Global-E Online - Q2 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to the Global-e second quarter 2023 earnings call. This call is being simultaneously webcast on the company's website in the Investors section under News and 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 second quarter of 2023. Ofer will review the financial results for the second quarter of 2023, followed by the company's outlook for the third quarter and full year of 2023. 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 risks, 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 are 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 in 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 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 obligations 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 August 8th, 2023, 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 for or superior to financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP.

We use these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operational 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 operational decision-making. For more information on the non-GAAP financial measures, please see the reconciliation tables provided in our press release dated August 8, 2023. 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 August 8, 2023. I will now turn the call over to Amir, Co-Founder and CEO.

Amir Schlachet (Co-Founder and CEO)

Thank you, Erica. Welcome everyone to our Q2 earnings call. Our second quarter financial results, all of them exceeding our guidance, depict a continuation of a very strong business momentum and growth trajectory. Our quarterly GMV amounted to $825 million, or 54% year-on-year growth, and our revenues grew by 53%, reaching $133 million in the quarter. Our adjusted gross profit margin continued to expand from 41.9% in Q2 of last year to 43.3% in Q2 of this year, thanks to our growing economies of scale and improved efficiencies. Finally, our adjusted EBITDA for the quarter came in at $21 million, nearly doubling that of the same period last year.

As usual, Ofer will describe in more detail our quarterly financial results, as well as our updated guidance for the next quarter and for the full 2023 fiscal year. Before I hand the call over to Ofer, I would like to walk you through some key updates regarding our business. On the merchants front, we continue to onboard many new merchants located all around the globe and trading in various different verticals. Just to name a few examples, we recently went live with renowned fashion brands such as LK Bennett and Club L London in the U.K., Monday Swimwear and Pepper in the U.S., Tara Jarmon in France, and the iconic denim and fashion brand Diesel in Italy. We also went live with the UK-based recycled gold and silver jewelry brand, Missoma, with the innovative protective cases brand, Mous, and many others in various product verticals.

From a geographical standpoint, in parallel to our continued growth in our established markets across North America, the U.K., and continental Europe, we continued our rapid expansion in the APAC region as well. with several Australian brands going live, including Venroy, Rollie Nation, Lahana, and Lilybod, with numerous Japanese brands going live, including HINOYA, 45R, A-tude, Nubian, and Anna Sui, and with the go live of our first-ever Korean brand, High-end Sale. Moreover, during Q2, we went live with our first-ever Swedish brand, the vegan cosmetics brand, SWATI, bringing the count of our active outbound markets up to 29. Equally important, we continued our expansion efforts within existing merchant groups, with notable examples this quarter being Orveda, which is another brand from the large beauty and fragrance group, Coty, and Givenchy Beauty, which is part of the LVMH group of brands.

Moving on to some additional elements on our strategic roadmap, we continue to consolidate and streamline our platform stack post our two acquisitions of Flow and of Borderfree. In parallel, we are also continuing the migration process of all our legacy Shopify-based enterprise merchants onto the new native app. On the SMB platform side, we continued our joint work with Shopify on the necessary preparations for the release of Shopify Markets Pro into general availability in the U.S., which is expected to happen later in the year. Based on the results and feedback from the first live batches of early access merchants, we continue to be optimistic regarding the potential future impact of this innovative new offering once it is released and scales up.

Given all these developments, as well as many product features being constantly developed and rolled out, we continue to expand both our technological teams and our commercial teams around the globe. At the same time, we remain as committed as ever to doing so in a responsible and sustainable way, as is evident from the healthy growth in our Adjusted EBITDA, a good proxy for our free cash flow, which is outpacing the growth in revenues. With that, I will now hand it over to Ofer to take you through the quarterly figures in more depth, as well as present our updated guidance.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Thank you, Amir. Thanks again everyone, for joining us today for our quarterly earnings call. We are very pleased with our business performance and progress in the first half of 2023. Q2 was another strong quarter of fast growth, coupled with improved margins as we continue to support merchants with a direct-to-consumer cross-border growth journey and explore the massive market opportunity. 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, our rapid growth in GMV continued in Q2, with $825 million of GMV generated on our platforms, an increase of 54% year-over-year.

The growth was supported by the continued growth of the direct-to-consumer cross-border segment, despite the ongoing macro uncertainty. We also still benefited this quarter from inorganic growth from Borderfree. In Q2, we generated total revenues of $133.3 million, up 53% year-over-year, with both revenue streams continuing to grow rapidly. Service fees revenue were $59.5 million, up 51% year-over-year, and fulfillment services revenue were up 54% to $73.8 million. Fulfillment take rate has decreased compared to Q1, mainly driven by higher average order value, resulting in less shipments per dollar of GMV, and also from the continued growth of our multi-local services.

We have continued to experience higher pace growth in our U.S. outbound revenue as our momentum in the U.S. continued, driven also by the U.S. bias of the Borderfree portfolio. In Q2, 2023, U.S. outbound revenue was up 99% year-over-year. As Amir mentioned, we also continue our penetration into APAC and the Middle East. While the GMV share of this new outbound market is still only 3%, revenue has grown over 3x year-on-year. Non-GAAP gross profit continues to outpace revenue growth as we continue to leverage our scale and improve efficiencies. In Q2, non-GAAP gross profit was $57.7 million, up 58% year-over-year, representing a gross margin of 43.3% compared to 41.9% in the same period last year.

The improved non-GAAP gross profit margin compared to Q1, were driven also by the higher share of service fee revenue in Q2. GAAP gross profit was $54.9 million, representing a margin of 41.2%. Moving on to operational expenses. We continue to invest in the development of our platform to enhance our offering with a significant effort around the development of the Shopify Markets Pro white label solution towards general availability in the U.S. R&D expense in Q2, excluding stock-based compensation, was $18 million, or 13.5% of revenue, compared to $12.3 million or 14.1% in the same period last year. Total R&D spend in Q2 was $24.6 million. We also continue to invest in sales and marketing to enhance our market presence and to build our pipeline, while maintaining efficiencies.

Sales and marketing expense, excluding Shopify-related amortization expenses, stock-based compensation, and acquisition-related intangibles amortization, was $12 million, or 9% of our revenue, compared to $8 million or 9.2% of revenue in the same period last year. Shopify warrants-related amortization expense was $37.4 million. Total sales and marketing expenses for the quarter was $52.8 million. General and administrative expenses, excluding stock-based compensation and acquisition-related contingent consideration, was $7.3 million, or 5.5% of revenue, compared to $5.5 million or 6.3% of revenue in the same period last year. Total G&A spend in Q2 was $13.9 million.

Adjusted EBITDA totaled $21 million, growing 90% year-over-year, representing a 15.7% Adjusted EBITDA margin, compared to $11.1 million or 12.7% margin in the same period last year. Net loss was $35.5 million, compared to a net loss of $48.8 million in the year ago period, driven mainly by the amortization expenses related to the Shopify warrants and to transaction-related intangibles. Switching gears turning to the balance sheet and cash flow statement. We ended Q2 2023 with $224 million in cash and cash equivalents, including short-term deposits and marketable securities. Cash flow generated by operating activities was $17.6 million, compared to $37.8 million a year ago.

Moving on to our financial outlook and guidance for Q3 2023, and our updated 2023 full year guidance, which reflects the resilience and the continued momentum of the business. For Q3 2023, we're expecting GMV to be in the range of $840 million-$880 million. At the midpoint of the range, this represents a growth rate of 38% compared to Q3 of 2022. We expect Q3 revenue to be in the range of $136 million-$142 million. At the midpoint of the range, this represents a growth rate of 32% compared to Q3 of 2022. Borderfree is weighing on top line growth in H2, we expect Borderfree to contribute positively once our enhanced traffic generation offering is in place.

For Adjusted EBITDA, we're expecting a profit in the range of $17 million-$21 million. For the full year of 2023, we are raising our guidance. We anticipate GMV to be in the range of $3.48 billion-$3.64 billion, representing 45% annual growth at the midpoint of the range. Revenue is expected to be in the range of $570 million-$596 million, representing a growth rate of nearly 43% at the midpoint of the range. For Adjusted EBITDA, we are expecting a profit of $85 million-$93 million, a significant increase of 21% compared to our previous guidance at the midpoint of the range, reflecting our continued focus on operational efficiencies. In conclusion, we continue to focus on strong execution, with emphasis on enhancing our platform and expanding our offering to create value for the merchants in their direct-to-consumer cross-border expansion. We aim to continue our rapid growth while improving efficiencies and generating cash. With that, Amir, Nir and I are happy to take any of your questions. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will then hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. If you would like to withdraw from the question queue, please press star followed by two. As a consideration to other callers on the line, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please go ahead and press star one now if you have any questions. Your first question will be from Brian Peterson at Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Brian Peterson (Financial Advisor)

Thanks, gentlemen. Congrats on the strong quarter. First, I just wanted to hit on any trends that you'd call out in terms of GMV linearity, either by month or by region, that was really strong, and anything through July that would call out that's maybe different versus the second quarter.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Yes. We did see a strong second half of the second quarter. It was driven by some large merchants, product launches and product promotions. We did continue also to see a relative strength in Europe on the back of a weak year in 2022. We have seen growth in Europe, U.S., more or less stable. We've seen some of the APAC markets performing not that well, but Europe has been a very, very strong contributing to growth.

Brian Peterson (Financial Advisor)

Great, appreciate the color. Maybe just on, on margins, I know, I know we're coming at 15% EBITDA margins for the year. You know, I'd love to understand, you know, as those have ramped up, how are you guys thinking about investing back in the platform, investing in the growth versus driving further margin expansion? Thanks, guys.

Amir Schlachet (Co-Founder and CEO)

Hi, Brian. It's, it's Amir. Thanks. We are continuing to reinvest all the time into the platform. We believe that we are truly at at the early innings of capturing this immense market opportunity, both in what we're already doing so far and in additional offerings, additional avenues that we can continue to develop on the back of it. With that, kind of, early innings approach and, and multiple avenues forward, we are continuing to reinvest all the time, and we remain committed to continuing to expand the EBITDA margin in the long-term. In terms of the shorter-term and the midterm, we do make these investments wherever we believe that they are accretive to the long-term value of our business.

Nir Debbi (President)

Thanks, Amir.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question will be from Brent Bracelin at Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Brent Bracelin (Managing Director)

Thank you, and good morning. Wanted to double-click into the Markets Pro, Amir, and what have you learned so far? I know we're still very early innings, but you did have kind of early trials. What have you learned? How is that going? Any sort of key takeaways that could lend some insight into how we think the adoption group will look like going in the next year? Thanks.

Amir Schlachet (Co-Founder and CEO)

Yeah, thanks, Brent. Indeed, we've learned quite a lot as we've, together with Shopify, we've already done a number of early outreaches to batches of merchants. On the back of that, I can say, we've learned and improved collectively, even from one batch of outreach to the other. It's, I would say some of the improvements are on the offering and the, and the product side itself. Although, to be honest, it was quite well-performing even beforehand.

Most of the work and the lessons learned are kind of in the onboarding processes, the kind of perfecting the the onboarding experience from a merchant perspective, automating all the various aspects of both the onboarding and the day-to-day management of the merchants on the platform, since, as you know, this is intended to be kind of a zero-touch, highly productized offering, as we expect large masses of merchants to onboard of this once this goes into general availability and ramps up. This is what a lot of what we've been focusing on, and with that, we've seen tremendous advances even through the course of this early access period, which we plan to implement once this goes into general availability.

Brent Bracelin (Managing Director)

Encouraging to hear the self-serve is progressing well. I guess my follow-up here for Ofer is really around fulfillment margins upticked a little bit this quarter. Don't know if there was some seasonality in play there and how we should think about fulfillment margins going forward. Is there a structural improvement or, or think about that as some, you know, operational improvement that might not be sustainable? Thanks.

Nir Debbi (President)

Yeah, thank you for that, Brent. Generally speaking, gross margin has improved this quarter on the back of operational efficiencies and also the mix of revenue, the higher share of service fee revenue. We expect that to remain relatively stable. We expect to stay, to stay around the same numbers for the remaining of this year. We do see some upside potential, gradual upside potential in the longer-term. This relates to, to the service fee piece and also to the fulfillment revenue as well.

Brent Bracelin (Managing Director)

Upper color. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question will be from Samad Samana at Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Samad Samana (Managing Director)

Hi, good morning. Good to see the strong results. Maybe first question, just thinking through Borderfree now that you're lapping it, you're you know, a year past the acquisition. How should we think about how conversions of those customers are doing? Could you maybe speak to what the NRR trends look like inside of that cohort of customers? Maybe do you think they'll eventually get to where your overall NRR looks like for your, for your regular customer base?

Nir Debbi (President)

Hi, Saman. Thanks for the question. It's Nir. In general, we're very happy with the progress we're making on the Borderfree acquisition in multiple fronts. On the one hand, on the marketing front, we are building the capabilities and tools we built across registered client base, as well as the international portal, in order to launch it across our entire platform. I would say, sometime, I would say maybe for early access later in the year and general availability, sometime Q1, Q2 next year. In parallel to it, we did start to utilize and enjoy the logistics capabilities of standard delivery into Canada using Pitney Bowes.

On the client base itself, we do expect to see migrations starting towards the later part of the year, mainly, mainly late Q4, and a significant, I would say, amount of the clients already migrated, by mid-next year. Once we see them migrating, we do expect to see a significant growth coming out of the capabilities we have on the Global-e platform that are not present on the current Borderfree platform. We expect that within 2024, we will already start to see some growth coming out of the Borderfree clients. Some of it would be only later in the year or in 2025, because the clients would migrate only, only mid-year.

In terms of the profile, it is a different growth profile on the current on the current platform versus versus Global-e. We still maintain our regular profile for GLBE clients, trading at I would say, our historical levels of over 130% NDR. Borderfree is lower profile. The clients do not grow as our clients on their platform. We see it weighing a bit on our results in the coming quarter, but we do expect it to change once we're migrated and contribute the same profile as Global-e clients, hopefully by mid-next year.

Samad Samana (Managing Director)

Super helpful. Maybe just a follow-up for the team. If I think about the 3Q GMV guidance and then what that maybe implies for the 4th quarter, it actually implies that things will get better, and it makes sense with Shopify Markets Pro and some of your other initiatives. I'm just curious, maybe how much confidence or visibility you have in that 4th quarter ramp as well, that's implied. Is that more due to new customers that you've already booked, or just the, the GMV trends you're seeing in the existing basis? Maybe help us understand that kind of implied fourth key trend.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Samad, thank you. It's Ofer. Well, obviously, we have more visibility now into Q4 than we had a quarter ago. You know, as we progress along the year, we get better visibility. However, it's also peak season, so, you know, it's, you know, any volatility to either side could have an impact. Basically, in our guidance, all of the plan is based on clients that have already signed. A client that hasn't signed up till now will probably not be live this year. So it's all planned either on live merchants or on signed merchants that are planned to go live pre-peak. In addition, we do expect some contribution from Shopify Markets Pro in Q4. All of that is, is embedded in the, in the full year guidance, that you see. Going forward into 2024, hopefully, Shopify Markets Pro will have a significant, contribution.

Samad Samana (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks, guys, for taking my questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question will be from James Faucette at Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

James Faucette (Managing Director)

Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for the time, and things seem to be progressing well here. Wanted to follow up on the Shopify Markets Pro. Can you talk a little bit about that cycle from a point of view of the merchant? If the merchant already has cross-border activity and operations, would you expect them to move over relatively quickly to Shopify Markets Pro or continue to operate with their current operations, but then perhaps add Markets Pro for new markets? Just, can you talk a little bit about what you think the process from the point of view of the merchant is likely to be and how you're planning for that?

Nir Debbi (President)

Hi, James. Thanks for your questions. It's, it's Nir. Yes, in terms of the client base, we do expect merchants that currently either have some kind of operations cross-border or don't have it at all, to see the, I would say, the Markets Pro is very appealing way to extend their international reach or to make it better. It has a full suite of end-to-end capabilities that you can actually turn on very simply, and we believe that it would be promising for many merchants that are currently trading international with bits and bytes, let's say, either build themselves or use from Shopify, allowing them a more holistic solution. We do expect some to actually move towards that solution. Yeah.

James Faucette (Managing Director)

That's great. You know, I guess from just following up there. When you think about that, what controls that pace of penetration and onboarding? I mean, is it I'm just trying to get a better sense of that sales motion, of, like, how much input does Global-e have into that process versus, you know, it sounds like it's designed to scale and self-serve entirely. You know, is that something that the merchants themselves can just do immediately, and all of them can do simultaneously, if you imagine, in an extreme scenario? Just trying to understand kind of what the limitations on adoption might be. Thank you very much.

Nir Debbi (President)

Thank you, James. Yes, I think the limitations on adoptions are, are, are coming. One, as you mentioned, from the merchant wanting to adopt the product, as you see this, fit, to his, to his own needs, but much more it depends on the rollout. As we are going into general availability, we're not there yet. Even general availability will go, I would say, first, focusing on the U.S. merchant base, and only then looking at, extending into, into different territories. So it will be a gradual adoption according to, which products you sell and where you, where you sell them from. Outside that, I think it would be much more dependent, on the merchant choice.

James Faucette (Managing Director)

Great. I appreciate you. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question will be from Scott Berg at Needham. Please go ahead.

Scott Berg (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. It's afternoon, at least in Tel Aviv. Couple things for me. Your growth in the United States is still continuing to be really strong, especially after you've lapped Flow, which brought you, you know, a really nice platform here for U.S. outbound. Can you help us understand maybe some of the drivers there? I know it's a smaller base, but is there expectations that we can see similar growth out of that solution of your outbound, U.S. outbound sales over the next maybe, you know, 12-18 months?

Nir Debbi (President)

In terms of our geographic distribution, U.S. is growing fast for us. It's coming out of both, I would say, the focus of Borderfree/Flow on U.S. consumer, but I think that no less than that or even more, it's coming from a lot of our U.S. brands outpacing the growth of other merchants in other territories due to the mix of celebrity brands and B2C first brands that have, I would say, a growth profile that is higher than the legacy brands. You tend to see more of them in mix in the U.S. versus other regions.

This would be the other main reason for this, growth in the U.S. In, in parallel, we do see continued adoption of our solutions in the U.S. by U.S. merchants, so, this supports it as well. We do believe this profile, would even be accelerated further with the general availability of, Shopify Markets Pro, first to fall for U.S. merchants.

Scott Berg (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Helpful. Then from a follow-up question, Ofer, your gross margins continue to be above, I think, everyone's expectations, certainly best ever in the quarter here. I know you and I have discussed gross margins at scale, maybe getting to 50% ±. Do you have an updated view on that as the business scales here? Is there some opportunities to maybe outperform that over time, or is that really kind of the target level we should continue to look for?

Nir Debbi (President)

Yeah, we are very happy with the gross margin this quarter. As I mentioned, it's driven by the revenue mix, but also, by operational efficiency. We continue on focusing on leveraging our scale and improving over time. We do see some additional upside potential in the future. As I mentioned previously, for the remaining of this year, we expect it to stay at levels similar to what you have seen in Q2. Going forward, yes, there is some additional potential. We expect it to come in gradually. We don't expect gross margins to grow by 200 basis points every quarter, but there is some additional potential upside.

Scott Berg (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Excellent. Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question will be from Maddie Schrage at KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Maddie Schrage (VP)

Hey, guys, and thank you for taking my question. You know, I thought that the comment that you made about higher average order volume was really interesting. I was wondering if you could give any more commentary on if there's any specific reason for that higher cart size, or if you're seeing any maybe tailwinds in certain verticals. Thanks.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Yes. I think there are two drivers behind that. First of all, I think that, now it's a consumer trend. We have seen over the last few years, average baskets growing. And then there was a sort of a pause in Q1, and we've seen higher growth than previously in Q2. It might have been, you know, sort of a blimp in Q1, and now this has grown to higher average order value growth in Q2. In terms of segments, I think that, as Nir mentioned, we see the digital native brands overperforming. We have seen luxury is, is solid. We have seen slower growth with department stores. I would say those would be, the key observations, for the last few months.

Maddie Schrage (VP)

Great! Just a follow-up for you guys. I think we've been hearing in general that the enterprise IT budgets have been a bit restrained this year versus last year. Are you seeing that play out in any of your demand gen or any changes in sales cycles that you're seeing on the enterprise side? Thanks.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

In terms of our new bookings, we Q2 was a great quarter with a very strong growth, and it brings us to, I would say, first six months of the year that are, I would say, the strongest we had ever in terms of booking new GMV. We continue to roll out, I would say, new partnership. We start to see new bookings coming from a new region. We went into late last year, early this year, across APAC, where we see a strong demand coming in the Nordics, Sweden, Denmark, where we launched our first client, and we see pipeline is being built, as well as Italy and some other regions across the continental Europe.

Nir Debbi (President)

All in all, we're quite optimistic, looking ahead at the pipeline that is being built, and very happy with the results in half one, on our new bookings, supporting our midterm growth.

Maddie Schrage (VP)

Thank you, guys, and congrats on the quarter.

Nir Debbi (President)

Thanks, Mary.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question will be from Matt Coad at Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.

Matthew Coad (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Hey, guys, thanks for taking the question. Your service fee take rate declined on a year-over-year basis for the first time, I believe, since you came public. Could you just touch on kind of the driving factors there and how you're thinking about the take rate moving forward?

Ofer Koren (CFO)

Yes, thank you for that. It's Ofer. I would divide the answer to two. In terms of service fees take rate, it has been relatively stable. It is both somewhat more volatile from quarter to quarter, but it has been relatively stable, and we expect it to stay stable for the back half of the year, with some upside potential going forward driven by value-added services. In terms of fulfillment take rate, yes, this has been lower this quarter. As I mentioned, we have seen a higher average order value, which translated to less shipments done by us. That was obviously driving the numbers.

In addition, as we mentioned in the previous quarters, multi-local is gradually growing in share, so it doesn't have a huge impact, but that also has an impact on fulfillment take rate, as in multi-local, we usually do not supply the fulfillment. Those were the drivers behind that, and going forward, I think that in the back half of the year, we expect it to stay relatively at the same level, similar levels. And then, going into 2024, there might be some upside potential, still remains to be seen. The flip side of it is reflected in the gross margins. The share of service fees is higher, that has a positive impact on gross margin. When it drops down to the gross profit line, there's less impact.

Matthew Coad (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, Ofer. That was super helpful. Just for my follow-up, your free cash flow conversion ratio, so looking at free cash flow as a percentage of Adjusted EBITDA, it's been a little bit worse to start this year compared to last. I was just wondering if there's anything to call out in terms of, say, like a working capital build or some other factors?

Nir Debbi (President)

Yeah, the year started slow in that sense due to timing and cutoffs. We're still lagging from Q1. There weren't any specific dynamics. It's more around timing. We still expect to see over time Adjusted EBITDA translating into free cash flow. There will be fluctuations from quarter to quarter or period to period, but over time, we do expect it to more or less converge.

Austin Cole (Software Equity Research Associate)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question, please press star followed by one on your touch-tone phone. The next question will be from Mark Zgutowicz at Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Mark Zgutowicz (Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you, and good afternoon. Just curious in terms of the level of conservatism you have built into the implied fourth quarter for Markets Pro and how much visibility you, you have there. Just kind of following that last question, but short question here is what type of conservatism would you say you've built into the fourth quarter? Thanks.

Ofer Koren (CFO)

We have not changed our general approach regarding guidance. We try to stay very consistent. Naturally, as we approach the end of the year, we have better visibility for the full year in general. And that is reflected in our increased guidance for the full year. Regarding Shopify Markets Pro, obviously it is still new. We do see some trends because we are in early access mode and we see it growing over time. We do have some indications when we take that, plus the plans that Shopify has regarding this product. I think that we have an ability regarding that, and in any case, we do expect it to start contributing in Q4. However, it does not have a huge impact in Q4. We expect it to have a significant impact going into 2024.

Mark Zgutowicz (Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. That's helpful. Then just in terms of your enterprise pipeline, I was hoping you could maybe characterize the growth over the next 12 months coming from direct versus indirect channels. Thanks.

Nir Debbi (President)

It's Nir, sorry. Over the last years, we have seen the growth of indirect sales leads coming from partners growing share. We expect it to continue as we onboard more and more partners into the Global-e network and ecosystem. However, we do still rely significantly on our internal teams, our own demand generation team, and sales teams continue to grow in parallel to the network effect we get from our ecosystem. As I said, in share, we do expect in percentage base, the share coming from indirect to continue and grow.

Mark Zgutowicz (Senior Research Analyst)

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is from Austin Cole at JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Austin Cole (Software Equity Research Associate)

Hey there. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to drill in on the growth in the U.S., and I wanted to ask if there's anything you guys are thinking about, just with some of the recent economic data that's coming out, and what you guys are seeing just in larger trends, in adding new merchants there, and how you feel about growth there in the out years? Thanks.

Nir Debbi (President)

Thank you. It's Nir. As stated before, we did see nice growth trajectory in the U.S., outpacing other regions and growing in its share. Some of it came from the concentration of Flow and Borderfree acquisitions that were, I would say, mainly or virtually almost all U.S.-based merchants. Some of it coming out of the higher growth profile of D2C brands or celebrity brands that are growing faster than legacy brands. On top of it, we do see a good pipeline and strong pipeline being built in the U.S. economy, solid. Businesses are being open and are growing, and we see it reflecting in the demand for those brands worldwide. We do expect it to continue to grow.

Not in the pace, we've seen on the enterprise side, for sure, that we've seen forward. We expect it to continue to grow gradually in mix. It will be somewhat accelerated by the general availability in the U.S. first of the Shopify Markets Pro, that I would say by being released first in the U.S., would scale up, I would say, the share of U.S. even further. Over time, we expect it to balance once additional regions would be open within 2024.

Austin Cole (Software Equity Research Associate)

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn it over to Amir for closing remarks.

Amir Schlachet (Co-Founder and CEO)

Thank you, and thank you everyone for joining us on this call today. We appreciate your ongoing support and very much look forward to updating you again on our future earnings calls. Till next time, goodbye to you all, and take care.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference for today. Once again, thank you for attending. At this time, we do ask that you please disconnect your lines.