Revolve Group - Q2 2023
August 2, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Erik Randerson, Vice President of Investor Relations at Revolve. You may begin.
Erik Randerson (VP of Investor Relations)
Good afternoon, everyone, thanks for joining us to discuss Revolve's second quarter 2023 results. Before we begin, I'd like to mention that we have posted a presentation containing Q2 financial highlights to our Investor Relations website, located at investors.revolve.com. I would also like to remind you that this conference call will include forward-looking statements, including statements related to our Future Growth and Profitability, Market Opportunities, Macroeconomic and Industry Trends, Business, Operations, and Marketing Initiatives and Investments, Enternational expansion, our stock or purchase program, growth in active customers, our inventory balance and management, and our outlook for net sales, gross margin, operating expenses, and effective tax rate.
These statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements, including the risks mentioned in this afternoon's press release, as well as other risks and uncertainties disclosed under the caption Risk Factors and elsewhere in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, and our subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, all of which can be found on our website at investors.revolve.com. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements or information, except as required by law. During our call today, we will also reference certain Non-GAAP financial information, including Adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow.
We use Non-GAAP measures in some of our financial discussions as we believe they provide valuable insights on our operational performance and underlying operating results. The presentation of this Non-GAAP financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for or superior to the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, and our Non-GAAP measures may be different from Non-GAAP measures used by other companies. Reconciliations of Non-GAAP measures to GAAP measures, as well as the definitions of each measure, their limitations and our rationale for using them, can be found in this afternoon's press release and in our SEC filings. Joining me on the call today are our Co-founders and Co-CEOs, Mike Karanikolas and Michael Mente, as well as Jesse Timmermans, our CFO. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for your questions. With that, I'll turn it over to Mike.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. I'll begin with a recap of our second quarter results, and then I'll conclude by highlighting key operating priorities, investments, and growth initiatives we are very excited about. Net sales decreased 6% year-over-year to $274 million in the second quarter, a slight improvement from the 7% year-over-year decline in April 2023, discussed on last quarter's conference call. As you've heard from many companies, the U.S. remains very challenging for consumer discretionary spending, particularly for our younger consumer demographic. Net sales in the U.S. decreased 7% year-over-year, partially offset by international net sales increasing 4% year-over-year, highlighted by exceptional growth in Mexico, which has become one of our most important international markets.
Our gross margin was 54%, a meaningful sequential improvement compared to the first quarter's 49.8%. Yet, as expected, gross margin remained lower compared to the second quarter of 2022, when our mix of net sales at full price was exceptionally high. Net income for the second quarter was $7 million, or $0.10 per diluted share, and Adjusted EBITDA was $10 million, or 3.8% of net sales. Our profitability was significantly lower than last year's second quarter, primarily due to the decline in net sales, the lower gross profit year-over-year, and continued pressure on operating expenses, in large part due to a higher return rate.
We view the current macro environment as a near-term headwind on our path towards resuming attractive growth rates and margins over longer term horizons, as we have demonstrated with our long-term historic track record of attractive growth and profitability. Importantly, challenging operating environments create opportunities for financially strong and cash-generative companies like Revolve to further separate from the pack by continuing to prudently invest through the cycle, while some industry peers have no choice but to play defense. With that in mind, I'll now recap several important growth and efficiency initiatives that we believe will further strengthen our foundation for profitable growth over the long term. We are currently extremely focused on driving cost efficiencies within our global shipping and logistics operations to help offset cost pressures resulting from a higher return rate year-over-year.
As an update on this important initiative, this week we plan to launch a new process that we expect will drive meaningful efficiency gains for future periods by consolidating all return shipments coming back from Canada to the United States. Separately, in the United Kingdom, we also just began to hold certain product returns in the U.K. for local re-fulfillment to U.K. customers without shipping the products all the way back to the U.S., as we historically have done. This initiative both reduces shipping costs and provides for even faster service to our valued customers in the region. These are significant wins in two large international markets that demonstrate great execution and results in a short period of time, as we have focused on leveraging our scale to drive efficiencies and continued improvement in our best-in-class customer service.
Most importantly, our team is aggressively pursuing a long list of initiatives that we are confident will help us gain significant further efficiencies in the coming quarters. I look forward to sharing our progress in this area as we move forward. We continue to expand the use of AI and machine learning across several key areas of our operations to drive growth and efficiencies. During the second quarter, we launched a new type of AI-powered merchandising that leverages image recognition to recommend visually similar items to customers. To illustrate an impactful use case, when consumers are looking at our product on Revolve that is currently out of stock, our AI technology engages with the customer to recommend visually similar items. This enhancement demonstrated a notable conversion lift in our A/B testing conducted prior to launch.
Separately, we are continuing to advance efforts to integrate AI into our own brand design, which we view as an exciting opportunity to enhance creativity and accelerate the product development cycle. We are also actively leveraging technology and evaluating solutions to optimize our return rate. Consistent with our customer-first focus, our efforts to reduce return rates over time will not detract from the customer experience. In the third quarter, we will be experimenting with several new initiatives, including a virtual try-on and size comparison feature tool that went live last month, and we're testing a wide range of tools and visuals to better communicate product fit, such as enhanced fit rating customer reviews, detailed product fit guides, and video content within product detail pages. Shifting to international expansion, we recently appointed our first ever head of Greater China to further strengthen the foundation for future expansion in the region.
We plan to further build out our local team on the ground in China to expand key relationships and brand awareness, which is important since the marketing and social media channels in China are different than in all other markets we operate. Considering the size and importance of the China e-commerce market, we believe now is the right time for us to invest in a more meaningful way. To illustrate our growth potential in China, I'm excited to share that Revolve was the number six ranked fashion brand on the Tmall global marketplace during the month of June. This recognition and success contributed to our continued growth in China in the second quarter and illustrates the level of interest in Revolve in this very large market. In continuing on the international theme, we are also expanding our borders for talent acquisition.
After demonstrating during the pandemic that a distributed workforce can work very efficiently for many functions, we have begun expanding our hiring scope well beyond California into select overseas markets. In the past several months, we have successfully attracted talent for technology, customer service, and other functions in countries outside of the U.S. It's exciting because hiring engineers in a competitive U.S. market has historically been a real challenge for us due to our very high standards, and hiring outstanding talent overseas provides an added benefit of being able to efficiently work on development projects around the clock. While we expect this important initiative to result in some cost efficiencies, it is not our primary focus.
What we are most excited about is meaningfully expanding the available talent pool to even further raise the bar on our exceptionally high standards, as demonstrated by our achievement of record Net Promoter Scores every year for the past few years. We have recently opened our first overseas office to guide this important effort. I'm pleased with our team's execution on these important initiatives that are key building blocks for our continued long-term growth and profitability. Our long-term mindset and strong balance sheet, combined with our conviction in the strength of our business model and confidence in our team to execute through the short-term challenges and over the long term, led our board of directors to authorize a $100 million stock repurchase program.
Since we view the current environment as a near-term headwind and remain confident in our longer-term opportunity to drive growth and profitability, we view stock repurchases as an attractive and accretive use of our capital. We authorized the stock repurchase program with confidence that the nearly $270 million in cash and no debt on our balance sheet gives us financial flexibility to remain opportunistic, to invest in the business across multiple dimensions in our efforts to drive shareholder value. In summary, while we certainly face more near-term challenges in the current environment, we will remain nimble and continue to focus on our hallmarks of technology innovation, operating efficiency, and brand building to capture more share in the very large market.
We remain squarely focused on investing in the long-term opportunity ahead of us, leveraging our 20 years of operating experience and our competitive advantages to guide us through these uncertain times. Now, over to Michael.
Michael Mente (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Thanks, Mike, and hello, everyone. Our headline numbers for the second quarter, during a very challenging macro environment, aren't reflective of what we believe is our long-term growth potential. Despite the short-term challenges, with our strong business model and focus on the long term, we have been able to deliver on important operating priorities that should prove to be beneficial in the years to come. We're particularly pleased with our early momentum in driving efficiencies in our shipping and logistics operations, and in our innovations to leverage A.I. to drive further operational efficiencies, optimize processes, and enable deeper connections with the next generation consumers. Speaking of connecting with customers, a highlight of the second quarter was the unveiling of our first ever physical experience with Forward here in Los Angeles.
Inspired and curated by our creative director, Kendall Jenner, the destination launched in early June and is an incredible showcase of the FORWARD brand and our luxury brand partners. A private opening night reception hosted by Kendall Jenner and attended by many other A-listers, created meaningful buzz and has continued to gain strength as favorable word of mouth has spread. Many of our high-value FORWARD customers flew into Los Angeles for the opening night event, demonstrating the strong interest among our most loyal customers. The brand elevating experience has enabled us to engage deeply with FORWARD customers, connecting with them in ways we have never done before. Traffic flow and customer interest have been great, and customer feedback has been exceptional. We are learning a great deal and hearing on a consistent basis that customers love our selection and curation more than long-established luxury destinations in the area.
Many of our top FWRD customers based in Los Angeles have enjoyed the opportunity to pre-select items online, to try on in person, and also conveniently return items they had previously purchased online from FWRD or REVOLVE. This has driven traffic flow and conversion, demonstrating synergies with our e-commerce operation that we'll consider as we continue to evaluate whether physical retail has a place in our growth strategy long term. Another takeaway from the experience is that our luxury customers truly embrace the appeal and vintage handbags in our new FWRD Renew offerings discussed on prior investor calls. In fact, during a recent day at the FWRD pop-up, we sold two pre-owned vintage handbags for more than $35,000 each in a single day. The continued success of the FWRD Renew offering further validates the demand for pre-owned handbags among our customers.
Later this quarter, we plan to meaningfully expand our growth potential in luxury resale by offering FWRD Renew to the much larger set of customers in REVOLVE as well. Our FWRD brand partners have been incredibly supportive of our efforts to engage our community in a truly differentiated destination. We have hosted around 20 impactful events with our revered luxury brands, including Versace, Miu Miu, Blumarine, and Anastasia Beverly Hills, just to name a few, with many events focused on our emerging beauty category. Several of our luxury brands have created exclusive offerings for the FWRD experience that are not available anywhere else. If you are in Los Angeles before August 13th, please drop by and see us at 8804 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood.
The second quarter was a very busy period of investment for brand marketing, anchored by the successful REVOLVE Festival in April that I talked about on last quarter's conference call. The FWRD physical experience, as well as real-time events, to support our best-performing international market. In June, we hosted a week-long brand activation with a series of events in Mexico City to showcase the REVOLVE brand and lifestyle, and spread the word about our outstanding service level that have been integral to our growth and customer loyalty around the world. The events drove tens of millions of social media and press impressions, often emphasizing a consistent theme that going shopping in Mexico has never been so easy as with REVOLVE.
Most exciting is that our impactful events served as a catalyst in driving a spike in new customer growth across Mexico, which had already been in triple-digit year-over-year growth territory even before the event. Mexico is now a top five international market for us, demonstrating how we can leverage our brand and operational excellence to capture the very large international opportunity. Our impactful marketing has also contributed to the success of recent own brand collaborations. Helsa, our brand collaboration with Elsa Hosk, that is exclusively available on REVOLVE and FORWARD, continues to perform incredibly well. We just had our fifth Helsa drop, and it was the most successful yet. We also launched an exclusive new collaboration with model and social media personality, Cindy Kimberly, that has resonated very well with our increasingly global customer base.
As mentioned on prior investor calls, the softening consumer demand in recent quarters, combined with our elevated inventory position, entering 2023 has to be more conservative in planning own brand inventory buys, since own brand requires a deeper inventory commitment for style than third-party brands. Yet the success of our recent collaborations illustrates the power of our own brand platform and serves as a positive indication of the own brand potential long term. I'll close with the update on our continued successful journey to expand into beauty and men's, two areas that offer exciting growth potential. Both categories continued to grow at attractive rates in the second quarter, double-digit growth on a combined basis, benefiting from increased focus under our new leadership in these areas and continued improvement to our brand assortment.
I continue to be confident that once we optimize the product assortment for these categories, the business will follow, because these are very large market segments, and considering that we have earned our customers' trust and attention by consistently exceeding their expectations. We have several exciting brands in the queue to onboard this third quarter, particularly in the beauty category, which should help beauty become an even more important source for acquiring new customers than it already is. It's noteworthy that some of our recent beauty best sellers have generated a significant portion of the recent sales volume through our partnership with TikTok Shop. It's still early days, yet it's exciting to see validation of the potential for TikTok as a new channel for growth. In closing, the current environment is clearly impacting demand for many consumer discretionary items, particularly apparel in the U.S., but we take the long view.
We remain on offense, energizing, investing for growth and expansion for years to come. I'm more excited than ever, and my confidence in the long term is underscored by our recently announced $100 million stock repurchase program. Mike and I own nearly 45% of the outstanding common stock, and we continue to see the significant runway for growth in the years to come. I want to express my sincere thanks to the team for keeping us at the forefront of innovation and maintaining an unwavering focus on the customer. Now, I'll turn it over to Jesse for a discussion of the financials.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Thanks, Michael. Hello, everyone. I'll start by recapping our second quarter results and then close with updates on recent trends in the business and commentary on our cost structure as we look ahead. Starting with the second quarter results, net sales were $274 million, a year-over-year decrease of 6%. Linearity of our net sales comparison to year-over-year was fairly consistent throughout the quarter. Revolve segment net sales decreased 4%, and FWRD segment net sales decreased 15% year-over-year in the second quarter. The FWRD comparison reflects softening demand among our luxury customers, particularly in the U.S., consistent with commentary from several luxury retailers and brands in recent months. By territory, domestic net sales decreased 7%, and international net sales increased 4% year-over-year.
Active customers, which is a trailing 12-month measure, increased by 34,000 customers during the second quarter. This growth expanded our active customer count to 2.5 million, an increase of 14% year-over-year. In the near term, we expect further moderation in the quarterly growth of active customers. Our customers placed 2.3 million orders in the second quarter, an increase of 1% year-over-year. Average order value was $301, a decrease of 1% year-over-year. Shifting to gross profit, consolidated gross margin was 54%, above the high end of our guidance range. The decrease of 198 basis points year-over-year primarily reflects a lower mix of net sales at full price compared to the second quarter of 2022. Moving on to operating expenses.
Fulfillment costs were 3.4% of net sales, slightly higher than our guidance. A deleverage of 71 basis points year-over-year was primarily due to a year-over-year increase in our return rate, higher wages for our fulfillment center staff, and utilization not yet fully optimized in our recently expanded fulfillment network. Selling and distribution costs were 18.6% of net sales, slightly better than our guidance. The increase of 68 basis points year-over-year reflects higher costs for customer shipments, primarily due to the higher return rate year-over-year. We are aggressively pursuing initiatives both to reduce our shipping and logistics costs and to address the increasing return rate.
Our marketing investment represented 18.8% of net sales, an increase of 91 basis points year-over-year, reflecting increased investment in brand building during a very active quarter for our impactful marketing events, including a REVOLVE Festival and the many events at the FWRD pop-up. General and administrative costs were $28.6 million, or 10.4% of net sales, slightly lower than the outlook we provided last quarter. The year-over-year decline in G&A costs primarily reflects a $5 million accrual for a legal matter in the second quarter of 2022. Net income was 25%, and net income was $7 million or $0.10 per diluted share, a decrease of 55% year-over-year that was impacted by the net sales decline, a year-over-year decrease in gross profit, and continued pressure on operating expenses.
Adjusted EBITDA was $10 million, a decrease of 61% year-over-year. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flow statement. Inventory at June 30, 2023, was $205 million, a decrease of 2% year-over-year, very close to the 6% year-over-year decrease in net sales. It was the fourth consecutive quarter when we have narrowed the spread between our year-over-year inventory growth and year-over-year net sales growth. Net cash used by operating activities and free cash flow in the second quarter were negatively impacted by a $15 million increase in inventory when compared to the first quarter of 2023, in part due to the continued pressure on net sales.
For the 6 months ended June 30, 2023, net cash provided by operating activities was $35 million, and free cash flow was $33 million, an increase of 42% and 49% year-over-year, respectively. Cash and cash equivalents as of June 30, 2023, were $269 million, an increase of $31 million or 13% year-over-year. Was $14 million lower on a sequential basis compared to the first quarter of 2023. Our balance sheet as of June 30, 2023, remains debt-free. Let me update you on some recent trends in the business since the second quarter ended and provide some direction on our cost structure to help in your modeling of the business. Starting from the top.
The top line pressure we experienced in the second quarter has continued, with net sales for the month of July 2023, down a mid-single-digit % year-over-year. We believe the uncertain macro environment continues to weigh on our customers' purchasing behavior and consistent with the second quarter results during July, year-over-year net sales comparisons in the Revolve segment continued to outperform the FWRD segment. Year-over-year net sales comparisons for our international business continued to outperform our domestic business. Shifting to gross margin. We expect gross margin in the third quarter of 2023 of between 52% and 52.3%, implying a much smaller year-over-year decrease than in recent quarters.
Only 85 basis points in the midpoint of the range, compared to a nearly two-point year-over-year decline in the second quarter, and an almost five-point year-over-year decline in the first quarter of 2023. For the full year, we are narrowing our gross margin expectations to a range of 52%-52.5%. Fulfillment. The continued top line uncertainty and higher than expected return rate are leading us to take a slightly more conservative view of fulfillment efficiency for the full year 2023. We expect fulfillment as a percentage of net sales to be around 3.3% for the third quarter of 2023, and now expect fulfillment to represent 3.3% of net sales for the full year 2023. Selling and distribution.
We expect selling and distribution cost efficiency to improve on a sequential basis and represent around 18.3% of net sales for the third quarter of 2023, and 18.3% of net sales for the full year 2023. The slight increase from our previous full year guidance primarily reflects a higher than expected return rate. The full year 2023 outlook for selling and distribution costs includes our assumption that we will generate increasing cost efficiencies in the second half of 2023, resulting from a variety of shipping and logistics efficiency measures we are pursuing. These benefits will partially offset the negative impact of the expected higher return rate year-over-year. Marketing.
We expect our marketing investment in the third quarter of 2023 to represent approximately 15.8% of net sales, a three-point sequential decrease from the second quarter, and an 80 basis point decrease year-over-year compared to the third quarter of 2022. For the full year 2023, we expect marketing to be within the range previously communicated of 16%-16.5% of net sales. General and administrative. We expect G&A expense of approximately $29 million in the third quarter of 2023, and $150 million for the full year 2023, at the high end of our prior full year outlook range. Lastly, we continue to expect our effective tax rate to be around 24%-26%, consistent with the past several quarters.
To recap, while we view the current environment as quite challenging for consumer discretionary spending, we are focused on delivering shareholder value over the long term. Our team is investing significant time and energy into a broad range of exciting initiatives that we believe can extend our competitive advantages and benefit Revolve for years to come, particularly as the broader macroeconomic environment improves. Now, we'll open it up to your questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press Star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll take our first question from Anna Andreeva at Needham & Company.
Anna Andreeva (Senior Research Analyst)
Great. Thanks so much. Good afternoon, guys. A couple of modeling questions from us. First, on gross margin, just trying to understand, what drove the beat to guidance for the quarter? Inventories are in pretty good shape at down to... So what's driving that gross margin decline in the third quarter versus the previous guidance for margins to be directionally up? Is there any additional carryover at FWRD that you guys are working through? Secondly, just on marketing, has been managed really tightly and even a bigger dollar decline in 3Q. Just curious, how do you guys think about that trade-down in preserving margins by managing marketing down versus the company returning to growth? Can you talk about some of the savings?
Where are they coming from, and how sustainable are those? Thank you so much.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Yeah. Hi, Anna Andreeva. This is Jesse Timmermans. I'll start and then maybe kick it over to Mike Karanikolas and Michael Mente for some of the marketing questions. There was a lot there. Maybe I'll start with gross margin. The guide down from Q2 to Q3 sequentially is largely seasonality. We typically see our highest margin in Q2, and then it takes a step down in Q3 to the tune of, you know, anywhere from two to three points. So, you know, we feel like, you know, margin's healthy, margin is in line. To your point, there is some additional carryover from FWRD. We feel like inventory overall is healthy. That differential between the sales growth and the inventory growth has compressed again this quarter and down to four points, so we feel good about that.
It is taking a little bit longer on the FWRD side, there is more, I guess, more compression on FWRD than there is on the REVOLVE side. I think that covers gross margin and inventory. Some of the other cost savings, if you're referencing just the general cost savings, a lot of initiatives at play. The team's working hard on those, and those are starting to take effect. If you look at the selling and distribution guidance that we've given, that factors in some sequential improvement in that line item, and that will carry forward, more importantly, into 2024 and beyond.
Anna Andreeva (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Yeah.
Anna Andreeva (Senior Research Analyst)
That's really helpful. I guess on the marketing side, should we expect a similar, you know, under 16% run rate as we look into next year as well, as you guys are finding some of those efficiencies? Thank you so much.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Got it.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Thank you.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Maybe on the market, modeling quick before, before Mike jumps in. You know, I think in that 16 to 16.5 zone is, you know, where we, where we like to be. There is volatility quarter to quarter. Q2, of course, is a, is a larger investment quarter with REVOLVE Festival that typically falls in that quarter, and then we have the 20 events at the FWRD pop up. There is quarter-to-quarter volatility, but in that, in that 16% range, is a good place to be, and we are gaining more efficiencies on the performance marketing side. Mike.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I, I would just echo that thought, that with, with brand marketing, it's very timing dependent, depending on which event we wanna do at a time that we, we think makes sense, and a lot of it's opportunistic. It's important on the brand marketing side to keep things new and exciting and fresh. So that kinda drives the timing more than say, "Hey, we want this quarter to come in at this % and, and that quarter to come in at that %." Then more broadly with marketing, you know, we wanna continue to invest in marketing in a big way. It's important for long-term growth, so there's gonna be plenty of dollars going towards that, you know, particularly on the brand marketing side.
With performance marketing, we talked about on the past calls how we were tweaking things to try to get a little bit more efficient there. I think we've made some good moves there, and hopefully that'll continue through the coming quarters.
Operator (participant)
We'll move to our next question from Randy Konik at Jefferies.
Randy Konik (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Hey, thanks, guys. I just wanna get a little more color first on the return rate strategy change or policy changes, and give us some perspective on how meaningful you think those changes can be to the... you know, not the next quarter, but, like, let's say, over the next four to eight quarters in improving efficiencies there. Maybe give, give us a little bit more quantitative impact there. Then the other thing I just wanted to ask, just around gross margin. FWRD's gross margins have obviously come in pretty significantly. Where's the bottom, you think, in those gross margins, and, when do you think they bottom over the next... Do you think they bottom over the next, you know, one to two quarters? Just kinda give us a little help there as well.
Thanks.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yeah. On the return rate side, we're not focused on policy changes at this point. One of the things we are working on that we didn't mention in the prepared commentary was that, yes, we are looking at slight tweaks from a policy standpoint, you know, for a small subset of customers. The focus is on making changes that are gonna impact return rate in a very helpful way for customers. You know, we're hopeful we can drive meaningful improvements there. We think we have great initiatives and projects that make a lot of sense, that we're gonna be trialing some of those in the third quarter.
At this time, it's too early to say how much of an impact those sorts of investments can make, but we're, we're certainly excited to see what they can bring to the table. On the FWRD, gross margin side, I, I would defer to Jesse in terms of any commentary on, on how you guys should model and project that.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Yeah. Yeah, I think you got it, Randy, in that, you know, we are, we are close to the bottom there. I'd say, you know, over the next one to two quarters, we'll be in this, you know, in this zone, before things start to rebound. Then I think, important to remember that last year, especially in that kind of back half of 2021 into the first half of 2022, and especially in, in this, 2Q 2022, we were checking at, you know, really record full price mix. That FWRD margin, you know, and both on FWRD and REVOLVE was, you know, really healthy. I, you know, I don't see us getting back to the high 40s, anytime soon, but, you know, creeping up into that mid-40 range again over time.
To your point, I think troughing out over the next one to two quarters.
Randy Konik (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Great. Can I just ask one more last follow-up here? Just on the commentary around the younger demographic trend, maybe give us a little more color on what they're doing or not doing, or in terms of price hesitancy or category changes or hesitancy there. Just give us a little more flavor of what they're doing or not doing at, and what in terms of their shopping behavior. Thanks.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yeah. What we've seen is certainly there's a lot of caution in terms of their discretionary spending. Last year, they were feeling great and bullish about the future and very excited to engage in the world after the COVID lockups. Also a lot of them refreshed their wardrobe and there's kind of cycles there. You know, we're seeing a bit of a rebound the other way, you know, in the wardrobe refresh cycle, and also where consumers are putting their dollars, where more dollars are going towards experiences and services and fewer dollars towards goods, particularly discretionary goods. Particularly among that younger demographic or that more aspirational demographic that has to watch their pocketbook a little bit more closely.
Operator (participant)
We'll go next to Edward Yruma at Piper Sandler.
Edward Yruma (Managing Director)
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. First, just to click down on the return rate again, are you seeing, I know some of the increase in return rate was due to, you know, mix shift and kind of more dresses, but are you seeing kind of more of the, you know, "I'm buying and then gonna return everything," which seems to be more of a sign of a macro, or is it still kind of more of these sizing issues that hopefully you can ameliorate with tech tools over time? As a follow-up on the Forward questions, you know, I know lead times there can be longer. Are you taking a different kind of short to medium-term positioning against that luxury, younger consumer that may be more impacted by some of these macro pressures? Thank you.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yeah. On the return rate side, you know, what we're seeing is very macro-based. It spans across categories, across order types, across customer types, across cohorts of merchandise, and whether we look at recent cohorts of merchandise or, say, best sellers from 1 or 2 years ago. You know, we're seeing the increase in return rates across the board, right? It's clear there's not some kind of sizing difference or quality difference or something like that going on. It's very macro-based behavior. Again, we're seeing it in other retailers as well.
That said, there's a ton we can do in terms of making the process easier for consumers to understand what items are gonna work great for them, and we think we can make a meaningful impact in that zone, regardless of what's going on on the macro side of things. And then switching gears to FWRD and kind of our outlook there. Yeah, our outlook in, in, in the medium term is, is one of caution, you know, in the luxury zone, particularly for those, those aspirational customers that are reaching up. And that's reflected in our inventory, purchase plans.
Edward Yruma (Managing Director)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from Mark Altschwager at Baird.
Mark Altschwager (Senior Research Analyst)
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Is there anything beyond the macro you can point to that you believe might be contributing to the ongoing sales pressure? I guess any opportunities you see from a product or marketing execution standpoint that you think could move the needle in the coming quarters, should the macro remain the headwind?
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yeah, we, we think the primary headwind is certainly on the macro side. At the same time, our expectation is, is that we outperform the market, right? And, you know, we believe we're not at the level of outperformance we expect to be right now. We're certainly looking inward to see what we can do, certainly to accelerate things, make sure we connect better with the consumer, and that includes all fronts, you know, both on the marketing side and then also the merchandise side.
Mark Altschwager (Senior Research Analyst)
Thank you. Then just following up on gross margin, the lower outlook versus the prior forecast, I guess the seasonality in the business hasn't changed versus when you guided earlier in the year. Just to understand, is the more cautious gross margin outlook for the back half all a function of FWRD taking longer to clean up, or is there any element of planning higher promotions that REVOLVE to drive traffic and conversion? Thank you.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Yeah. No, it's, it, it, it's, it's in part, and I would say mostly that FWRD dynamic and just the, the, the timing around those, you know, those buys and working through that inventory. There is also an element on own brands. Whenever we're in these inventory, you know, correction periods, we, we pull back on own brand more than on the third party, given the depth that we have to produce there. Of course, own brand has a much more premium margin than that of the third party, so that has an impact in the near term. So that, that is certainly part of it.
Promotion and promotional activity out there, we still see it as being elevated, especially in those higher price points and, you know, just the market still being flooded with, you know, with that luxury product and the combination of that with the, the consumer struggling, as Mike talked about.
Operator (participant)
We'll go next to Kunal Madhukar with UBS.
Kunal Madhukar (Senior Analyst)
Hi, thanks for taking my question. One, just to reconfirm, your return rate for the quarter was around 60%. That's what I'm estimating, so just wanted to re- reconfirm that number. As, as we look at, your AOV, the AOV has remained pretty firm. I was thinking maybe the AOV would decline simply because the mix of full price might be much lower. How are you pic- looking at AOV for the next, rest of the year? How are you thinking about that?
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Yeah. First, on the return rate, you're, you're ± in, in the, in the right zone there at the 60%, which of course is much higher than last year. We kind of addressed that earlier. On AOV, yeah, we're pleased with the AOV. It is coming in just a touch, you know, call it $1 or $2 lower than we had initially anticipated, and that's largely due to the softness on FWRD, which of course carries the much higher price point than REVOLVE. Full price is coming back. It's, it's not, not at the levels of last year when we were checking out those record full price levels. It was 85% for the full year, full year last year. We expect to be several points lower than that this year.
still at or above the pre-pandemic 2019 level. We feel good about the, you know, shifting back into the full price mix. AOV is holding despite some pressure from the mix of FWRD sales.
Ethan Saghi (Analyst)
Thank you so much.
Operator (participant)
We'll go next to Jim Duffy at Stifel.
Jim Duffy (Managing Director, Sports and Lifestyle Brands Analyst)
Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm hoping you can speak more about category performance. Beauty continues to grow. Which categories have seen the most pressure from the consumer pullback in discretionary spend? Then hoping you can discuss it in the context of the inventory. With the inventory, yes, the gap to sales has improved, but the year-over-year is influenced by elevated levels a year ago, so your days inventory is, is still elevated.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Speaking for some categories, we're seeing softness in the apparel categories, you know, fashion apparel, as well as dresses, which for us is a large category, so we separate it out. You know, as you mentioned, beauty is growing and strong, as well as, you know, handbags and accessories. On a high level, it's kind of like the broader apparel, you know, across, you know, as Mike mentioned earlier, across the board, price point, styles, occasions, and things like that.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Yeah, maybe on the inventory, Jim. Yeah, you know, we're still planning conservatively for the balance of the year, as Mike mentioned. You know, we'll be plus or minus in this same zone, with, you know, new buys down in the double digits. You know, we feel good about the balance of the net sales and year-over-year inventory growth, despite top line coming in softer than we had initially anticipated.
Jim Duffy (Managing Director, Sports and Lifestyle Brands Analyst)
Okay. Jesse, the gross margin guidance seems to imply inflection in the fourth quarter, if I've, if I've done my math correctly. Is further inventory improvement central to delivering on that?
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say inflection, you know, probably plus or minus in the same zone, a little bit lighter than in Q3. On a year-over-year basis, you know, maybe that's what you're referring to, an inflection there.
Jim Duffy (Managing Director, Sports and Lifestyle Brands Analyst)
That's right, yes.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Last year in Q4 is when, is when that pullback started to happen and, and mix.
Jim Duffy (Managing Director, Sports and Lifestyle Brands Analyst)
Okay
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
shift away from full price into the, into the markdown.
Jim Duffy (Managing Director, Sports and Lifestyle Brands Analyst)
Thank you.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
We'll go next to Simeon Siegel at BMO.
Simeon Siegel (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Hope you're having a nice summer. Jesse, did you or, or could you comment on AOV or ASP, maybe specifically for REVOLVE versus FWRD to mitigate that, that mix? Could you also remind us of the sales cadence for the quarter, from last year? Maybe just how to contextualize the mid-single digit July comment. Then Michael or Mike, Just how you're thinking about longer term active customer opportunity and just maybe whether, whether there's any meaningful difference you're seeing in the new customers versus the prior. Thanks, everyone.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Yeah. Thanks, Simeon, and hope you're having a great summer as well. On the AOV, I would say, we commented on it a little bit earlier and that, you know, we're, we're happy with where it's at, despite FWRD coming in, you know, softer than we had anticipated. FWRD, of course, carries that higher, higher price point. You know, within 1%, of being flat year-over-year, you know, we're happy with. That said, FWRD, or sorry, Revolve is holding up better than FWRD. FWRD is where we saw more decrease in the AOV. Some dynamics at play there, and that kind of feeds into the inventory discussion and kind of softness in the luxury, more aspirational consumer and working through that inventory.
Then on the seasonality or kind of month-to-month seasonality, I think is where you were going on the Q3. It's month-to-month, it's plus or minus in the same zone for July, August, September, you know, within a point or two on the year-over-year growth last year.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yeah. On the new customer side, I, I think that's certainly one of the, you know, bright spots in the current environment, that we're continuing to attract new customers at a healthy rate. July, new customers came, came in, in a, in a very solid number. In general, our, our retention on our cohorts has, has been good. You know, just we're comping periods in 2021 in particular, but including, you know, parts of 2022, that were elevated over historical norms on, on some of those, cohort retention numbers, for both new and existing customers. You know, there's been a pullback in consumer spend among our demo, but we're, you know, really happy to see that we're continuing to attract and bring in new customers at a healthy rate.
Simeon Siegel (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Perfect. Thanks a lot, guys. Best of luck for the rest of the year.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from Janine Stichter at BTIG.
Ethan Saghi (Analyst)
Hi, you got Ethan Saghi on for Janine. Can everyone hear me okay?
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yep.
Ethan Saghi (Analyst)
Okay, I just have one question for you guys. I'm just curious, you know, with student loan repayments resuming in the fall, how are you thinking about that with regards to your planning and outlook for the back half of the year?
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Yeah, we are being cautious, sorry, Mike, if you want to jump in. I would say, from the planning perspective, being, you know, cautious, you know, and that comes through on the inventory side and continuing to, you know, until, until we see some green shoots there, taking a more conservative stance. You know, to some extent, you know, we feel like maybe some of that student loan, kind of that looming student loan repayment is already impacting the consumer and her, her buying behavior.
Ethan Saghi (Analyst)
Great. That's it for me. Thanks.
Operator (participant)
We'll go next to Lorraine Hutchinson at Bank of America.
Lorraine Hutchinson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Thank you. Good afternoon. You've, you've spoken about a lot of initiatives around the selling and distribution expenses. Can you talk through the timing of when you think some of these mitigation strategies will kick in? What's the longer term goal for this line item? Thank you.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
... Yeah, no, we are, we're pleased with the progress there. I think we commented last quarter that we've got a couple of dozen individual initiatives against this line item. You know, of course, all at different sizes and scales and timing. They're already starting to kick in. If you looked at the selling and distribution cost per order, that's down, you know, in the mid-single digits, low single digits year-over-year. It's already starting to take, take effect, and offsetting some of that return rate pressure, at least on a per order/per unit basis. We're also starting to get some relief on the fuel surcharges.
If you remember, last year, Q2 is when that fuel surcharge really peaked, it started to step down in Q3, Q4, a little bit more in Q1, and now, even more in Q2. Feel good about the progress there. If you kind of back into where we think the back half of the year is gonna be working from our 18.6% this quarter, 18.3% next quarter, 18.3% for the full year, that implies that there is some efficiency starting to take place in the back half of this year, but more importantly, into next year. The goal there is to get that number to, you know, be back in the, you know, at least the high 17s over, over the midterm.
Rick Patel (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We'll go next to Oliver Chen at TD Cowen.
Speaker 17
Hi, this is Joan, for Oliver. Thanks for taking our question. Just I'm curious about more international expansion plans. It looks like you're investing across different countries. How large do you expect international to trend over time? Also curious on, on China specifically, how large do you think that business can grow for both REVOLVE and for potentially, and if you've seen any sort of different, noticeable difference in terms of customer demographic behavior in China versus the U.S.? Thank you.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yeah, so long term, we think international is a huge expansion opportunity for us. We would hope long term to achieve a third of sales or more, or perhaps approaching 50%. You know, those are long-term aspirations, and there's many steps from here to there. China, in particular, is a huge market where we feel like we haven't our brand hasn't penetrated in the same way as the U.S.
We feel like in the echelons of Chinese influencers who matter, we do have penetration, and we're really excited about the new head of Greater China that we brought on, that has a lot of the operational expertise on the marketing side to help us out in that zone, to really market the REVOLVE brand in a much bigger and broader way than we have historically. That's a huge opportunity for us. Obviously, China is an incredibly huge market for luxury and also aspirational luxury as well. Our hopes is that over the coming years, we can grow that into a huge market. You know, we'll keep you posted with our progress.
This is the first step of many in terms of the expansion of the brand marketing in China. You know, it's probably gonna be 6-12 months before we start seeing some of the initial progress from those new steps.
Speaker 17
All right. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We'll move to our next question from Rick Patel at Raymond James.
Rick Patel (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Just to follow up on earlier question on promotions, can you talk about the outlook, as you think ahead? Because inventories are in better shape now, but, you know, if the environment does end up being, you know, soft like it is now, you know, how are you thinking about the use of promos going forward? I'm curious what gross margins in, in terms of discounting, in the back half versus last year? Yeah, I think on the promotion comment, that was more of a macro comment, in that we do see elevated promotions out there still, and, and on top of a pressured consumer. That said, we tend to kind of, blaze our own trail when it comes to working through that inventory.
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
We don't necessarily compete head-to-head with others on the promotional front, especially on REVOLVE. you know, more so on the FWRD side, where there's more comparable product, and more, more softness there. you know, we worked through the inventory, you know, fairly well over the last several quarters and feel good about the health there. We'll continue, continue on this path and, and be conservative in the new buys for the back half of the year until we see some, some green shoots again. you know, and our expectations are factored into the margin guidance that we gave.
Rick Patel (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Can you talk about the savings related to efficiency and shipping and logistics? It sounds like that's factored in the guidance also, but just curious how much of a tailwind this would be, and, you know, how meaningful this could be as we think about margins beyond this year?
Jesse Timmermans (CFO)
Yeah. Yeah, working from the 18.6 of this quarter, getting to an 18.3 for the full year implies, you know, already some, some efficiency gains this year, and that will continue into next year, as a lot of these initiatives didn't start to kick in and won't start to kick in until, until the back half of the year. The goal there is to get that, you know, back into the 17s over time. You know, not commenting on, you know, exactly when that is, but I would say over the, you know, kind of over the midterm, we think we can get there, you know, next year at some point. Maybe the full year doesn't quite get there, but next year at some point. Then we haven't talked about fulfillment yet, either.
A lot of capacity and utilization gains to be had there. There'll be further efficiencies, especially as we head into next year and, and optimize the, the space on our fulfillment network, layer in more, more automation, more processes, and, and just efficiencies with scale, as we lap this increasing return rate and get back into growth mode.
Rick Patel (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We'll go to Noah Zatzkin at KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Speaker 16
Hi, thanks. This is Ashley on for Napa. Just one on international growth. I know you guys called out Mexico and China both as strengths, but just inversely, are there any countries you'd maybe highlight that are trending softer relative to your expectations? Then with the share buyback, does that take the possibility for M&A off the table for now, or how are you thinking about the opportunity there? Thanks.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yeah, definitely. In terms of softer markets, generally we're seeing the Western, more developed markets softer, which includes, obviously, the U.S. as well, but on the international side, those Western markets, so Europe, U.K., Canada, Australia, generally a lot softer than we would like to see. In terms of the, you know, the share buyback and the M&A, it doesn't take M&A off the table, but, you know, sort of firmly, we feel like, you know, we have a healthy cash position, and we recognize this is a great opportunity to put some of that cash to work in what we believe will be a very accretive way.
It's one of the luxuries of, of being such a cash generative business, where we're able to achieve growth and cash generation at the same time, where we feel like we can invest and grow the business at the same time as returning, capital to our shareholders.
Speaker 16
Great. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We'll take our final question from Janet Kloppenburg at JJK Research Associates. Ms. Kloppenburg, your line is open. You may have yourself muted.
Janet Kloppenburg (President)
Hi. Can you hear me now?
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yep.
Janet Kloppenburg (President)
Hello. Hi. Hi, I, I, a lot of questions have been asked around the inventory, but I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about selling trends where, where you are happy with the response rate and where the full price selling is good. If there's any directional change in, in what your core customers are spending money on, perhaps more casual versus dress up or, you know, categories like that, accessories, etcetera. I was also wondering if you could break that segmentation down between the domestic customer and the international customer. Thank you.
Michael Mente (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yeah. Speaking to merchandising, that, you know, we feel good about our inventory position because we're seeing the slowness, you know, across the board. It's definitely not too much of this. I need more of that. We feel like we have the right merchandise, you know, in appropriate zones. Just, you know, not top line and demand is just not quite there. You know, we've historically always been strong in going out clothes, and we continue to see, you know, going out dressy clothes being important. Of course, being in the summertime, you know, this time of year seasonally, there's a lot more casual, warm weather, you know, casual clothes, vacation clothes, and things like that.
Historic strength, feeling really good about, you know, the development of some of the more nascent categories, you know, some of the zones that we might not historically be on, as known for. We're quietly making progress, you know, behind the scenes in, in that as well. Maybe I'll let, you know, Mike or Jesse speak to the international trends or differences.
Mike Karanikolas (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)
Yeah. On, on the international side of the business, in those developed markets, we're seeing, you know, certainly similar trends as we're seeing on the domestic side, which is, you know, once you account for the very big macro shifts in, in, in, in demand from, you know, the COVID period to the post-COVID, you know, sort of explosion in, in, in, in, in, in going out clothes, where, you know, we're, we're, we're generally seeing across the board, the demand is not quite where we'd like it to be. But, you, you know, we feel good about our, our progress with, with our various initiatives on the inventory front. They're evolving. Inventory is in a very healthy place.
Then some of those longer term areas that have been growth areas for us, such as beauty, are continuing to show growth even through, you know, kind of this macro environment that's, that's a bit tougher for us.
Operator (participant)
That is all the time we have for questions today. I will turn the call back to management for closing remarks.
Erik Randerson (VP of Investor Relations)
Thanks, everyone, for joining our call. It's clearly a turbulent time, but, you know, I can assure you that we're very, very focused and, you know, quite, quite pleased, despite our, you know, top line numbers and our financial results of this quarter not being, you know, far from where we want to be, quite pleased with the progress we're making and looking for the future. Excited to join to join with you guys in three months' time.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.