Q1 2022 Yeti Holdings Inc Earnings Call
Greetings and welcome to Yeti holdings in <unk> 2022 earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance. During the conference. Please press star zero on your telephone keypad Azure in mind.
This conference is being recorded I would now like to turn this conference over to your host Mr. Tom Shaw Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Sir you may begin your presentation.
Good morning, and thanks for joining us to discuss Yeti Holdings' first quarter 2022 result.
Before we begin we'd like to remind you that some of the statements that we make today on this call including statements relating to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business may be considered forward looking and such forward looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements.
For more information please refer to the risk factors detailed in our most recently filed Form 10-Q, and the form 8-K filed with the SEC today.
We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward looking statements made today as a result of new information future events or otherwise except as required by law.
During our call today, we'll be discussing certain non-GAAP measures pertaining to completed fiscal periods.
Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in this morning's press release.
We use non-GAAP measures as a lead in some of our financial discussions as we believe it more accurately represent the true operational performance and underlying results of our business.
Today's call will be led by Matt <unk>, President and CEO and Paul Carbone CFO .
Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for your questions.
And now I'd like to turn the call over to Matt.
Thanks, Tom and good morning.
<unk> first quarter results highlight the strong resilient consumer demand that has been a consistent hallmark of our brand as well as showing the outstanding execution by our team.
We are particularly encouraged with the all around performance of the business amidst the ongoing challenges and unpredictability of the current environment.
This success continues to display our ability to quickly adapt and remain nimble without losing sight of our near term execution and long term growth.
This balance of execution and action is why we are on track to deliver another strong year of growth and profitability.
As we navigate both the opportunities and challenges in 2020 to the core of our diverse growth strategy remains strong.
The combination of our direct wholesale corporate and global channels to market gives us unique and varied ways to stope consumer demand.
As we look towards the second quarter and back half of 2022, we are focused on delivering brand and product innovation to our customers.
Building deep brand engagement with new and existing customers as we expand our powerful depth and breadth marketing efforts.
Accelerating our unique omnichannel strategy, including a comprehensive data driven approach to build strong engagement from acquisition through attention.
And finally, exploiting untapped international growth by capitalizing on the momentum we have created outside the United States.
Looking at our first quarter financial highlights our net revenues increased 19% continuing a consistent trend of strong topline growth since 2019, delivering a three year compounded annual growth rate of 24%.
Included in this quarters performance, we drove double digit growth in both our product categories and across both our channels, while our international business reached a record high of nearly 13% of overall sales.
As anticipated adjusted operating margin was in line with expectations, even against higher gross margin headwinds due to persistent and elevated supply chain cost.
Paul will cover this in more detail shortly.
Even with this headwind, we continue to expect improving margins and profitability as we progress through fiscal 2022.
Before sharing the progress against our strategic growth priorities I wanted to cover three additional areas that pertain to our business in the first quarter and for the full year.
First even as we rolled over strong demand last year that benefited from both a product transition and the timing of new product introductions, we outperformed our expectations for the first quarter.
We expect similar growth in the current quarter to be supported by the broader release of our first half product launches combined with a higher demand periods associated with the approach of active outdoor summer activities and the moms dads and grads gift giving occasions.
Second Paul will outline a nonrecurring inbound freight costs that materialized during the period.
While in isolation. This is an incremental headwind for the year, we are seeing some offsets, including early signs of improving freight rates and stronger pricing contribution.
As we look forward, we have reiterated both our full year gross margin target of approximately 55% and our full year adjusted operating margin target of approximately 20%.
Finally.
We have completed the $100 million share buyback that we announced shortly after our fourth quarter earnings call in February .
Adjusting for lower share count we have raised our full year adjusted EPS outlook.
Now shifting to updates across our strategic priorities.
As we look at the incredibly strong execution driven by the Yeti brand. We are focused on our diverse network of ambassadors and a range of passion driven activities pursuits and organizations with growing international appeal.
A great example of this strategy continues to play out in our skiing snowboarding communities.
Our partnership with the natural selection snowboarding series, which began during its inaugural year. In 2021 has since expanded this year to include serving as the title sponsor for both the Jackson hole in Alaska Wilderness stops.
Events Guard global exposure with linear and connected television coverage. In addition to an active digital footprint.
In March we officially partnered with a free ride World Tour.
Clinical worldwide snowboarding circuit that hosted five international competitions earlier this year.
During our recent brand activation in Verbier, Switzerland, we were able to celebrate our new French ambassador Victor de La Roux, who took home the grand finale when in men snowboarding.
As in person activation reopens around the globe, we are making sure Yeti is front and center in a real way in the communities that are core to our brand.
We continue to do great things in the world of surfing, where we've added to our roster of ambassadors, while simultaneously supporting the resurgence of big event competitions.
Our latest ambassador in this community, Australia, and seven time World Champion Pro Surfer, Stephanie Gilmore recently partnered with John John Florence, and our Yeti, Australia team to host the first stop on the resurgent Yeti film tour held at Bell Beach during the Rip Curl Pro competition.
Turning our attention to the U S. We celebrated the return up to Yeti brand Activations that had been disrupted during the pandemic.
As a part of south by southwest we hosted a yeti music showcase featuring 12 buybacks at our flagship store in downtown Austin.
A great reminder of how we engage the communities where our stores are located and use these as both places of commerce and brand platforms.
We also announced the return of the U S leg of the Yeti film Tour, which commenced last week in California as part of a 12 stopped run.
Highlighted by ambassador appearances and ethics storytelling, we're excited to share seven new films focussed on the incredible stories about people in places.
Our expansive brand building works and direct conjunction with a rhythm of new product introductions for.
For the first quarter. This included our seasonal color launches the extension of our bags with the Camino Tote family expansion and fantastic innovation in our soft cooler family.
Our color strategy remains rooted in real life inspiration, giving our colors, meaning and purpose, which allows for robust product marketing.
Offshore blue indemnity paint performed well and showcase our unique ability to drive customer excitement through authentic storytelling.
Our third color this spring with alpine yellow, which was accompanied by stories from so many in the French Alps with.
We partnered with our ambassador of Conrad Anker to bring the story to life celebrating the birth place of modern albinism.
As we thoughtfully paced and execute the build out of our bags business. We recently expanded our original Camino tote with two new sizes are more compact Camino 'twenty and the enlarged Camino 50.
This product family is driving substantial year over year gains in remains a fantastic multi use back for adventure in everyday.
As we move into the months ahead, two additional developments will support our broader category efforts. We are refreshing our panga line of waterproof Duffels and backpacks for the first time since the original 2017 introduction by offering a new tan color way.
In addition, we will begin to test select wholesale distribution for our bags line later this quarter.
One consistent observation from our yeti retail stores has been a strong level of engagement and performance across our bags assortment.
As these moments provide incredible opportunities of discovery about the quality of our bags.
We believe a thoughtful introduction of yeti bags within select wholesale partners will help inform our future channel expansion opportunity.
We also introduced our next generation of soft coolers with the launch of the Hopper in 30 in the Hopper in 'twenty backpack.
The new <unk> showcases our drive for continuous improvement of our products, taking a great core product and improving it.
The <unk> backpack leverages the same magnetic closure system to offer both easy access and a streamlined product profile, while also leveraging our growing expertise in bags to offer great ergonomic fit.
Playing off of where Youre cooler out tagline, we supported the product launch across a series of key televised sports events, including during the NCAA March Madness.
Overall, the early response to these products has been above expectations and we are excited to broaden distribution to wholesale ahead of late spring and early summer buying.
We plan more cooler innovation to come as we progressed through the year.
Looking at our Omnichannel distribution strategy, both DTC and wholesale posted strong growth at 23% and 14% respectively.
Supporting this growth we've made ongoing progress in our efforts to drive strong customer engagement in our direct channels and deliver consistent high quality experiences across our wholesale accounts.
And our yeti ecommerce business great growth has been supported by our strategic focus on attracting acquiring and retaining high quality customers.
As we have aligned the work of our data e-commerce and marketing functions, we've become more surgical in deploying our tools and tactics to drive customer connections.
Examples of our progress here include improved reactivation of older customer cohorts as well as driving both a deeper and broader purchase basket within and across product categories.
Our latest step here came in early April with the unveiling of our redesigned yeti dot com platform with a mobile first experience.
Early customer responses have been positive as measured by improved conversion, but we know the bigger opportunities to drive impactful individual personalized experiences remain ahead of us.
On the corporate sales side, we continue to see success in driving this overall business, including strong repeat purchases across our business verticals.
This helps create a more predictable pipeline of orders.
Yeti retail stores continued to perform ahead of expectations and are delivering both a great brand platform, but also strong financial results.
We have converted our two remaining temporary store locations in Dallas and Fort Lauderdale to longer term leases during the first quarter based upon the strong performance in traffic, we're seeing out of those stores.
In addition, we recently opened our 10th store in San Antonio and remain on track to open at least two additional locations in 2022.
Finally, Amazon growth improved sequentially as we continued to make progress in reloading inventory into their network.
We expect ongoing service improvements will better match up to customer demand as we move through the year.
On the wholesale side of the business the execution of our focus and optimization strategy is beginning to contribute to healthier more consistent in stocks across the channel spanning from our national accounts to our independent partners.
At the same time, we continue to look for ways to elevate our overall in store merchandising as we drive better alignment across all points of distribution.
Sell through in the channel remained positive for the quarter and we're on track to deliver low double digit growth for the year.
Looking at our international business, we remain incredibly bullish on the brand's ability to elicit a similar level of passion and engagement that we see with our domestic customers.
As our key international markets open up and once again host events.
We're able to more fully engage with customers across a range of locally relevant pursuits.
This allows us to build upon the existing momentum and to expose new audiences to the brand.
In Canada. This fans from our <unk> partnership with the Toronto Maple Leafs to the return of 60000, plus visitors to the Toronto Sportsman show.
Australia.
We are activating at legendary serve competitions as well as the country's largest barbecue festival.
And in Europe , our efforts were highlighted by the previously mentioned mountain based activities at <unk> and so many as well as driving targeted PR events across the region.
We're making very strong growth progress with international revenues up 45% year over year.
And up more than three <unk> from the first quarter of 2020.
This performance pushes our international mix to nearly 13% a new high for yeti, even as our domestic business continued to comp mid teens growth.
Looking at specific markets, our Canadian business remains strong and prime for success as we move towards summer and Covid restrictions give way to the return of live events.
As we mentioned last quarter, we launched our redesigned web platform on Yeti dossier, delivering a mobile first experience and early results are yielding improved conversion rates.
Performance in Australia remained outstanding with strength in both E Commerce and wholesale supported by strong brand activations at local events with our Australia and ambassadors.
We're also making distribution in roads in urban markets as you begin to expand with our first national account in Australia.
Even with a challenging and fluid backdrop in Europe . Our objectives. This year are unchanged and reflects our conviction and utilizing our successful playbook for global market development.
Specifically, we are focused on leading with e-commerce, establishing localized go to market wholesale strategy and investing in heightened brand building activities in Europe, as we establish the brand and product to prepare for future scale and growth.
As I hand, the call over to Paul to review, our financials I want to first thank our yeti team our partners and all of those that support our brand.
<unk> continued to deliver outstanding results amidst the multitude of pressures disruption and distraction.
You all kept our priorities and site and continued to be instrumental in driving our success.
I would also like to emphasize how incredibly excited I am about the opportunities ahead for the brand.
This includes the near term our customers return to seasonal activities in yeti gift, giving accelerates for moms dads and grads.
We have incredible product, which roles with our customer from their daily life to extreme pursuits, and importantly, as a catalyst for the human to human advocation that is a hallmark of yeti.
This provides the platform to foster exceptional brand experiences utilizing incredible content about people product in places, while leveraging a unique and differentiated network of ambassadors direct channels and wholesale partners.
This is what enables us to drive long term consistent results.
With that I would now like to turn the call over to Paul.
Thanks, Matt Yeti delivered first quarter results that were slightly above expectations. As we continued to drive strong demand for the brand while managing the ongoing cost pressures in the market.
Let me start by reviewing the details from the quarter, followed by our updated outlook and then open the call for your questions.
First quarter sales increased 19% to $293 6 million compared to $247 6 million in the prior year period.
Growth was above plan.
It was particularly impressive against the 42% growth experienced in the year ago period.
Direct to consumer sales grew 23% to $156 million compared to $126 8 million in the same period last year.
Direct to consumer performance was led by a drink wear category and strength across our own yeti properties.
Overall direct to consumer mix increased to 53% of sales for the period compared to 51% last year.
Wholesale sales increased 14% to $137 7 million compared to $128 million last year.
Our wholesale performance was balanced across both coolers and equipment and drink Ware.
By category drink, where sales increased 24% to $184 million compared to $148 9 million last year.
New colors continue to generate category excitement and we continue to see traction with our 2021 introductions, including our travel mugs and our 26 ounce stratcom.
In addition cut.
Customization continues to amplify that entire category with strong demand from both yeti dot com customers and across corporate sales.
Who is in equipment sales increased 10% to $103 million compared to $93 5 million during the same period last year.
Demand was strong for most of the broader category, including hard coolers.
As Matt mentioned early receptivity to new products.
Our soft coolers and Camino coats has been strong as we have ramped up marketing support and are now moving more fully into the wholesale channel.
Internationally sales grew 45% to $37 4 million compared to $25 8 million in the prior year quarter and now represents approximately 13% of total sales.
Of note international sales have been updated to now include Amazon, Canada, and some international customers, where yeti does not have a physical presence.
Each were previously recorded domestically.
Full details of these changes which.
Which can be found in the appendix of our Investor relations deck.
Would have resulted in an approximate $10 million increase to fiscal 2021 international revenue.
Looking at performance once again, we saw strong contributions across Canada, Australia and Europe .
Gross profit increased 7% to $154 9 million or 52, 7% of sales compared to $145 2 million or 58, 6% of sales in the same period last year.
The 590 basis point year over year contraction was primarily driven by a 680 basis point impact from higher inbound freight.
In addition to planned freight inflation.
We also received some late trailing invoices from our main freight forwarder, which resulted in a true up.
That should have flowed through our P&L in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021.
This contributed to an additional $6 4 million of freight expense or 220 basis points during the quarter.
In addition to inbound freight other unfavorable factors included 60 basis points from higher duties related to the exploration of the GSP program.
50 basis points from other impacts and 30 basis points from higher product costs.
These headwinds were partially offset by.
140 basis points from pricing.
And 90 basis points from channel and sales mix.
Adjusted SG&A expenses for the quarter.
<unk>, 15% to $116 8 million or 39, 8% of sales.
Compared to $101 4 million or 41% of sales in the same period last year.
The 120 basis point decrease as a percentage of sales was driven by non variable expenses, leveraging by 180 basis points and variable expenses, increasing as a percentage of sales by 60 basis points, mainly driven by DTC sales mix.
Adjusted operating income decreased 13% to 38 million or 13% of sales.
Compared to $43 8 million or 17, 7% of sales during the same period last year.
Our effective tax rate was 23, 2% during the quarter.
Compared to 21, 5% in last year's first quarter with the higher rate, reflecting a discrete income tax benefit in the prior year period.
Adjusted net income decreased 12% to $29 2 million or <unk> 33 per diluted share compared to $33 $3 million with 38 cents per diluted share in the prior year period.
During the quarter, we repurchased approximately one 7 million shares of our stock.
A $100 million at an average price of $59 and <unk> 66 cents.
The share buyback did not have a material impact in the quarter.
Now turning to our balance sheet.
We ended the first quarter with $103 million in cash.
<unk> to $193 million in the year ago period.
The lower cash position, primarily reflects the completion of the share repurchase during the period.
As well as ongoing investments in working capital.
Inventory increased to 125% to 413 million <unk>.
Compared to $183 9 million during the same quarter last year.
Similar to last quarter, nearly two thirds of the inventory growth for the period reflects.
It reflects the combination of higher in transit inventory given the extended lead times.
And the impact of higher inbound freight costs.
Looking solely at product inventory.
Which includes the impact of freight.
Roughly 40% of our product inventory was in transit at quarter end.
We believe highlights the quality of our overall inventory position.
As we compare back to a more normalized level from Q1 of 2019.
Product inventory has grown at a 29% compounded growth rate.
Pair to sales growth of 24%.
Total debt, excluding unamortized deferred financing fees and finance leases.
With $106 9 million.
Compared to $129 4 million at the end of last year's first quarter.
During the quarter, we made principal payments of $5 6 million.
Now turning to our fiscal 2022 outlook.
We continue to expect full year sales to increase between 18 and 20%.
Compared to fiscal 2021.
The inputs to this outlook are consistent including coolers and equipment growing faster than drink ware.
The direct to consumer channel growing in the mid 20% range and ahead of wholesale channel growing low double digits.
And pricing actions, adding approximately 200 basis points of growth.
From a cadence standpoint, we expect growth in each of the next three quarters to be generally in line with the 18% to 20% full year range.
On the margin side, we continue to expect gross margins of approximately 55% for the year.
Down from the 57, 8% last year, but still trending well above pre COVID-19 rate of 52% in 2019.
The biggest headwind for the year remains inbound freight costs.
While the first quarter adjustment was incremental to our initial full year outlook, calling for 280 basis points of inbound freight pressure.
We have seen early signs of slightly improved rates in both the spot and contract market, which.
Which we believe will benefit mainly into next year if they continue.
Helping offset this incremental freight we now expect a slightly greater benefit from our pricing actions.
Which we initially plan to drive a 125 basis points of margin improvement for the year.
Outside of freight in pricing, we generally expect other margin drivers to be largely consistent with our original outlook.
Looking at cadence, we continue to expect less year over year headwinds as we move through the balance of the year.
They were from a magnitude perspective, the second quarter is still planned down slightly more than 450 basis points year over year.
With gross margin pressures remaining elevated.
We will remain disciplined in prioritizing our SG&A expenses.
We still expect to leverage adjusted SG&A by approximately 190 basis points to approximately 35% of net sales.
Which equates to double digit dollar growth as we support our overall strategic initiatives.
We expect year over year expense leverage to continue for the balance of the year.
Combined we are maintaining our adjusted operating margin rate of approximately 20% for the year.
Below the operating line, we continue to expect an effective tax rate of approximately 24% for fiscal 2022.
Above the prior year's 28% rate that benefited from discrete income tax benefit each quarter.
We now expect full year diluted shares outstanding of approximately 87 4 million.
Inclusive of the approximately one 7 million shares repurchased.
During the first quarter.
Supported by this lower share count.
We now expect adjusted earnings per diluted share to grow 11% to 13% to between $2 86 and $2 91.
Compared to $2 57.
In fiscal 2021.
This incorporates approximately flat second quarter earnings.
Compared to <unk> 68 in the year ago period.
Followed by strong growth in both the third and fourth quarters, primarily as gross margin comparisons continue to ease.
For capital expenditures, we continue to expect approximately $60 million of spending with roughly two thirds of these expenditures focused on investments in new innovation and expanding capacity of existing products.
In summary, we are optimistic with our solid start to the year and are well positioned to take advantage of customer demand across our channels.
As always we remain agile in an ever changing global environment as we continue to execute against our growth strategy.
With that I would now like to turn the call back over to the operator to take your questions.
At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone keypad, a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You May press star two to remove your question from the queue for participants using speaker equipment it may be necessary to.
Pick up your handset before pressing the star keys, please limit yourself to one question and one follow up one moment, while we poll for questions.
Our first question comes from the line of Peter Benedict with Baird. You May proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. Good morning, Thanks for taking the question.
I have two the first just can you talk about maybe give some color about your ability to get drink wear and other products out of China right now obviously a lot of disruption there.
And then.
Paul maybe how the uptick in stainless steel prices, maybe impacts your view on product margins. It doesn't sound like this year, there was any impact, but I don't know if theres any thoughts.
On maybe 23, but just curious on that.
Thanks, Peter when we think about the drink part coming out of China and U S.
As you heard in our prepared remarks and Paul's comments.
We feel great about the inventory flow, we have and the relationship we have with our factories and so with the disruptions that have been talked about recently, we haven't seen any impact to our drink ware suppliers and continue to have a good flow of inventory both for what we brought in at the beginning of this year and what we can see.
Turning to flow for the rest of the year.
And then good morning, Peter and following on to Matt's comments with that relationship with our suppliers, we really and we've talked about this in the past we leverage our volume.
And really help with product costs. So as we look out we have incorporated.
<unk> cost.
Wins into this year.
And don't see anything incremental even from when we spoke in February .
Okay. That's helpful and then excuse me.
As a follow up on what are you guys seeing from a demand elasticity standpoint, it doesn't sound like there's much but as you.
Maybe go through the portfolio or the regions. Obviously, there's a lot of talk about consumers starting to bucket, maybe some higher ticket stuff. So maybe talk a little bit about that.
Have you seen anything in.
Is your view for this year, just that youre not going to see any of you have a little bit baked in and you think you can offset it in other areas. Thank you.
Peter Yes, it's great Great question, I think as we think about the business.
One of the things that we've consistently talked about in the past in Q1 would be no exception is that we're continuing to see good growth across our regions domestically. We obviously have the international growth, which continues to perform very well.
In those markets and some of those newer markets.
Providing some some some great growth and Great Foundation for the business because if you think about cross the channels one of the benefits of the diversity of our channels to market between our direct to consumer which is inclusive of corporate sales, our Amazon marketplace, our yeti dot com.
And then you add in the diversity of wholesale partners incredible wholesale partners that we have it gives us access to a lot of different purchase occasions with consumers we feel good about the demand.
Demand creation opportunity, we have across that spectrum.
In total they are performing very well and across those individual pieces. They are performing well and as we look through the rest of the year like we do every year.
There is.
Certain areas that are underperforming we have other areas that can outperform and so we look at it as a portfolio approach to our channels to market are we look across our product portfolio and I'd say as you see in these numbers coolers equipment, a drink where both continued to perform in the quarter and we expect that through the rest of the year.
Okay, great. Thanks, so much guys. Good luck.
Yes.
Our next question comes from the line of Brooke Roach with Goldman Sachs. You May proceed with your question.
Good morning, and thank you so much for taking our question I'd love to hear a little bit about how you're thinking about the competitive backdrop for yeti and yeti products in each of your key categories, where do you believe yeti has the most opportunity to gain market share or mind share among your consumers this year and into 2023.
Thanks Brook, you know as we think about the markets in which we operate and this goes all the way back to 2006, when Yeti started we think more about.
Growing markets than a game of share and the reality is I think over 15 plus years, we've shown that we actually can expand consumer consideration. We can draw people in based on the premium durable nature of our products and so when I think about the portfolio. The growth the continued growth opportunity we have a strong.
On Q1 in hard coolers.
15, plus years into selling.
High end premium durable hard coolers as we talked about during our remarks continue to drive innovation in our soft coolers, which we think is an incredible opportunity both domestically and internationally as we expand into new markets and then you think about the evolution of our drink where portfolio.
And moving through different occasions, and different uses and penetrating deeper into consumers' lives and how they use it from morning coffee to evening cocktails and hydration in between so we like we like what's going on in our Tumblr business, we like we really like the opportunity within bottles and a continued.
<unk> kind of focus on individual personal consumption and hydration. So.
There's things from our perspective, as we think about market growth and attracting new consumers and retaining consumers.
About the portfolio we have today.
Great and then maybe a follow up for Paul.
Gross margin you mentioned that pricing actions are now anticipated to be a little bit better than what we had discussed a few months ago can you discuss the drivers of your increased confidence on pricing contribution to margin this year.
Yeah good morning.
So part of it is what we've seen in the first quarter. So the impact was about 140 basis points and we had two of the three months of.
The price increase and this is one of those it's a little tricky.
Elasticity.
So we had an estimate in there it was a little bit better.
On the pricing. So originally we said about 125 basis points.
For the full year, we've got $1 40 in the quarter. After two months. So it's really this is while we don't change prices a lot. We've put we put out an estimate and it came in a little bit better than expected.
Great. Thank you so much I'll pass it on.
Our next question comes from the line of Randy <unk> with Jefferies. You May proceed with your question.
Yeah. Thanks, a lot I guess some questions for Paul.
Can you just Paul can you just go back over the the supply chain costs on the freight rates you talked you pay a little more specific on what youre seeing on the spot and contract.
Trends in the market. There can you just give us some perspective, there just curious thanks.
Yes so.
Randy I won't give you.
A lot of specifics, but what I will say is you know coming out of last year's win in February . We said, we kind of held rates than we expected them not to get any better or any worse as we've gone through the first quarter and looked at contract rates and spot rates, we are seeing some.
Lower rates and it was going to say softness but lower rates.
Which is a good sign now to my prepared comments that will take a while to work through the come through the balance sheet and into the P&L. So that's really a Q4 and into next year.
But we are seeing some opportunity to lock in some rates and the spot market is.
<unk> ticked down a little bit which is good.
Got you and then just I guess on you mentioned balance sheet I wanted to ask about thoughts on balance sheet cash flow because you guys produce a ton of cash flow and when I look at the Capex guidance for the year I think around $60 million. If you look at the last few years. The average has been I think around $30 million. So.
Curious on where you where we are in your kind of Capex cycle.
And with each sales growing the margins staying firm does the amount of free cash flow is going to be it is super impressive. So just wanted to understand how youre thinking about the remaining debt on the balance sheet, what youre going to pay down or not pay down where do you think you feel comfortable with leverage you just completed a share buyback just wanted to get your.
Thoughts on where we are in the Capex cycle, and how you're kind of thinking about deploying free cash.
Over the next few years thanks, guys.
Thanks, Randy so on Capex.
This year, we have reiterated the outlook of about $60 million last year, we were at about $56 million.
And then in 2020, we were significantly lower because of everything that was going on.
I would say if you think about our capex about two thirds of it.
Goes to technology and product innovation in that product innovation is both for new products and <unk>.
Increasing capacity.
So I like where we are in that $60 million range, we do produce a lot of cash to your point.
We expect to produce about $125 million of free cash flow this year.
Again, our cash.
On capital allocation hasn't changed.
We've talked about we're using it for working capital rebuilding inventory investing in the business.
Select M&A that Matt has talked about several times and then we did on an opportunity opportunistic basis do the share buyback this year.
Yeah.
Great. Thanks, guys.
Thanks Randy.
Our next question comes from the line of Robbie <unk> with Bank of America. You May proceed with your question.
Good morning, Thanks for taking my question I wanted to follow up on on wholesale.
I think Paul you mentioned soft coolers, and Camino totes moving more fully into wholesale can can you talk about the.
Strategy, there, maybe Matt could chime in on that.
And also would be just be curious any color you can give us on what wholesale customers are doing different and in this environment. If anything are they looking.
For anything different from Yeti.
Given the inflation or anything like that in and also I think you guys mentioned the hard cooler strengths in the first quarter.
Any color on sort of wholesale shipping versus.
Sell through so is the strength of sell through or is it somewhat shipping because you guys were the channel was so short on your hard coolers.
Hey, Ravi Thanks I'll take.
I'll take the first question and then I'll touch on the last one on the middle one on wholesale customers I'll hand over to Matt So on soft coolers and casinos and bags in the wholesale so we had planned the transition of the two soft coolers and the addition of the <unk>.
<unk> <unk> in Q1.
And as we came through the end of last year, and if you remember the Vietnam shut down what.
That did on soft coolers is it limited my Gen. One so before the new units came out it limited the number of Gen. One that I had so as I came into this year.
The wholesale channel and even my direct to consumer channel was very low on inventory.
My newer releases I released in direct to consumer first and then as I built inventory. They just started moving really at the end of the quarter and into second quarter into the wholesale channel. So that will build throughout the year, but a lot of that was kind of back last summer when via.
<unk> shut down and that kind of tail on hard coolers.
We have seen.
At fed up for the company, we were plus 10% we've seen great sell through.
Coolers <unk> equipment was plus 10% we've seen great sell through.
And some sell in of reloading the channel.
But it was a strong quarter for hard coolers in particular, and we wanted to parse that out with the soft cooler dynamic going on.
Robin and then to the to the conversations we're having with our wholesale channel.
I would say they've been they've been very good and it's the continuation of the strategy, we talked about last year, which was looking to continue to optimize the partnerships make sure. We have strong representation in strong merchandising. So let's say the dominant topics of conversation are.
Getting inventory back to levels pre 2020, so that we can merchandise the shelves and display the breadth of the portfolio and I would say our wholesale partners continue to be really innovative with us on how we get the brand represented and how we get the assortment put put out there so.
I would say they're really.
I've been very very positive conversations about how we think about taking advantage of this year, particularly in those gift giving seasons in Q2, and Q4, and then making sure that we're well merchandised through the rest of the year.
Great color. Thank you so much.
Our next question comes from the line of Sharon Zackfia with William Blair. You May proceed with your question.
Hi, good morning.
The movement of bags into wholesale and the tests that youre doing that in the second quarter can you talk about what partners youre using and whether that's designed to reach incremental targeted demographics or just generally raise awareness.
And I'm also curious now that we've got kind of more normal consumer mobility, how you feel about your own stores as brand amplifiers and how that strategy is likely to unfold.
Maybe over the next two to three years.
Thanks Sharon.
On the bags.
We decided to do.
To tie your two questions together it actually ties into the second question around the stores, what we seen in our stores and I mentioned this in my remarks is that.
Consumer selection in consumer discovery, and ultimately consumer transaction. The basket is slightly different in our stores than we see in even our dot com and in our wholesale.
And bags is one of those things that.
What we saw was when consumers get a chance to interact with the product to feel the durability and quality to see the ergonomic design to understand the product that it performs differently.
They performed very well on dot com.
We see it rank higher a ranked differently.
So what we decided we decided to do was we identified a select number of national accounts and independence to go do a small test of do we see that same dynamic continue to play out in the wholesale channel.
And so it's a it's a small test of what we consider a very high quality.
<unk> from the national accounts to the independents.
Yes. It gives reached yes. It gives awareness yes it brings.
Some some diversity of exposure.
As much to inform what future Rollouts could look like and so we feel great about using that we also would be great that this was a learning that we had from having a select number of our own yeti retail stores.
As I mentioned, they continue to perform as great brand beacons and the consumer.
Consumer engagement and the flow and using those as as I mentioned places of Commerce, where we see really really positive transactions really positive discovery and we also get the opportunity to use them as exposure moments to the brand. So I mentioned south by southwest in Austin, We do Activations.
And as the World continues to open up in the mobility opens up we will have the opportunity to use our stores more and more as.
As brand activation moments combined with commerce.
Our next question comes from the line of Camilo Lyon with D. G. I G. You May proceed with your question.
Thanks, Good morning, everyone.
Two questions Paul number one just on the gross margin comment and pricing.
As it pertains to Q2, so if I'm thinking about this correctly I think you guided to Q2 margins down.
400, and change basis points and.
And thats worse than the Q1 margin decline when you strip out that.
That incremental freight invoice yet you have a full quarter of pricing benefits that have come in a little bit stronger than you anticipated. So could you just help me understand why Q2 margins to be worse than the normalized Q1 margins when excluding the freight component.
And then I have a follow up.
So couple of things and the main one is those the freight piece that we talked about that related to last year, the 220 basis points.
There was also some impact those were late trailing invoices some of it related to.
Q4 of last year.
Some of those.
Went onto the balance sheet and we will go off in the balance of the year and mainly impacts Q2.
So freight also got.
Worse in Q2.
Overall, so our perspective on freight for the year.
Is more headwind.
And beyond the.
Non reoccurring charge and that is offset by some.
Some better pricing outlook and everything else is pretty much in line.
Okay got it thanks for that clarification and then.
My second question goes to the help the consumer and maybe if you can.
Maybe Matt if you could just share more about your customers purchasing behavior and how that's actually evolves over time as you expanded nationally.
And within that have you seen a change in the composition of basket size or any sort of indication that there's a trade down or some sort of.
Reflection of potential.
A deceleration in the way that consumers are purchasing because of external inflationary pressures.
Yes.
It's similar.
Couple of things.
We actually are seeing a dynamic play out which is increasing quality of our of our customers one of the benefits of the investment we made.
Really early in the pandemic was this investment behind our advanced analytics team and so.
The ability to actually.
Quickly discern and understand whats happening as it relates to.
Customer acquisition customer retention.
The value of those customers and the dynamic we've continued to see is.
Really really high quality and increasing value in our customer acquisition and our retention.
Strong growth in really good ability to reactivate older cohorts.
So I think that.
Not just the.
Intelligence to be able to actually see those results, but they were actually able to use that and then affect the way, we deploy our performance marketing and our demand creation behind specific groups and so I would say sitting here through the through the first quarter and from the momentum we had last year.
We continue to see a really high quality consumer for yeti.
Great. Thanks for the color good luck.
Our next question comes from the line of John Kernan with Cowen You May proceed with your question.
Excellent. Thanks for taking my question good morning.
Matt Prior question I think.
Went into some market share commentary I'm wondering if you could follow up on that.
If you have any metrics on household penetration and brand awareness and your heritage and non heritage markets and how that's changed as you've scaled to.
Pushing one point.
<unk> 7 billion in revenue this year.
You can see.
We use.
Publishes every.
While we have this published are inherent in our breast or deck, which shows our unaided awareness.
And how thats progressed through time, that's obviously an area of focus as we're building the brand halo above.
Performance marketing that ultimately drives.
It drives to the transaction or the consideration to the transaction.
<unk>.
We like the pacing with which we've seen particularly.
Particularly in the U S market, where we have the best data today, where we've seen the penetration of awareness and then ultimately as I just mentioned.
The ability to once we take someone from awareness through the consideration to the purchase to reengage them and bring those.
The existing cohorts back from a retention perspective.
As we as we look at the dynamic that we've seen play out in the U S.
Outside the U S. We're still very early in that so that is a significant opportunity for driving awareness driving growth with our portfolio that over the last five years being active in Canada, Australia, and we've shown is relevant.
As relevant and can be a growth driver beyond beyond the strong growth we continue to deliver in the U S.
As we think about.
Penetration one of the things that we look at is are we penetrating deeper with our consumers and deeper into their lifestyle and so if you look at the evolution of our drink water business, it's really been about how.
How do we find more opportunities to be with a consumer throughout their day and create more occasions for them to engage with yeti.
With the same promise of the durability performance design of our products and so when we look at the opportunity that's what I talk about expanding markets not we're not operating in finite markets and we're playing a share game, we're actually blowing the parameters of the market and trying to really drive deeper.
Into the into the consumers' lifestyle, and we take that same philosophy across our product range.
Okay.
Very helpful. Thank you and then maybe a follow up for Paul International.
You know if it continues at its current run rate is going to be pushing $200 million.
By year end, just curious how we should think about international and the scaling of the international business as we get into.
2023 and beyond.
Yeah, So we've talked a lot about international and.
What we've said is there's no reason.
International in this business over the long term.
Shouldn't be north of 20% of our business and we really like the growth that we're seeing.
And in our international business.
We'll lay out what 23 looks like.
But we're really happy with it and we've also said from a mixed perspective. It will continue to grow our U S business is still growing very very nicely as well and if anything that holds down the mix.
But we're really happy with the international business and continue to see it as a strategic pillar and a growth driver of the company.
Thanks, Paul.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Brian Harper with Morgan Stanley You May proceed with your question.
Yeah, Hey, good morning, guys.
This was touched on but maybe I'll just ask it a slightly different way I'm kind of the better pricing impact that youre seeing.
Is that just kind of based on.
I assume gross pricing and the number of items you took price on was the same and nothing changed there. So is this really just based on kind of like the customer response that you predicted after did that pricing was taken.
Absolutely yes.
And I say that and I am Uh huh.
To say that we don't take pricing so it's not something we were.
A little conservative of what the impact was going to be.
But yes. It is the items that we've taken price did not change from when we talked in the magnitude of that price was all known when we talked to you in February so it is just.
A little bit better performance than we had planned.
Okay great.
And second question maybe.
The comments on kind of the wholesale channel conversations were helpful.
Where specifically do you think you are in kind of inventory in the wholesale channel.
Kind of optimizing merchandising and stuff like that or if I were to quantify it in some way kind of a number of doors, you think are or where you want them to be how would you kind of characterize that.
Yes.
Kind of a broad characterization I would say from an in line.
Color way from a drink water perspective.
We're getting better inventoried.
There are specific things within our drink or business, where we continue to see opportunities.
For for growth and contingency opportunities to fill in that inventory.
Hard coolers is one that we continue to build that inventory position in both inline colors and then seasonal colors. Because we have when you think about capacity, we make decisions between inline colors and seasonal colors. When we're building up capacity and as Paul mentioned went through a soft cooler transition in Q1.
And we transitioned to two significant skus out and replaced them with two Skus, we're really excited about our two master Skus, we're excited about.
So those are flowing into the channel right now so I would say, we arent complete but we're starting to build that up where as I mentioned earlier, the conversations with our wholesale partners or how do we want to set up the space, how do we want to merchandise it how.
How do we take advantage of going into this.
Q2 buying season in the beginning of summer and this outdoor trend, which continues and people being active in and we want to be ready what are you ready for the summer that we will be ready going into the back half of the year and the holiday in Q4.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of today's question and answer session I would like to turn this call back over to Mr. Matt might just for closing remarks.
Thank you we look forward to speaking with everyone. When we discuss our second quarter results and have a wonderful day.
This concludes today's conference you may disconnect. Your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and enjoy the rest of your day.
Yeah.
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Uh huh.
Okay.
Okay.
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Okay.
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