1-800-Flowers.Com Inc (FLWS) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the 1-800-FLOWERS.COM Financial Results for the Fiscal 2022 Fourth Quarter and Full Year.

(Operator Instructions)

Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Joseph Pititto, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today to discuss 1-800-FLOWERS.COM's financial results for our fiscal 2022 fourth quarter and full year. Those of you who have not received a copy of our press release issued earlier this morning, the release can be accessed at the Investor Relations section of our corporate website at 1800flowersinc.com.

Our call today will begin with brief formal remarks, and then we will open the call to your questions. Presenting today will be Chris McCann, CEO; Tom Hartnett, President; and Bill Shea, CFO. Before we begin, I need to remind everyone that some of the statements that we will make today may be forward-looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These statements involve risks and uncertainties and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the applicable statements. For a detailed description of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our press release issued this morning as well as our SEC filings, including the company's annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.

In addition, this morning, we will discuss certain supplemental financial measures that were not prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in the tables accompanying the company's press release issued this morning.

The company expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements made in today's call, any recordings of today's call, the press release issued earlier today or in any of its SEC filings, except as may be otherwise stated by the company. I will now turn the call over to Chris McCann.

Thank you, everyone, and good morning. As we noted in this morning's press release, revenues in our fiscal fourth quarter were essentially flat year-over-year. This reflects the change in consumer behavior that we have seen since last December in reaction to unprecedented inflation in the macro economy.

Nonetheless, we finished our full fiscal 2022 year with revenues up 4% compared with the prior year. This is on top of more than 40% growth we saw in revenues last year and represents revenue growth of more than 75% compared with our fiscal 2019, which was prior to the pandemic. Our growth for fiscal '22 illustrates our ability to retain and build on the gains we achieved over the past 2 years despite the continued macroeconomic uncertainty and the change in consumer behavior.

In fact, it's important to note that we have essentially doubled the size of our company over the past several years. This reflects the healthy growth that we have seen in our customer file, combined with our expanded product offerings and our ever-increasing focus on engaging with our customers through a combination of highly relevant content and unique experiences.

As I mentioned back in April during our conference call, we saw our business in the macro economy as having gone through several significant stages over the past few years. Prior to the pandemic, or the pre-COVID stage, we made the decision to step up our investments in marketing, particularly in our flagship 1-800-Flowers and Harry & David brands to accelerate revenue growth.

This enabled us to increase our revenue growth rate from the second half of fiscal 2018 through the first 3 quarters of fiscal '20 when we went from low single digit to double-digit growth just prior to the pandemic. During that period, we also accelerated the growth of our customer file and our Celebrations Passport loyalty program.

These initiatives, along with continued investments in our business platform, positioned us well to respond to the surge that we saw in consumer demand when the world changed dramatically in the spring of 2020 with the advent of the COVID pandemic, through lockdowns, social distancing, and the shift to remote work, the resourcefulness and dedication of our team, help our customers stay connected with the important people in their lives.

With the surge in demand, we our saw top and bottom line results and our customer file grow to record levels in the pandemic stage. As the world began to emerge from the pandemic last year, the post-COVID stage or late-COVID, we once again saw dramatic changes in the macro economy and consumer behavior with increased travel, dining out, group celebrations and other pent-up activities.

We also saw rapidly increasing inflation, unprecedented disruptions in the global supply chain, geopolitical turmoil and an extremely tight labor market. As a result, we have seen consumer demand moderate while steep cost increases in everything from labor to shipping to commodities have impacted gross margins. While inflationary pressures remain, we are beginning to see early improvements in certain areas, including fuel prices that have pulled back in their peak highs, albeit still significantly higher year-over-year.

Softening in ocean freights and stabilization of labor rates with some improvement in availability. While we all hope that these positive trends will continue, we have taken proactive steps to address these issues, utilizing our balance sheet to invest in our operating platform and continue to build for the future.

These investments include the automation of our warehouse and distribution facilities, which we've spoken about prior and which reduces our exposure to the labor front, combining and building inventories early to get ahead of the continuing global supply chain issues, and implementing logistics optimizing programs to enhance our outbound shipping operations and manage rising rates with third-party shippers.

As we continue to ramp up these initiatives, combined with strategic pricing programs across our brands, we anticipate they will help us manage rising costs and gradually improve our gross margins and bottom line results during the latter half of the current fiscal year. We have also continued to invest to expand our product offerings as well as our engagement initiatives.

During the fourth quarter, we added to our offering of the multi-brand bundles that our customers have been embracing. For example, pairing Harry & David wine with Shari's Berries confections and 1-800-Flowers bouquets continues to be a big hit with customers. We combined Cheryl's Cookies and Wolferman's Bakery gifts to create the perfect brunch bundles. We also began offering same-day delivery of cakes and confections for birthdays and other celebrations.

And we expanded our selection of house plants, a hot category, particularly with millennials, where we saw double-digit growth year-over-year. Vital Choice, which we acquired last October, also performed well with record-breaking presale demand of our wild caught Copper River Salmon during the fourth quarter.

On the engagement front, we further expanded our interactive engagement initiatives to create a true community through a broad range of non-transactional engagement experiences and content including our popular Celebrations Pulse weekly e-mails, our Chairman's new celebrations chat or podcast, Alice's Table Virtual Workshops for collaborative design and confection of everything from floral arrangements to charcuterie boards and a growing collection of interactive blogs, including Petal Talk from 1-800-Flowers, Table Talk from Harry & David, Scrumptious Bites from Cheryl's Cookies and the Vital Choice blog for all things wild caught, sustainably farmed and organic.

These blogs along with our Connection Communities, the Life After Loss event series on sympathy topics and a growing number of influencer campaigns enabled us to achieve more than 127 million non-transactional consumer engagements, well past our goal for the year. We know that customers who engage with our content convert 300 to 500 basis points higher than those that do not.

In addition, these engagements help us build relationships with our customers beyond the transactions, creating that true community. A combination of these initiatives and our continued product expansion enabled us to attract more than 1.5 million new customers during the fourth quarter and more than 5 million for the year.

Existing customers active in the year grew 5.3% to 7.4 million and existing customers represented 70% of total revenues for the year. In addition, our Celebrations Passport loyalty program continued to grow at a double-digit rate during the year with membership now exceeding 1.4 million.

We believe the significant size and robust growth of our customer file and our Celebrations Passport loyalty program, along with our expanded product offerings, positions us well to inspire our customers to give more, connect more and build more and better relationships and continue to grow our business over the long-term. Now let me turn the call over to Bill for his review of some of the key metrics from the fourth quarter and our full fiscal 2022 year. Bill?

Thank you, Chris. Our results for the fiscal 2022 fourth quarter and for the full fiscal year reflect the changes in the macro economy that Chris touched on in his remarks. In terms of revenues, we saw solid upper single-digit growth in the first half of the year despite challenging year-over-year comparisons. Consumers began to pull back on the spending beginning in December last year as inflation began to rise rapidly.

This change in behavior persisted and intensified throughout the spring this year as consumers became concerned with the unprecedented rapid rise in inflation and growing global unrest. In addition to the effect on demand, these factors, along with the challenges in the global supply chain had a significant impact on our gross margins as we have had to absorb steep cost increases in labor, inbound and outbound shipping, fuel and various commodities.

Gross margins were also impacted by the higher-than-normal write-downs of perishable inventory due to slowing demand. These factors combined with the higher year-over-year rates for marketing and advertising caused our results for the fourth quarter and the full fiscal 2022 year to be below our expectations.

The guidance that we provided in this morning's press release for our current fiscal 2023 first quarter reflects tough comparisons we have with last year's fiscal first quarter, which was before the impact of to the global supply chain and unprecedented surge in inflation and the cautious consumer spending trend that we have seen through July and August.

With that said, over the longer-term, we believe we are well positioned to improve our gross margins and bottom line results. We are already seeing some relief in certain of the high category headwinds that we've been facing, including ocean freight, fuel and certain commodities. Additionally, our expanded initiatives to automate our warehouse and distribution facilities are coming online to help control labor costs and mitigate labor availability issues.

Now breaking down some of the key metrics for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year. For the fourth quarter, total net revenues were $485.9 million, essentially flat compared with $487 million in the prior year period. Excluding contributions from Vital Choice, which we acquired in October of '21, total revenue for the quarter was down 1.5% compared with the prior year period.

For perspective, revenues for the quarter increased 87.3% compared with total revenues of $259.4 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019. This included strong organic growth of 56%, combined with the strategic acquisitions we made during the pandemic. For the year, total net revenues increased 4% to $2.21 billion compared with $2.12 billion in the prior year (inaudible) growth across our 3 business segments.

On an organic basis, revenues for the year grew 2.5%. For perspective, Total net revenues grew 76.8% compared with total net revenues of $1.2 billion in fiscal 2019. Again, this included strong organic growth of approximately 50%, combined with our acquisitions. Gross profit margin for the quarter was 33.7%, down 700 basis points compared with 40.7% in the prior year period, primarily reflecting significantly increased cost of labor, shipping, commodities and perishable inventory write-offs.

For the quarter, operating expenses as a percent of total revenues was 39.2%, representing an increase of 170 basis points compared with 37.5% in the prior year period. This primarily reflects higher digital marketing and advertising as well as higher depreciation, offset in part by lower incentive compensation and the impact of our non-qualified deferred compensation plan compared with the prior year period.

For the year, gross profit margin was 37.2%, down 500 basis points compared with 42.2% in the prior year, reflecting the same factors I mentioned for the fourth quarter. Operating expenses as a percent of total revenues was 35.3% for the year, essentially unchanged compared with 35.2% in the prior year as higher marketing costs were offset by lower incentive compensation.

For the quarter, adjusted EBITDA loss was $16.8 million compared with adjusted EBITDA of $30.2 million in the prior year period, primarily reflecting significantly higher year-over-year costs for labor, shipping commodities and digital marketing along with perishable inventory write-offs. Net loss was $22.3 million or $0.34 per share compared with net income of $13.3 million or $0.20 per diluted share in the prior year period.

Adjusted net loss was $21.8 million or $0.34 per share compared with adjusted net income of $13.3 million or $0.20 per diluted share in the prior year period. For the year, adjusted EBITDA was $99 million compared with $213.1 million in the prior year. Net income was $29.6 million or $0.45 per diluted share compared with net income of $118.7 million or $1.78 per diluted share in the prior year period.

And adjusted net income was $32.9 million or $0.50 per diluted share compared with $122.6 million or $1.84 of diluted share in the prior year.

Now regarding our segment results. In our Gourmet Food and Gift Baskets segment, revenue for the fourth quarter was $148.4 million, down 2.4% compared with $152.2 million in the prior year period.

Excluding Vital Choice, which we acquired in October of '21, revenue for the quarter was $142.7 million. For perspective, revenue for the quarter was up 104.9% compared with the same period in our fiscal 2019 fourth quarter, including organic growth of 63%. The profit margin was 23.2% compared with 38.9% in the prior year period.

Segment contribution margin loss was $23.7 million compared with segment contribution margin of $4.2 million in the prior year period. The gross margin decline and segment contribution loss primarily reflected higher labor, shipping and commodity costs as well as higher year-over-year marketing rates and perishable inventory write-offs.

For the year, revenue of this segment increased 5.1% to $1 billion compared with $955.6 million in the prior year. For perspective, revenue increased 54.9% compared with revenue in fiscal 2019, including 40% organic growth. Gross profit margin for the year was 34.2% compared with 42.9% in the prior year.

And adjusted segment contribution margin for the year was $64.9 million compared with $148.9 million in the prior year. Again, the lower gross margin and segment contribution reflects the significant headwinds I've already mentioned.

In our Consumer Floral and Gift segment, revenues for the quarter increased 0.4% to $299 million compared with $297.7 million in the prior year period.

For perspective, revenue for the quarter increased 87.2% compared with the same period in the company's fiscal 2019 fourth quarter and were up 55% organically. Gross profit margin was 38% compared with 41.1% in the prior year period, primarily reflecting increased labor and shipping costs. Segment contribution margin was $26.4 million compared with $41.2 million in the prior year period.

This primarily reflected the lower gross margin, combined with higher year-over-year digital marketing rates. For the year, revenues increased 3.4% to $1.06 billion compared with $1.03 billion in the prior year. For perspective, revenue increased 112.9% compared with our fiscal year 2019 and were up 62% organically. Gross margin for the year was 39.3% compared with 41.1% in the prior year. Segment contribution margin was $104.3 million compared with $128.6 million in the prior year.

Now BloomNet segment. Revenue for the quarter increased 3.2% to $38.5 million compared with $37.3 million in the prior year period.

For perspective, revenue for the quarter was up 41.2% compared with the same period in the company's fiscal 2019 fourth quarter. Gross profit margin was 39.6% compared with 43.2% in the prior year period, primarily reflecting higher shipping costs as well as product mix.

Segment contribution margin was $10 million compared with $11.3 million in the prior year period. For the year, revenue increased 1.9% to $145.7 million compared with $142.9 million in the prior year. For perspective, revenue increased 41.6% compared with our fiscal year 2019. Gross profit margin for the year was 42.3% compared with 45.5% in the prior year and contribution margin for the year was $42.5 million compared with $45.9 million in the prior year.

In terms of corporate expense. For the fiscal 2022 fourth quarter, corporate expense, including stock-based compensation, but excluding the impact of the company's non-qualified deferred 401(k) compensation plan was $30.7 million compared with $29.1 million in the prior year period. For the year, corporate expense, including stock-based compensation, but excluding the impact of the company's deferred compensation plan and the onetime costs associated with the acquisition of Vital Choice was $120.7 million compared with $121.2 million in the prior year.

Regarding free cash flow. For the year, free cash flow was a negative $61.7 million. This, however, reflects the significant investments we have made in working capital, primarily non-perishable inventory to stay ahead of potential supply chain challenges, and in CapEx to automate our logistics and distribution capabilities.

Turning to our balance sheet. At the end of fiscal 2022 year, our cash and investment position was $31.5 million compared with $173.6 million at the end of fiscal 2021. The reduction in cash compared with the prior year reflects our aforementioned investments in inventory and CapEx as well as our acquisition of Vital Choice, stock buybacks and pay down of debt during the fiscal year.

Inventory was $247.6 million, up $93.7 million, reflecting our proactive decision to buy and build inventory ahead of the new fiscal year and thereby reduce our exposure to the global supply chain as we plan for the upcoming holiday season. Our term debt balance, net of deferred financing costs was $162.5 million, and we had 0 borrowings outstanding under our revolving line of credit. As a result, total net debt at the end of the year was $131 million.

Regarding guidance for fiscal 2023. Based on our highly unpredictable nature of the current macro economy, we have decided to provide guidance this year on a quarter-by-quarter basis. This will include current business trends to date at the time of our regular quarterly results releases.

Looking ahead, we anticipate that the combination of the investments in our business platform that we have discussed this morning, combined with the strong growth we have seen in our customer file and Celebrations Passport program, strategic pricing initiatives and moderation in several cost headwinds we have incurred enable us to gradually achieve improved gross margins and bottom line results during the latter half of the current fiscal year.

As we have noted in our formal remarks, through the first 2 months of the current fiscal quarter, we have seen continued cautious consumer spending behavior, reflecting the impact of price inflation. As a result, for the current fiscal first quarter, we anticipate revenues will be down in the range of 3% to 6% compared with the prior year period.

In terms of cost inputs. Year-over-year costs for labor, shipping commodities and digital marketing have remained high through the 2 months of our fiscal first quarter. As a result, we anticipate that our adjusted EBITDA loss for the current period will be in the range of $28 million to $33 million.

Importantly, for the full fiscal year, we anticipate reduced capital expenditures as well as lower working capital needs compared with the prior year. As a result, we expect to generate a substantial improvement in year-over-year free cash flow. I will now turn the call back to Chris.

Thank you, Bill. So to put things in context, during the pre-COVID stage, we invested in our key brands and increased our revenue growth rate from low single digits to double digits, prior to the start of the pandemic. During the pandemic stage, we were able to respond and benefit from the tremendous surge in demand as consumers who were locked down turn to us to help them stay connected with the important people in their lives.

In addition to doubling the size of our business to more than $2 billion, we also more than doubled the size of our customer file and our Celebrations Passport loyalty program. Now as we move into [labor] of post-COVID stage, we're facing a number of challenges, including our precedented rapid rise in cost inputs from labor to shipping commodities that have impacted our gross margins. In addition, consumers have become increasingly cautious in their purchasing behavior in reaction to the high inflationary environment.

With that said, we achieved 4% revenue growth in our fiscal '22 year and more than 75% growth we achieved since our fiscal 2019 prior to the pandemic. This includes strong organic growth as well as contributions from the highly accretive strategic acquisitions of Personalization Mall and Vital Choice that we made during the pended. Along with our internal focus on creating truly original products, these acquisitions have helped us significantly expand our product offering and provide more ways to help our customers stay connected.

Fiscal 2022, we also attracted more than 5 million new customers on top of the nearly 10 million new customers that we have attracted since fiscal 2019. We have also seen our Celebrations Passport loyalty program more than double in size over the past 2 years, helping to drive enhanced conversion, retention and frequency. On the cost front, we know the current macro environment is unpredictable and inflation remains high, and we are laser-focused on managing those aspects of our cost structure within our control.

We've been able to use our balance sheet to make investments in inventory and facility automation that have helped us partially mitigate rising costs that we've experienced. These investments position us to improve our gross margins and bottom line results as macro economy costs gradually self-correct over time. Our performance over the past several years pre-COVID, during a pandemic and post-COVID demonstrates our ability to navigate through what has been and continues to be in a predictable and volatile economic environment.

As I've mentioned in past calls, as a company, we have faced challenging market conditions in the past. And because of the strength of our unique business platform combined with our talented and experienced team, we have consistently emerged a bigger, better and stronger company. As a company, we are continuously evolving with an increasing volume of highly relevant digital content, a broadening range of community building engagement initiatives and unique gift offerings for every emotion, and we are dedicated to helping inspire our community of customers to stay connected and to give more.

As we look forward, we are confident that we are positioned to perform well and grow our company while building shareholder value over the long-term. In closing, as in my past calls, I'd like to thank all of our associates. Our talented team throughout the company has been hard at work addressing the challenges that we see every day in the macro environment.

We appreciate our team's dedication and creative thinking as they focus on the importance of engaging with our community of customers to help them give more, connect more and to build more and better relationships.

This concludes our formal remarks. And if the operator will now open the call for questions, please.

(Operator Instructions) And the first question will come from Dan Kurnos with The Benchmark Group.

Great. Chris, maybe just to pick up on the theme that you're sort of talking about here, highlighting the outlook -- the revenue outlook. Big picture, how much of this do you think is -- the pullback is reopening and versus macro? And from your vantage point, I think the big concern out there is that there's going to be some kind of retracement in revenue levels from sort of the pandemic peak, whereas you guys obviously had some pretty strong cohort KPIs around even pandemic new adds.

So just -- can you help us frame the conversation from your point of view over the next 12, 24, 36 months on what you think kind of the revenue base actually is here?

Sure, Dan, thank you for the question. That's what I was just trying to do really is to put in context what we've been through for the past couple of years. And as we may start to make investments to grow our business in the pre-pandemic stage, we saw us be able to move the growth rate of our company from a low single digit to double-digit rates before the pandemic.

And because of the strength of the company, we were able to respond to the great surge in demand that came through in the pandemic. We were able to produce the record results that we did in top line, bottom line, customer metrics televisions, passport membership, et cetera. So as we look going forward, right now, what we're really being hit with is 2 things really.

The cost pressures that came on at an unprecedented pace last year, and we have to get through that anniversary through that. And as Bill pointed out in his remarks, starting to moderate. Hopefully, we're seeing some early moderation, hopefully, that trend continues. In addition, as we look at the consumer, the consumer started to get affected, we saw it as early as December at back in our call at the end of January, I think some -- whether you or somebody who was saying, an area in the gold mine seeing the consumer pullback before others.

So we had that factor at play here right now. We're starting to see signs and maybe the consumer is starting to recover as fuel costs have dropped. We started to see reports come out this week about consumer confidence starting to improve. So when we step back and look at where we are, we often use the term a bigger, better, stronger company.

And we clearly are. We doubled the size that we were pre-pandemic. We've added many more capabilities. We're becoming much more of a content and engagement company. And not to be lost, just a little comment I made in my remarks about when people engage with the content that we produce, they're converting at 300 to 500 bps better than what those who do not. So it shows that, that's working. It shows that our Passport membership is working. It shows that our cross-brand initiatives, our bundles, are working.

What we need to do is -- so as we look at the next 12, 24, 36 months, we're extremely excited about the position that we're in as a company, and know that as we manage through this difficult environment where we now will come out of this, again, a bigger, better, stronger company.

So let's take that a step further and maybe Bill, you can chime in here. Obviously, the cost -- so if we look at from 2019, the cost base level is substantially higher, especially due to labor. You clearly have some inputs around freight and commodities that may ease, but I've not seen a third-party carrier yet, that -- yes, we're charging $8, now we're going to charge you $5. So with that in mind and given the investments you're making in automation and other things, like how do we think about the underlying base margin level when you come out of this?

And in the short-term, what's the incremental margin impact relative to $1 of revenue that the consumer maybe pulls back on?

So Dan, maybe I can break down for you, with respect to gross margins, and we were 500 basis points down for the year, 700 basis points down in the fourth quarter. Talked about a lot of components of that in the release and in our formal remarks.

It is freight, but it's both inbound and outbound freight. It is labor, It is commodity for us. It was some inventory write-off. So we kind of break it down. The inventory write-offs probably in the fourth quarter was maybe 100 basis points of our margin. We need to get back, and we plan to get back to a more normalized level of inventory write-offs. We had anticipated to assume it to be consumer demand to be stronger than it was. And so we made certain commitments on perishable inventory and ended up having to write some of that off.

We'll get back to a more normalized level on that. On the freight side, probably 300 basis points of our margin hit is freight, but a lot of that is both is inbound as well as outbound. We're already seeing in the ocean -- the ocean side of it, significant improvements or reductions in cost. We talked a lot about throughout this past year that we had a quintupling of our ocean rates. They've come down.

They're probably double what they were 2 years ago. but there's obviously significantly down from where they were last year, it's tight. Now we have to cycle through that because a lot of the inventory we're sitting on was bought during the height of those costs. But we're seeing it dramatically drop.

The spot markets have dropped dramatically. A lot of these things are -- these cost pressures are somewhat supply and demand. Commodity costs spiked because of inflationary factors, some of the geopolitical facts. But we're seeing some moderation of that. Commodity cost probably cost us 200 basis points in fourth quarter, maybe 100 basis points on the year.

We're seeing some moderation there. So there are certain items that probably do not self correct. Labor rates, we've talked about in the past, are high and they probably don't moderate. So that's why -- it's one of the reasons of -- one of the benefits of the investments we're making in automating our facilities is to help offset that. We have to do more with less, both the access to labor and labor rates, the automation investments that we're making are addressing that.

With respect to outbound freight, you're right, rates are not going to go back down. The third-party carriers are not going to reduce their rates. But there's a big -- a component of that is fuel. And fuel is -- does fluctuate with what's happening out there. We're off the highs of fuel back in kind of the March-April time frame. Hopefully, that continues to motivate. The government projections has that continuing to moderate into the future.

But we're doing things on the logistics side to move inventory closer to the consumer, have inventory in the right spot, challenging the transit times that exists. So can we use a cheaper service to get it there and still meet customers' expectations on that. So there are initiatives that we have in play to help offset some of these costs.

But some of these things are macro in nature and just takes time to flush through. And that's why we're talking about the latter part of the year, we believe we should see sizable increases in gross margin.

So a key factor there, Bill, just to make sure Dan needs to take away what Bill was saying that, we talked about some of our bigger initiatives of automation, bringing inventory in early producing inventory early to help with the labor front, but there's many other initiatives to help with our cost structure.

The logistics are optimizing shipping routes and things like that, that Bill just referenced. So there's a whole program of work smarter initiatives we have to address the new cost structure that we see going forward.

And Dan, this is Tom. Just on the other side of that, we are looking where appropriate strategic pricing initiatives to offset some of these costs -- like Bill said, we do think we're going to have certainly less shrink than we had in the perishable products. And part of the labor this last year was because of supply disruption, I mean, now we're in a much better position than we were in the prior year. So we're not expecting to have people standing around in our fulfillment locations because we can't get one component part so.

Got it. And just -- I don't want to go on with this. I just want to -- just 2 points of clarification. Does this change your outlook at some point that you're still targeting double-digit EBITDA margins over time? And on your free cash flow guide, really you had significant improvement, in the press release the word positive. Those are 2 very different things. So which is it?

It's both. This year, we had a negative $61 million in free cash flow. But if you look on our comments on our statement of cash flows, you see the significant investment we've made in working capital. Our inventory is up $93 million year-over-year.

So that's a big investment that we made that goes against the free cash flow. That was to address what many companies we're looking to address was the supply chain, the global supply chain challenges that had kind of broken last year. People did not (inaudible) and what Tom was referencing, not having all the inventory where you needed it to be when you got the labor in.

So we made that investment. That's a onetime investment. We're now at a high level of inventory. Most likely, that inventory is going to come down this year, both -- tied to -- ultimately to demand, but also the supply chain is improving. We're not seeing the same disruptions at the ports that existed a year ago.

So as supply chain improves, companies will get back to more normalized and we will get back more normalized inventory levels. So that headwind or investment in working capital becomes a tailwind on free cash flow next year. Additionally, CapEx, the last 2 years, we're investing in automation of our facilities, both our Southern Ohio facility and our Atlanta facility.

Those for the most part are behind us. So what we have -- so what we're expecting is the CapEx that was $66 million last -- $55 million 2 years ago, $66 million this past year, we'll probably be down around $20 million. So that directly affects free cash flow. So the combination of working capital -- the working capital investments we made this year and the reduced CapEx is over $100 million of -- that will be an improvement over this past year and have as a positive free cash flow next year.

And the margin question?

Yes. I mean right now, Dan, we believe, as Chris mentioned, we are a bigger, better company than we were before. That ultimately, over the long-term, we're going to get back to sustainable strong growth from a top line perspective and a lot of the margin pressures do self-correct...

It doesn't change our long-term outlook.

The next question will come from Anthony Lebiedzinski with Sidoti & Company.

So on the surface, and I know, Bill, you touched on this a little bit, but inventories were high, up 61% from last year. Just curious, how much of this is due to inflation? And are there any risks to markdowns or additional write-downs of inventory?

Yes, the big step-up in inventory really was a conscious effort on our part to get ahead of the supply chain or the potential supply chain challenges. Again, we all got burned -- many companies got burned last year because of the supply chain, and we did as well.

So we made a big effort. Inventory is up $93 million, maybe $10 million or so of that is due to the Vital Choice acquisition, but the rest of it was a conscious effort. Is inventory at a higher value than it was historically? Yes, because our costs are up. So as our costs go up -- and if our costs are up across the board, 10-plus percent, double-digit percent, that value of the inventory is up that much. But most of it is units. It's non-perishable inventory, and it puts us in a good position as we head towards the holiday -- to execute this holiday.

So we're not expecting to write down that last year?

No. We expect (inaudible) write down the next year.

Okay. Got it. So given the pressures on the consumer, are you perhaps maybe looking to broaden your merchandising strategy in terms of just maybe having maybe more opening price points? Just how do you think about that going forward here?

Yes, Anthony. I'll ask Tom to take that one.

Anthony, Tom, so listen, we're very much going to market with a broad pricing strategy. We want to have price points that meet each consumer's budget and needs. And that has been an initiative that's been going on.

It's part -- certainly part of our initiative as we do M&A activities. But also, we've been expanding our internal product assortment just product development. We're continuing to push and utilize more drop shippers. We have our marketplace sellers initiative that's going on and growing well. So we're expanding our product assortment widely.

And again, we're trying to get the right products in front of the customer to meet their occasions and their needs, and that's a big focus around customization and product personalization for us.

And that's a key factor, Anthony, as we look at the expanding product offerings that we have, as Tom pointed out, through development, through marketplace, through acquisition, plus enhance customer file and the enhanced Passport membership that we have, those are 3 of the key tenets of what really position us well for the future.

Got it. And in terms of your wholesale business, I know sometimes that can vary in terms of timing of shipments to retailers between 1Q and 2Q. What are you expecting? What's embedded in your guidance for the first quarter?

Yes, Anthony, we -- you're right, we do have those orders in play. I know we do believe in Q1 that wholesale should be up slightly over a year ago for the season, Q1 and Q2 combined, we expect wholesale to be up year-over-year. We have those orders in play. The big box guys have ordered up this year over prior year.

Got it. Okay. And then just curious as far as your appetite for share repurchases, how should we think about that going forward?

Yes, I think as we've seen in the past, last year, we worked under an increased authorization and we've gone through that. As we look at cash usage, we think the best place to use cash is where we've talked about already, we'll invest in automation, investing in the business as we have been through M&A activities so at this point, we don't see our strategy really changing as far as cash, cash allocation is concerned.

Got it. Okay. And then lastly, as far as the automation efforts, are you at the tail end of that initiative? Or like, I guess, in baseball terms, I mean, what inning are you in, in terms of the automation initiatives?

Yes. The big initiatives we are very much in the late innings as we are just wrapping up the Atlanta facility as we speak. There will always be incremental equipment that we can buy to help automate various aspects of the business. But the facilities, the Southern Ohio and the Atlanta facility are 2 big facilities. (inaudible). Yes.

The next question will come from Michael Kupinski with Noble Capital Markets.

I appreciate that. Obviously, we're in a rising interest rate environment still. And so the consumer confidence improvement might just be a little bit of a head fake as we kind of cycle through some of these rate increases. And so I was just wondering, in terms of your playbook that we've seen in the past, the past economic cycles you've been through and so forth, how is your strategy in terms of expanding product offerings, increasing your marketing spend and so forth, kind of weigh that against some of the past cycles you've been in and how you're positioned yourself?

Is it similar to the past cycles you've been in? Or are you doing something differently than what you've done in the past? Just kind of give us some thoughts on that.

Well, I think we're always building on what we've learned and what we've done well in the past -- Michael, and it's good to hear from you. Thank you. I think as we look at our strategies going forward, again, if I reference the pre-pandemic stage of pre-COVID stage, we saw the opportunity to accelerate customer acquisition based on the marketing costs and the effectiveness that we saw in the market.

And therefore, we took advantage of that and investing more money behind Flowers and behind Harry & David specifically. Now it's paying off very nicely once. We moved into the pandemic, we, again, because of the costing, we saw the ability to really step on the gas pedal and step up our customer acquisition.

I think we -- this year, we still -- even when things tightened, we still acquired 5 million new customers on top of the 10 million new customers we've acquired since '19. So we'll always play a nimble game there. And Tom, if you want to add any color here, but we'll always play a nimble game as to where we see the opportunity. Right now, in this current market, we're not seeing the opportunity to accelerate new customer growth, but new customer growth is part of our strategy.

Yes. So -- Michael, a couple of things there. I mean, obviously, we just talked about our inventory, et cetera. We think we have expanded inventory. We have a better catchment for our customers a bit more opportunities to be relevant. Also, just I think we're -- as we continue to develop and mature as a company, we continue to get more customer focused in trying to, again, put that portfolio of products, the right products in front of them.

So we think that's a big advantage compared to where we were probably 3 to 4 years ago. I'd say just echo Chris' point, I mean, we are disciplined around CAC versus LTV and we're watching that. And making sure that we're still putting forth and we're going to realize return on those investments over time. So that's an important piece of the equation here.

And importantly, Tom, you just hit on a point, which is critical, I think people would understand and our focus on our existing customer base. We continue to see improvements, as we said, in doubling the size of the Celebrations Passport, again, which comes with that increased frequency, increase retention rate, the same thing that customer is buying from more than one product category, buying our bundled product, et cetera.

And I think that was reflected in our release and our remarks where we highlighted that last year, even while we still acquired 1.5 million new customers, which was down from the year before. 70% of our revenue came from existing customers, and we saw growth in existing customers. So that's a jewel for us to really continue to mine and get even better at.

Got you. And then talking about your marketing spend a little bit. I did notice that the company was spending on television in the quarter and was just -- did you change a little bit of your marketing spend? Was there a change in the marketing mix? Anything related to that in the quarter?

Yes, Michael, certainly, we continue to move and progress in more top of the model and more mid-funnel activities. We're very focused as we started off the call just around creative in content and matching those right pieces with the right ad units, et cetera. And so -- yes, in order to gain more share, more reach, we're constantly looking to move up the food chain, if you will, on our marketing activities. And again, we've been we're able to do those things and measure those pretty effectively so.

Got you. And then just kind of going back to what I asked about before, how is the company's strategy of expanding product offerings while looking into the prospect of an economic downturn at some point? How does that compare to past recessions and the past cycles. I know that your -- the changes in your product offerings are going to lower price products. I think as you kind of look at the inflationary impact, but I was just wondering in terms of the expansion?

Because I think in the past, I think you kind of brought down the number of products. And I was just wondering in terms of SKU numbers and things like that, are we looking at the prospects of having the similar number of SKUs, higher number of SKUs? What can we expect as we go into what could be an even more challenging economic environment?

Thank you, Michael. I think as we constantly in conversation with our customers and what products we can bring to the table for them, that will continue to guide us. I don't think as we move forward in the recession, we'll be potentially reducing number of SKUs. If anything, we'll continue to add to the SKUs because we find that the more choice we give -- and as Tom pointed out earlier, a broad price range is working for us.

Now even in this quarter, you saw AOV tick up a little bit. A good part of that was from a higher household income customers continuing to buy higher price point products. So even while we're making sure we have the entry-level price points, we need to make sure we're taking care of the customer at the higher end as well.

So -- and then I think a key factor, as we look at product expansion, is how do we do that, whether it's organic development? Tom mentioned earlier, the marketplace growth that we continue to see in well over 10,000 SKUs coming from third-party vendors right now on our platform. Well as if we see the opportunity for M&A activity, we'll go that way as well.

And my final question is, I know that last year, we were cycling against some significant wage rate increases and so forth. Are we now cycling against that? Or are we still seeing wage pressures?

I think we're in a better shape from a labor standpoint than we were this time a year ago. We talked a lot about on various calls, the big step-up in labor rates that we saw last year versus the year prior and the 2 years prior to that. So we see -- it seems to be more of a stabilization of labor rates in market. There seems to be some degree, a stabilization of even the hiring and the availability of labor.

With that said, our big hiring for the season is still ahead of us. So we haven't hit that yet, but we're certainly sitting in a better position today than we were a year ago.

The next question will come from Alex Fuhrman with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Chris, I was hoping you could tell us maybe a little bit about where customers have been starting to pull back in terms of purchasing occasion. Are they still buying for special events in their own lives like anniversaries and birthdays?

Curious if one of those kind of areas or self-consumption or just kind of everyday gifting has been impacted more. And just trying to get a sense of if people are still spending on those key events that maybe might suggest they might come back for major holidays like Valentine's Day again.

Yes, Alex, thank you. That's exactly what we're continuing to see is that the softness in its (inaudible) since not just this past [few] quarters but beginning last year, beginning December really, post-December, post-holiday is where those -- we saw the weakness has really been more on those everyday occasions, the birthdays, the anniversaries, just because occasions, et cetera.

We've had a strong holiday season. We had a strong Valentine season, strong Mother's Day, was good for us. But it's been in those everyday occasions that we've seen the softness. And that's where we've been moving, especially on the food business. But the last 2 prior years, we've seen good growth in (inaudible) on the business, (inaudible) seen a little shift that's also what gives us some good optimism as we go forward into the upcoming holiday season is that customers are still stepping up for those really must-have holiday gifts.

Yes. And Alex, just a reminder, I think we said it in our formal remarks, but reminder where we are, even on those everyday occasions versus 3 years ago, in the pre-pandemic side. Our Food Group even in the fourth quarter was up over 100% over 2019. So a lot of that is lose everyday occasion. So while we're seeing a consumer pullback now year-over-year over the pre-pandemic. We had such large growth during the pandemic stage that was still doubling the size of what we -- where we were 3 years ago.

Yes. Very good point.

The next question will come from Linda Bolton-Weiser with D.A. Davidson.

Yes. So just to clarify, Bill, the free cash flow for FY '23, you're saying it will be positive, a positive number. Is that correct?

Yes. I mean, not giving guidance for the year, we've only given it for the quarter. But free cash flow, we know we have $100-plus million addition to where last year's were because of the investments we made in working capital and the higher CapEx that we have. So -- yes, we are saying that free cash flow will be positive.

Okay. And then I'm just -- you made a lot of reference to FY '19. And so I'm going back and looking at the financials back then. And your company is much bigger on a revenue scale than it was then. But your cost structure is also higher.

So I'm trying to figure out like you had $82 million of EBITDA that year and a 42% gross margin. While your gross margin is a lot lower today, so I'm just trying to figure out, I mean, it seems like you would not be able to earn $82 million today with a higher cost structure.

Am I thinking of that correctly? I mean, is there any way to kind of help us think about the differences now, today, versus FY '19 in the profit level?

I mean, well, Linda, I mean, obviously, what we've been talking about throughout this fiscal year as we've reported each of the quarters is the challenges we're having on the gross margin side. So yes, we were at 42% back in 2019. But a lot of the macro issues have caused a lot of the cost inputs for our gross margins to be up. Those are not permanent. We believe those will ultimately self-correct over time.

I gave the example of ocean freight that went from -- again, a few years ago, we were paying $4,000 a container. We went up to over $25,000 a container a year ago. Those things have dropped dramatically. The spot market now is like below $10,000 a container to bring in from China.

So things are -- things -- there were significant cost inputs that impacted our margins. Some of them still exist today. Some of them are improving. And we think over time, they will improve. That coupled with the initiatives that we have in play as well as Tom referenced in pricing, we'll start seeing improvements in margin again.

Right. So the key factor is we're recognizing some of the costs while, Bill says will improve, are not going to go away, but that's why we have initiatives in place internally to restructure -- to redo our cost structure. Automation being an example of that.

Okay. And I missed -- I know you said something about gross margin being up year-over-year. Did you mean for full year FY '22 and FY '23? Or did you mean in FY '24?

Linda, this is Tom. I think Bill just misspoke. I mean, he meant to say down when he was describing those. Gross margins were down in '22.

(inaudible) '22, gross margins were down. And I think what I said and what we're referencing in our margins the second half of the year, we expect to see improvements in gross margins year-over-year in the latter part of this fiscal year.

Okay. But I mean, the key quarter though was the second quarter. So I mean, it doesn't sound like gross margin can be up in that quarter. Is that correct?

Linda, we're giving guidance on a quarter-by-quarter basis here, right? So we gave guidance for the first quarter. Now we believe certainly, over the longer term, margins are going to improve. We believe the second half of the year, margins will improve as we comp against the high points of where the costs were, and we're starting to see improvements.

The higher cost we started to incur started in Q2 last year and obviously peaked in Q3 and (inaudible) so we've provided the guidance that we're providing so far.

Okay. And I'm just curious about the pricing. I mean -- it's a hard business in the sense that margins are sand. You do have a lot of online competitors, but a lot of those are not profitable. So they're facing the same types of cost pressures. So I'm curious about why your pricing can't be higher and more offset some of the pressures for you? Is there competitive things that are different today versus a couple of years ago?

I think it's mainly not so much -- it's not a competitive issue, really. It is a marketplace issue as far as in the product category that we play in, what's the value perception the consumer has on a product. we're constantly testing our pricing. And every time we see if the pricing moves to the point where we see a drop in demand and drop in conversion rates, they know the consumer is pushing back and that's too far to push on the pricing. So that's why we say we're very strategic about how we look at pricing initiatives.

More importantly, they make so that we're merchandising to give customers the low way to price points they need. But as I pointed out also, we're seeing customers that are higher household customers depend on the higher price points, helping to drive up AOV.

So it cuts across the board, but we just -- at the price points that we play in, I don't think you have as much price elasticity as one might think.

Linda, it's Tom. The point here is that we -- because of our scale, we do have other opportunities that our competitors in the larger verticals, our brands don't have. And we've been using that to gain market share, and we've seen that growth in Q4, our largest brands and particularly on the Flowers brand for the year, for December, February, May and for the whole year, we've had significant increases in market share, and we're going to continue to look at that. And hopefully, that changes the competitive dynamic over time

Have you thought about trading off market share for profitability? Giving up some market share to have better profitability?

Again, the first and most important thing is centered around the customer and making sure we're focused on the customer and the lifetime value of that customer and having the right product in front of them and when there's the opportunity on an item where we've created that appropriate value, we'll take pricing on it.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Chris McCann for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

I'd just like to thank everyone for joining us today. Certainly, if you have any follow-up questions, we're here answer those for you, and I appreciate the time and wish everybody a good end of summer season.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.