Vera Bradley, Inc. (VRA) Q2 2027 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Greetings. Welcome to Vera Bradley's Second Quarter Fiscal 2027 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll turn the conference over to Dan Ross, General Counsel. Thank you, Dan. You may begin.

Good morning, and welcome, everyone. We would like to thank you for joining us for today's call. Some of the statements made during our prepared remarks and in response to your questions may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to and within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 as amended. Such forward-looking statements are subject to both known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that we expect. Please refer to today's press release and the company's most recent Form 10-K filed with the SEC for a discussion of known risks and uncertainties. Investors should not assume that the statements made during the call will remain operative at a later time. We undertake no obligation to update any information discussed on today's call. I will now turn the call over to Vera Bradley's Chairman and Executive Officer, Ian Bickley.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Vera Bradley's Second Quarter Fiscal 2027 Earnings Call. This was another strong quarter for us. We continue to build operational excellence across the business while making significant progress on our Project Sunshine transformation journey. This marked our second consecutive quarter of overall growth with total revenue up 1.1% versus the prior year, an important continuation of the trajectory we discussed last quarter. While the pace of growth was more modest than the nearly 8% we delivered last quarter, the underlying health of the business continued to strengthen across our direct channels, our margin structure and our balance sheet. That combination of continued top line progress alongside real improvement in the fundamentals of the business is exactly what we set out to build when we launched this transformation. And I want to walk you through why we remain confident in the path forward. Like the first quarter, our second quarter performance was not solely a top line story. Gross margin expanded more than 40 basis points year-over-year, improvement that excludes refunds recognized in the quarter, which Marty will cover in more detail. That margin expansion was driven by several factors: continued success in our product assortment work, an intensified marketing strategy anchored on cohesive social-first brand storytelling and enhanced planning and inventory management and disciplined pricing and promotion governance. Together, these enabled us to further work down non-go-forward Project Restoration inventory while still improving our overall gross margin rate. We continue to manage our balance sheet and liquidity with discipline. Inventory ended the quarter down 28% compared to the second quarter last year, and we generated $23 million of operating cash flow in the period, up $28 million from the last year. We ended the second quarter in strong [Technical Difficulty]

Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. We are experiencing technical difficulties and will resume momentarily. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please remain on the line and our conference will resume momentarily. Thank you. Thank you, Ian. Please continue.

Yes. Apologies, everyone. We had some technical difficulties. Let me continue. We continue to manage our balance sheet and liquidity with discipline. Inventory ended the quarter down 28% compared to the second quarter last year, and we generated $23 million of operating cash flow in the period, up $23 million from last year. We ended the second quarter in a strong financial position with $34 million of cash, double our prior year cash position and no debt. Based on our year-to-date performance, we continue to expect our year-over-year non-GAAP operating loss improvement to be at least 50%, consistent with the guidance we shared last quarter. There's still significant work ahead of us, but I remain encouraged by what our second quarter results show. The opportunity for us to grow market share and rebuild towards durable, profitable cash-generative growth remains substantial, and this quarter's progress gives us real conviction as we continue executing against our 5 transformation pillars. Before I walk through the details of the quarter, I want to thank our entire Vera Bradley team. What we're accomplishing across each of our strategic initiatives reflects their hard work, focus and belief in this transformation and in bringing Vera Bradley's joyful optimism back to life while we build a more disciplined, higher-performing organization and operating model underneath it. Our Direct segment delivered revenue growth of 8% versus the prior year, our fifth consecutive quarter of sequential improvement in this channel and an acceleration from roughly 4% growth achieved in the first quarter. Comparable sales across our Direct channel, combining stores and digital were up 9.2% for the quarter, our second consecutive quarter of positive comparable sales with growth in both our full price and outlet businesses. Our Direct segment represents more than 90% of our business and is the channel we control most directly. It also continues to be the best indicator of how our customers are responding to the product, marketing and strategic distribution choices we are making. In our Indirect channel segment, due to intentional shifts in timing related to our marketplace strategy and reduction in liquidation sales, revenue contracted 39% compared to the prior year. The underlying performance in the Indirect channel remains strong with mid-single-digit overall selling growth to our strategic wholesale accounts, including leading specialty and key department store partners. We continue to see this part of our wholesale business as the clearest evidence that our product and brand work is translating beyond our own direct channels. As the Back to School shopping season took hold in the back half of the quarter, our results accelerated, and we entered the third quarter with good momentum in both our full price and outlet channels. Back to School is a critical selling occasion for Vera Bradley and our strong preparation, planning and execution paid off with overall Back to School business up versus last year. We continue to strategically manage our pricing and promotional cadence this quarter, staying disciplined on the number of promotional events and expanding gross margin even as we drove continued sell-through of non-go-forward Project Restoration inventory. We've made good progress and are now past the halfway point on working through our legacy inventory. Now let me provide an update on our continued progress against the 5 strategic transformation pillars of Project Sunshine, with a particular focus on where we saw the most meaningful movement this quarter and where we focus as we head into the second half of the year. Pillar 1, sharpening our brand focus. As we have discussed on prior calls, sharpening our brand focus is fundamentally about bringing our unique brand positioning back to life through compelling product, authentic storytelling and strategic distribution choices. Our Back to School and holiday collections marked the first quarter with 100% of the assortment reflecting our collective work, an important milestone as we continue reengaging lapsed customers and attracting new customers across channels. Our focused product strategies continue to resonate. Cotton continued its return to historic levels of importance and our more intentional IP collaborations contributed meaningfully to the quarter. Hello Kitty was a standout in brand, fared well against back-to-school with a strong assortment and relevant marketing campaign, the best example of the right collaboration, the right product and the right occasion coming together in a compelling and brand-enhancing manner. The reintroduction of Winnie the Pooh in brand also continued to perform well. In outlet, our Star Wars Droid collaboration performed well through June and early July, following earlier quarter success with Disney Princesses. We also continue to see success with Stitch and Honeydukes IP product. The successful return of Vera Originals also continued to reengage our long-time fans. We also saw continued validation of our shift towards introducing reimagined iconic styles and heritage prints. This gives us continued confidence that our product strategy grounded in the same brand attributes that define Vera Bradley, feminine, creative, cheerful, whimsical, joyful, fun, colorful, approachable, high quality and smart value is the right one and that it is durable across seasons and occasions rather than dependent on any single collaboration or moment. Under our new wholesale leadership, our key accounts continue to realize the benefit of improved assortment productivity and full price sell-through, and we remain encouraged by the growing recognition of our brand momentum among leading retail partners, including existing and prospective wholesale accounts. Given our confidence in the future wholesale growth pipeline and our desire to rebuild this channel thoughtfully and with the right partners, we recently made the decision to reestablish our in-house sales team to accelerate growth while discontinuing our previous arrangement with a third-party sales representative agency. On the marketing side, we continued our storytelling momentum from the spring, extending our joyful optimism creative into our Back to School campaign, which shifted from a school-focused campaign to a lifestyle-driven highlighting the versatility of our products across everyday moments. We featured enhanced Back to School backpack comparison guides and messaging to clearly differentiate product sizes and use cases, helping customers find the right solution for their needs. We also continue to build on the success of our collaborations. This quarter, we partnered with Anthropologie, Target and Little Words Project, all of which drove outsized reach and new audiences to our social platforms. We remain focused on driving engagement through social and digital channels while continuing to manage marketing spend prudently, and we expect to continue rebuilding our upper and middle funnel marketing investment over time behind this storytelling foundation as our results support it. Taken together, the progress we're making in sharpening our brand focus across product, marketing and channels validates that we're on the right path, and we remain committed to this strategic direction as a cornerstone of our transformation. In fact, as a result of these collective efforts, we have recently seen a return to positive growth in Google search activity for the term Vera Bradley this year, the first time in more than a decade. Pillar 2, resetting our go-to-market approach. Turning to our second pillar, resetting our go-to-market approach. The stronger operational discipline we have built continued to support our results this quarter with our gross margin performance and product sell-through remaining the clearest evidence that our reimagined planning, buying and pricing processes are taking hold. We continue to see this as the connective tissue that turns our creative product and marketing engine into consistent commercial results. The consumer research and segmentation work we described last quarter, including our in-home ethnographic studies and work with Gen Z customers on co-creating assortments continue to inform our product and marketing decisions this quarter, including the Back to School and fall seasons. We're building on this foundation as we plan for the balance of the year with a more deliberate and targeted approach to the introduction of new styles and prints. Pillar 3, rewriting our digital ecosystem. Turning to our third pillar. Under our new Head of Digital Commerce, we continue to invest in the connectivity between our digital -- owned digital platforms, our marketplace partnerships and emerging channels like social commerce. We increasingly see digital and social as a driver, not only of our own digital and social commerce business, but of a broader halo and discovery effect that supports our wholesale accounts and drives traffic into our stores. We are continuing to invest against that view, including additional talent and expertise, incremental media investment and technology to support our customer data platform migration, personalization expansion, card enhancements and additional testing platforms. This work remains an important contributor to our ability to meet customers where they are and to support both our direct and wholesale businesses. Pillar 4, Outlet 2.0. Moving to our fourth pillar, the strategic transformation in how we approach our outlet channel. We continue to see the benefits of the elevated visual merchandising standards and curated SKU-reduced assortment we introduced under Outlet 2.0 last year. Notably, our Outlet 2.0 test stores registered improved sales, conversion and gross margin metrics versus our control group of stores. Given the initial results of Outlet 2.0 and the strength of our current outlet footprint, we intend to be more intentional about capitalizing on the trends we are seeing. We are in the early stages of evolving Outlet 2.0 into a new strategy we are calling One Vera. One Vera is about acknowledging that every channel needs to work together as one brand, creating a seamless, more relevant and elevated Vera Bradley experience and meeting customers wherever they want to shop. Simply put, it is about creating a singular expression of the brand across channels and recognizing that customers want to find the brand icons wherever they shop. Finally, our fifth pillar, reimagining how we work, has been largely achieved. Whilst we will continue to add select critical capabilities, we have fundamentally redesigned our organization to be future-ready. We have put in place a best-in-class team with the experience and track record to move quickly and win in the marketplace. Our primary focus now is building a culture of performance, agility and accountability with strong cross-functional collaboration and data-driven decision-making to drive the business forward, translating our creative and product work into commercial results. In summary, we are encouraged by our second quarter results and the continued progress we are making across all 5 pillars of our transformation framework. And I want to again thank our team for how they've come together to deliver a second consecutive quarter of growth. The sequential improvement we have achieved over multiple quarters validates that our strategic direction is gaining traction and represents the right path forward to revitalize the Vera Bradley brand, expand market share and return the business to long-term sustainable growth, profitability and cash flow generation. As we move into the third quarter, we expect the underlying trends we've described today, strengthening direct business, disciplined promotional management and continued gross margin improvement to remain intact. While there's significant work ahead, we're encouraged by our momentum and the alignment and commitment across the team. As we move through the back half of the year, we'll continue operating with discipline and agility, staying intentional about building the foundation for long-term value creation for all Vera Bradley stakeholders. With that, I will turn the call over to Marty for a detailed financial review, and then we'll be happy to take your questions.

Thanks, Ian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. For the sake of clarity, all of the numbers I am discussing today are non-GAAP and exclude the charges outlined in today's press release. A complete detail of items excluded from the non-GAAP numbers as well as the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP can be found in that release. We are pleased with our second quarter results, which reflect continued improvement in both our top and bottom line performance. For the second quarter of fiscal 2027, our consolidated revenues totaled $71.6 million compared to $70.9 million in the prior year second quarter. Net income from continuing operations for the second quarter increased $3.8 million to $3.3 million or $0.11 per diluted share compared to a negative $0.5 million last year or negative $0.02 per diluted share a year ago. In terms of segment performance, Vera Bradley Direct segment revenues increased 8% to $65.4 million from $60.5 million in the prior year second quarter. Comparable sales increased 9.2% with all channels comping positive. This marks our fifth consecutive quarter of improvement. Total revenues were also impacted by having 14 fewer stores open in Q2 of this year versus last year, reducing total growth by approximately 100 basis points. Vera Bradley Indirect segment revenues were $6.3 million compared to $10.3 million in the prior year second quarter. As Ian mentioned, the decline was related to strategic shifts and timing related to our marketplace strategy as well as a reduction in liquidation sales. We were pleased to see continued improvement in our specialty and department store sales where we see meaningful long-term runway for growth. Second quarter gross profit totaled $42.8 million or 59.8% of net revenues compared to $35.4 million or 49.9% of net revenues in the prior year. During the quarter, we received $8 million in tariff refunds net of interest, which favorably impacted gross profit by $7.7 million and inventory by $0.3 million. Tariff refunds drove approximately 980 basis points of gross profit rate increase year-to-year. The underlying Q2 gross margin performance, excluding tariff refunds, improved more than 40 basis points versus last year, driven by product margin improvement and freight efficiencies, partially offset by margin pressure as we strategically cleared through non-go-forward Project Restoration product. SG&A expense totaled $38.7 million or 54% of net revenues compared to $36.3 million or 51.2% of net revenues for the prior year second quarter. The increase in SG&A expense was primarily due to increased variable compensation expenses compared to the prior year period, combined with comparing to last year's Q2 stock forfeitures associated with senior leadership changes. Second quarter operating income from continuing operations totaled $4.3 million or 5.9% of net revenues compared to an operating loss of negative $0.6 million or negative 0.8% of net revenues in the prior year. Now turning to the balance sheet. Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter totaled $34.2 million compared to $15.2 million at the end of last year's second quarter. Cash flow for the quarter increased $21.7 million versus an increase of $3.9 million last year due primarily to the tariff refunds, inventory management and accounts receivable improvement during the quarter. We had no borrowings on our ABL facility at quarter end. Second quarter inventory decreased 28.4% year-over-year to $69.3 million compared to $96.7 million at the end of second quarter of fiscal 2026. The decrease was driven by improved assortment planning, buy management and sales performance as well as the $5.3 million Project Restoration inventory reserve. For fiscal 2027, we are reiterating our prior guidance, including sales in the range of $255 million to $270 million and a year-over-year operating profit improvement of at least 50%. We are pleased with continuing momentum in our Direct business segment, while we are making strategic shifts in our marketplace strategy while reducing liquidation sales. We continue to expect full year gross margin improvement, and we remain focused on diligent cost management across all business functions. In closing, we are encouraged by the progress we have made executing our strategic plan and confident the changes we are making set the company up for sustained growth and improved profitability. Now I will open the call to questions. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] And our first question is from the line of Eric Beder with SCC Research.

Congratulations on another solid quarter. So let's talk about some of the pieces here. On the inventories first off, how should we be thinking about how you plan on -- what are you thinking about inventories as you anniversary some of the sell-through and some of the reserves and other pieces? How should we think about inventories kind of at the end of this year?

I think that inventory will continue to decline through the end of the year. And then as we get into next year, with the continued growth, I expect that there'll be some small increase as we head into next year. But overall, I expect us to be focused on continued turn improvement. So I think right, near term, it has been all about cash conversion. But I think the goal at the end of the day is to improve our overall turns into the 2 to 3 range. And so that's where the focus will be.

Okay. Indirect. So I know the Indirect is usually historically is a lagging indicator. Many times, it just takes a while for the people to see what's going on in the stores and to move forward there. So when you look at it, where are you seeing the encouragement? And where is the potential moving from third party to Direct in terms of selling the product?

Yes. Good question, Eric. So look, I think the bottom line is that we are very confident in our product marketing and strategic distribution choices that we're making. We feel they are working. And frankly, we're already seeing this in our, sort of, strategic wholesale accounts. I consider that to be, sort of, our specialty accounts and department stores, where we're already seeing this mid-single-digit sell-in growth. And I think the fact that we've now had 5 consecutive quarters of sequential improvement in our Direct business, right, which is also continuing to build momentum shows us that the fundamentals are right. And we've been prioritizing the Direct business. It's 90% of our sales, and it's the best indicator of how customers are responding. Now really, the focus is going into how do we sort of reset our Indirect business and set it up for long-term sort of sustainable growth, just like we're achieving in our Direct business. And look, I think we've got a game plan. We've got the right strategies. Number one, under new -- we brought in new wholesale leadership. Under that leadership, we've acted very quickly to rebuild our in-house sales team. Their first priority is going to be on focusing on building back our strategic accounts, the specialty in the department stores, which, as you well know, is at a fraction of where it was during the peak. Also, we're focused on a more sort of sustainable management of some of our key accounts where we have these cut-to-order programs. We're reducing liquidation. And also, we are looking at our marketplace portfolio where -- and marketplace, as you know, is a channel, a digital channel where we increasingly see customers shopping and really optimizing that portfolio in terms of how we manage it. And the reality is some of those may be managed as wholesale accounts, some of those may be managed as direct accounts. And we want to find the best way to work with each of those platforms so that we can service our customers.

Great. When you look at it, you spent time bringing back some of the features that the kind of the OG Vera customer loves in terms of utility, bringing back some of the prior product. And the Back to School season was, kind of, I think, in some ways, a test to see how relevant and how you can expand even more with that younger customer base. I'm curious when you look at the Back to School learnings, kind of, what you saw that basically where you have it going forward that you want to do [indiscernible].

Sorry, I couldn't hear the last part of your question, Eric.

The last part was about the back-to-campus (sic) [ Back to School ] season and, kind of, what are the learnings you're going to take from that going forward?

Yes. Look, I think overall, the key learnings are, first and foremost, Back to School is a moment and an occasion that Vera Bradley really can own. And so by leaning into the right kind of product development for that Back to School season, we have the opportunity to continue to grow market share. I think for the most part, we were very pleased with the preparation that we had done, the planning as well as the execution. If there was maybe one thing I could call out that we recognized was sort of a missed opportunity. We realized actually there were several of the backpack or there were several prints in which we had the backpacks, but then not the matchback lunch bags. And the customers really love to have that matchback. That was for us a missed opportunity potentially to drive more growth in sales on the lunch bags, just as one example. But look, we think this is -- Back to School is something we're going to continue to lean into.

Okay. Yes. And I will say that you had great inventory this year versus prior periods. Last question. What is the you're in 100% of what you want to be? How should we be thinking about what you're looking to do for the holiday season in terms of product and flows? I know last year, there was a lot of clearance, a lot of getting rid of older inventory. This year, I would assume you can be a little bit more, kind of, aggressive in showcasing the Vera that you want it to be.

Yes. Look, I think the bottom line is, right, as of this last quarter, we are now 100% in control of the assortment and the buys. And I think we are taking the same very thoughtful and planful approach to holiday as we did to Back to School. And I think we -- our team is feeling very confident about the assortment, about some of the prints, about especially the accessories and small bags, which, as you know, has been a big development opportunity for us, which we think for sort of occasions at that time of year and gifting is great. So we're feeling very much sort of in control now of driving great outcomes.

Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude our question-and-answer session, and we'll also conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.