John Merris
Analyst · Piper Sandler. Please go ahead. Your line is now open
Thank you, Bruce, and thank you for joining the call today to discuss Solo Brands and our third quarter results. I will begin with a review of our third quarter performance and then talk more about our vision and strategy. Somer will then review the financials in more detail and provide our outlook. I am pleased with our third quarter results, which came in ahead of our expectations. We delivered sales of $110 million, an increase of 8% over last year and adjusted EBITDA margins have increased 250 basis points to roughly 14%. Our results were driven by strong sales through our wholesale channel as our brand momentum continues to grow. While we know that consumer wallets are stretched, we are well positioned to navigate an uncertain consumer environment, given the resilience and strength of our financial model. Solo Brands generates healthy EBITDA margins, has low financial leverage, a balanced omnichannel sales approach and is capital-light leading to strong free cash flow. We are proud to report on the momentum that Solo Brands is gaining with our wholesale partners. For the quarter, our Wholesale revenues increased 114% compared to last year due to strong sell-in with new and existing partners matched with strong sell-through's. Our sell-through's have been solid because of the unique value that our brands offer to wholesalers, fueled by our marketing efforts, which help us connect directly with many new customers that are experiencing our brands for the first time. We attribute the success of our wholesale strategy to this. Our customers appreciate and value often, the same consumer who is shopping online today may find themselves in a jam tomorrow as they prepare for a birthday party or a wedding. We have heard feedback from customers who are thrilled to be able to drive to a store to pick up a Solo Stove right then. Customers want optionality, and we are responding to their needs as part of our ongoing commitment to customer satisfaction. Allow me to remind you of our omnichannel strategy, which we rolled out at the beginning of the year. Our belief was that as we built our Wholesale business, we would inevitably cannibalize some of our online business in the near term. However, we expected that we would be able to drive many of those customers back to our site for the purchase of accessories and other products, and we are seeing that play out successfully. So far this year, we have witnessed a 23% increase in the customer group of first-time customers shopping on our website who are buying a firepit accessory. We expect that the majority of these are customers buying Solo Stove firepits from retailers and then coming to our website to buy accessories showcasing our ability to build direct relationships with entirely new cohorts of customers. We are making connections with thousands and thousands of new customers who may be exposed to our brand for the first time and this is part of a strategy that will ultimately grow our brand and business over the long run. As an important reminder, from a profitability standpoint, we are channel agnostic because we see similar profitability in wholesale as we do in our online business. As an added benefit of our strategic wholesale partnerships, we are building our brand awareness at an accelerated rate, which we believe will lead to higher sales in both channels over time. We are excited to work with retail partners who can optimize the in-person experience, allowing customers to interact with our products in new ways. We are accelerating our brand awareness through compelling shop-in-shop and in-store displays that enable us to showcase more of our product lines in a solo brands way and our customers are feeling the love. We have found great success in DICK'S Sporting Goods, Public Lands and Shields, where we have more robust displays and in-person experiences, and this is intentional and in keeping with a larger strategy. It's part of our DNA to treat our customers just as well in physical stores as we do online. So we are seeing continuity in terms of the way that we connect with our customers. Nevertheless, we believe that we are very under-penetrated at retail and see significant runway to continue growing with our current retail partners through share of shelf and strategic marketing initiatives. Currently, our enhanced presentation is in only 200 doors, driving increased productivity in those doors. The reality is, is that we are in 7,500 doors in total across Solo Brands. But from a shop-in-shop perspective, we're only in a fraction of them. We believe there's still substantial opportunity to build shop-in-shop experiences in many more doors, and we will continue this rollout with our current and future retail partners. To this end, we are excited to begin offering our products with new retailers, including Target this quarter, and we are very happy to report that we have renewed our partnership with REI in a meaningful way. We couldn't be more thrilled to have the kind of growth we're having this early in our story. As a brand that still believes we're in our early days, the impact of this increased growth in retail is remarkable. First and foremost, it's underscoring the stunning synchronicity that's occurring between our on- and off-line channels. We are working within our wholesale channel to protect profitability even while our retail partners are seeing great gains. No matter where we need our customers, the focus is on fostering a deeper connection, which is leading customers back to our websites. Solo Brands obsession with the customer experience has been part of our DNA from the start and we are happy to report that our approach is continuing to blaze trails wherever we go. I dig into this channel shift a little more, we believe that our retail growth places a halo over our entire business, creating a flywheel effect. As I stated, we have noticed a significant increase in customers that are purchasing accessories on our website, who have not purchased a Fire Pit on solostove.com. Essentially, these would be customers that bought a fire pit out of retail and are coming back to our website to purchase accessories, hence the flywheel. The purchasing patterns of these customers result in the near-term pressure that we are seeing in our direct channel, however, we do believe that over time, this flywheel effect will extend the lifetime value of a retail initiated customer once they are in the Solo ecosystem. What does this all mean for Solo brand? It means we're well on our path to reaching the omnichannel balance that we talked about earlier this year. We said that we were going to aim for more balance in our channel mix and our retail partners are leaning in to help turn our goals into reality. And while there are near-term headwinds to year-over-year growth for our e-commerce channel in the long term, we continue to expect that the brand exposure our new retail partners bring to the business, will create stability and solidarity for all channels. I want to emphasize our view that Solo Brands expansion of wholesale relationships is not a diversion from our DTC expertise but part of an integrated channel strategy that allows us to build deeper connections with customers. Turning to product innovation. We are excited about our product launches during the quarter. We continue to be successful introducing Solo branded products where we believe that we have permission to play in the backyard category. Building on the momentum of our Pizza Oven Pi, the most successful new category that we have entered into after fire pits, we launched Pi Prime during the quarter. In addition, we introduced Mesa Torches, which rolled out in September. Mesa Torch brings entertainment, ambiance and backyard comfort via our innovative torches that customers can stake in the ground to enjoy a live fire and long-lasting life source with either a standard or a citronella insect repellent fuel. While it is still very early, we have been pleased with the results of both of these launches. A year ago, September, we launched Mesa, our tabletop fire pit. We are continuing to see strong demand from Mesa from our retail partners and we believe that we have a long runway for growth with this product. Our focus on continuous innovation, combined with consistent feedback from our customers, enables us to offer new accessories and enhancements to our core products. We will continue to roll out innovation in the upcoming quarter. As part of our efforts to expand the Solo Brands into new capabilities and categories, we recently acquired two unique businesses: TerraFlame and IcyBreeze, both of these are great companies on their own, but we believe that they fit nicely within Solo Stove. The TerraFlame acquisition allows us to safely bring fire inside and S'mores indoors. This addition also brings a proprietary concrete manufacturing facility giving us a new material and capability to include in our product innovation. While still small, TerraFlame is seeing significant year-over-year growth since joining the Solo family. IcyBreeze is a portable air conditioner and a cooler, which can use at the camp ground, the ballpark, on your boat or just in your backyard. We expect to integrate IcyBreeze into Solo Stove in 2024, and we are excited to add the supply chain, marketing and distribution scale to this extraordinary product as we move into peak selling season next spring and summer. While IcyBreeze is out of season in the winter months, we will introduce a new product innovation around the holidays, which will make IcyBreeze more giftable even out of season. Innovation is driving greater market penetration by enabling customers in a wide variety of climates to manage home comfort. In colder climates, our products create a whole new living space that customers didn't have before, fire pits and heaters on the deck. And in warmer climates, we have customers who love to make a nice toasty S'more, even when it's 100 degrees outside. They can do that now with TerraFlame in their kitchen just as IcyBreeze allows customers to extend their outdoor living space during warm periods of the year, and this kind of value is immeasurable and helpful and expanding market share. So both of these new innovations are opening up opportunities for rethinking the way customers connect with each other around the home. Solo is committed to making the outdoor living room experience as comfortable as the indoor living experience. and we will continue to look for strategic tuck-in acquisitions that will allow us to extend the Solo Stove brand across backyard and outdoor categories with the ultimate goal of helping customers create good moments and lastly memories. Additionally, we continue to expand our customization offerings. Ahead of the holiday season, we are excited to share. We have signed a new NFL licensing agreement. Customers can now support their favorite team, all while gathering with friends and watching the game or tailgating around our Solo Stove. In closing, we remain committed to a strategy focused on profitability and free cash flow generation. This strategy allows us to invest in opportunities where we can continue to deliver growth and brand expansion and most importantly, build stronger and more direct connections with customers. At the end of the day, we believe that what's good for our customer is good for our shareholders. The current environment remains uncertain, dynamic and hard to predict. We are focused on what we can control, which is to deliver the best experiences for great products. We provide a wide range of price points and an offering that meets the needs of our ever-growing customer base. As we look into the all-important fourth quarter, we have a lot of exciting things planned to reach new customers through unique and compelling marketing programs which we believe will stand out from the crowd and drive enthusiasm for our brand. Before I turn the call over to Somer, I'd like to take a moment to thank her for all she has done for Solo Brands. She's been a great partner to me and leader of our finance team. We will miss her and wish her all the best. I will now turn the call over to Somer to discuss the financials. Somer?