Yahoo Finance Vera Bradley, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRA) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
Vera Bradley, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRA) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript June 12, 2024
Vera Bradley, Inc. misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $-0.21 EPS, expectations were $0.11.
Operator: Greetings. Welcome to the Vera Bradley First Quarter Fiscal 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants will be in listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll now turn the conference over to Mark Dely, Chief Administrative Officer. Mr. Dely, you may begin.
Mark Dely: Good morning and welcome everyone. We'd like to thank you for joining us for today's call. Some of the statements made during our prepared remarks in response to your questions may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to and within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 as amended. Such forward-looking statements are subject to both known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that we expect. Please refer to today's press release in the company's most recent Form 10-K filed with the SEC for discussion of known risks and uncertainties. Investors should not assume that the statements made during the call will remain operative at a later time. We undertake no obligation to update any information discussed on today's call. I will now turn the call over to Vera Bradley, CEO, Jackie Ardrey. Jackie?
Jackie Ardrey: Thank you, Mark. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. We have a lot to discuss today about the upcoming rollout of project restoration, but let me begin by making a few comments on the first quarter. Overall, our first quarter performance reflected the continuation of a number of trends from last year. Many of these were driven by the same economic challenges that several other specialty retailers have noted in their earnings releases. We are also in a transitionary phase with the upcoming July public facing rollout of Project Restoration, which includes the introduction of new Vera Bradley product assortments late in the second quarter. Not surprisingly, our first quarter performance was a bit choppy.
I'd like to note that we expected much of this turbulence and that our guidance for this year, which Michael will discuss later in the call, is unchanged. I'm especially proud of the entire Vera Bradley organization for running the ongoing business while simultaneously taking on the extraordinary amount of effort necessary to enter the launch phase of Project Restoration. While we have been working on this for well over a year, many pieces are now going into motion as we make this long anticipated transition. We are very excited. In our first quarter, Vera Bradley direct revenues fell 4%, primarily related to continued traffic challenges in our outlet channel. We are seeing the impact of reduced visits and spending across all household incomes and channels, but especially in the under $75,000 households where we have high penetration on our outlets.
Full line store and e-commerce revenues were down modestly, boosted by the shift of our annual outlet sale in Fort Wayne to the first quarter this year from the second quarter last year, as well as our recently launched online outlet store, which has been successful driving revenue and new customer acquisition. Customers responded to several of our latest product collaborations and to our newer but limited quantity product offerings like leather and beaded bags. Overall, however, consumers continue to be more discriminating with their discretionary spending in light of the macroeconomic environment. On the Vera Bradley Indirect side, revenues fell 25% as our wholesale partners were cautious with inventory buys as they awaited our new launch products in the second quarter and as a large off-price order shifted into the second quarter this year from the first quarter last year.
Pura Vida year over year first quarter sales declined 37%, an expected continuation of prior quarter trends primarily related to decreases in e-commerce and wholesale revenues. As anticipated, focus on marketing efficiency and a reduced marketing spend amidst a substantially higher cost environment decreased e-commerce performance. As a result, Pura Vida continues to focus on diversifying our marketing allocations to other channels. Wholesale revenues were also down against a strong performance last year and as our partners were more discriminating in their purchases. The Pura Vida team also continues to diligently manage expenses. We continue to improve our already strong balance sheet, increasing our year-over-year cash position while continuing to strategically reduce our inventory levels.
We believe in the value of a strong balance sheet as we support our Project Restoration initiatives while navigating an uncertain economic and retail environment. Now let me turn to Project Restoration. As a reminder, Project Restoration is our strategic plan to drive long-term profitable growth by addressing the consumer, brand, product, and channel components of both of our brands built upon a foundation of strong business discipline, a highly engaged team, a strong balance sheet, and a robust technology platform. Through project restoration, we are driving substantial change in nearly every aspect of the business, and we believe execution will deliver long-term value to our shareholders. Most of our work is focused on our largest brand, Vera Bradley.
After more than a year of foundational work on Project Restoration we're very excited about the customer facing changes that we will unveil in mid-July particularly related to our elevated Vera Bradley brand marketing, product, store design, and website. As a result, we expect first half results to continue to be challenging as we prepare for our July launch. We expect Project Restoration to bear the fruits in the second half. Through these turnaround efforts, we're pivoting the organization towards a bright future. At Vera Bradley, we're reintroducing our iconic brand to the market in mid-July. We are carefully coordinating the launch of new and elevated products, updated branding and marketing, renovated stores and modernized in-store displays and our improved web experience.
We are seeing several green shoots in the business, like positive response to our new products by the wholesale channel and other partners and our customers' reaction to limited quantity product introductions like leather and beaded bags, which are byproducts of our new design work. For the consumer, we are focusing on restoring brand relevancy, targeting casual and feminine 35 to 54-year-old women who value both fashion and function. Our focus on this age group led us in search of data to understand where and how she shops, and our work on this initiative was informed by consumer research and current perceptions of the brand from both buyers and non-buyers. We are using this data to target new customers and embark on new partnerships, licensing deals, and collaborations to extend our reach.
We believe we have the ability to attract new customers while keeping our current fans through product innovations and new marketing campaigns designed to inspire joy and connection. We've created a multi-year customer-filed growth plan with a focus on this core consumer target along with an appropriate level of marketing investment to acquire new customers as we launch new products in our refreshed brand vision in July. For the brand, we are strategically marketing our distinctive and unique position as a feminine fashionable brand that connects with consumers on a deep emotional level. Vera Bradley is a strong brand with strong recognition and we're going to make it even stronger by investing into more strategic marketing initiatives. What I want to emphasize is that we're not changing what's unique and distinctive about the brand that has been beloved by millions of customers for over 40 years.
But we're just taking this competitive advantage and creating a new brand expression, making it more modern and appealing. We are taking a very sophisticated approach, fully supported by the customer data platform we invested in a few years ago. Specifically, we are refocusing our marketing efforts and shifting more marketing dollars to increase reach in a more precise way through a comprehensive plan with the right media mix. Our initiatives will include more creative campaigns, enhanced digital reach, increased public relations, and innovative store efforts to drive interest and gain new customers. We are continuing to shift our focus from channel-specific customer acquisition to a multi-channel perspective for increased media effectiveness.
We're very excited about our partnership with a celebrity partner and other influencers that we will announce beginning in July. And our strategy for promotional activity will shift from discounting being the primary story we have to tell to one of a well-orchestrated plan of brand amplification, category-level storytelling featuring key items, targeted customer-level acquisition offers, strategic incentives carefully architected as demand generators, and inventory management initiatives built to move through slow-moving SKUs. For the product, we've elegantly redesigned our product assortment for a more modern customer and her needs while retaining the elements that have classically defined Vera Bradley like our distinctive colors and quilting.
We are elevating our colorful feminine heritage, keeping it distinctive, but more trend right and modern through updated prints, colors, styles, and designs. And we will continue to enter into strategic, adjacent lifestyle item introductions that make sense for our customers. Product changes have been drawn carefully after extensive customer data analysis. Updated assortments will feature a sharper category focus. By innovating and expanding within our core products, we are refocusing on items that we are best at, such as bags, including hands-free cross bodies and belt bags, backpacks, travel, and the smaller items that fit inside bags like wallets and pouches that allow her to customize her look and personalize her organization. We will be offering something distinctive and new in the full line accessory space under a clear product architecture of good, better, best.
We're committed to increase use of preferred fibers, performance materials, and higher quality softer fabrics and to maintaining our current retail price structure. Our products will feature more modern, relevant silhouettes and designs with a focus on artistry. And we are expanding our solid penetration, which is complementary to our updated prints and patterns. Solids have been outperforming and are expected to generate approximately half of our future sales volume. Leather sales and customer reviews have been strong since our reintroduction of leather last fall, And we're building on the success by expanding our offering of bags, wallets, wristlets, and other accessories. The collection will feature a broadened color palette, which dovetails into our strategy of offering more solids.
Leather will have dedicated fixture space in our full line stores. The reception from our wholesale partners who have seen our new products at the Dallas, Atlanta, and New York markets has been positive. We will offer a clearer differentiation between our full line and outlet channels in both product and experience. Our outlet stores and outlet website will get new made for outlet styles, prints and collaborations and we will introduce a collection of faux leather for the outlets this fall. Product collaborations will always be an important part of our brand expression. We continue to see strong response from partnerships with Disney, Hello Kitty, and Peanuts, and those will continue in all channels. We will work with our partners to ensure the products reflect our updated brand aesthetic and product elevation, including the good, better, best product strategies within the collection.
For the channel, we are building a balanced multi-channel structure that allows customers to shop when, where, and how they want to shop. We will accelerate our digital-first focus and online reach while maintaining brand-right wholesale relationships and exploring partnerships that will help us acquire new customers. We will implement changes that will more clearly differentiate our full line and outlet assortments and experience. We're focused on optimizing our real estate. Traffic is declining in some locations, but we've made significant inroads on improving store profitability through more streamlined management structure, adjusting our labor models and rent negotiations, which has allowed us to reduce the number of planned store closings and be more opportunistic on new store openings.
We see an opportunity to expand our full line store footprint over time, beginning with the addition of three new stores this year. We are also exploring new full line formats with a focus on lifestyle centers. We will update our entire existing full-line store fleet with new branding and improved shopping experience. The stores will be more modern, less cluttered, and easy to shop with new fixturing and lighting allowing the product to shine. Our current year capital budget of $12 million to $14 million is triple last year's spending, and much of this is attributable to our new stores, as well as these remodels. Updates to our full line stores with elevated products, new branding, and an improved shopping experience will also help further differentiate these stores from our outlet stores.
On the outlet front, the mass majority -- the vast majority of stores are very profitable. We are focused on ensuring our stores are in high traffic, productive locations, and strategically repositioning those stores that are not. We expect to add approximately six new outlet locations this year, offset by the exit of four to six underperforming stores over the next 12 to 18 months. Delivering growth in our e-commerce channels is a key priority. We will accelerate our digital-first focus, elevate our online presence, and meaningfully enhance the shopping experience through the July relaunch of verabradley.com. We will offer more customer-focused features, storytelling, and personalized experiences. Our online outlet continues to outperform and we will launch new products throughout the year.
Maintaining brand-right wholesale relationships are important and we are actively targeting new specialty retailers where we know our customer is shopping. As I noted, existing wholesale partners have already demonstrated their excitement about our new products. At Pura Vida, we are shifting our long-term focus to delivering profitability through cost control and gross margin expansion while balancing the e-commerce business with wholesale partnerships and retail stores. For the consumer, we are sharpening our focus on the 18 to 24-year-olds. Based on our research, we're shifting our marketing strategy to increase appeal to Gen Z. For the brand, we are re-centering our brand ethos on living life to the fullest, sharing real moments, places, and faces in our marketing campaigns.
We are continuing to diversify our marketing spend and are making additional efforts to retain customers. We are investing in new tools to improve the e-commerce site experience and conversion and make our promotions more strategic and targeted. We are more analytical, utilizing detailed customer data to target customers and potential customers with a focus on customer acquisition, but especially on repeat purchases and retention. This significantly enhanced customer reporting and increased analytics have made us smarter in analyzing challenges. For the product, we are focusing on delivering unique, fun, playful designs that are affordable and accessible with a dominant emphasis on bracelets and jewelry, as well as other strategic adjacent categories.
We will continue to innovate around string bracelets and our other jewelry and accessory categories. One of our most exciting initiatives this year is our expansion of stretch bracelets and anklets, which are a growing trend. And we will be adding a DIY bead box to our assortment. Our custom jewelry, from our Harper Charm bar to engravable items to our newly launched personalization continues to be a big growth opportunity. As always, we will pursue high profile collaborations like Hello Kitty, Shark Week, and Harry Potter, which are fan favorites and bring new customers to the brand. For the channel, we continue to have a strong focus on restoring profitable e-commerce growth as well as strategic growth of wholesale. Additionally, our success in retail stores has driven us to find new store locations.
We opened a new Pura Vida store in Destin, Florida, in May and expect to open an additional location later this year. Now let me turn the call over to CFO, Michael Schwindle to review the financial results. Michael?
Michael Schwindle: Thank you, Jackie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We will open up for questions in a few minutes, but I'd first like to cover a few highlights for the quarter and briefly update our guidance for the year. For the sake of clarity, the numbers I am discussing today are all non-GAAP numbers and exclude the charges outlined in today's press release. A complete detail of items excluded from the non-GAAP numbers, as well as a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP numbers can be found in that release. For the first quarter, our consolidated revenues totaled $80.6 million compared to $94.4 million in the prior year first quarter. First quarter net loss totaled $6.5 million, or $0.21 per share, compared to a net loss of $2.6 million, or $0.09 per share last year.
Current year first quarter Vera Bradley direct segment revenues totaled $56.4 million, a 4% decrease from $58.9 million in the prior year first quarter. As Jackie noted a few minutes ago, we have continued to experience trends that began last year, although our direct segment revenue performance sequentially improved quarter-over-quarter. Comparable sales declined 9.6%, primarily driven by weakness in the outlet channel. Total revenues were also impacted by six previous full line store closures over the last 12 months. We look forward to the future reversal of our sales trends as we roll out Project Restoration late in the second quarter. Vera Bradley Indirect segment revenues totaled $11.5 million, a 25% decrease from $15.4 million in the prior year first quarter.
The decrease was primarily related to lower sales from certain specialty partners and key accounts as well as the timing of a large off-price order shifting to the second quarter this year from the first quarter last year. As Jackie noted earlier in her comments, our indirect partners are awaiting the new launch products and our wholesale partner response to the new Project Restoration assortment is strong. Pura Vida segment revenues totaled $12.7 million, a 37% decrease from $20.1 million in the prior year first quarter, primarily due to declines in e-commerce and wholesale revenues. I remind everyone that our key focus with Pura Vida has been and continues to be managing the business for long-term profitability and not merely revenue growth.
In an environment of rapidly rising digital marketing costs, the Pura Vida team is focused on marketing efficiency as well as digital marketing diversification. Non-GAAP first quarter gross margin totaled $42.7 million or 53% of net revenues compared to $51.7 million or 54.8% of net revenues in the prior year. The current year rate was negatively impacted by the shift of our annual outlet sale to the first quarter from the second quarter last year which was partially offset by lower shipping and freight costs. Non-GAAP SG&A expense totaled $52.4 million or 65% of net revenues compared to $55.6 million or 58.9% of net revenues for the prior year first quarter. Current quarter expenses were lower than the prior year, primarily due to the cost reduction initiatives and a reduction in variable related expenses, including marketing, related to lower sales volumes.
Our teams are increasingly diligent and attentive to cost management. First quarter non-GAAP consolidated operating loss therefore totaled $9.3 million or 11.5% of net revenues compared to an operating loss of $3.5 million or 3.7% of net revenues in the prior year. Now turning to the balance sheet, our quarter-end cash and cash equivalents totaled $55.2 million compared to $25.3 million at the end of last year's first quarter. We continued to have no borrowings on our $75 million ABL facility at quarter-end. Total quarter-end inventory was $125.2 million, down 12% from $142.7 million at the end of last year's first quarter. We continue to take strategic actions to reduce our inventory levels, and we believe we are appropriately positioned as we prepare for our new product launch in July.
During the first quarter, we also repurchased approximately $6.3 million of common stock, which equates to approximately 1 million shares at an average price of $6.62. We have approximately $19 million remaining on our $50 million repurchase authorization and that authorization expires in December of 2024. So, now moving on to our guidance for fiscal 2025. As a reminder, all forward-looking guidance numbers are on an non-GAAP basis. As we discussed in our last earnings call, we expect fiscal 2025 to be very much a tale of two halves. We continue to operate in a turbulent environment as a number of other retailers have already noted in their earnings releases. Fiscal 2025 for Vera Bradley is also a rebuilding year for the company and as Project Restoration enters its customer facing phase midyear.
As Jackie noted at the beginning of this call, we expected much of this turbulence. We expect to continue to experience some revenue challenges in the second quarter, all of by improving sales and profitability trends in the second half of the fiscal year. We also continue to diligently take advantage of both gross margin and expense structure improvement opportunities. As a result, we are reconfirming our guidance for fiscal 2025 based on current and expected macroeconomic trends as well as the rollout of the customer facing phase of Project Restoration. As a point of context, please also keep in mind that the current year represents a 52-week year while the prior year was comprised of 53 weeks. Specifically, for our guidance for the full year of fiscal 2025, we expect consolidated net revenues of $460 million to $480 million.
As a reminder, net revenues in fiscal 2024 were $470.8 million or $464.8 million on a 52-week basis. We expect Vera Bradley brand sales to grow by the low single-digits for the year with accelerating sales in the second half as we launch our new products, branding and marketing. We anticipate Pura Vida brand sales will decline in the mid-teen range as we continue to manage the business for profitability by addressing marketing inefficiencies impacting e-commerce sales, partially offset by increased retail sales. We also expect consolidated gross margin of 54% to 55% compared to 54.5% in fiscal 2024. The fiscal 2025 gross margin is expected to be relatively flat to last year due to product margin improvements and a lower supply chain cost offset by increased shipping costs.
Consolidated SG&A expense is expected to range from $229 million to $239 million compared to $234.7 million in fiscal 2024. Year-over-year SG&A expenses are expected to be relatively flat to last year related to incremental marketing investment intended to drive sales and accelerate customer file growth offset by company-wide expense reductions and lower peer review expenses. This results in anticipated consolidated operating income of $21 million to $24.5 million compared to $22.6 million in fiscal 2024, along with diluted earnings per share of $0.54 to $0.62 compared to $0.55 last year or $0.54 on a 52-week basis. As a result, our net cash flow is anticipated to be approximately $10 million compared to $44.2 million in fiscal 2024. And we also expect, as Jackie noted earlier, net capital spending of approximately $12 million to $14 million compared to $3.8 million last year.
This spend reflects investments associated with new and remodeled stores, as well as technology and logistics enhancements. So that concludes our formal remarks. Rob, can you please open up their line for questions?
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