricing on some of our products, and we're we're seeing positive early signals in terms of, you know, customer response. And so do you believe that there's more opportunity over time to introduce products at a variety of price points, and I think you'll see us continue to drive increases in average revenue per customer for many years to come.

[Operator]

Thank you.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

And Dylan The

[Operator]

next question today?

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Just as context

[Operator]

Please carry on.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

Dylan, I was just adding on Dave's comments. Just as context, we've selectively taken price actions like this very rarely. The last time that we did something like this was at the end of twenty twenty one, where we rolled out a small handful of price increases across two thinner lens types thinner lens types, which we increased pricing for by roughly $10 and a prescription sun lens where we increased pricing by $20. The handful of changes that we're making here are a little broader, but not much, and certainly informed by what we've done in the past. We'll continue to really focus on price through offering new products and seeing price evolve through mix.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

But selectively, we've done this before, and the process that we went through here was certainly informed by some of the results and success of the actions that we have taken on a selective basis in the past, and we're expecting a similar type of trajectory for these increases as well.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Anna Arjeeva from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Paul Nawalany, Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Hi, this is Paul Nawalini on for Ana. Thanks for taking our question. I'm curious if you could speak to the consumer behavior of the new cohorts you were seeing given the acceleration in active customers, if that's mostly coming from existing markets or new ones? And then secondly, I'm curious if you could confirm whether you've seen an acceleration in March versus February that's generally maintained into April and if you've seen any evidence of a pull forward in consumer demand? Thank you.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

Sure. Thanks for your question. We're seeing very consistent consumer behavior across new and existing cohorts. As we continue to expand across The U. S.

[Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO at Warby Parker]

And we have lots of opportunity, there's 45,000 optical shops in in The US. Most of our new stores have been in existing markets, just because we're now in all all the large markets. The as and, again, where we tend to, you know, gain market share is from optical shops that are, you know, charging, you know, often two to three to four times as as much as as we are. So the the beauty of having this large market, having, you know, these 45,000 optical shops across The US, it's just we have a a massive opportunity in in front of us, and we still think that we're we're in the first innings here.

[Steve Miller, SVP and CFO at Warby Parker]

And then as it relates to March and any color on April, so March was our strongest month in Q1. And so we did finish the quarter on a very strong note. As it relates to April, we saw pockets of variability the first part of April, and then we have finished April with a very strong exit rate that has continued into May. And so that's how we would describe the color of the end of the quarter heading into the current environment in which we find ourselves now. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. This concludes today's question and answer session and today's call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.

Participants

Executives

• Jaclyn Berkley, VP - Head of Investor Relations
• Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founders and Co-CEO
• Dave Gilboa, Co-Founders and Co-CEO
• Steve Miller, SVP and CFO

Analysts

• Mark Altschwager, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co
• Oliver Chen, Managing Director & Senior Equity Research Analyst at TD Cowen
• Savannah Sommer, Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Janine Stichter, Managing Director & Analyst - Consumer Retail & Lifestyle Brands at BTIG
• David Yueh, Analyst at Evercore ISI
• Dylan Carden, Research Analyst at William Blair
• Paul Nawalany, Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies