Earnings Labs

CarParts.com, Inc. (PRTS)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Mon, Mar 9, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to U.S. Auto Parts Fourth Quarter 2014 Conference Call. On the call today from the company are Shane Evangelist, Chief Executive Officer and Michael Yoshida, Interim Chief Financial Officer. By now, everyone should have access to the fourth quarter 2014 earnings release, which went out today at approximately 4 PM Eastern Time. If you have not received your release, it is available on the Investor Relations portion of the U.S. Auto Parts' website, at usautoparts.net by clicking on the U.S. Auto Parts' Investor Relations tab. This call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on the company's website through March 23, 2015. Before we begin, we would like to remind everyone that the prepared remarks contain certain forward-looking statements and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. These statements do not guarantee future performance and speak only as of the day hereof. We refer all of you to the risk factors contained in U.S. Auto Parts' Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed discussion on the factors that can cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement. U.S. Auto Parts assumes no obligation to revise any forward-looking projections that may be made in today's release or call. Please note that on today's call, in addition to discussing the GAAP financial results and the outlook for the company, the following non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA. An explanation of U.S. Auto Parts' use of these non-GAAP financial measures in this call and a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures required by SEC Regulation G is included in U.S. Auto Parts' press release today, which, again can be found on the Investor Relations section of the Company's website. The non-GAAP information is not a substitute for any performance measure derived in accordance with GAAP and the use of such non-GAAP measures have limitations, which are detailed in the company's press release. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Shane Evangelist.

Shane Evangelist

Management

Thank you, Manny, and thank you all for joining the call. I would like to start by congratulating the U.S. Auto Parts employees for delivering strong year-over-year results. We returned to double-digit growth year-over-year. We delivered a 35% increase year-over-year in adjusted EBITDA and produced over $2 million in adjusted EBITDA less CapEx. Our employees should be proud of their achievements and as always, it is an honor to be a part of this team and thank you all for your hard work. Before I go into the quarter, I want to make it clear that all the numbers I speak to are excluding AutoMD beginning in the fourth quarter of 2014 as we raised $7 million last quarter for AutoMD and we're using those funds to operate the business of AutoMD. Revenue for the fourth quarter was up 18%. Adjusted for the additional week, we had in 2014 the revenue comp would have been up 12% for the quarter. Any further comments I make regarding revenue and the drivers of revenue will be on an net adjusted basis. Revenue growth from a product line perspective saw our private label business grow in the high teens for the quarter -- this quarter. This has been driven by over 5,000 private label new SKUs that we sourced in the quarter as well as better in stock position. Our branded business continued a second consecutive quarter of positive comps driven by over a 100,000 new SKUs launched in 2014 and by [well] [ph] competitive pricing. Breaking revenue down a bit further, our e-commerce business grew at 10%. The growth in e-commerce was driven by an 11% increase in conversion, also 4% increase in AOV and a 1% increase in revenue capture offset by a 6% decrease in traffic. Our online marketplace business…

Michael Yoshida

Management

Thanks Shane. Good afternoon to everybody on the call. Unless otherwise stated, this quarter refers to consolidated 14-week Q4 2014 and last year refers to 13-week Q4 2013 in comparisons, our 14-week Q4 2014, compared with 13-week Q4 2013. Also percentage and basis points discussed are calculating using net sales, however, for advertising we'll discuss comparisons to net online sales. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $1.2 million compared to adjusted EBITDA of $1.6 million last year and adjusted EBITDA for the 13-week Q4 2014 was $1.1 million. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter excludes non-cash share-based compensation expense of $680,000 this quarter and $198,000 for the fourth quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA also excludes restructuring cost of $521,000 this quarter, compared to zero for the fourth quarter last year. The $521,000 in restructuring cost recorded in the current quarter were due to an inventory write down of approximately $419,000 net of restructured charges related to the Carson warehouse closure of approximately $102,000. CapEx for the quarter was $1.3 million, compared to $1.6 million last year. Adjusted EBITDA less CapEx was a negative $0.1 million for the quarter compared to last year which was flat. Turning to sales, this quarter's net sales were $70.6 million, compared to $59.7 million last year, an increase of $10.8 million or 18.1%. The sales for the 13 week Q4 2014 were $66.9 million, an increase of $7.2 million or 12%. This quarter, our online sales grew by 19.8%, while our offline sales increased by 4.3%. This compares to the 13 week Q4 2014 with online sales up 13.5% and offline sales flat. The quarter’s online sales increase of 19.8% or $10.6 million was the result of a $6.6 million or 16.5% increase in sales from our e-commerce sales channels and a 31.1% or $3.7 million…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Mitch Bartlett of Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

Mitch Bartlett

Analyst

Sure. I wonder if you could go over all the numbers again, not, just kidding. The private label you said was up high-teens in the quarter and since your growth was high-teens that means the branded was up high-teens, is that a fair assessment?

Shane Evangelist

Management

No, Mitch, branded was up - I think the issue you're running into is that -- yes, the '14 - PO was up high-teens and branded was probably up low-single digits and if you were to then take the two of those, what I discussed is we were up 12% for the entire quarter normalized.

Mitch Bartlett

Analyst

Got it. Got it. Okay. But you did experiment with sharper pricing on the branded side to see if you could drive that or what was your kind of pricing strategy in the quarter?

Shane Evangelist

Management

Yes we saw a little bit of branded pricing, but not a whole lot. We’ve seen some of the success that we’ve done around improving the user experience on the website, some of the data getting a little more clear, some of the usability being a little better. I think I talked a little bit about SmartFit previously and how we’re helping consumers find products faster. So we saw some of that inside the branded space.

Mitch Bartlett

Analyst

Okay.

Shane Evangelist

Management

But it wasn’t a price. It wasn’t necessarily anymore price driven than it was the previous quarter.

Mitch Bartlett

Analyst

So you decided, I mean I noticed that the traffic numbers are up year-over-year first time in a long-time, so really a strong turn in the business and was that a deliberate…

Shane Evangelist

Management

Yes, let me go back to that. That’s because of the 14 week; traffic was down 6% without that.

Mitch Bartlett

Analyst

Okay. Okay. And go over again and my last question, what you said about kind of growth in first quarter what you’ve seen so far?

Shane Evangelist

Management

Yes, so what’ve said is we’re going to -- we think we’ll end the quarter high-single digits.

Mitch Bartlett

Analyst

Okay. Good. Thanks.

Shane Evangelist

Management

Thanks, Mitch.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] It appears we have no further questions in queue at this point. I would like to turn it back over to management for any additional or closing remarks.

Shane Evangelist

Management

Thanks all for joining the call. We look forward to updating you on our next call. Thank you.