Global-E Online - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to Global-e first quarter 2024 earnings announcement conference call. This call is being simultaneously webcast on the company's website in the Investor Relations section under News & Events. For opening remarks and introductions, I will now turn the call over to Erica Mannion at Sapphire Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Erica Mannion (Founder and Partner)

Thank you, and good morning. With me today from Global-e are Amir Schlachet, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Ofer Koren, Chief Financial Officer, and Nir Debbi, Co-founder and President. Amir will begin with a review of the business results for the first quarter of 2024. Ofer will then review the financial results for the first quarter of 2024, followed by the company's outlook for the second quarter and full year of 2024. We will then open the call for questions.

Certain statements we make today may constitute forward-looking statements and information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that relate to our current expectations and views of future events. These forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties and assumptions, some of which are beyond our control. In addition, these forward-looking statements reflect our current views with respect to future events and not a guarantee of future performance.

Actual outcomes may differ materially from the information contained in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including those set forth in the section titled Risk Factors of our prospectus filed with the SEC on September 13, 2021, and other documents filed with or furnished to the SEC. These statements reflect management's current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date of this call. You should not put undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee that future results, levels of activity, performance, and events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or will occur.

Except as required by applicable law, we make no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Please refer to our press release dated May 20, 2024, for additional information. In addition, certain metrics we will discuss today are non-GAAP metrics. The presentation of this financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute or as superior to financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. We use these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operating decision-making and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons.

We believe that these measures provide useful information about operating results, enhance the overall understanding of past financial performance and future prospects, and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in its financial and operating decision making. For more information on the GAAP. Excuse me. For more information on the non-GAAP financial measures, please see the reconciliation tables provided in our press release dated May 20, 2024. Throughout this call, we provide a number of key performance indicators used by our management and often used by competitors in our industry. These and other key performance indicators are discussed in more detail in our press release dated May 20, 2024. I will now turn the call over to Amir, Co-founder and CEO.

Amir Schlachet (Co-founder and CEO)

Thank you, Erica, and welcome everyone. With the financial results of Q1, which we are releasing today, we are off to a great start of what we believe will be yet another pivotal year of growth for Global-e. GMV, revenues, and adjusted EBITDA all beat the top of our forecasted range for the quarter, with GMV growing 32% year-on-year, revenues growing 24%, and adjusted EBITDA growing 47%. These strong results manifest our team's continued execution across all elements of the business, coupled with our effectiveness in controlling costs and the fact that macro conditions during the quarter were slightly more favorable than what we initially anticipated back in February. Moreover, we remain confident in our ability to uphold our plans for the remainder of the year, as is reflected in our updated guidance for the full year of 2024.

Most notably, the large client launches planned for the second half of the year are on track, and Shopify Markets Pro continues to amass merchants at the planned pace. Among other things, we believe both these factors will contribute to our ability to accelerate growth in the second half of the year. Later in this call, Ofer will review our Q1 results in more detail, and he will provide you with our guidance for Q2 and our raised guidance for the full year of 2024. But before we do that, I would like to share with you some of the exciting business developments we have seen recently. During Q1, we continued to experience strong demand for our services across all markets we operate in. Q1, so many renowned brands go live with Global-e services.

In the U.S., designer brands Donna Karan and DKNY, footwear brand HEYDUDE by Crocs, and sports fashion brand Golf Wang all went live, as did Imperial Workshop, our first U.S. merchant on the Wix platform. Thanks to the combination of Wix and Global-e, all aspiring Jedi Knights can now do their essential lightsaber shopping online on the Imperial Workshop website, regardless of where they live. Of course, as long as they- it's not in a galaxy far, far away. During the quarter, we also launched with lingerie brand La Senza in Canada, as well as high street fashion brands Hobbs and T.M. Lewin, luggage brand Antler, and a homeware brand, Soho Home, in the U.K.

In Europe, we launched with the French vintage style fashion brand, Louise Misha, with fashion brands Gérard Darel, Soeur, and Caroll, and with the renowned luxury lifestyle brand, Repetto, which, thanks to Global-e, can now sell its iconic ballerina shoes worldwide as seamlessly and effectively as it does so in France. The quarter also saw the launches of innovative fashion brand Marc Cain, and the online store of workwear and protective gear retailer, Engelbert Strauss, both in Germany. Moreover, we launched with the leisure brand Pacha in Spain, with its famous cherries logo, women's luxury fashion brand, Costarellos in Greece, and the fashion brand, Rubato in Sweden, among many others.

Our business in APAC continues to expand all the time as well, with examples of recent launches in the region being Infamous Swim and Carla Zampatti in Australia, Hi mu-mo by Avex and commmonsmart in Japan, DIY Watch Club in Hong Kong, and more. During Q1, we also continued our efforts to expand our business with existing merchants and with brand groups. As such, we opened new markets for Adidas and DÔEN, and went live with Infiniment, an additional brand from the Coty Group. We also went live with Tap to Style, a new brand by Miroglio in Italy, who themselves just went live the previous quarter, and with NNormal, a new Spanish brand from the Camper Group.

With dozens of other brands going live and with robust integration and sales pipelines, we believe we can continue on our growth path into the future as more and more merchants put emphasis on global direct-to-consumer sales. Switching gears, I would like to update you regarding the various components of our strategic partnership with Shopify. On the 3P or direct integration side, the migration of our historical merchant base onto the new native integration is nearing completion, and the team's focus has turned now towards the continued gradual transition of all Shopify merchants onto checkout extensibility. On the 1P, or Shopify Markets Pro side, merchants continue to sign up and go live, gradually amassing GMV at the planned rate. In parallel, the teams on both sides continue to work on developing additional features and capabilities, further enhancing the solution's reach.

Given the large market potential on the Shopify platform, and as adoption of the innovative Markets Pro solution continues to rise, we remain highly convinced in our ability to capture a meaningful part of this massive market opportunity over the course of the next few years. With all these exciting developments, and with many others across the entire business, we continue to believe more than ever in our ability to exhibit long-term and durable growth as we capture more and more of the vast greenfield opportunity that lies ahead of us. I will now hand it to Ofer, our CFO, to take us through the quarterly numbers in more depth, as well as present our updated guidance going forward.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Thank you, Amir, and thanks everyone for joining us today for our earnings call. We are off to a strong start in 2024. Q1 was another quarter of fast growth and robust adjusted EBITDA, as we continue to drive progress on all fronts and remain committed to delivering value to merchants in their international initiatives. I'd like to point out again that in addition to our GAAP results, I'll also be discussing certain non-GAAP results. Our GAAP financial results, along with the reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results, can be found in our earnings release. As Amir mentioned, we have experienced rapid growth of GMV in Q1, as we generated $930 million of GMV, an increase of 32% year-over-year, 3.9% over the midpoint of our guidance for Q1.

We continue to benefit from the growth of global e-commerce, which is back to its pre-COVID long-term pattern, taking share from brick-and-mortar retail, and the continued focus of merchants of direct-to-consumer, while there is still uncertainty regarding consumer demand, which remains volatile. In Q1, we generated total revenue of $145.9 million, up 24% year-over-year. Service fee revenue were $68.3 million, up 36%, and fulfillment services revenue were up 15% to $77.6 million. The higher growth of service fee revenue compared to fulfillment services revenue was mainly driven by the higher share of our multi-local offering. As reflected in our guidance, we expect take rates to stabilize at close to 16%, driven by elevated levels of fulfillment services adoption. Non-GAAP gross profit continued to outpace revenue growth.

In Q1, non-GAAP gross profit was $66.1 million, up 36% year-over-year, representing a gross margin of 45.3%, compared to 41.4% in the same period last year, driven by the higher share of service fee revenue and our continuous efficiencies effort. GAAP gross profit was $63.3 million, representing a margin of 43.4%. Moving on to operational expenses, we continue to invest in the development of our platform to further enhance and expand our offering. R&D expense in Q4, excluding stock-based compensation, was $20.1 million, or 13.8% of revenue, compared to $16.9 million, or 14.3%, in the same period last year. Total R&D spend in Q4 was $23.5 million.

We also continue to invest in sales and marketing to expand our pipeline while maintaining efficiencies. Sales and marketing expense, excluding Shopify-related amortization expenses, stock-based compensation, acquisition-related intangibles, and amortization, was $17.2 million, or 11.8% of revenue, compared to $10.5 million, or 8.9% of revenue, in the same period last year. Shopify warrants-related amortization expense was $36.3 million. Total sales and marketing expenses for the quarter were $57 million. General and administrative expenses, excluding stock-based compensation, acquisition-related expenses, and acquisition-related contingent consideration, was $8.3 million, or 5.7% of revenue, compared to $7.4 million, or 6.3% of revenue, in the same period last year. Total G&A spend in Q1 was $12.1 million.

Adjusted EBITDA continued to grow rapidly and totaled $21.3 million, representing a 14.6% adjusted EBITDA margin, and increasing by 47% from $14.5 million, or 12.3% margin, in the same period last year. Net loss was $32.1 million, compared to a net loss of $43.1 million in the year-ago period, driven mainly by the amortization expenses related to the Shopify warrants and by the transaction-related intangibles. Switching gears and turning to the balance sheet and cash flow statement, we ended the quarter with $298 million in cash, cash equivalents, including short-term deposits and marketable securities.

Cash flow used by operating activities was $54.3 million, compared to $29.5 million used a year ago, driven by typical first quarter post-peak working capital dynamics and a $12.2 million payment of held back acquisition-related proceeds to the Flow founders. Moving on to our financial outlook and guidance for Q2 and our updated 2024 full-year guidance. For Q2, 2024, we're expecting GMV to be in the range of $1.025 billion-$1.065 billion. At the midpoint of the range, this represents a growth rate of 27% versus Q2 of 2023. We expect Q2 revenue to be in the range of $162.5 million-$168.5 million.

At the midpoint of the range, this represents a growth rate of 24% versus Q2 of 2023. For adjusted EBITDA, we're expecting a profit in the range of $24.5 million-$28.5 million. For the full year of 2024, we are raising our guidance and now anticipate GMV to be in the range of $4.625 billion-$4.865 billion, representing a 33.4% annual growth rate at the midpoint of the range. Revenue is now expected to be in the range of $733 million-$773 million, representing growth rate of 32.1% at the midpoint of the range. For adjusted EBITDA, we're now expecting a profit of $124 million-$140 million.

We continue to believe growth will accelerate in the second half of the year, driven by large merchant launches planned for H2, which are on track, anticipated elevate volume contribution from Shopify Markets Pro, which is growing as expected, and a lower impact from Borderfree on a year-over-year comparison. In conclusion, the opportunity in front of us remains massive, and we continue our journey to support merchants worldwide in expanding their direct-to-consumer business. We focus on execution and believe we can continue to grow rapidly while further expanding cash generation in the coming years. And with that, Amir, Nir, and I are happy to answer questions you may have. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the number one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the number two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before pressing any key. Our first question comes from the line of Will Nance from Goldman Sachs. Go ahead, please.

Will Nance (VP)

Hey, guys, good morning. Appreciate you taking the question. I know you had a comment in the prepared remarks that the macro environment ended up being a little bit better than the expectations in the first quarter, and I'm just wondering if you could kind of speak to what you're seeing so far in Q2, just given some of the negative data points around luxury spending. And, you know, have you guys noticed any change in spending patterns over the last month and a half?

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Hey, Will, thanks, thanks for the question. Basically, we haven't seen any material changes in Q2 so far. Things continue to be volatile in terms of macro conditions. We see it basically in the trading patterns. But our anticipation and what we've seen so far in Q2 and our assumption for the remainder of Q2 is that the volatility enhance the macro environment in general will remain similar to what we've seen in Q1.

Will Nance (VP)

Got it. It's super helpful. And then can you just talk about the pipeline of product enhancements on the Markets Pro side, things like fulfillment and just what the rollout schedule for things like that would be?

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

Hey, Will, it's Nir. We continue to work according to our roadmap, developing enhancements and features towards Shopify Markets Pro. We continue to roll those out. I think over the next few quarters, we will see a gradual rollout of all the key elements we are working towards, and we expect it to continue and accelerate the growth in the coming quarters of the solutions adoption.

Will Nance (VP)

Got it. Appreciate it. Thank you for the question.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Samad Samana from Jefferies. Go ahead, please.

Samad Samana (Managing Director)

Hi. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. So maybe first, you guys mentioned multiple times that Markets Pro, the merchant ramp is tracking to plan. Can you just remind us what the plan target is, whether that's in terms of number of merchants or GMV that you're targeting for 2024? And what have you assumed in guidance for the rest of the year?

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

Hi, Samad. We haven't guided for specific numbers of what we expect this year on Markets Pro. In the future, as we indicated before, once it becomes a large enough business size, we will look at more clarity, specifically on Markets Pro. However, the market expectations as reflected between different markets reports is in line with what we see today. So, we are trading within the numbers that are outside in the market.

Samad Samana (Managing Director)

Understood. And then maybe just, Ofer, as I think about the—I, I know you mentioned what drove the quarter, but, I didn't catch NRR. Could you maybe help us understand how NRR tracked through the quarter and what you've observed maybe post-quarter, and, and if that's tracking to kind of historical assumptions that you've seen over the last few years?

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Yeah. So, hey, Samad, thanks for the question. So, you know, as you know, we provide annual and the NRR numbers. However, generally speaking, we can say that, while, as Amir mentioned, there is a volatility in consumer behavior, all in all, except for the lower two weeks in February, it has been around or just slightly below the numbers we usually see or the numbers we've expected for this year. So, it's not at its peak and it is below average, but it's more or less in line with what we've expected for 2024.

Samad Samana (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks again, and congratulations on the quarter.

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

Thank you.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Thanks a lot.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Peterson from Raymond James. Go ahead, please.

Brian Peterson (Managing Director)

Thanks, gentlemen. Congrats on the quarter. So, I know you mentioned some commentary on the macro. I'm curious how that relates to the top of the funnel. What are you seeing in terms of pipeline creation in deal timing thus far in 2024?

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

Hey. Hi, it's Nir. Thank you for the question. For now, what we see as year-to-date is that our pipelines remain strong or even stronger than what we've seen ever in the past. We are looking towards the second part of the year, where we expect the launch of several large merchants that are currently in project state, as well as the signing of at least additional one. So we're quite optimistic. I don't think that we ever had a pipeline in terms of sheer dollars, that is, that was as strong as this one.

Brian Peterson (Managing Director)

That's great to hear. And Ofer, maybe just to follow up, you had a nice beat in gross margins this quarter. I know the mix is maybe a little bit different, but I wanna understand what drove that and how we should be thinking about modeling gross margins going forward. Thanks, guys.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

That, so yeah, gross margins have been high this quarter, and that is due to two factors. The first one is actually the mix of revenues. So, service fee share was higher compared to last year, to the prior quarter. And in addition, we are continuously working on efficiencies, improving processes, and so on and so forth. So this contributed as well. Going forward, we don't expect, as we previously stated, we don't expect any significant expansion this year. We are happy with the level of gross margins we currently have. So, going forward, we do not expect a significant increase.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Koji Ikeda from Bank of America. Go ahead, please.

Koji Ikeda (Director of Enterprise Software Equity Research)

Yeah. Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking the questions. I wanted to ask on the guidance here, just thinking about the GMV guide specifically. And when I look at the second quarter guide and the full-quarter guide, and a little bit of the historical seasonal pattern in GMV, it looks like a pretty, pretty heavy ramp into the fourth quarter here. So just trying to understand or maybe a bit more qualitative color in the way you're thinking about linearity and GMV ramp for the rest of the year. Thank you.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Yes. So, you're right, this year is not our typical year, and we've discussed that in the previous quarter as well. H2 growth takes into account a few drivers. The first one is the large client launches that we expect and currently are on track, on time. So, this is one main contributor. In previous years, we had large client launches, but they were not all in the second half of the year. The second driver is obviously Shopify Markets Pro, which is ramping up, so we expect it to contribute more in H2. It is currently, as we mentioned, on target, so we feel quite confident with the way it's progressing.

The third one is we do expect to see reduced effect of Borderfree. Well, Borderfree is weighing on our growth a bit due to the nature of the merchants trading on Borderfree, a lot of large department stores and so on. And as we go forward, one, its share of our volume is decreasing because the other business is growing, and we are migrating those merchants to Global-e, and we expect to see uplifts once those migrations are done. So those are the main drivers behind the H2 growth.

Koji Ikeda (Director of Enterprise Software Equity Research)

Got it. Thank you. Just to follow up here on the large merchants that you've mentioned that you're expecting to come on in the second half, it definitely sounds like it's a positive on the progression here to get them to go live, but it also sounds like it's a pretty big risk to guidance if they don't go live. So maybe you could speak to what is giving you that confidence that these guys will be able to get the Global-e platform live later this year. Thanks, guys.

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

Hi, Koji. It's Nir. The large projects are currently on track. It's projects that are already deep into the project phase of it in order to launch in Q3 and early Q4, because no one launches in November or December. Usually everybody's doing it pre-peak. So in the next four months, in order to launch, large merchants are already deep into the integration and the testing cycle. So we do have high confidence that it is happening. While there is always a risk of delay, we do have high level of confidence based on the current status of the project that it's actually going to go as planned.

So, as we do take some, I would say, some level of conservatism into our guiding or our guidance, of course, we do have, we did factor out certain delays, a few weeks here, a few weeks there, in order to absorb minor changes in the launches.

Koji Ikeda (Director of Enterprise Software Equity Research)

Thank you. Thank you for taking the question.

Amir Schlachet (Co-founder and CEO)

Thanks, Koji.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Scott Berg from Needham. Go ahead, please.

Scott Berg (Managing Director)

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Nir, I think it was you that responded to the pipeline question in the second half, and pleased that it actually, I think it was dollar-wise, might be an all-time high here. As you look back at your Q1 business, what do sales cycles look like? Are you able to continue to close deals at similar rates, or is there anything in the background that might be accelerating or delaying some of those sales cycles?

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

Yeah, so to be honest, I think after, I would say, a slight delay sometime in mid-half last year, as of, I would say late last year, this Q1, we are more optimistic, that merchants are, I would say, starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel, and we see willing to make commitments faster. The main change we see is on the larger project side, where we see more RFPs coming in, more interest from large merchants. And if that continues, we do expect it to affect very positively our 2025 launches. So it's pipeline that is being built now, very strong one, and we believe that if this continues, along the year, we will see a very positive effect on our 2025 business.

Scott Berg (Managing Director)

Got it, very helpful. Thank you. And then, as you all look at six months into the Shopify Markets Pro opportunity with Shopify, you seem pleased with the current traction, at least year-to-date and what the second half looks like. But are there additional levers that you believe that you can pull? Maybe they don't impact this year, maybe it's more impacting next year in fiscal 2025. But are there additional levers that you can pull to maybe accelerate some of the merchant adoption of that platform?

Amir Schlachet (Co-founder and CEO)

Yeah, thanks, Scott. It's Amir. So as you said, and as we noted, we're indeed pleased with the pace in which merchants are onboarding and that GMV is amassing. And yes, there is a joint pipeline and roadmap between us and Shopify, which is aimed at constantly adding more features and enhancing the solution. Which by itself should enlarge the applicability of the solution for additional merchants and accelerate down the line into, as you indicated, next year and beyond, the pace in which it is adopted. In addition, as a reminder, this Markets Pro is currently available just for U.S.-based merchants.

Again, as part of our roadmap into the future, we do also plan, together with Shopify, down the line, to open the Markets Pro offering for merchants from additional markets, like the U.K. and others. That's still. There's no date yet set. It's still in the future, but when that goes online, it will further accelerate the adoption rate.

Scott Berg (Managing Director)

Understood. Very helpful. Thanks, and congrats again on a good quarter.

Amir Schlachet (Co-founder and CEO)

Thanks, Scott.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of James Faucette from Morgan Stanley. Go ahead, please.

James Faucette (Managing Director)

Great. Thank you. Wanted to ask just a couple of follow-up questions. First, in terms of your existing customers, I know you said that, the NRR was kind of moving around and wasn't quite as strong as it has been historically, but can you give us a little color on how the same-store sales component of that is tracking, and if you've made any, adjustments to how that's being incorporated into your outlook for this year?

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Sure. Thank you for that, James. It's Ofer. So I was referring previously mainly to that component, that the same-store sales has been lower than the historical average, and it has been volatile. However, we see it sort of stabilizing around the levels that we've assumed or used for our budget. So it's, you know—There was a drop in mid-February that we talked about in the previous quarter, then it came back, and since then, it is sort of hovering around the same levels with some volatility.

James Faucette (Managing Director)

Great. Great, appreciate that. Back on, you know, Shopify, Shopify Markets Pro. You know, it sounds like that's continuing to track well. If you can give us a little more insight into how that develops sequentially, and then, you know, clearly you're doing a lot to add incremental functionality. I guess with the comment that that'll increase the applicability, is that built into the acceleration you're expecting in the latter part of this year? Or should we think about there being more of a lag and there being more of an impact in trajectory in 2025? Thanks.

Amir Schlachet (Co-founder and CEO)

Yeah, thanks, James. So in terms of the adoption rate, we see a constant stream of merchants that is joining, and it's we're constantly working not just on features that have to do with the offering itself, but also the onboarding process, which is not less important, and making it even more seamless and even faster for merchants to onboard and start trading. So, this, together with the larger appeal as we roll down or roll out more features, should gradually enhance that kind of daily or weekly pace of merchants joining the platform.

So, we do bake into our into our assumptions going forward the kind of gradual—Increasing that pace when we look on the longer term, but also take into account that these are all new merchants. So as the year progresses, we should get it should get increasingly meaningful because we get more and more of these merchants to trade in parallel on the platform.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brent Bracelin from Piper Sandler. Go ahead, please.

Brent Bracelin (Head of Technology Equity Capital Markets)

Thank you. So, sounds like the large merchants here are helping drive this second half acceleration. It sounds like you're getting more interest from large merchants in the pipeline. I just wanted to double-click into why now? Could you talk about why these large merchants are now turning to Global-e, the tough macro out there? There's certainly challenges, so love to better explain kind of why you're seeing the large merchants turn to Global-e now. Thanks.

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

Hi, Brent. It's Nir. Overall, we have seen a movement toward larger merchants that started in COVID. COVID pushed much more larger retailers towards accelerating the direct-to-consumer approach, especially on a global level, as most of them had it in their home markets. And we do see this being accelerated now with more RFPs coming out, as the domestic markets, I assume, are more challenging or more saturated for many of them, and they do want to have further growth and further profitability that can be provided by a direct to consumer and not through wholesale or middlemen in different countries around the world. So we do expect it to continue to grow.

And I think it also relates to Global-e positioning, that over time builds much more expertise and brand position as market leader in supporting those large brands, generating great results and making the operations much more seamless and simple, trading around the world. And we continue, we continue to see this growing and accelerating over time as we, as we are able to build more capabilities, being much more localized in more markets around the world, and gain and generate more data out of this growth. So the combination of it all, I think, creates this flywheel effect that would continue to attract a larger business into the company as we see it.

Brent Bracelin (Head of Technology Equity Capital Markets)

Couple clear. Thanks for that. And then, and then Ofer, if I think about the GMV growth guide at the midpoint versus the revenue guide at the midpoint, can you just talk a little bit about take rate and expectations on take rate and what's driving the improvement here in Q2?

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Yes. So, basically as we mentioned previously, we expect—while we do expect some volatility in take rate depending on specific GMV mix, we expect it to be much more stable if you look at the entire year compared to previous years. So we expect it to be close to 16% over the year, with less volatility between quarters. As we've mentioned, we do see multi-local growth normalizing, not because those merchants are not growing. They're growing very nicely, but last year, the larger of those either expanded their business with us or launched the business with us, so it was a unique year in that perspective. So we see more normalized take rates.

There aren't many changes. It's mainly sort of marginal movements depending on the GMV mix, but we do expect it to stabilize below 16%.

Brent Bracelin (Head of Technology Equity Capital Markets)

Makes sense. Thank you so much.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Thanks, Brent.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Bauch from Wells Fargo. Go ahead, please.

Andrew Bauch (Director of FinTech Equity Research)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Just wanted to get a product update on the demand gen solution that you were planning to launch in the second half. Maybe an update on, you know, early receptiveness you've heard from clients, and whether that can meaningfully move the needle on revenues or margins as we get in the back half of the year.

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

Hi, thank you for the question. It's Nir. We continue to invest in building our demand gen capabilities. We did, over the last few quarters, build expertise and an in-house specialized agency to support our brands in growing the demand generation. In the second part of the year, we are going to launch to support it, based on the Borderfree acquisition, a unique proposition that would support us in driving our brands' growth. We are now in the early stages of introducing this solution to our merchants. It's not live for them yet. It's just being introduced to them now, in order to get a buy-in, in order to get them live on it in the second part of the year.

We do see a very great interest in it, and we do expect high adoption. We do believe it will accelerate the growth, and we will start to see positive effect as of the last quarter of the year, but much more when we look into 2025 onwards. This is going to, as we see it, accelerate our growth and our clients' growth based on actually increasing NRR. We expect that trading merchants today and merchants that will launch with us in the future would be able to penetrate new markets and increase their footfall in current markets with these services.

So we do have high hopes to it, and most of it will not materialize, of course, in 2024. We do see it as a contribution that's going to grow as of 2025 onwards.

Andrew Bauch (Director of FinTech Equity Research)

That's definitely something to look forward to. Just touching on adjusted EBITDA, you know, another nice quarter of stability there. Just thinking about the back half ramp with Markets Pro and with the two large merchants, how do you feel from an investment perspective that you're positioned today, and how do you think that can translate to margins as we get in the back half of this year and then into 2025? Just trying to better understand the modeling here.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

So, EBITDA, you know, as reflected in our guidance, we expect the margin to grow, to continue to grow in 2024, and to be around 18%. The economics of, you know, new merchants coming in or the Shopify Markets Pro offering on, you know, obviously, if those are large merchants, the economics are a bit different. But on the same level, we've launched many smaller merchants in the first half of the year, so there is a balance there. We don't expect any significant changes. We expect to see an improvement over time, as reflected in our guidance for the entire year as well.

Amir Schlachet (Co-founder and CEO)

Yeah, and it's Amir. I'll just add maybe that we've spoken a couple of times in the past and also on this call. We strongly believe that there's a huge greenfield opportunity still ahead of us. It's important to know that we do still prioritize growth over profitability.

Whenever we see and we continue to see all the time opportunities to reinvest in the business, of course always watching our operational expenses growth and making sure that we continue to gradually improve on margins. But still we continue to invest in adding more resources on both the R&D side and across the rest of the business to make sure that we continue to be well positioned to capture this opportunity.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pat Walravens from JMP. Please go ahead.

Pat Walravens (Managing Director and Director of Technology Research)

Oh, great. Thank you. So Amir, big picture, you have all these growth drivers. You've got Shopify. You can go more in the U.S., then you go internationally. You just launched with Wix. You're adding more and bigger brands. You have the demand gen solution coming out. So the question is: What are the constraints on the ability of this company to scale? You know, you're going to do $1 billion next year. Why can't it grow to $10 billion?

Amir Schlachet (Co-founder and CEO)

I don't think we can't. I think we can, Pat. I think it's the opportunity is there. I think our product market fit is there. I think we have in the pipeline also additional complementary services that we can add. So all of that together, I think, we're on the right path to continue growing. We are also constantly working on enlarging our already significant ecosystem of great partners around us, where they can contribute to our growth, and we can contribute to their growth. So I think the main constraints are time and, of course, as always, execution.

We continue to focus on execution. We continue to make sure that we do the best job possible for the growth of our merchants, and we believe that as we continue to do so, growth will continue to come, and we can continue to materialize that opportunity ahead of us.

Pat Walravens (Managing Director and Director of Technology Research)

Awesome. All right, and I'm looking forward to seeing you guys on Wednesday in Tel Aviv. So congratulations.

Amir Schlachet (Co-founder and CEO)

Same here. Thanks, Pat.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Maddie Schrage from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Maddie Schrage (VP)

Hey, guys, and thank you for taking my question. I was just wondering if you can give an update on the Borderfree migration. Just kinda wondering maybe what percentage of customers have moved over to the Global-e platform, and kinda any early learnings on that uplift that you could potentially see there? Thanks.

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

So we do continue to work with the clients toward migration to end by the end of this year or latest if we see there is a need for it early Q1 next year. The clients that have migrated, we have seen great results in uplifting the sales conversion rates driving better performance, better sales based on the, I would say, a larger suite of solutions and services on our platform. We do expect that once the vast majority of Borderfree clients would migrate, we will see a better trading with them in the following quarter in the following quarters. So we are optimistic about it.

It is, as we indicated in the past, going slower than initially expected. So we do believe that some of it will roll out into Q1 of next year. However, we are happy with the results that we have seen on migrated clients.

Maddie Schrage (VP)

Great. And then just a quick follow-up: Do you have any call-outs from maybe a geo perspective? Are there any standouts in terms of inbound markets, either headwinds or tailwinds? Thanks.

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

I think that we constantly see different changes in different markets around the world in terms of inbound volumes. As some countries face more challenging macro, you see their growth declining. Some of the markets are affected by geopolitics. If you look at the inbound into Israel or Ukraine, where you see the markets actually shrinking in a two-digit percentage pace heavily. But because of our global nature and the amount of corridors we sell into, then actually, I think that all in all, as Ofer indicated, we do see some stability.

So where the overall numbers are slightly below historical averages, but they are in line with what we expected for this year, which was, I would say, a bit softer macro in general than previous years. Despite the fact that yes, there is volatility, some weeks looks better or less, but overall, I think that we do see now a stable relatively okay macro. Not as great as previous years, but I would say an okay macro in general, reflected in same store sales across different corridors.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Zgutowicz from The Benchmark Company. Go ahead, please.

Mark Zgutowicz (Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you. Hi, guys. Just a question around the onboarding process for MarketsPro merchants. I know there's been some progress made there, and just curious, in terms of, you know, lifting the the friction there, are those capabilities now in place, or there's still more enhancements that may accelerate the onboarding of U.S. merchants? And then, is this the key variable in terms of moving MarketsPro outside the U.S. with Shopify? Thanks.

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

Yeah, thank you for the question. It's Nir. We do continue to roll out features and process alignments in order to make the onboarding quicker, more seamless, and to gain great, even better results out of the gate. However, also on the ongoing trading and the market segments and vertical that the solution is geared for, we do have still a rollout plan of different feature and capabilities that will be rolled out through the coming quarters. On the back of this completion, of course, we would go into a much wider, much wider rollout, but this is dependent, of course, on Shopify and their decisions.

But we are fully aligned on the roadmap ahead and what we need to achieve in the coming quarters in order to continue with the rollout.

Mark Zgutowicz (Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks, Nir. That's helpful. And then one quick one for Ofer, possibly on luxury. Just curious how that segment is pacing, first half versus or just year-over-year, first half year-over-year. Thanks.

Nir Debbi (Co-founder and President)

Yes. So, regarding luxury, 2023 was not a good year for luxury, as we discussed several times.

And since then, we've seen it sort of stabilizing and coming back to growth. Not very strong growth, but after the lows that we have seen during some of the quarters, mainly, I think it was in Q3 last year, it has stabilized and gone back to growth. Maybe not growing as fast as other segments, but positive growth.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Coad from Autonomous Research. Go ahead, please.

Matthew Coad (Analyst)

Hi. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I'm curious if you could unpack the growth in sales and marketing expenses ex the warrant amortization. Sorry about that. It's growing at a really fast pace, as you noted in your prepared remarks. Just curious, is a lot of this growth coming mainly from Shopify's revenue share, or are there changes to your go-to-market approach that we should be aware of? Thanks.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Sure. So, as you mentioned, we do have sort of a variable cost in our sales and marketing, which is the Shopify rev share component, and it is growing. So I think most of the growth in expenses or the—not most of the growth, but most of the extra growth is due to Shopify rev share expenses. However, nothing special to report, but we are, you know, continuously expanding our sales force. It's a gradual expansion, but, you know, as we grow, we are bringing in more people, but not anything out of the ordinary.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will take our last question from the line of Matt O'Neill from FT Partners. Go ahead, please.

Matthew O'Neill (Managing Director)

Hey, gentlemen. Thanks so much for squeezing me in at the end. A lot of good questions asked and answered. Maybe first, Ofer, I know you mentioned a couple of points contributing to the, the gross take rate, how that'll stabilize close to 16, you mentioned. This quarter, the net take rate actually outperformed by a good amount, and I was just curious if there was any, you know, call-outs to attribute that to or anything that, you know, we should expect to be stickier going forward, or if it was maybe more of a mix shift? And then I'll just get my follow-up in there now. I know a bunch of people asked about Shopify Markets Pro, and specifically, you know, kind of the international rollout.

Is that something just from a timeline perspective, you know, to be conservative, we should think about international markets there, you know, as a 2025 and beyond type of a discussion? Thanks a lot.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

In terms of the international rollout, I think it's also dependent on Shopify plans, so we can't commit or comment about it without being aligned with Shopify. But I do expect that if in the coming quarters we meet our targets, we will see additional markets being rolled in. I think it's much more a decision for Shopify to make.

Matthew O'Neill (Managing Director)

Understood. And on the net take rate this quarter, anything to think about going forward or maybe some unique mix elements that were idiosyncratic?

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Yeah. So, you know, as we previously stated, some of it is due to GMV mix. However, we do see a, you know, clear line of improvement over time, you know, due to one, efficiency. So, you know, different processes. We have a team, a very senior team that is going through the organization and mapping it for AI initiatives. I think that we've mentioned in the previous call that we had some very nice processes that are implemented that are already contributing, mainly around our service, but also in other areas. So this is just an example.

Another example is classification, duty classification, and we do have quite a few initiatives, but it's not just AI initiatives, but also other processes, and also economies of scale that we're pushing. So over time, we do expect to see an improvement. However, as I mentioned, this, the gross margin we had this quarter was high, and some of it was due to the specific revenue and GMV mix.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Amir Schlachet for final closing comments.

Amir Schlachet (Co-founder and CEO)

Thank you very much, and thank you everyone for joining us today, and we very much look forward to seeing you again on our future earnings calls. Just before we adjourn, I would like to take this opportunity again to say a big thank you to all of our wonderful team members throughout the world. Your hard work and complete dedication to the success of our merchants are, and will always be, the key driving force behind our continued growth and success. Goodbye to you all, and take care.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. So, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your line.