BARK, Inc. (NYSE:BARK) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Zahir Ibrahim: Yes, on the consumables question, like we said, $15 million and that 30% growth. And that’s obviously continuing to grow quarter-over-quarter as we get more of that emphasis on bark.co. And it’s really as more traffic moves over there either, as we take the legacy BarkBox customers in that direction, and we take the ad spend in that direction, it’s going to accelerate the cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. The timing of that, we’re looking for that to happen in fiscal year ’25, ideally before the holidays, but it’s a big move, so we’ll go when we’re ready, but in fiscal year ’25, where that takes us in terms of the consumables, if I look out over four or five years, you’re looking for something like 35% to 40% of the business moving into the consumables realm instead of the toys, or counter the toys.

Ygal Arounian: And that’s across D2C and commerce.

Zahir Ibrahim: Yes. Thank you.

Ygal Arounian: Okay, all right, great. And then, just a big picture one, Matt, I see you made a comment about the current valuation. It’s got about 50% of your market cap is in net cash. And so, sometimes you just don’t see the opportunity, maybe the company would. And just want to see if you could expand on that thought a little bit. How do you think about that? How much time do you give it? What else can you talk about there that might be helpful for investors? Thank you.

Matt Meeker: I think the situation remains the same that we — given all these dynamics, the strength of the balance sheet, we talked about having over $130 million of cash, the free cash flow over the past 12 months, the inventory position, the gross margin expansion, just everything. We feel really good about the business overall. And when you — I’d say like when I or we look at that objectively and look at the value of the company, we would say to investors we think it’s a great opportunity. And so, we also have to look at ourselves as potential investors, again, given the cash balance and what our cash needs or generation that we expect in the future will be. So, we have to take that same lens and view it as an opportunity, and that’s exactly how we’ll behave.

Ygal Arounian: Thanks, Matt.

Operator: Your next question comes from Kaumil Gajrawala with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Keith Devas: Hey, guys. Good evening. This is Keith Devas on for Kaumil. I’d love to jump back to the customer acquisition on the quarter and if you could provide any context really on any differences you’re seeing in the cohorts from a purchasing habits standpoint, the types of products are in the box, any initial term assumptions. I think in the past you shared that some of the cohorts during COVID, et cetera, were unprofitable. So, I’m trying to gauge, get a sense of the difference between the two, if you could?

Matt Meeker: Just so I make sure I answer that question, and thank you for it, are you talking about the recent cohorts where we associated with those customers we acquired here in this quarter — this past quarter?

Keith Devas: Yes, that’s right.

Matt Meeker: Okay. Well, in some ways, a little too early to tell because we have anywhere from one month of renewal to two or three. So, a little bit early in the lifespan, but from a retention point of view, from an average order point of view, and all the dynamics that go around that, pretty on par, pretty steady with what we’ve seen over the last, call it at least four quarters, maybe eight quarters. And those have been strong. And so, when we sort of bubble all that up together and you look at the trend line of our lifetime value, we’re seeing a real acceleration there to our highest point. This quarter was our highest point of lifetime value. And of course, that’s propelled by really solid or strong retention combined with the gross margin expansion you’re seeing that’s leading to on a gross profit basis that very high lifetime value, so, feeling great about that.

Obviously, we will continue to monitor it, but often running that cohort looks historically pretty consistent.

Keith Devas: Got it. Thank you. And then, on the retail rollout, I know you guys are there with toys. Now you’re going into treats. Trying to get a sense of where you need to incrementally invest to kind of capture that different customer, understanding that maybe they’re already devoted to certain treat brands, et cetera. So, how do you kind of capture that customer as you roll out into retail and where do you need to invest to do so?

Zahir Ibrahim: Hi Keith, this is Zahir. We’re launching with the two retailers that we’ve already shared, and we hit the shelves at the start of fiscal 2025. We’ve got strong distribution, so six to seven SKUs in each of the retailers, national distribution. That’s going to give us a lot of visibility in both of those retail chains, good shelf placement. We’ll maximize opportunities to do things like — and aisle placements, seasonal opportunities, and things like that. So, you’ll amplify the inline performance with doing other things as well. We’ll have a comprehensive shopper marketing and in-store marketing program to go with it. And then beyond that, we’ll be having conversations with other retailers in parallel. And based on their research, we’ll be looking to expand distribution to other retailers towards the back end of fiscal 2025.