Cimpress plc (NASDAQ:CMPR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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There is still room for improvement, especially on the Vista side. We continue to optimize. We have specific plans for that. We have teams that are focused on that every day. But I do think that the pace of that especially after this fiscal year is likely to slow. So to the question of kind of what’s left to go get, I think the opportunity set is lower than it was over the last year, just given the steps that we’ve already taken. But there still is opportunity, and we monitor that very closely.

Meredith Burns: Great, and then this one can be, I think, a quick follow-up because you’ve already talked a bit about what we’re seeing in terms of the cost inputs lately. But inflation peaked in the late summer and has been gradually coming down, but the gross margin pressure this past quarter was more pronounced than two quarters ago, 400 basis points of compression this quarter versus 200 two quarters ago. Why is that?

Sean Quinn: Yes, just like anything, we will experience the market over time. And when it comes to how we buy, we always seek to be below the market, but we have to move with the market over time because a lot of that is underpinned by things like commodity pricing and so on. But we don’t move exactly with the market. So we do see stabilization, I mentioned that, but we don’t see cost overall coming down yet at least in most of our main input costs. Although as I just mentioned, things like inbound freight or down quite a bit, and we’re seeing stabilization elsewhere. So cost did still have an impact over the last six months, because I think the question is referring to gross margins in the December quarter versus the June quarter.

So costs still did have an impact, although the shape of that is definitely improving. Product mix, again, here is a big driver. So in some of our businesses, gross margins did €“ sorry, did increase in the December quarter versus June. And in some cases, they were lower. But again, Vista has the biggest impact here. In Vista, our gross margins were down about 400 basis points in the December quarter versus June, if you compare them back to June. There’s really three drivers to that. One is that, like I said before, consumers where we’ve done less on a net pricing basis given the competitiveness there and the price sensitivity and consumers much higher in the mix in the December quarter. Two, business cards and stationery that category is amongst our highest variable gross margins, and that has a higher concentration in the June quarter.

There’s a little bit of seasonality there. But that was 32% of our bookings in the June quarter, it was 25% of our bookings in the December quarter. So again, mix. And then the other thing is that we did have a €“ we mentioned this in the release, we had a $3.1 million charge in Q2 that comes through gross profit. And so that’s about 70 basis points alone of that overall 400 basis points delta. So consumer, some of the business card mix and then that charge has an impact as well.

Meredith Burns: Great, thanks. Okay. Robert, we continue to grow headcount at a time when results are weak and other businesses are entering cost-saving mode given the macro uncertainty. Why does it make sense to continue to add where we are adding?

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