YETI - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, welcome to the YETI Holdings Q1 2023 earnings conference call. All participants have been listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone telephone. To withdraw your question, please press two, star and two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tom Shaw. Please go ahead, sir.

Tom Shaw (VP of Investor Relations)

Good morning, and thanks for joining us to discuss YETI Holdings' first quarter 2023 results. Leading the call today will be Matt Reintjes, President and CEO, and Mike McMullen, CFO. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for your questions. Before we begin, we'd like to remind you that some of the statements that we made today on this call may be considered forward-looking, and such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. For more information, please refer to the risk factors detailed in our most recently filed Form 10-Q and the Form 8-K filed with the SEC today. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements made today as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.

Unless otherwise stated, our financial measures disclosed on this call will be on a non-GAAP basis. We use non-GAAP measures as we believe they more accurately represent the true operational performance and underlying results of our business. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in this morning's press release and can be found in the investor relations section of our website at yeti.com. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Matt.

Matt Reintjes (President and CEO)

Thanks, Tom. Good morning, everyone. YETI is off to a good start to 2023 as we continue to drive demand globally for our brand and product. We delivered top and bottom line results that put us on pace for our full-year financial commitments. Our team did a tremendous job driving focus on our brand and innovation. We are pleased with the design improvements on the products impacted by our voluntary product recall, solidifying our plans to return new and improved versions of these products to the market in Q4 of this year. Looking at a few of the financial highlights, sales increased 3% for the quarter, which as previously highlighted, were negatively impacted by both the voluntary recall and the expected slow pace of orders in the North American wholesale channels.

Mike will provide more color on the sales impact of the recalled product. We were pleased overall with our ability to post growth for the period in coolers and equipment, supported by the performance of our portfolio of products, including our non-impacted soft coolers and the success of our expanded GoBox cargo line. On the drinkware side, sales met our expectations with 3% growth led by sustained strength in Rambler bottles and the expanded introduction of newer products, including our tumbler straw lids and our new Yonder water bottle. By channel, DTC was up 7% as we saw growth across both customer acquisition and retention. Wholesale declined just 1% for the period. As we communicated in our Q4 call, wholesale inventory within our North American partners was above expectations to start the year and continued to improve as we progressed through the quarter, paced by sell-through.

Upcoming quarters will have some continued sell-in headwinds, particularly given the introductions of the two very successful soft coolers introduced last year that are part of the active recall. We started to see positive year-over-year gross margins for the first time since the second quarter of 2021, reflecting the initial impact of lower container costs flowing through the income statement. We also remain committed to investing in YETI during the period and will do so throughout 2023, leaning into strategic areas of growth as we see continued global opportunity for the brand and our products. Before a deeper review of our strategic priorities, I wanted to highlight three areas of the business that demonstrate both how we are executing in the near term while also setting the foundation for how we continue to scale over the long term.

First, as mentioned, we are on track to reintroduce improved versions of the three voluntarily recalled products back to market in the fourth quarter. The team worked tirelessly to redesign and validate a new solution. We officially started production of finished goods this month and will spend the coming months ramping production and delivery of these new products. In parallel, importantly, we are also planning to expand the range of offerings of these incredibly well-received products, and we expect these will also be introduced later this year. I'm incredibly proud of the diligence of our collective team who prioritize the safety of our consumers and the quality of our products in developing this solution. We've also used this experience to positively impact our overall processes to inform future product development.

Second, we continue to make significant progress against our strategic efforts to drive supply chain diversification across our categories. Drinkware has historically been a challenge to this progress as the vacuum-insulated stainless steel industry has been highly concentrated in China. Over the past few years, we have worked closely with our existing partners to find ways to streamline and automate steps in the production process to create supplier portability. The result of these efforts is that we have recently begun production of some of our core volume SKUs, the Rambler 20, in a new advanced factory outside of China. These moves are thoughtful, well-planned and evolutionary, demonstrating both the strength of our supplier partnerships and the willingness to invest in more transformative supplier solutions. Finally, we continue to drive circularity of more YETI products with over 70% of our product portfolio now in the scope of circularity programs.

Last quarter, we mentioned the introduction of YETI Rescues, our pilot resale program on yeti.com, to extend the life of returned or slightly used coolers. In April, we debuted our Rambler Buy Back program exclusively at our YETI retail locations, where customers can trade in and recycle their drinkware for in-store credit. We will continue to learn from these pilot programs to understand how they can extend deeper across our omni-channel over time. These are directly supporting our ongoing efforts to keep the wild wild. We believe these programs can be additive to our customer acquisition and retention efforts. Now shifting deeper into our strategic growth priorities. Our focus on global partnerships in new and existing communities was on full display in Q1.

As we mentioned during our last quarterly update, we kicked off our partnership with the World Surf League in Oahu, and have since supported the league across the globe at the Rip Curl Pro Portugal in March, and the 60th anniversary competition at the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach in Australia in April. This partnership remains an incredible opportunity to engage with new global customers while helping to protect and conserve the world's oceans through our support of the WSL's We Are One Ocean initiative. In March, YETI headlined the second leg of the 2023 Natural Selection Tour at Revelstoke in British Columbia, creating engagement opportunities both on and off the mountain, including events benefiting two of our conservation partners, SeaTrees and Protect Our Winters. The event culminated with a sold-out YETI film night hosted by our snowboarding ambassador, Travis Rice, fresh off his win at the competition.

Later that month, the team headed to Switzerland to the Freeride World Tour, where YETI was the headline sponsor for the series final event in Verbier. This year, our activation included on-site product engraving, hosting the welcome party, and bringing YETI culinary ambassador Nick Weston to cook in a live event for the crowd. To end Q1, the Formula One champion Oracle Red Bull Racing Team announced YETI as their team's official cooler and drinkware, capping an incredible quarter of global engagement and activations. We remain committed to how we serve both new and existing communities locally. For instance, we continue to drive impactful interactions in our heritage fishing communities at core events like Bassmaster Classic in Knoxville.

We also supported newer communities, such as skate, as we served as a hydration partner for the second year in a row at the Phoenix Amateur in Arizona, and supported the USA Climbing Team Olympic trials in our hometown of Austin, Texas. We also recently kicked off support for a specialty VIP program with Metallica as they begin their M72 World Tour. This is classically YETI partnership of organic integration and support utilizing our Alpine Yellow drinkware to match the key color of the tour. The tour opened with a show in Amsterdam this month and will tour Europe before coming to the U.S. and then back to Europe over the next two years. In addition to executing these engaging brand initiatives, impactful product marketing remains key to differentiating our premium portfolio. Our cohesive multi-medium execution of the expanded GoBox collection is a great example here.

Anchored by our overarching What Goes Here Goes Anywhere tagline, we leveraged a 30-second hero film and our packed ambassador social series to show how pros use our products. We launched our CraigsLost campaign, which helped turn Craigslist gear losers into surprise and delight GoBox winners. After combing Craigslist for stories of items lost in the wild, we enlisted our ambassadors to help replace lost gear while promoting the durability and organizational capabilities of our GoBox line. As we shift to our product focus for the first quarter, we prioritize launching our normal cadence of new products while executing on the solution for the voluntary recalled products. Though the recall removed two of our key soft coolers from the market for most of the quarter, strong performance in our Hopper Flip line supported overall coolers and equipment category growth and reinforced our leadership position.

As Mike will discuss, this comparison will be more difficult in the second and third quarters as we lap the bulk of last year's introduction of our anchor M20 and M30 soft coolers. In hard coolers, revenues were down for the period, primarily reflecting less sell-in at wholesale, even as sell-through remained positive. As we move into cooler season for moms, dads, grads, and the beginning of summer, we have amplified our on-the-go storylines now that the Roadie 48 and 60 wheeled coolers are available across our omni-channel. Regarding cargo, I've already mentioned the success of the GoBox launch, where early demand exceeded expectation. This is a category where we will continue to invest in product innovation and build out across our wholesale footprint.

Rounding out the highlights in coolers and equipment, we continue to see solid growth in bags, where we remain focused on paced distribution decisions to continue building awareness and consideration. In drinkware, we saw growth for the period within the range of our expectations. The hydration story has emerged as a key driver of the broader category this year, which we believe is supported by our continued strength and performance across our Rambler bottle line and straw lid tumblers. We have also supported this trend with the recent full channel expansion of our straw lid mugs and our Yonder water bottles. The mugs have already become some of our top-performing SKUs at wholesale, and our color customization for Yonder just launched for the first time on yeti.com last month.

Drinkware innovation will continue throughout the year and includes more premium category offerings, expanded bottle options, and newer entries that will extend how we think beyond individual use products. This kicked off with the recent debut of our Rambler Beverage Bucket, expanding YETI into new categories of outdoor entertaining and group dining occasions. We will continue to push the innovation story in 2023 and beyond as we bring additional product to market and set up future product family expansion underneath the YETI brand halo. Brand and product come together in our go-to-market and how we reach consumers around the globe when and where they want to shop. This is central to our belief in the importance and balance of wholesale and DTC channels to market.

To support this direction and elevate our responsiveness to consumer needs, we recently announced the full alignment of our commercial channels under our chief commercial officer. This allows for the uniqueness of each channel, but also the incredible opportunity for knowledge sharing. We are already seeing the benefits of this new structure. At the highest level, this ensures we are positioned to deliver consistent, high-impact experiences wherever we interact with our customers or consumers. This starts at yeti.com, where we are elevating the consumer experience and amplifying product positioning. We are growing how we merchandise our product categories in even more relevant and effective ways. As an early example, our all-day drinkware positioning provides the perfect YETI solution as customers wake up, set out, and wind down. We'll continue to build upon this storytelling format in more categories and geographies.

We also further differentiated our site through better visibility of our used gear offerings, as well as the debut of the Yonder color customization. Overall, we are seeing balanced acquisition and retention growth of our e-commerce customers, but believe we can build upon these trends as we continue to differentiate this experience. In our other channels, Amazon remains strong, particularly with improved inventory positioning. Corporate sales continue to post solid growth on top of a very strong gain throughout 2022 as we continue to leverage the range and diversity of our account base. In YETI retail, we opened our first location of the year and 14th overall just outside of Omaha, Nebraska, which is already off to a fantastic start. On the wholesale side, we have seen positive sell-through despite the more tepid sell-in environment, resulting in inventory levels that have improved since the start of the year.

Some caution remains in the channel, combined with the tougher soft cooler comparison that will keep growth pressure in the near term. We continue to have positive and productive conversations with our accounts and remain encouraged with our success in elevating our positioning and merchandising with our partners. Switching to international, mix reached a new high of 16%, up from 13% last year. This increase was partially attributed to the outsized domestic impact of the recall and wholesale sell-in. Strong growth was once again posted in our big three international markets. We remain on track with some evolutions in our global supply chain as we transition our distribution centers in Europe, Australia, and the U.K. Each of these locations will position the brand for scale and speed to market, while also beginning to expand our still nascent but high-demand customization efforts outside the U.S.

In Canada, we are continuing our efforts to build out broader customization capabilities in the market. We see the potential to drive strong growth in this market and see ongoing opportunities to sharpen how we go to market and localize our engagement. Australia growth remains outstanding as the brand continues to be supported by some of our newer partnerships, including the two WSL events we hosted this quarter and a launch activation at the Australian Grand Prix to highlight our new partnership with Oracle Red Bull Racing. Finally, we continue to see tremendous opportunities and excitement in Europe. From launching YETI product at a skate store in the U.K. with ambassador Geoff Rowley, debuting our YETI European Instagram page at the end of the quarter or launching our newest sales channel with Amazon Europe, we are creating a foundation to unlock the brand across the continent.

Before I turn to Mike for the financial details of the quarter, as you may have seen, Tracey Brown has elected to step down from our board of directors. I'm incredibly grateful to Tracey for her three years of impact serving YETI, on behalf of everyone at YETI, I wanna thank her and wish her well on the amazing opportunity she has in front of her at Walgreens. In closing, YETI remains well-positioned for 2023, I'm proud of how we have collectively rallied to execute on our growth agenda. We have already expanded the scope of our product assortment, driven global brand awareness through new partnerships, made steps to scale our international foundation, established circularity programs to drive our long-term commitment to the wild.

On top of this, we are excited to have the soft coolers coming back in the market later this year and how these build upon the innovation story to be a platform for future growth. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mike.

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Thanks, Matt. I'll begin with a review of our first quarter performance, followed by some additional thoughts on our full year. While our full year top and bottom line outlook remains unchanged, I will provide some additional color on the sequencing of the quarters ahead. Following these details, we will then open the call for your questions. Our GAAP results reported in today's press release are inclusive of adjustments and charges associated with the voluntary product recall. While there were some minor adjustments to our GAAP results due to recall activity in the first quarter, we would note that we remain early in the claims and returns process, and any adjustments relative to our original accruals will be reflected in future periods. As a reminder, the impacts of these recall-related costs are added back to our adjusted non-GAAP results.

Better focus on the operational performance during the period, all of the financial details that I will discuss on today's call are adjusted non-GAAP metrics. Now on to our results. First quarter sales increased 3% to $303 million, compared to $294 million in the prior year period. This was slightly above our expectations and inclusive of several discrete factors that impacted our growth rate in the first quarter. First, the stop sale of recalled products impacted our first quarter growth rate by approximately 600 basis points. Some of this impact was offset by higher demand for other soft coolers that remained in the market.

While difficult to quantify, we believe that we recaptured about half of the 600 basis point stop sale impact. Going forward, we do not expect to see as much offsetting demand as the first quarter benefited from the refilling of our wholesale channel with soft coolers not impacted by the voluntary recall. Second, as we have discussed previously, we saw more cautious ordering in our wholesale channel in the first quarter. We did see sell-through growth outpace sell-in growth for both coolers and equipment and drinkware in Q1, and we continue to believe we are in a healthy overall channel inventory position. Third, we did have a challenging compare within customized drinkware in Q1, where in the prior year quarter, we saw a significant number of orders shipped that were actually placed in the previous peak holiday quarter.

Prior to this Q1, this had been a consistent dynamic for us over the years. Due to our investments in custom capacity in 2022, we did not experience the same level of order carryover in the first quarter of this year. While offering shorter lead times and therefore a better experience for our customers is clearly a positive for our business, it did lead to a dynamic in drinkware and in DTC, where growth on a demand basis was higher than our reported growth. When you view our results with all of these factors in mind, it gives us confidence that demand for the brand is much stronger than the 3% top-line growth that we reported this quarter. Now for some commentary on our sales by channel and category.

From a channel perspective, direct-to-consumer sales grew 7% to $167 million, reaching 55% of total sales mix. This performance was led by growth in our Amazon and corporate sales businesses, which both saw strong growth in coolers and equipment and drinkware. Wholesale sales decreased 1% to $136 million, with a decline in coolers and equipment partially offset by growth in drinkware. Soft cooler growth was positive in this channel, reflecting the continuation of demand for products such as our Flip and Daytrip lines, which were not impacted by the voluntary recalls. Conversely, hard coolers were down year-over-year as they faced a difficult comp in the prior year period when the channel was refilling after several periods of below-target inventory levels. Nonetheless, we were pleased with the sell-through growth that we saw in hard coolers in the first quarter.

By category, coolers and equipment sales increased 1% to $104 million. In addition to the strong demand for soft coolers not impacted by the voluntary recall, other areas of strength included cargo, supported by the successful expansion of the GoBox family and bags, which continues to gain traction and distribution. Drinkware sales increased 3% to $190 million. Demand for drinkware outpaced reported sales growth in both wholesale, where sell-through growth outpaced sell-in growth, and DTC, where as discussed, shipment growth was impacted by the timing of customization fulfillment this year versus the prior year period. With rising awareness around the importance of hydration, our bottles business remained a great story for the brand, with growth across a range of sizes, including our new lighter weight Yonder water bottle.

We continue to see good traction by our newer straw and travel mugs. We were excited to debut Yonder color customization to our corporate sales channel late in the first quarter, then further expand that capability to yeti.com in the second quarter. Internationally, sales grew 33% to $50 million, representing approximately 16% of total sales and led by strong growth across each of our three regions: Europe, Australia and Canada. Gross profit increased 4% to $161 million or 53% of sales, compared to 52.7% in the same period last year. We were pleased to return to gross margin expansion for the first time since the second quarter of 2021, which was primarily supported by a 220 basis point benefit from inbound freight.

Our gross margins are starting to benefit from the lower container rates that we began paying last year. As a reminder, we also lapped a comparable 220 basis point impact from one-time freight interrupts during the prior year period. The overall freight tailwind was partially offset by 100 basis points from higher product costs, 50 basis points from unfavorable foreign currency exchange rates, and 40 basis points from all other impacts. SG&A expenses for the quarter increased 19% to $139 million or 45.9% of sales, compared to 39.8% in the same period last year. Non-variable expenses increased 400 basis points as a percent of sales, as planned in demand creation and our supply chain footprint.

Variable expenses increased 210 basis points as a percent of sales, primarily reflecting higher distribution and logistics costs, including higher Amazon Marketplace fees. Operating income decreased 43% to $22 million or 7.2% of sales, compared to 13% during the same period last year. Net income decreased 46% to $16 million or $0.18 per diluted share, compared to $0.32 in the prior year period. Turning to our balance sheet. We ended the first quarter with $168 million in cash compared to $100 million in the year ago period. Inventory decreased 16% to $347 million year-over-year. Inventory declined sequentially for the third straight quarter, down another $24 million for a cumulative reduction of over $140 million from peak levels.

Total debt, excluding unamortized deferred financing fees and finance leases, was $84 million compared to $107 million at the end of last year's first quarter. During the quarter, we made principal payments of $6 million. Turning to our fiscal 2023 outlook. We wanted to acknowledge that we are giving more color than we have in prior years due to the unusual nature of this year, given the voluntary recall. We continue to expect full year sales to increase between 3% and 5% compared to fiscal 2022's adjusted net sales. We continue to expect roughly flat sales over the first three quarters of the year in aggregate, including a low single-digit decline in sales for the second quarter, followed by an approximately flat growth rate for the third quarter.

While we continue to feel confident in our ability to deliver the full year, there are some dynamics that will impact our growth rate on a quarter-to-quarter basis. First, the impact of the stop sale of recall products will have a bigger impact on our growth in the second and third quarters as those products became more widely distributed in the prior year periods. We estimate that impact to be approximately 900 basis points in both quarters. In addition, we expect more normalized fourth quarter buying patterns for the holiday season after some of the earlier ordering that we saw in the third quarter last year. As a result of these factors, we expect the following as it relates to growth by channel and category for the rest of the year.

We expect low double-digit declines in the coolers and equipment category for the second and third quarters, and then for strong growth to reemerge for the category in the fourth quarter. Drinkware growth is expected to improve as we move into the back half of the year, supported by a healthy slate of planned product introductions. By channel, wholesale is also expected to decline low double digits the next two quarters before returning to growth in the fourth quarter. Again, this partially reflects the increased negative impact from the voluntary recall and the expected timing of the replacement products. On the DTC side, we expect growth to build stronger as we move through the year and continue to see DTC mix reaching approximately 60% for the year.

Importantly, these combined factors keep us on track to return to double-digit growth during the fourth quarter, supported by the launch of a newly designed slate of soft cooler products. Looking at margins, we are increasingly confident in delivering our 2023 gross margin target of approximately 55%, up from 52.7% in fiscal 2022. With container rates down nearly 80% from peak levels, we continue to see the favorable impact of lower inbound freight costs working through our income statement and driving sequentially higher year-over-year margin expansion throughout the balance of the year. While product costs were unfavorable in the first quarter, we expect their impact to be neutral to slightly positive for the full year. With SG&A, we remain resolute in investing across our business. The voluntary recall is also having an impact on SG&A leverage due to lower sales growth.

With regard to timing, we expect a higher growth rate of SG&A in the first margin range of 15%-15.5% for the full year. In the second quarter, we expect a year-over-year margin decline that is slightly less than what we saw in the first quarter. However, our assumptions for interest and tax expense are unchanged, yielding full year adjusted earnings per diluted share of between $2.12 and $2.23, compared to $2.36 in fiscal 2022. This is inclusive of a $0.30-$0.35 estimated impact from the stop sale of products included in the voluntary recall. Looking at cadence, we expect adjusted earnings declines to ease year-over-year the next two quarters before returning to strong growth in the fourth quarter.

On the cash side, we feel good about our inventory balance and how we have managed it down over the past three quarters. We expect to end the year close to where we ended Q1. We'll also be opportunistic with our purchases as we go through the year. Our capital expenditures target remains at approximately $60 million, given incremental investments across a number of key initiatives, including technology, expanded customization capabilities, retail openings, and product expansion. These factors contribute to an unchanged free cash flow assumption of $100 million-$150 million for the year. Overall, we are off to a good start to the year, particularly as our team continued to diligently manage the voluntary recalls while still making progress on our underlying strategic priorities.

This focus and execution keeps us well-positioned to deliver our financial outlook for the year, even as we continue to be prudently cautious in this uncertain environment. We remain excited by our product lineup, including our ability to bring back and even expand on the products impacted by the voluntary recall. Our visibility to gross margin improvements remains strong as we drive sequentially better results throughout the year.

Now I would like to turn the call back over to the operator to take your questions.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone telephone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Sharon Zackfia from William Blair. Please go ahead.

Sharon Zackfia (Head of Consumer Equity Research)

Hi, good morning, thanks for taking the question. I guess, you know, there's been concern about the health of the drinkware business, particularly given some competitive activity and certainly the rate of growth was the slowest we've seen really since kind of the peak pandemic quarter. Can you talk about the drinkware business and how you feel the brand is faring there relative to some of the competition that's expanding distribution rapidly? Talk about essentially your customer demographic and, you know, whether or I guess how the drinkware segment is doing with a younger female demographic. Thank you.

Matt Reintjes (President and CEO)

Thanks, Sharon, good morning, and thanks for the question. Obviously, we mentioned on the call that we've seen the market expansion that's happening in drinkware and the growth, and we think all those dynamics and that focus on the category has actually played really well into our drinkware portfolio strategy. When you think about kinda how YETI goes to market, we go to market with a broad-based portfolio of drinkware. We combine that with our customization, personalization business. We continue to address more drinking occasions and more drinking moments, as we talked about on the call, the all-day drinkware. You know, we wanna be with people when they wake up until when they go to bed, and we wanna be with them every day.

When you watch how we've built out our product portfolio, we're addressing multiple use cases, multiple consumer groups. We're leveraging form factors, sizes, colorways, and then the global opportunity. We think about the success we've had in building this drinkware business in the United States since 2014 and the global growth opportunity, not only the one that we're realizing, but the opportunity in front of us. We think it's an incredibly exciting category. It's also, as we mentioned on the last call, something that offers an opportunity for us as a platform for expansion. You notice the recent LoadOut Bucket that fits along with the use occasions, along with our, what we would call our individual kinda drinkware consumption.

Within drinkware, the expansion into hydration and further expansion into hydration and bottles, further expansion into tumblers, further expansion into different straw lid formats. We feel good about the business, and we feel good about where we're going with our drinkware portfolio and our drinkware strategy.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Joseph Altobello from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Joseph Altobello (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. Hey, guys. Good morning. I guess the first question, you mentioned sell-through was up in the quarter. Could you quantify for us how much it was up, maybe overall and excluding the recalled products?

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Hey, Joe. We don't typically give specific color around sell-through, other than to say we were pleased with the growth that we saw across both categories. The other thing I'd say is, you know, we have to remember that the sell-through reporting, we have good sell-through reporting in the U.S., but, you know, we have less so outside the U.S.. And to sort of like quantify the impact of our business would be, you know, mixing sell-through and sell-in. A little difficult to quantify, you know, how big of an impact that it did have.

You know, other than to say we were pleased with the growth that we saw, we feel like, you know, it's put us in a good channel inventory position and that it was, you know, really across the portfolio despite what was going on with the recall.

Joseph Altobello (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Well, that was my follow-up question, which is it sounds like you're in a good spot from an inventory standpoint. Are we done with the destocking at least at this point?

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Well, I don't know that I would've characterized it so much as a destocking and more about just caution from our wholesale channel partners that we saw coming out of the holidays. You know, and we expect some of that to continue as we, you know, head into Q2 and a relatively peak period for us. You know, I think that the key message is we feel good about where our channel inventory is. I mean, you're always gonna have some parts where you've maybe got too much of some product and not enough of others, and we've got, you know, we'll see that that's and right now is no different.

You know, we feel good about where we are, and we're continuing to work with our wholesale channel partners on, as we go through the year.

Joseph Altobello (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Peter Benedict from Baird. Please go ahead.

Peter Benedict (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Hi, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question here. Mike sounded like obviously very confident around the gross margin, but a willingness to maybe reinvest some of that upside if it accrues over the year. Just curious kind of what you would do. You're already spending on initiatives this year. Just curious where you might turn up the dial of investment in the event that you have some profits to do that with.

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Yeah. Good morning, Peter. Thanks for the question. I

Like you said, we feel good about where gross margins landed in Q1. We feel like we're on the right track to land the 55% that we guided for the year. In the event that we do see upside to there or to that, I think you'll see it'll just be more of the same types of things that we've talked about. It's really about, you know, setting us up for growth next year given the opportunity that we see in front of us, particularly outside the U.S.. I think it'll be in things, you know, it'll be in areas such as, you know, raising brand awareness outside the U.S., our global teams, technology to take some of the capabilities we have here in the U.S. and expanding them globally.

I don't know that it'll be anything widely different. It'll be, you know, just, you know, further investment in the things that we've already talked about.

Peter Benedict (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Okay. No, that makes sense. I guess with respect to the reintroduction of the recalled items and then the two new items, I mean production is already underway, just not sure how that compared to maybe your expectations when you embarked on this. Just curious if you can give us a little more color in terms of the timing of when you expect to have these products back in the market, how you expect to support them with your marketing, et cetera, just so we kind of have an idea of how this is expected to play out in the back half of the year.

Matt Reintjes (President and CEO)

Good morning, Peter, Matt here. What I think I would kinda take this from a couple different perspectives. One is we're incredibly excited to be back in production, and have literally completed some finished goods. That we're starting to build that capacity and that inventory back up, and then it'll we have all the logistics in getting it and getting it ready to be back in the market. What we said on the call was we're still committed to being back in the market in Q4.

That's as of today what we're, what we're sticking to, but we feel good about the work that's gone into building the solution by an incredibly focused team in really a short amount of time to go from problem identification or opportunity identification to being back into production and finished goods rolling off the line. You know, as we think about the reintroduction, our intent today is that we'll reintroduce it with the marketing levers that we usually do when we, when we kind of promote a product or get a product out in front of the consumer.

We don't intend, because this was a component change to a product, to reintroduce it like it's a new product, but really just turn up the YETI marketing dials. The incredible stuff our marketing and brand team does to create awareness and find interesting ways to get it in front of consumers, to reintroduce the product, almost as if it went from out of stock to back in stock. Where we can kind of put our hand on the lever a little bit to create that awareness, you know, makes us feel good about the opportunity not only in Q4, but really building into 2024 as we think about not only is the product coming back to market, but that it's coming back to market with new sizes.

Over time, we'll bring additional colorways in and be back up and rolling in a really important strategic category for us.

Peter Benedict (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Okay, great. Thanks so much. Good luck.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Robby Ohmes from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Robby Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

Hey, Matt. actually have a couple of questions. The first was just the on the wholesale channel, you mentioned, you know, that, you know, some caution in the channel. You know, what are you hearing back from the wholesale partners right now? Like, what's their outlook on, you know, the customers?

Matt Reintjes (President and CEO)

Good morning, Robby. You know, I think it's, and we said this on the last, in kind of our last conversations, it's when we think about the wholesale channel, one of the unique things about YETI is the breadth, and diversity of we have within our wholesale, from small independents to some of the best large nationals in the United States and similarly around the globe. Then within those groups, a real range of diversity of partners. We get a pretty broad-based look at how they're operating. One of the things that we've talked about is there's no, there's no sort of common YETI theme within the caution or not.

We have some partners that are really leaning hard into the year. We have other people who are taking a kind of a more cautious look at Q2, Q3 as the year goes on. I think the most positive evidence is what Mike said, which is overall demand for the brand is strong. We're hearing that from our wholesale partners. We have great relationships. We have from at all levels, very regular weekly, if not daily, conversations with the majority of our regional and national accounts. A very close relationship.

We're in constant communication about merchandising, product sorting, what's working in the channel and make sure we take advantage of those opportunities, as the consumer continues to show up and show up with demand for the YETI brand. You know, I think we'll turn as we go through the year to more conversation to Peter's previous question about the reintroduction of the new and improved soft coolers and how we get those out in front of consumers and use that as just another sort of springboard for YETI awareness, but also demand for that product category.

Robby Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

That's helpful. Just a clarification on DTC, you call that Amazon and corporate sales. What are you seeing at yeti.com? Was the customization shift the big impact on yeti.com? Like, if you excluded that, is there any change with the momentum at yeti.com? Or have you changed, you know, the digital marketing spending you're doing to drive to yeti.com or anything like that?

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Hey, Robby. You know, you hit on a couple things. You know, one, we had a good quarter from Amazon and corporate sales. Even just to round out the rest of the DTC channel stores, we opened up our 14th location in Omaha, and we're pleased with the results so far of that store. On dot-com, you know, you hit on the big point in that growth on a demand basis was we were pleased with and the challenge that we had with yeti.com really was a unique issue to this Q1. You know, typically in prior Q1s, really since we've been public, we exit Q4 with a backlog of custom orders that we weren't able to fulfill in Q4.

Due to the investments we've made in customization that we've talked to you all about, we were able to reduce lead times and fulfill all those orders in the quarter. While that's obviously a good thing from a customer experience standpoint, it left us with a tough compare in Q1. On a demand basis, you know, we were pleased with the results that we saw in dot-com, both in C&E and drinkware.

Robby Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

Got you.

Matt Reintjes (President and CEO)

Robby, one thing on that. I'm sorry. What I'm gonna add, as we mentioned on the call, I think it's important is the fact we said we saw acquisition and retention across all of our DTC channels was positive in the quarter, and included in that is the increase in value with those. The work that we're doing to acquire customers, retain customers, drive value is real positive.

Robby Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

Got you. One, just last one. The product costs, the up 100 basis points, is that product cost, you know, landed from, you know, China? Sort of what is the product cost outlook? You mentioned moving production out of China, you know, or starting to. Is that gonna help? Is that gonna reduce product costs, you know, as you do that? Are you having to? Should we expect more price increases to offset the product cost pressures?

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Here's what I'd say about product costs. you know, I would say that the comments around the transition out of China really didn't play a role in anything we're thinking about product costs for this year. It's just, it's early in that process. The impact that we saw in Q1 was really just a continuation of what we saw in the second half of last year. it was largely planned, and really nothing has changed with regard to how we're thinking about product costs for the year. We expect it to be relatively neutral for the year to slightly positive is what we said in our prepared remarks. No real concerns on that.

It's just what we saw in Q1 was sort of the continuation of some of the dynamics we talked to you all about in the second half of last year.

Robby Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Peter Grom from UBS. Please go ahead.

Peter Grom (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, operator, and good morning, everyone. Mike, you mentioned towards the end of your prepared remarks, you know, greater visibility to margin expansion beyond this year. And just kind of looking at the phasing of the guidance, particularly from a gross margin perspective, you're kind of exiting the year with gross margins closer to the high 50% range. And I guess how should we think about the implied exit rate and the ability to return to 57%-50% gross margin looking out to next year? And then just kind of building on that, you're clearly stepping up investment this year. To the extent that we have another year of outsized gross margin expansion, would you expect more of that to flow to the bottom line, or would you continue to reinvest in looking out next year? Thanks.

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Yeah. Thanks, Peter. A couple things. You're correct in that if you look at what we said about margins, we expect to land the year at 55. We expect to, as we step through the year, we expect a year-over-year increase to increase sequentially as we go through the year. That would imply an exit rate in the range that you mentioned. What I'll say is, you know, Q4 is always our highest gross margin quarter given the mix of DTC. You know, you have to take that into account. I wouldn't necessarily look at that 57-ish% rate and assume that that's going to be the rate, you know, going forward.

That said, we're not obviously, we're not recapturing all the inbound freight benefit this year. There will be more to capture next year. As it relates to investments, we're gonna have to, as we go into planning for next year, you know, given the opportunity that we believe is in front of us, you know, we're gonna continue to invest both in product as well as in other parts of our business, be it headcount, demand and demand creation, brand awareness, technology, et cetera. No real specific guidance to give on FY24 right at this point. I will obviously have more at a later time, we're gonna continue to invest, and we're gonna continue to evaluate things that we think can really set us up for the future.

Peter Grom (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

That's really helpful. Then just maybe one quick follow-up or, you know, international performances has been, you know, very, very strong. You know, I guess, just as it becomes a bigger piece of the business, are there any margin mix implications that we need to be aware of as we look out? Or is the margin profile kind of similar to what we would see here in the U.S.?

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Yeah. From a gross margin standpoint, it's really similar to what we see in the U.S.. There's differences across the regions based on sales mix. Once you normalize by channel, the gross margins across the three regions are similar to what we see in the U.S..

Peter Grom (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks so much. I'll pass it on.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Xian Siew from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Xian Siew (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks for the question. I just wanted to ask maybe about the wholesale trends in U.S. versus international. In U.S. was down about 1% overall. Was it down maybe double digits in wholesale? Maybe you can help us frame that. Then based on the guidance for 2Q, 3Q, is it the declines are kind of stepping up? Is that how we should think about it in U.S. wholesale?

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Yeah. Hey, Xian. To your point, wholesale down 1% in total. International was up. We don't generally guide to the specific growth rate of international wholesale within that broader wholesale channel, suffice it to say it was a similar growth rate to international in total, implying that wholesale in the U.S. was down. Again, not gonna give specific numbers on what, you know, what the business in the U.S. grew, but, you know, when we talked about sort of the spread from sell-through to sell-in, the sell-through reporting we have is generally all in the U.S.. We were pleased with it. It was positive.

It kind of speaks to the delta between sell-through and sell-in when you consider that the U.S. was down, obviously more than that -1.

Xian Siew (Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah.

Mike McMullen (CFO)

The other thing, and.

Xian Siew (Equity Research Analyst)

Uh-

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Sorry, Xian. The other thing I'd say is.

Xian Siew (Equity Research Analyst)

Yes

Mike McMullen (CFO)

you know, we, that soft cooler impact that we're seeing from the, from the stop sale, that's almost entirely a U.S. dynamic, because the, there were several regions where the Hopper M-Series had not fully been distributed. And so when we talk about the impact of the stop sale, it is primarily a U.S. impact. When we go into Q2 and Q3, the double down double digits that we talked about, that's gonna primarily be a U.S. dynamic as well.

Xian Siew (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Very helpful. Maybe just quickly on the 300 basis points or the recapture of the rate that you mentioned in 1Q, I know you mentioned it's probably higher in 1Q, but was that much better than you anticipated? Just any framing on how you thought about that capture in the quarter?

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Yeah. I mean, we knew that we knew there would be some demand shaping, but we just didn't know how much. When we talked about it earlier, and that's basically what we said, is that we knew there would be some offset, but weren't sure how much. We do believe that 300 basis points of offset is. We don't expect to see that as we go through the year into Q2 and Q3. We expect the impact from the recall in those quarters to be the roughly 900 basis points that we talked about, just because, you know, a lot of that was wholesale dealers refilling their shelves with flips where they had Hopper M-Series products before.

Xian Siew (Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Thank you for the help.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from John Kernan from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

John Kernan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Yeah, Mike, can you talk to the confidence and visibility in the return to double-digit top line growth in the fourth quarter? What do you think are the key drivers in that acceleration that we should be looking for?

Mike McMullen (CFO)

Yeah. Couple things that I would that I would think about. I mean, first and foremost is going to be the planned reintroduction of the products that are currently on stop sale. We'll get the, not only the launch and the DTC, but we'll get to sort of refill back into the channel, where, you know, given all the product that we've taken back from the wholesale dealers. I think that's the first thing. The second thing is, you know, we are, when we look out over the year, even in drinkware, we're excited about the planned reintroductions that we have, or the planned product introductions that we have.

We feel like we've got an opportunity to continue to grow drinkware and that drinkware growth will build throughout the year. You know, it's the recall is obviously the biggest piece, but even if you normalize for that, we feel like we've got a good opportunity to continue to grow other parts of our business as well.

John Kernan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Maybe just one follow-up on freight. I think over 600 basis point headwind to gross margin over a two-year period. What do you think the ultimate recapture is on the freight cost? We obviously can understand some of the timing of it you're expecting this year, but how is it stretching to 2024?

Mike McMullen (CFO)

If you look at. You're correct. We've over time before, through 2022, we gave up 600 basis points of gross margin due to freight. Obviously not capturing all of that this year. When you look at where rates are today, they've largely come back down to sort of pre-pandemic levels, that over time, we should be able to capture the majority of that back in our gross margin. However, we also are looking at this as an opportunity to reinvest back into the business. That's gonna be both-

On the product side or within COGS and therefore gross margin as well as on the SG&A side. You know, I do think we have more tailwinds to come as we exit this year, but we're gonna have to measure that against, you know, what opportunities we see to grow our business over the long term.

John Kernan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Peter Keith from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Peter Keith (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Yeah, on the wholesale channel, there's clearly some concerns in the investing community that you guys might be losing some shelf space, particularly with some of the larger nationals. Maybe just give us a view if you think about the next 12 months, as you're relaunching a lot of the recalled products. Sounds like sell through is good. Where do you think your shelf space will be in aggregate? Do you think it'll be holding steady, it'll be up or even down a little bit?

Matt Reintjes (President and CEO)

Morning, Peter. Thanks for the question. I would say in the conversations I have directly and the conversations that our teams have regularly, shelf space loss is not a conversation we have. We talk about merchandising, how we're gonna make shelf space for additional products that we discuss with the channel that are coming. I think the shelf space kind of movements that we tend to see are we just took some really large products off the shelf in our soft coolers. We expect those to be back in Q4. The conversations with our wholesale partners are timing related and when on the bringing those new products, that new category of family back to market. I don't...

We don't see and don't have conversations around shelf space reduction. It's really more productive, and as recently as this week, having conversations over what the next two to three years looks like, versus the next two to three quarters.

Peter Keith (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Helpful. Lastly for me, I was just hoping you could touch on the ongoing launch and, I guess, ramp up in Europe. I know we've talked about it for a couple years. Sounds like you maybe hit the accelerator here now that the COVID concerns are fading. Could you just give us some updates on how the positioning is there, if it's more DTC versus wholesale, and any green shoots you might be seeing with U.K. or Germany?

Matt Reintjes (President and CEO)

Peter, a couple things there. You know, lots of green shoots and the benefit of Europe is Europe being not a single entity, but lots of individual countries that have their own uniquenesses and opportunities for YETI. You know, our DTC business had the distinct advantage during COVID of we were able to focus on that business while wholesale was a little slower due to the nature of what was happening. What we're seeing now is the benefits of that, is that we have a really nice DTC business across a number of markets throughout Europe. Wholesale door openings continue at a good pace. The replenishment we're getting as the brand awareness grows and as the consumer demand grows within our established doors has been good.

We really like what we're seeing in the U.K.. We like both what we're seeing, but also just the significant opportunity that is Germany and the German speaking country and regions, but also what we're seeing come out of Northern Europe and in the Nordics. We love what we're seeing there. I think there's some fun things going on between our brand awareness activations that are very endemic as we talked about a lot of the on-mountain activations. Some of the broader based partnerships that we have through some of the major sports. The fact that the Metallica tour kicked off in Amsterdam and is doing the first leg of its tour throughout a number of stops in Europe.

I think all those, give us really YETI-like opportunity to build kind of this broad-based introduction of the product portfolio with this broad-based brand awareness attack.

Peter Keith (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Sounds great. Thank you very much, guys.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Jim Duffy from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Jim Duffy (Senior Equity Research)

Thank you. Good morning. Hi, Matt. Hi, Mike. A few questions around DTC consumer engagement. Can you comment on what you're seeing with performance marketing thus far in 2023 and your strategies for marketing dollar allocation to top of funnel versus more performance marketing spend?

Matt Reintjes (President and CEO)

Hello, Jim. You know, I'll touch on a couple of those things at a high level. We historically haven't spoken specifically to the performance of our individual marketing channels. What I would say is we actually have a very integrated approach to how we build the funnel from top to bottom. With the work we've done with our advanced analytics team and learning more about consumer and consumer behavior, particularly in the United States, it is affecting and impacting in a positive way how we allocate our performance marketing dollars.

The work between our chief marketing officer and chief commercial officer is really almost a weekly and sometimes daily evolution of what we put towards top of funnel versus where we invest in the mid-funnel versus where. We've had some great things come out of our advanced analytics team in looking at demographics in geographies with affinities for categories and then applying and seeing in those. We're now expanding those results more nationally. We're learning some things around certain products and certain product categories, how different groups have affinities for them and how that changes how we creating brand awareness in those geos and demos. We're excited by what we're seeing, and the answer's not always been intuitive.

Seeing, sort of a data-driven focus on that, I think is gonna lead to some really nice opportunities for us.

Jim Duffy (Senior Equity Research)

Okay. Matt, when you ask market, I'm curious the engagement trends you're seeing with new versus existing customers. Specifically, I'm curious, is the Yonder water bottle and its more approachable price point bringing a new consumer to you into the mix?

Matt Reintjes (President and CEO)

I would say a couple things. As we expand the portfolio, it does two things. It gives us a chance to re-engage existing customers and to acquire new customers. Interestingly, we see that with things like the Yonder, but we also see that with SoftCoolers and what SoftCoolers have brought from an acquisition perspective. In an area that may not be as intuitive, even in our HardCoolers and our wheeled 48 and 60, kind of our newest additions to our HardCooler category. You know, those have actually brought in some different geos and demos that may not have been as kind of naturally thought of. I actually think it's every time we bring innovation to market, it gives us kinda two opportunities.

It gives us an opportunity to drive deeper within our own customer base, and it also gives us a chance to acquire. I think that's why you hear some of the results of broad-based acquisition, really balanced acquisition and retention in the quarter.

Jim Duffy (Senior Equity Research)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We have time for a last question from Brian McNamara of Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Brian McNamara (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in here. We've noticed, recently that YETI is being, co-marketed with Traeger at Dick's. Is that new? What drove that decision? Will that kind of partnership, for lack of a better term, be expanded? Thanks.

Matt Reintjes (President and CEO)

Thanks, Brian, for the question. I think I would say we have a lot of brand friends in the active outdoor consumer lifestyle space. Our product gets positioned alongside a lot of different brands, and a lot of different categories, in fact, multiple brands in multiple categories. We have a lot of retail or wholesale partner overlap. You know, from a direct co-marketing kind of national, we don't have anything active in that way. I think the positioning that happens inside stores sometimes is really focused on merchandising to the consumer at certain times of year when they're in that kind of that mode.

You know, the beginning of summer, moms, dads, grads, is an opportunity for people to start thinking about summer, to start thinking about barbecues, start thinking about outdoor gatherings. I think it's natural that you'd see products like YETI and Traeger and many others being positioned together or merchandised together within a store.

Brian McNamara (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. That's all for me. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Matt for any closing remarks.

Matt Reintjes (President and CEO)

Thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning, and we look forward to speaking to you as we return for our Q2 call.

Operator (participant)

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