The Lovesac Company (NASDAQ:LOVE) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Mary Fox: Yes, no. Thank you for the question, Matt. So I think first thing, we were incredibly happy with our performance of Cyber 5, as you mentioned. And from all industry reports, we know we outperformed the category significantly upon a lot of market share. I think in terms of dynamics all of our channels contribute to this strong performance. It really felt like we were back to 2019, strong traffic showrooms, e-commerce growth well into the late evening and it was great being back in the front line. I think we saw consumers coming in that had done their research, were very focused in what they wanted to buy. And as we said with you back in the last call a month ago, we’re not seeing anything in terms of trade down or some trade up, particularly in the fill, but also just storage [Technical Difficulty] seats and other things that really drive up AOV.

So that continued financing. Trust that’s all continued. I think as you talked about, you know, were people waiting for sure? And we saw that across the industry with others coming out with deals even earlier than Halloween. So we were a little bit later. We promised that we gave them the best deal, and we were holding to that, and we did. So you can see a little bit more of that pent-up demand coming, which is obviously the results that we’ve had. So super happy from obviously everything we’ve done and we’ve baked all of that performance into our guidance for this year. We’re a third of the way [Technical Difficulty] taught us a lot to come, but it was obviously amazing to see the performance and just really reinforcing the brand’s presence and just great job to our teams.

I mean managing those record days is our little showroom with incredible productivity. It was great to sit in and they did an amazing job.

Matt Koranda: Okay, very helpful Mary, and thank you. And then maybe for Keith, just on the gross margin, I want to do a tagger from a different angle. So in the third quarter, you had an upside surprise versus sort of the commentary that you had last call. Just wondering what drove the upside and then for the fourth quarter in terms of product margin are we baking in a deeper headwind in that sub-60 outlook that you talked about just maybe talk about the bridge especially as it pertains to product margin in the fourth quarter? Thank you.

Keith Siegner: Yes, sure. So starting with the third quarter and where maybe some of that upside came from, I think it gets back to what Mary was just saying, which is we’ve been seeing some decent premium upgrades, things like Lovesoft, things like storage seats and add-ons along those lines, as well as a little bit more shift towards Sactionals within the mix of product versus where we might have been. The surgical price increases we’ve been taking on certain of those products has also been beneficial. It’s not been broad-based or materially large in terms of price increase, but put the whole package together and that got us a little upside on the quarter. When you’re thinking about fourth quarter, really what’s happening is we’re lapping some of the abatement of the inbound freight costs that we’re really pressuring last year.

That’s why we’re seeing less of a year-over-year benefit in the Q4. It’s more the easing of the tailwind on a year-over-year basis that’s causing that deceleration and expansion. You’ll notice that, like we do get a higher absolute gross margin in Q4 than Q3, because we do get some leverage. The higher sales gives us some leverage over things like warehouse costs and so on and so forth. But that’s why what I was saying earlier was when we think about holistically where we are in gross margins here in these high-50s, This feels like a good level for a full-year basis for us and barring any systemic shocks. I think the way the business is trending, we feel good here.

Matt Koranda: Okay, much appreciated and best of luck for holiday guys. Thanks.

Keith Siegner: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question is from the line of Alex Fuhrman with Craig-Hallum Capital. Please Proceed with your questions.

Alex Fuhrman: Hey guys, thanks very much for taking my question and congratulations on a really strong year. You know, Mary, I think you mentioned a couple times and Shawn, you know, touched on as well that you set new records for peak days and weeks here during the holiday season so far. You know, you guys have done a really good job historically over the last couple of years of being able to handle those volumes without any, kind of, shipping delays or anything like that. But can you talk about the profitability of those orders on peak days? Are there any incremental costs that you start to incur when you’re operating near your peak capacity and, you know, would it be more profitable if there were ways to smooth out demand a little bit more?

Mary Fox: Yes, no, thank you, Alex. Great question. And yes, it was phenomenal thing those record performances. I think, you know, the team had planned for everything and as we go through different scenarios and working with our last marketing partners, you know, we’d come to that capacity. So therefore there wasn’t any incremental cost, you know, that really came in. So, from that side, certainly, you know, to what we planned for, and the team did a great job smoothing that through. I think the second piece, you know, as we think about [Technical Difficulty] we talked about predict spring, we completed that full rollout, and that’s significantly improving the speed of transaction. So when you have five or six customers in a showroom on those peak days or even more, just having that speed and the technology to be able to transact has really, really helped.