Shelly Ibach
Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining our first quarter earnings call. My average SleepIQ score in April is 78. Today, I will update you on our ERP implementation and highlight our growth initiatives for the balance of 2016.
Our first quarter results were on track with our internal expectations. Net sales were $353 million, up 1% from the prior year's quarter, and earnings per share were $0.27.
These results reflect the completion of our ERP implementation in the quarter. We are on target with our plans to deliver earnings per share of $1.25 to $1.45 for 2016. In the back half of the year, we expect significantly more contribution margin as we grow sales, operate the system more efficiently and deliver supply chain leverage.
Customer online sentiment, referrals, traffic and related sales trends are improving consistent with our expectations. We are operating in a more sluggish economic environment, but we were still able to achieve our first quarter sales and profit goals.
A few weeks ago, we started our outreach program to customers who were negatively impacted by our service levels during the ERP implementation. Our objective is to rebuild trust with Sleep Number and, ensure our customers understand that our issues have been resolved.
Overall, we are very pleased with the progress we've made in the quarter. And while we still have inefficiencies and more work to do, these are opportunities in front of us.
Sleep Number's transformation has been monumental and necessary, to be able to lead and adapt to the changing expectation of consumers.
We are emerging from a period of deep investment that strengthened our competitive advantages and marketplace differentiation.
We have fully evolved from a 1 (800) direct marketing mattress company for people with back pain, to a national consumer innovation company and the leader in sleep technology. We are now well positioned for accelerated earnings growth and improved shareholder returns, as we more fully realize the benefits of investments in our stores, products, marketing and ERP system.
To this end, our current initiatives support each of our 3 drivers of earnings per share growth: increase in demand, leveraging our model and deploying capital efficiently.
Here are the highlights. Increasing demand by attracting new and existing customers to sleepnumber.com and to our national store base is a key part of our growth strategy. From a media perspective, our econometric model has consistently led to improved returns on our investments in a rapidly changing media environment.
Building our digital media platforms to optimize individualized content message and audience in real time is our top priority. Early success includes improving our social ad effectiveness by more than 25%, which is now our highest performing digital media.
National television advertising remained our most productive form of media, and we continue to advance our Know Better Sleep campaign. You will soon see our next ad featuring our differentiated benefits, knowledge and adjustability to support the Memorial Day selling period. Our innovative products delivered higher quality sleep and customers have responded strongly to our technology.
Third-party consumer satisfaction awards and our own research, all demonstrate our sleep leadership position, as does our repeat and referral business. We expect to bring new customers to our brand through the launch of our technology-driven it bed by Sleep Number. Our digital go-to-market strategy will be focused on value and engage a younger, tech savvy customer, who is more apt to purchase online. We will share more details on our next call.
Exclusive distribution has been our top area of investment over the past 5 years. We have a very healthy store portfolio, with about half of our stores in non-mall locations and the other half in productive malls across our markets. In 2016, we will open nearly 50 incremental stores. We have opened 14 stores since the beginning of the year, and will open our 500th store in May in the Minneapolis market.
We also plan to launch our 11th aggressive growth market later this year. This strategy is designed to double market share in 3 years in large under-penetrated markets and has consistently delivered results. Our retail productivity of approximately $1,000 per square-foot is driven by a differentiated store experience with a modern store design. For the second year in a row, we were just recognized with the Silver Outstanding International Store Design Award from the Association of Retail Environments.
We continue to focus on improving our online experience and the connection between mobile and the stores. One of our significant advantages is the individualized sleep experience our sleep professionals deliver to their customers.
I just returned from our Annual Presidents Circle event with more than 100 of our top sales performers. Their passion, talent and commitment to building relationships and improving lives through our sleep innovation is stunning. The new customer relationship management system we now have in each of our stores, will help our sales team be even more effective.
Our new system also means, we can now schedule home delivery in the store at point-of-sale. This capability was implemented in 2/3 of our stores in March. It will be available in the rest of the stores in the coming months.
This is game-changing for us on several levels, starting with the convenience for our customers. They leave the store knowing when their bed will be delivered. And in some cases, delivery occurs within a week from purchase. There is no need for a discussion about lead time and multiple phone calls to schedule delivery.
Later this year, when we launch the it bed in our next iteration of SleepIQ technology, our customer will be able to track their delivery right on their SleepIQ app. This is a good illustration of how our ERP and SleepIQ technology platforms will complement and support one another for a seamless, efficient and connected customer experience.
Our future innovation and value to the customer, will build off these platforms. This leads me to our second EPS driver, leveraging the business model. Our new ERP system unlocks opportunities throughout our operations. In addition to scheduling deliveries at point-of-sale, we expect to cut our delivery time in half in 2017 to 7 days. This is a result of our make-to-stock inventory initiative and the simplification of our logistics network.
Last month, we announced that Suresh Krishna, has joined us to lead operations and supply chain. He brings extensive experience in manufacturing and supply chain operations, lean initiatives and ERP transitions. Suresh is focused on driving operational efficiencies while evolving our supply chain to better support product innovations and expedited deliveries.
We also announced the promotion of Andy Carlin to Executive Vice President and Chief Sales and Service Officer. Home delivery will now be tightly integrated with sales to support our customers. We are streamlining our process and execution from first contact at scheduling, all the way to in-home installation. Andy has successfully led our sales and real estate operations for the past 8 years, reinvigorating our retail store portfolio and delivering significant selling expense leverage.
Our third EPS driver is deploying capital efficiently. We have been executing against all 3 cash priorities: investing in our growth, financial flexibility and share repurchases. Last year, we made significant investments in our two technology platforms, SleepIQ and ERP. And we are now focused on leveraging these investments to deliver returns.
Our acquisition of BAM Labs, now called SleepIQ Lab, is helping us accelerate innovation and deliver efficiencies. Specifically, we are able to use aggregate biometric data to deliver increased sleep benefits at a lower cost. We expect this acquisition to be accretive to earnings in 2017, due to sales growth and reduced product and data storage cost. This platform is the source of daily interactions with our customer, which will play an increasingly important innovation role.
In conjunction with our strategic transformation, we have evolved our capital structure to a position of financial stability and investment. We can now accelerate profitability through top line growth and margin expansion, driving to an ROIC of more than 13% by the end of the year. In the first quarter, we improved our financial flexibility by expanding our revolver to $150 million, and increased share repurchases to $50 million versus $20 million the prior year. We continue to see strong value in our shares and expect to operate with lower cash on hand, returning excess cash to shareholders through share repurchases.
Our consumer innovation strategy, is our path to long-term value creation for our shareholders. Leading this transformation to position the company for sustainable profitable growth has taken clarity, alignment and results, by the management team and the Board of Directors. And strong governance has been a part of this foundation. To this end, we recently appointed 2 new board members, Vicki O'Meara and Barbara Matas. Vicki has deep supply chain and Big Data expertise, and Barbara has more than 3 decades of experience in capital markets and risk management.
We are pleased with the trajectory of our business, and in an industry that has average growth rates of nearly 6% over the past 5 years. During that same period, we have achieved a compound annual growth rate of 15% because of our innovative, sleep solutions, store experience and marketing effort.
I want to thank our Sleep Number team for their dedication to our strategy and passion for our mission to improve life by individualizing sleep experiences. We are on pace to reach a milestone, later this year, of improving more than 10 million lives since our inception as a company.
Now I will turn it over to David to provide additional details.