Jackie Ardrey
Analyst · Daniel Harriman with Sidoti & Company. Please, proceed with your question
Thank you, Mark. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us on today's call. As we discussed in our last call, late in the second quarter, we rolled out the initial phase of project restoration to our brand stores and the verabradley.com website. This was a public-facing reintroduction of our iconic Vera Bradley brand, anchored on a renewed vision and positioning as we pivot our organization towards a bright future geared to sustainable long-term profitable growth. The initial phase was designed to elevate and differentiate the assortment and positioning from our outlet channels, attract new customers, and fuel a higher mix of full-price selling. I'm so proud of what the organization delivered in a very short time in the extremely successful marketing campaigns we launched. We targeted a younger, more affluent customer for this launch and were successful at driving traction with this segment at mostly full price. Our modernized brand marketing and products are also attracting partnerships with new retailers like Urban Outfitters that launched this month. Our top of the pyramid collections like Leather and Oxford Canvas sold especially well to existing customers even at higher retails. Average transactions for our brand channels were up 9.3% to last year post-launch, reflecting a higher level of full price selling and a shift to products at the top of the pyramid. Although we were pleased with many aspects of this rollout, our overall results were disappointing and reflected continuation of first quarter macro consumer headwinds, as well as some elements that are within our control. At Pure Vida, we continued to see elevated digital media acquisition costs that prevented further investment and customer growth. Our indirect channel was also cautious in the first part of second quarter as specialty and destination store traffic for our partners was initially down. Overall, for the second quarter, we registered net revenues of $110.8 million, a decline of 13.5%, compared to the prior year, and non-GAAP net income of $3.9 million or $0.13 per diluted share. These results did not meet our internal expectations and largely reflect a challenging consumer backdrop in which consumers continue to be very discriminating with discretionary spending. By segment for the second quarter, Vera Bradley direct revenues totaled $72.2 million with an operating margin of 19.1%. Vera Bradley indirect revenues were $21.8 million with an operating margin of 19.1%. Vera Bradley indirect revenues were $21.8 million with an operating margin of 22.8%. And Pure Vida revenues totaled $16.8 million with an operating margin of 4.1%. We are confident in the direction we are taking the business and remain committed to project restoration key areas of focus, including first, restoring Vera Bradley's brand relevancy, strategically marketing our distinctive and unique position as a feminine, fashionable brand that connects with consumers on a deep emotional level. Second, targeting casual and feminine 35 to 54-year-old women, who value both fashion and function. Third, leaning into our elegantly redesigned product assortment for a modern consumer and her needs while retaining the elements that classically defined Vera Bradley. And fourth, building a balanced multi-channel structure that allows customers to shop when, where, and how they want to shop with us. I'll speak to these key focus areas in a moment. In light of our first-half results and the initial start to third quarter, we are now prudently planning the second-half with a much more conservative lens. Our overall outlook reflects the pressures and trends we have seen and experienced through the midpoint of this year, and we expect those are going to continue through the balance of the year. Michael will share some details on this in a few minutes. I want to be clear though, that we remain confident in the direction we're taking the business and key wins in the quarter, which have continued third quarter to-date, are validation that we are moving in the right direction for long-term health. The pace of our journey is slower than we anticipated, but we are on the right path. With our brand restoration efforts well underway, we will remain agile and flexible throughout the fall and holiday season, while pursuing our vision to inspire people to be bold in their pursuits and brilliant in their self-expression. We enter the second-half in a strong financial position, however, with no debt and $44 million in cash, which allows us to remain nimble, while navigating a dynamic consumer environment. We're committed to strengthening our financial position through operational improvements over the next few years, and Michael will talk more about those as well. We've done a great job managing SG&A this quarter and are down over $6 million to last year across both brands even with the planned incremental marketing investments at Vera Bradley. I would like to take a moment to thank the entire Vera Bradley organization for their hard work and dedication leading up to and throughout the launch of Project Restoration, as well as their unwavering commitment to our brands and our customers. Our mission is to unlock joy and ignite conversations through uplifting color and artistry, and our teams have executed on this mission with passion. We know there is much work ahead of us and we are staying close to both new and existing customers listening, adjusting, and executing with speed and excellence to deliver emotionally connected brand experiences. Now I'd like to give you some more detail on Project Restoration for Vera Bradley. On July 11, we unveiled the first part of the Vera Bradley transformation aimed at reinvigorating the business and restoring brand relevance featuring new product, a new logo, in-store renovations, an optimized website experience, and new marketing campaign featuring Zooey Deschanel as our brand ambassador. Our efforts in this transformation revolved around four pillars of product, brand, customer, and channel. I'd like to note that the outlet portion of this transformation launched late in August, and although it hasn't yet changed sales trends in the outlet store channel, our vboutlet.com site is doing very well. The new product assortment in our brand channel features higher quality fabrics and performance materials such as cotton gabardine, oxford canvas, and genuine faux grain leather in modernized silhouettes based on our traditional best-selling styles. The new styles have been elegantly redesigned, while honoring the heritage and elements that have classically defined Vera Bradley. I'm very pleased to report that we saw strong performance at the top end of our good, better, best product pyramid, particularly with existing and reactivated customers. Leather goods as well as solids and trend right fashion colors, including bronze green and pumice stone, all performed well, which validates that both our existing and new customers are interested in trend right silhouettes and colors. Although the majority of the product enhancements we made have been well received, we did receive some constructive feedback on select product style adjustments such as the need for longer and wider straps, more pockets and zip closures. We embraced this feedback and have made assortment edits in time for the holiday and spring seasons. It's important to us that both new and existing customers find products they love with the functions they need. We also heard that we cut our print assortment back too much, especially in cotton, and we are planning to resolve that in upcoming seasons. Finally, our selection of new collaborations in second quarter was reduced to last year, but will continue to be part of our assortment in all channels. Our new Mickey deliveries in both brand and outlet channels were very well received by customers and fans can look forward to both favorite and new properties that will launch in holiday and future seasons. To address our brand and customer pillars, we engaged in a number of activities and strategies. As part of this, Vera Bradley enlisted actress, musician, and entrepreneur Zooey Deschanel to serve as the face of the brand's fall creative campaign, which spans billboards, print, and digital platforms. We saw strong selling across Zooey’s hand-selected favorite items, including the Astoria shoulder bag, the Springbrook sling crossbody, and the Miramar Weekender. Most of these efforts were about increasing awareness, relevancy, and exposure to our target customer group. We have initially seen great progress as our acquired customers are within our desired age target with higher household income. The pace in acquiring these customers is initially slower than we planned, but continue to make progress. Zooey’s featured in our holiday campaigns and we look forward to the reception of our new prints and giftable items launching next month. Looking across our various channels, the earliest reads have occurred in our indirect business where we were particularly pleased with the on-the-floor selling across our top tier wholesale accounts, including specialty stores, department stores, and airports. We have been especially excited about our August 27 Vera Bradley limited edition launch collection in collaboration with Urban Outfitters. This partnership is off to a fantastic start and will expand significantly for holiday, both in stores and online. We are also in discussions with other retailers and licensing partners who express strong interest in our rebranding, and I look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. Now I'll turn to Pure Vida. At Pure Vida, we continue to shift our long-term focus to delivering profitability through cost control and gross margin expansion while balancing the e-commerce business with wholesale and appropriate retail store expansion. We remain committed to sharpening our focus on 18 to 24-year-olds and re-centering our brand expression to live life to the fullest. We continue to diversify our marketing spend and concentrate our efforts on customer retention and reactivation. For product, we are turning our focus to core product categories like bracelets and jewelry. Our Harper Charm program is performing well and continues to be a growth opportunity. We also continue to pursue product partnerships with licenses such as Harry Potter, Disney, Shark Week and others. Our stretch program continues to perform well in bracelets and anklets and we will iterate on those successes. For Channel, we continue to focus on profitable e-commerce sales as well as retail. Our stores are performing well and we are especially excited about our new Disney Springs location, which is scheduled to open late this month. I'll turn the call over now to CFO Michael Schwindle to review the financial results. Michael?