1-800-FLOWERS.COM - Earnings Call - Q1 2026

Executive Summary

• Q1 FY26 revenue fell 11.1% to $215.2M and GAAP EPS was -$0.83; gross margin compressed 240 bps to 35.7% as sales deleveraging and tariffs weighed on profitability.
• Results missed S&P Global consensus modestly: revenue $215.2M vs $217.8M* and EPS -$0.83 vs -$0.64*, largely due to strategic shift to prioritize marketing contribution margin and wholesale order timing shifting ~$3–4M from Q1 to Q2*.
• Management highlighted early traction from a new marketing focus, marketplace expansion (Amazon/Walmart.com), holiday pop-up shops, and incremental $50M run-rate cost savings targeted over two years, offset near term by tariffs and higher transportation costs.
• Balance sheet positioned for holiday: inventory $269.8M, net debt $259.3M (vs $224.1M YoY), with revolver expected to be fully repaid in Q2 on seasonal cash inflows.
• Near-term stock narrative catalysts: execution on holiday demand, visibility on tariff risks (including potential Colombia flower tariffs), pace of cost takeout vs marketing efficiency, and traction from new channels.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Marketing pivot to contribution margin delivered “clear and immediate” profitability improvements month-to-month; underlying adjusted EBITDA trend turned slightly positive after timing adjustments, first Y/Y improvement in seven quarters.
• Channel expansion: initial sales traction on Amazon and Walmart.com; learnings from marketplace best practices to modernize FLWS sites; holiday pop-up shops piloting a scalable physical retail concept.
• Cost discipline: OpEx down $12.0M to $127.3M (ex-NQDC and non-recurring down $10.9M to $124.9M); identified incremental $50M run-rate savings over two years, building on $17M implemented.

What Went Wrong

• Top-line pressure: consolidated revenue -11.1% YoY, with Consumer Floral & Gifts -14.6% and Gourmet Foods & Gift Baskets -8.6%; BloomNet essentially flat.
• Margin headwinds: gross margin down 240 bps to 35.7% on sales deleveraging and higher tariffs; segment GMs declined across categories.
• EPS and EBITDA deterioration: adjusted EBITDA loss widened to -$32.9M vs -$27.9M YoY; GAAP net loss -$53.0M; tax valuation allowance set up due to three years of cumulative losses, eliminating typical Q1 tax benefit.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Andy Milevoj, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Andy Milevoj (SVP, Investor Relations)

Good morning and welcome to our fiscal 2026 first quarter earnings call. Joining us on today's call are Adolfo Villagomez, Chief Executive Officer, and James Langrock, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that some of the statements we make on today's call are covered by the safe harbor disclaimer contained in our public documents. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements with predictions, projections, and other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those contained in our press release and public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company disclaims any obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements that may be made or discussed during this call. Additionally, we will discuss certain supplemental financial measures that were not prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in the tables of our earnings release. Now I'll turn the call over to Adolfo.

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

Thanks, Andy, and good morning, everyone. I am excited to share some of the early progress that we have made on the strategic initiatives that we discussed. In our last call.

As I mentioned in our last call, we view fiscal 2026 as a year of stabilization for the company focused on building a foundation for long term sustainable growth. We are only one quarter into our turnaround strategy, but we have already begun to move from identifying problems to taking actions. As James will discuss in more detail, our underlying profitability has begun to show a clear positive trend when we adjust for timing related items. While there is much more work to be done and inevitably there will be some challenges, we are beginning to see some benefits from the changes we have made. Before I share some updates, let me begin by quickly reviewing the strategic initiatives we outlined on our last call.

These include four key areas: strengthening our customer focus, enhancing talent and accountability, achieving cost savings and organizational efficiency, and expanding our reach beyond e-commerce into new channels. Let's begin with strengthening our customer focus. We began to make major changes in our customer acquisition and marketing strategy during the first quarter. Historically, our company relied too heavily on bottom of the funnel marketing activities that focus on driving revenues without fully taking into account the overall impact on profitability. This was highly inefficient and negatively impacted our financial performance. In Q1, we made a fundamental shift to focus on marketing contribution margin, which allows us to better allocate resources and optimize spending, ensuring that our marketing dollars drive measurable returns. As James will discuss further, we're already seeing positive results from this change.

In the short term, we could see additional pressure on the top line as we recalibrate our approach toward a positive marketing contribution margin on paid traffic. As we pivot toward a greater focus on contribution margin, we are placing a stronger emphasis on optimizing our marketing spend to drive profitable growth, not just higher sales. This optimization delivers a twofold financial benefit that improves both efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency ensures we are maximizing our marketing dollars, reducing waste, and aligning spend with our highest return channels. Effectiveness, on the other hand, ensures our investments are more precisely targeted, driving stronger engagement and results. Together, these improvements directly impact our top and bottom lines by increasing awareness, accelerating customer acquisition, and improving retention. At the end of the day, this strategy positions us for stronger and more sustainable growth and profitability.

Additionally, this quarter we began testing a paid traffic consolidation strategy by redirecting visitors from our lower traffic websites to our main platforms, landing them on the same categories they were originally seeking. This approach is intended to improve productivity and maximize return on investment by increasing conversion and average order value as customers attach other categories merchandise on our primary platforms. Early results are promising, and we are confident that these efforts will help create a more scalable and efficient digital ecosystem. Expanding into new channels has been another key focus area for us. Historically, as a consumer products company with many selling options, we became too dependent on our own websites and on traffic coming directly from web browsers. The company didn't adjust its strategy as customer preferences shifted toward beginning their shopping journeys on third-party marketplaces.

I'm excited to announce that we are now selling our products through third-party marketplaces including Amazon and Walmart.com, making our offerings more accessible to a broader audience. Additionally, we have successfully opened our holiday pop-up shops, which have been well received by customers. These pop-ups will help us test and refine a physical retail concept that we can expand to multiple locations, leveraging our broad range of product categories. Having the right talent in the right roles is foundational to our transformation. Recently, we made a key hire to strengthen our leadership team. I am thrilled to welcome Melanie Babcock to our company as Chief Marketing and Growth Officer. This is a pivotal moment for our company, and Melanie is just the right leader to help us accelerate our transformation.

With a proven track record of building teams and businesses that deliver outsized, sustainable returns, she was key in leveraging AI to transform The Home Depot's marketing platforms from product focus to a customer-centric experience. Her proven ability to scale brands, build high-performing businesses, and create customer-centric growth strategies make her the perfect partner for this new chapter of our journey. In this newly created role, she will lead our marketing evolution across the enterprise and will be focused on building a full funnel marketing approach that drives awareness, acquisition, and retention, modernizing our digital experience to improve product discoverability, enhancing our merchandising strategy through stronger data infrastructure and AI, and streamlining our brand architecture to create a more intuitive and connected customer journey. This customer first approach will help us build a customer lifetime value flywheel where efficient acquisition and strong retention reinforce each other to drive profitable growth.

As part of our effort to drive greater efficiency and agility across the organization, we have made great progress partnering with our external consultants to identify and prioritize additional efficiency opportunities. We have already started to implement targeted organizational changes, including centralizing our marketing team and improving coordination between customer service and website development. These adjustments are designed to streamline operations, eliminate unnecessary complexity, and better align our teams with strategic priorities. We have also taken steps to increase accountability at all levels of our organization, ensuring that decision making is faster and more closely tied to bottom line results. We believe these changes position us to execute with greater focus and deliver improved results over the long term. As we enter the critical holiday period, our primary focus is on providing an exceptional experience for our customers during this important season.

While we remain committed to driving organizational change, continuously refining our marketing approach, and improving agility and efficiency, we recognize the importance of maintaining stability and delivering a seamless customer experience through the holiday rush. Therefore, we are prioritizing our turnaround roadmap accordingly. We look forward to keeping you updated on our progress. Now I will turn it over to James for the financial review.

James Langrock (CFO)

Thanks Adolfo and good morning everyone. This morning I will review our fiscal 2026 first quarter performance. Please note that all comparisons are made to the prior year period and represent adjusted results unless otherwise stated. During the first quarter of fiscal 2026, we saw a clear and immediate benefit from our strategic shift in marketing spend toward a marketing contribution margin focus. This metric is calculated as gross profit, less credit card fees, and marketing fees expressed as a percentage of sales. Both the first and second months of the quarter experienced profitability improvements as our marketing resources were more efficiently allocated, driving higher returns on investment. The third month of the quarter also benefited from this approach. The results were impacted by timing items, including the shift of certain wholesale orders from Q1 in the prior fiscal year into Q2 of this fiscal year.

After adjusting for timing related items, the trend in adjusted EBITDA was slightly positive for the quarter. Notably, this represents the first year-over-year improvement in adjusted EBITDA trends over the past seven quarters. By focusing on marketing contribution margin, optimizing spend, and streamlining operations, we're able to partially mitigate the effects of softer sales. As is the case for many companies, a portion of our cost of goods sold is fixed, which creates some gross margin pressure due to sales deleveraging. We believe the changes we are implementing provide a strong foundation for stabilization as we progress through the remainder of the fiscal year and position us for future growth. Looking ahead, we will remain disciplined in our marketing investments while becoming more effective. We will continue to partner with our external consultants to explore additional opportunities for operational efficiency.

We are encouraged by the early positive momentum generated by our new approach and are confident that these efforts will drive sustainable financial performance as we progress through fiscal 2026. Now, let's review our performance. Consolidated revenue for the first quarter decreased by 11.1%. This included a 14.6% decline in the Consumer Floral and Gift segment and an 8.6% decline in the Gourmet Foods and Gift baskets segment. Revenues in our BloomNet segment were essentially flat with the prior year period. These results were primarily driven by a strategic shift toward emphasizing positive marketing contribution margin and to a lesser extent changes in wholesale order timing, which shifted from the first quarter of the previous year to the second quarter of this fiscal year. Now turning to gross margin, our first quarter gross margin decreased 240 basis points to 35.7% compared with 38.1% in the prior year period.

This was primarily due to deleveraging on the sales decline combined with the impact of higher tariffs. Operating expenses decreased $12 million to $127.3 million, primarily due to lower marketing and labor costs, excluding non-recurring charges and the impact of the company's non-qualified deferred compensation plan. In both periods, operating expenses declined $10.9 million as compared to prior year to $124.9 million. As a result of these factors, our first quarter adjusted EBITDA loss was $32.9 million as compared with a loss of $27.9 million in the prior year period. Before I review our balance sheet, I want to briefly update you on our cost reduction efforts. We continue to collaborate with external consultants to streamline operations and drive greater efficiency across the business. As we shared last quarter, we have already implemented $17 million in annualized cost reductions.

We are beginning to see the early benefits of our cost reduction initiatives flow through the P&L. However, those savings are currently being offset by the impact of tariffs, investments in people, and higher transportation costs. Based on the analysis we have done in collaboration with our external consultants, we anticipate we can achieve an incremental $50 million in cost savings over the next two years on a run-rate basis. Please note, this figure excludes one-time expenses such as consultant fees and severance costs. Additionally, this amount does not account for savings associated with improvements in marketing spend efficiency. Now turning to our balance sheet. At quarter end, net debt was $259.3 million compared with $224.1 million a year ago. Our cash balance was $7.7 million. Inventory was $269.8 million, compared with $275.3 million a year ago.

In terms of our debt, we have $157 million in term debt and borrowings of $110 million under our revolving credit facility. In preparation for the upcoming holiday season, we expect borrowings under the revolver to be fully repaid during fiscal second quarter. We will open the call for Q and A. Operator, please provide instructions for those interested in asking a question.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble the roster. The first question comes from Michael Kupinski with Noble Capital Markets.

Michael Kupinski (Director of Research)

Thank you for taking the questions. I have quite a few questions here. First of all, I know last year you were talking a little bit about gas prices. They had seemed to come down a little bit from last year. I was wondering if you're still dealing with price surcharges on gas prices or have they gone away?

James Langrock (CFO)

Michael, this is James. The fuel surcharge is always part of the FedEx charges. They've moderated, they haven't gone away, but they haven't increased.

Michael Kupinski (Director of Research)

Okay. In terms of your marketing efforts, I know you made changes there, but have you also included changes in products and price points on your products?

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

Hi, Michael, this is Adolfo. Yes, the merchandising organization continuously reviews their assortment strategy and pricing strategy to adjust their costs accordingly.

Michael Kupinski (Director of Research)

Okay, in the last call you mentioned that consumer floral had become very price competitive. I was wondering if you can just give us an update on the competitive environment in the consumer floral space.

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

The way I would characterize that is there are more competitors emerging in the space. What that is doing is not so much on the pricing side of the product, it's on the cost of buying clicks. Sometimes we are competing to buy the same search terms, and that increases the marketing costs and therefore reduces the marketing productivity.

Michael Kupinski (Director of Research)

Gotcha. It has always been said that how back to school goes, so does Christmas. Can you just provide your thoughts on how back to school looked for you and how Christmas is looking? Any thoughts on your—maybe if you could just kind of give us some thoughts on how the wholesale business is looking as you go into the holiday season.

James Langrock (CFO)

Yeah. Michael, on the back to school, that's obviously not for the P Mall, it's part of the business but it's a smaller part of the business. The real holiday peak for us, as you know, is the Christmas holiday season. As you know, it's still early, it's early days in the holiday season. That's where on that front as it relates to wholesale, we did have a shift, as you know, timing of wholesale orders between the end of September and early October. Always kind of impacts us historically. We did have a shift from Q1 into Q2 of this year. We are seeing really strong wholesale sales and anticipate that will be up on a year-over-year basis for this holiday season.

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

Michael, let me build on that. The team recently was analyzing the sales per week throughout the quarter and the fiscal year. Basically all the way from the beginning of Q1, so July through, I would say, October, we sell per week about the same. You see the significant increases. What really matters to us, as James was suggesting, is the holiday season, and that will start in the next week or in the next couple of weeks. That's when the season really starts for us, and that's what really moves the needle.

Michael Kupinski (Director of Research)

I got you. Okay. I was just wondering in terms of the tone of the environment right now, are you seeing any particular changes in the tone? We saw some Fed rate action, and whether or not you're starting to see the benefits from that. I was just wondering how you're seeing what the consumer is feeling right now and just the general environment for the consumer.

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

I don't think there's anything meaningful to comment on.

Michael Kupinski (Director of Research)

Okay, I'll let others ask questions. Thank you.

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Anthony Lebiedzinski with Sidoti & Company.

Anthony Lebiedzinski (Senior Equity Analyst)

Good morning and thank you for taking the questions. I just wanted to follow up on the wholesale piece. Is there any way you guys could quantify what you think the revenue impact was of the shift between first quarter and second quarter?

James Langrock (CFO)

Yes, it was several million dollars, $3 million, $4 million. Anthony.

Anthony Lebiedzinski (Senior Equity Analyst)

All right, that's very helpful, James. Thank you for that. In terms of the $50 million in gross savings, how should we think about the timing of those savings? Is there any way you could say what the savings will be on a net basis?

James Langrock (CFO)

Let me just first take the first question, Anthony. Of the $50 million, you know, we believe on a run rate basis that we'll get half of it in fiscal 2026 and half of it is remaining in fiscal 2027. We started already to take actions, immediate actions, but there are some certain areas, like supply chain and procurement that, you know, take a little longer to get implemented. Half this year, half next year, started to implement some of those actions as we speak. Quantifying the cost of that is a little difficult right now as we work through it, Anthony, but we believe that this year we'll have more of the cost than in next year. At this point, it's hard to quantify. I don't want to give you a number until we have more finalized numbers.

Anthony Lebiedzinski (Senior Equity Analyst)

Understood. Okay. For the quarter, you guys had a small tax expense. Normally you guys have a tax benefit in the quarter. Can you talk about what happened there and what should we expect for the tax rates for the fiscal year?

James Langrock (CFO)

Yeah. Anthony, what's happened is we've had three years of cumulative losses. Typically we would have a tax benefit in Q1, but being that we've had three years of cumulative losses, we are now setting up a valuation allowance for those deferred tax assets. It's more of an accounting thing. Obviously, as we return to profitability, we'll be able to start using those benefits. It was due to, you know, we had to set up a valuation allowance this quarter because of the three years of cumulative losses.

Anthony Lebiedzinski (Senior Equity Analyst)

Understood. Thanks for that. As far as your move into Amazon and Walmart.com, I know it's recent, but can you give us any early read on what you're seeing in terms of sales coming through those sites?

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

What I would say, it's early days, but it is going quite well. I see the benefit of selling on Amazon and Walmart.com not only incremental, top and bottom line, which, I mean, it's small numbers, but it is growing very nicely. The other thing is the best practices that those websites have. The team is learning those, and as we are learning, you are going to see us adjust our websites to better align with best practices these days. I'm very optimistic about where that is going. We haven't even started to optimize our value proposition pricing offering. All the team is working on right now is our top sellers are being sold on those websites, and we are seeing early traction. It's actually quite positive from the traffic that those websites have, which is why we're doing this.

They already have the traffic. We're putting our value proposition in front of them and conversion happens. So far, so good.

Anthony Lebiedzinski (Senior Equity Analyst)

All right, that's good to hear. My last question before I pass it on to others, can you also just comment on the increased commodity costs? What was the impact of that, and how do you see that going forward?

James Langrock (CFO)

Anthony, on the commodities, as I mentioned, on a year-over-year basis for the quarter, chocolate is up year-over-year. We also have eggs are up slightly on a year-over-year basis, and then the other major commodities are either flat or down with the prior year. It's a little bit of a mixed bag. It didn't have a significant impact on our Q1. Obviously, what had more of an impact was the tariffs, but the commodities kind of almost netted themselves out.

Anthony Lebiedzinski (Senior Equity Analyst)

Gotcha. All right, thank you very much and best of luck.

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

Thank you.

James Langrock (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Doug Lane with Water Tower Research.

Doug Lane (Managing Director)

Yes. Hi. Good morning, everybody. I want to talk about tariffs. Recently, President Trump threatened Colombia with very stiff tariffs because of the drug trade. Can you comment on how that would impact your business, and what would be the workaround if he didn't enact those tariffs?

James Langrock (CFO)

As you know, Colombia represents about 60%-70% of the fresh flowers coming into the country. It would clearly have a significant impact on the U.S. floral industry. It would have a significant impact, you know, in creating higher prices across the ecosystem. If it does happen, hopefully it hasn't. He hasn't given a number yet. Cali would have an impact and most likely would just be an increase because so many of the flowers do come in from Colombia. We would try to offset that with other areas, but it would be very difficult to do that. It would have an impact on the overall industry, not just 1-800-Flowers.com.

Doug Lane (Managing Director)

No, clearly on the overall industry. What is the practicality of moving your sourcing from Colombia to, say, Ecuador or somewhere else in the area?

James Langrock (CFO)

You can. We would absolutely try, but everyone would be doing the same thing. Right? I mean, we could move some of it. Obviously, you could try to, you know, change arrangements and the floor, you know, the flowers that are in it. Like I said, it would definitely put price pressure on the overall industry.

Doug Lane (Managing Director)

Yeah, clearly. No question. All right, shifting gears to your pop-up shops, can you remind us what the, what you're doing this holiday season with regards to pop-up shops and how that relates to what you did last season, last holiday season?

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

This season we are doing nine different locations, eight of those for Harry & David and one for Things Remembered. Last year we did about the same. The way to think about these pop-ups, it's twofold. One is a nice way to, yes, drive some sales, but really I think we would do it for the awareness of the brand and the categories we carry. The second more valuable reason we are doing this is I have challenged the team to identify a physical retail concept that we can roll out across the country to multiple stores. We have stores that are profitable. Our Cheryl's Cookies stores in Ohio are highly profitable. They take in half the space. I think it's 80%, 90% of the sales.

We have so many categories that I do believe that you can find the right combination of categories that we already manufacture and we have with the right combination of branding to truly create a physical retail concept that you can just roll out across the country. It's a few samples. See it as a test. It's only nine pop-ups. The real benefit is longer term, identifying this physical retail concept that would allow us to profitably grow into physical retail.

Doug Lane (Managing Director)

No, that makes sense. You know, you're selling now on Amazon and Walmart.com, and I get what you're doing here. The name of the company is 1-800-Flowers.com, so I wondered if there's a rebranding that needs to happen here so that you can expand, so you can really, really be able to benefit from this expanded distribution into multiple retail channels or multiple distribution channels.

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

I'll say great question. We hired an external marketing and brand consultant to help us answer that question. As everything you will see us do going forward, we are customer back. We are going to do whatever resonates better with the customer.

Doug Lane (Managing Director)

That makes sense. I have to say I like what you're doing and everything seems to be on the table. I look forward to tracking your progress over the next several quarters and years. Thank you.

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference to Adolfo Villagomez for any closing comments.

Adolfo Villagomez (CEO)

Thank you all once again for taking the the time to join us on today's call and for your continued support on 1-800-Flowers.com. Fiscal 2026 marks a pivotal year of stabilization for 1-800-Flowers.com during which we're establishing the foundation for sustainable long-term growth. While we are in the earliest stages of our turnaround, we had two significant achievements this quarter. First, we shifted towards prioritizing marketing contribution margin, which is already producing positive results, and second, we identified an additional $50 million in cost savings. We are seeing some early benefits of our turnaround strategy, and I am encouraged by the momentum that is building across the enterprise. We look forward to keeping you updated on our progress. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.