Tarang Amin
Analyst · Piper Jaffray
Sure. Hey, Erinn, Tarang. So what I'd tell you on the category is it's certainly going through a little bit of a slow spot right now. The context I'd give you on color cosmetics is over a long period of time, the category's been quite healthy. You'll get some quarters where it's a little softer, some quarters where it's a little stronger. In fact, the last time we saw this was as recent as the end of 2013. We saw the category slow up and was pretty flat the first half of 2014. It picked up pretty significantly in end of 2014. It's been quite strong throughout 2015 and most of 2016. So I'd say there are different cycles of where you'll see the category strong or soft, but we don't see anything fundamental from a consumer standpoint. In terms of what it means for e.l.f., we see it as a tremendous opportunity to continue taking share. If you take a look at our company in the 15 years we've been around, we've grown every single year regardless of the economic cycle or regardless of where the category was in any particular quarter. And the reason we've been able to grow -- and I think it's important because it really talks to our position going forward, is really three things: first, our ability to engage young, diverse makeup enthusiasts. For our consumer, makeup is not a discretionary purchase. She loves everything about it. And it better insulates us compared to some brands that may have broader consumer targets, where you may have some more fickleness in the consumer profile. Second is the business model itself. If you take a look at our ability to launch a couple of things new almost every week on elfcosmetics.com and in our stores, it gives us a tremendous arsenal from which to be able to bring our retail partners a proven and validated innovation where we're not trying to guess what the next trend or fad is going to be, but actually have products that are really performing in the marketplace. And the third, I'd say, is the tremendous white space that we have; both within existing customers as well as some of the newer customers, really gives us a lot of headroom to grow, again, regardless of where the category is, and it's one of the reasons why you've seen such strong growth from us even so far this year. And then talking to your second question on some of the unique key retailers, I would tell you that we -- our first priority is always to maximize the business in the customers we're already in, and I feel really good about what we've been able to do. And we've talked certainly on prior calls in terms of our progress at Target and them rewarding us with more space. This quarter, we're delighted to announce that Walmart, based on the strong performance of e.l.f. and the consumer profile we bring to them, has really declared kind of e.l.f. one of their key priority brands and is providing us more space, particularly as they continue to elevate beauty within the overall box. They have an initiative they call their whitewall initiative, which has much better signage, fixturing and a much more elevated beauty presentation that e.l.f. will be featured even more prominently in, so feel good about that, feel good about some of the other retailer initiatives we talked about. But it really very much ties into the overall model in terms of the consumer and the innovation that we can bring to the category.