Lulu's Fashion Lounge Holdings, Inc.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Lulu's Fashion Lounge Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Lulu's General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Naomi Beckman-Strauss. Thank you. You may begin.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Lulu's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2025 results. Before we begin, we would like to remind you that this conference call will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements made on this call that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, including but not limited to statements regarding management expectations, plans, strategies, goals and objectives, and their implementation. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other important factors, which could cause our actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties, and assumptions are detailed in this afternoon's press release, as well as our filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year end of December 28, 2025, which can be found on our website at investors.lulus.com. During our call today, we will also reference certain non-GAAP financial information, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, net debt, and free cash flow. Our non-GAAP measures may be different from non-GAAP measures used by other companies. Reconciliation of gap to non-gap measures as well as the description, limitations, and rationale for using each measure can be found in this afternoon's press release and in our SEC filings. We also use certain key operating metrics, including gross margin, average order value, and total orders placed. The description of these metrics can also be found in this afternoon's press release and in our SEC filings. Joining me on the call today are our CEO, Crystal Lansom, our CFO, Heidi Crane, and our President and CIO, Mark Voss. With that, I'll turn the call over to Crystal.

Thank you, Naomi, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. 2025 was a transformational year for Lulu. We made meaningful progress strengthening our financial foundation, driving operational efficiencies, and leaning into our strengths in event dressing, resulting in gross margin expansion, a significant reduction in operating expenses, and three consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA performance. We believe our stronger, leaner, and more resilient operating model, combined with our consistently improving profitability, positions us well to return to growth as consumer and category pressures begin to stabilize. We believe our focus on event-driven categories continues to differentiate us. Bridesmaid and special occasion dressing remain strong throughout the year, with sustained demand and multi-year category growth, reinforcing our leadership position in this segment. We also saw exceptional momentum in our wholesale business in 2025, delivering triple-digit year-over-year growth as we expanded into major retail partners, further extending the reach of the Lulu's brand across channels. Operationally, we executed well on major initiatives designed to simplify and modernize the business, including completing our distribution center consolidation, streamlining operations, driving sequential improvements in inventory and assortment optimization, and steady reduction in return rates. Together, these accomplishments drove significantly improved EBITDA performance over the course of the year. With these foundational changes largely in place, we are entering 2026 with greater strategic focus, a healthier cost structure, and an assortment more aligned to our core customer and brand identity. We also continue to strengthen our financial position, with net debt expected to be between $7.5 and $8 million at the end of Q1. While work remains, particularly in repositioning our casual and footwear categories, we are confident that our disciplined execution and sharpened assortment strategy position us for continued progress as we move through the year. We believe we have entered the new year well-positioned to further accelerate our strategic priorities lean into the strength of our core business, continue to execute on the turnaround of the casual and footwear businesses, drive and enhance customer engagement, and unlock sustainable long-term growth. As part of this effort, we are sharpening our strategic focus on the initiatives we believe will drive the most impact. This includes strengthening our casual and footwear categories to improve order economics, expanding our wholesale presence to broaden reach, and leveraging technology to deepen engagement, enhance efficiency, and support our growth. Mark will discuss each of these in more detail shortly. Turning to our fourth quarter performance, we are seeing encouraging momentum across the business, reflecting the impact of our disciplined execution and strategic focus. Special occasion and event wear continues to outperform, led by strong growth and new occasion wear and both new and reorder cocktail categories, which drove healthy year-over-year net sales growth. Strength in event dressing reinforces our conviction in both the assortment strategy and value proposition and further validates our position as a leading destination for getting dressed up. Thanks to the strong contribution from our occasion categories and healthier average order value, in the fourth quarter we saw our most meaningful sequential quarterly improvement in net revenue comparisons at an approximately 5% decline. This is an improvement from a 17% decline in the first quarter 2025. Product margins improved for the fifth consecutive quarter with a 240 basis point increase in the fourth quarter compared to the prior year period and the highest product margin for the fourth quarter in four years. The improvement reflects sustained consumer demand for our higher margin categories supported by our pricing and margin enhancement initiatives and continued discipline and markdown strategy. We will continue to prioritize these initiatives to support ongoing margin gains in the year ahead. Gross margins expanded 640 basis points to 44.3% over the prior year period, our highest fourth quarter gross margin since 2021. The consistent progress we're seeing reflects our commitment to margin accretive growth. We plan to build on this momentum by further refining our assortment, strengthening sourcing, and managing pricing and cost efficiencies. Return rates improved 80 basis points from the third quarter, another quarter of sequential declines. We're proud of the enhancements we've made around customer experience in regards to improved fit and quality, as well as thoughtful adjustments to our return policy and customer abuse prevention strategies deployed throughout the year. Brand momentum is accelerating, supported by ongoing visibility efforts to broaden Lulu's exposure, reach, and relevance. We drove meaningful gains in brand awareness and engagement in the fourth quarter through a broader and higher quality media footprint, spanning earned media, cultural moments, editorial features, broadcast placements, and expanded studio stylist and talent relationships, while leaning into key holiday and event-driven moments. As a result, our brand equity score maintained its strong position, underscoring the resonance and relevance of the Lulu brand. Our wholesale business continues to gain significant traction, supported by strong interest from prospective partners and the addition of several major retailers in the fourth quarter. These additions expand our in-store and online presence to nine major retail partners. To date, this has translated into triple-digit, seven-figure growth in wholesale revenue. Importantly, in February, we announced our expansion into all Nordstrom stores nationwide, reflecting accelerating demand in brick and mortar and increased retailer confidence, reinforcing Lulu's ability to scale beyond its direct-to-consumer roots while staying deeply connected to its customers. Furthermore, earlier this month, we broadened our reach with the launch of our Amazon storefront, offering a curated, primarily exclusive assortment and enabling us to maintain full control of brand storytelling while leveraging Amazon's reach and convenience. As we grow with existing partners and add brand-accretive majors and boutiques, including the expansion into additional brands within our current major partners, as well as Victoria's Secret in the first quarter this year, We continue to expand access to Lulu's in a thoughtful, strategic way that drives profitable wholesale volume and brings our product to more customers nationwide. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, each partnership features a channel-specific assortment aligned with how different customers shop and engage with our brand. We believe these partnerships further position Lulu's as a digitally fluent brand with growing influence across the contemporary fashion and retail landscape. As 2026 progresses, we are further encouraged by our wholesale customers' requests for more year-round assortment, which will help to rebuild our brand awareness in our casual wear assortments across all sales channels. Finally, we delivered our third consecutive quarter a positive adjusted EBITDA. Our tighter cost structure and stronger product margins lifted our performance again this quarter, underscoring the disciplined operational focus that continues to support our bottom line. Our performance over the last several quarters reflects the significant strides we are making in strengthening our core business and the opportunities we see ahead of us to continue driving results. On that note, we are making steady progress resetting our footwear and casual apparel businesses, which have pressured top line performance over the last several quarters. We continue to drive the reset of casual apparel and footwear this quarter by narrowing our assortment, tightening inventory receipts to improve turns, and shifting to more elevated event adjacent and dress forward styles that better match customer preferences and where margins are strongest. We believe these steps will support the stabilization of these categories and set a stronger foundation for future growth. As we progress through this transition, we continue to expect the pressure on top line contribution from these categories to ease towards the end of the second quarter, positioning us for a healthier revenue trajectory in the back half of the year. Looking ahead, we are intentionally prioritizing profitability and the quality of our assortment over short-term revenue growth. By resetting our casual and footwear businesses towards more brand aligned and event adjacent assortments and working down less productive inventory in the first half of the year, we are laying the groundwork for a stronger, more disciplined foundation that supports higher quality and more durable performance. Turning now to our cost reduction initiatives. Our work has continued to pay off as evidenced by our third consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA performance. The improvement was driven in part by a 12% year-over-year decline in operating expenses in the fourth quarter, including a 13% reduction in fixed costs. We continue to build momentum off our streamlined cost structure and expect continued gains as we drive additional operational efficiencies and focus on returning to sustained profitable growth. As it relates to our SKU rationalization efforts, we are making meaningful progress around streamlining our assortment and reducing underperforming inventory to drive improved margins and greater operational efficiencies. As of this earnings call, in footwear and casual apparel, the SKU count owned and inventory on hand is down compared to prior year, approximately 17% and 39% respectively. While there is still work to be done, we believe the progress the team has made to date will set us up nicely for improved performance in the second half of this year. These actions are also enhancing our financial profile by promoting cash generation and fortifying our balance sheet. As it relates to tariffs, the environment remains highly uncertain, including potential changes in scope, timing, and rates. While we are closely monitoring developments, our strategy does not rely on any single external outcome. Instead, we are focused on actions within our control. These include advancing resourcing initiatives, strengthening longtime vendor partnerships, optimizing product costs, and applying disciplined pricing and assortment strategies. We also recognize that the broader environment, including potential tariff impact, freight volatility, and a still cautious consumer may continue to create variability in demand. Our approach is to remain agile, protect profitability, and adjust thoughtfully as conditions evolve. Taken together, we believe these actions position us to navigate near-term volatility while continuing to strengthen our long-term margin structure. Before I turn it over to Mark, I'd like to highlight a couple of additional updates. First, we made an important leadership update last month. After joining us as fractional CFO in the third quarter, Heidi Crane was appointed as Lulu's permanent CFO in February, a natural next step through this process. Working together over the last several months, it's clear that Heidi brings exceptional financial discipline, sharp strategic insight, and a deep understanding of our business. which will greatly support our efforts to achieve long-term sustainable growth and drive value creation. Second, our Board recently approved an amendment to our Certificate of Incorporation to decrease the number of authorized shares of our common stock from $250 million to $15 million and the number of authorized shares of our preferred stock from $10 million to $500,000, contingent on stockholder approval at our 2026 Annual Meeting. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Mark Voss, our President and Chief Informational Officer. Mark will provide updates around progress we're seeing against strategic priorities. Mark?

Thank you, Crystal. As Crystal highlighted earlier, we have refined our areas of strategic focus to concentrate on the highest impact drivers of the business. I'll spend a few minutes today providing more detail on the progress we're making across these three key areas. One, enhancing our casual and footwear categories to improve order economics. Two, expanding wholesale. And three, leveraging technology to drive engagement and efficiency. Starting with strengthening our casual and footwear categories to drive improved order economics. Casual and footwear are lower return rate categories, which contributes to a more favorable overall return rate profile. Additionally, casual wear drives repeat purchase frequency, which in turn improves marketing efficiencies. Let me unpack these dynamics. As we discussed on prior calls, Ooze has demonstrated measurable strength in event wear over the past several years. At the same time, we have seen non-event wear product classes decline in both unit sales and revenue. As a result, eventware as a percentage of revenue has grown from approximately 48% in Q4 2022 to 56% in Q4 2024 and further to 61% in Q4 2025. The increasing concentration of eventware as a percentage of total revenue creates upward pressure on our overall return rate. However, the core return rate within eventware measured on non-markdown sales and adjusted for volume, in 2025 has decreased by more than 5% year over year as a result of our continued investments in product quality and anti-buyware return measures, more than offsetting that upward pressure. In Q4 2025 and into Q1 2026, working closely with our vendor partners, We strategically trimmed our new cash flow and footwear assortment buys, limiting introductions to products we have high conviction will resonate with our customer, while also improving the shopping experience across the website and strengthening our brand image. As a result, new product introductions in cash flow and footwear were 28% lower in Q4 2025 compared to Q4 2024. and tracking to 50% lower in Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025. Currently, we are focusing our new buys for the latter part of Q2 and Q3 2026 with our renewed merchandising focus. Given the fewer but higher quality product launches in cash flow and footwear, we expect the event wear mix to continue increasing in the first half of 2026 relative to the first half of 2025. and therefore no immediate improvement in return rate percentage is anticipated in the first half this year. However, as we move into Q3 and Q4 2026, we expect our cash flow and footwear launches featuring better resonating products to normalize and begin to return to growth. As a result, Cash flow and footwear revenue as a percentage of total revenue is expected to increase beyond normal seasonal trends and above last year, which should translate to favorable overall return rate comparisons in the second half of this year and better overall order economics and customer retention metrics. Importantly, we are already seeing clear early signals of this turnaround. In Q4 2025, Units transacted per new product launched increased to 21% year-over-year, and Q1 2026, the units transacted per new product launched, is tracking toward a 50% improvement over Q1 2025, a very encouraging trend. We are pleased with the strong position we have built in EventWare and the growth opportunity ahead of us. Strengthening our casual and footwear categories in the event-adjacent space is expected to also serve as a catalyst for regrowing customer repeat purchase frequency. Event-wear customer purchases tend to be more seasonal and episodic in nature, whereas casual and footwear lend themselves to year-round purchasing, which in addition to driving repeat purchases, also supports new customer acquisition. Cashflow and footwear, as a share of new customer acquisition, was approximately 41% in Q4 2022, declining to 31% in Q4 2024 and holding at 31% in Q4 2025. This underscores the opportunity ahead of us. An improved cashflow and footwear assortment that aligns well with our core offerings in eventware can materially contribute to new customer acquisition. Given the deliberate pullback in new cash flow and footwear product launches in the first half of 2026 in order to more aggressively reset the assortment, we expect the new customer acquisition contribution from these categories to remain pressured before beginning to improve and build momentum in Q3 and Q4 of 2026. We will be monitoring repeat order frequency closely and look forward to reporting on our progress in future quarters. Turning to wholesale expansion. As Crystal mentioned, our wholesale channel continues to deliver steady growth. To provide more color around this wholesale expansion, I'll share the following statistics. In 2024, we shipped to four majors accounts. In 2025, that expanded to nine majors accounts. And we expect to add several more in 2026. In 2025, our overall wholesale revenue increased by 143%, and our same majors revenue was up 62% compared to 2024. We believe a clear indicator of brand strength at existing retailers, as well as expansion into new retailers. This growth is a validation that the Lulu's brand resonates in in-store retail, where our customer is also shopping. Lulu's wholesale expansion complements and amplifies our direct-to-consumer business model. Our customers find the Lulu's brand where she shops, whether online, in the Lulu's app, or in the store. The in-store experience, where our customers can feel the quality and fit of our products and be pleasantly surprised by the accessible price points of our products, builds trust and connection with our customers for years to come across channels. Finally, let me walk through how we're leveraging technology to drive engagement and efficiency. In previous calls, I have spoken about various AI initiatives, goal lives, and usage in product recommendations and search, demand and trend forecasting, marketing and marketing creative, as well as merchandising. This time, I would like to also highlight some initiatives that are not predominantly AI driven and yet have real tangible and positive impacts on enhancing the customer experience to drive stronger engagement, greater ease of use, and ultimately higher customer retention and repeat purchases. Return feedback optimization. We have redesigned our return initiation flow to make it seamless for customers to provide detailed product feedback. This gives us significantly deeper insight into return drivers, including fit experience and individual fit needs. This data forms the foundation for AI and non-AI driven improvements in product selection, fit specifications, and truly personalized fit and product recommendations. We believe we have a significant opportunity in front of us to reduce return rates, improve product curation, and create more successful and enjoyable shopping experience, leading to customer delight, higher repeat purchases, increased word of mouth, and better order economics. Happy returns integration. We are currently implementing happy returns as a return shipping solution, scheduled to go live in the first part of Q2 2026. We believe this will improve the return experience for eligible customers through expanded drop-off locations and the elimination of printed return shipping labels. Additionally, the consolidated nature of return shipping will reduce return shipping costs, which have been steadily increasing year over year. Enhanced product descriptions. We are actively testing onsite product descriptions that improve the clarity and value of product detail information. reducing customer friction, and increasing purchase confidence. Beyond streamlining the customer decision-making process, these enhancements also better support AI data consumption and interpretation to facilitate visibility in AI and agentic shopping experiences. Simplified account creation. We've improved the account creation process by enabling alternative login methods through various third-party authentication providers. Early results are very encouraging, showing significant adoption of these new login methods alongside notable increases in account creations, demonstrating reduced friction at a critical point in the shopping journey. AI powers review summaries. Lastly, we are testing AI-generated customer product review summaries that help our customers navigate the extensive and often detailed reviews our customer community provides. By making these confidence-building social signals easier to digest, we are aiding our customers in their purchase decisions and helping them find the right products, continuing to deliver the Lulu's brand hug and reinforcing our position as the shopping destination for all of life's moments. Taken together, these strategic focus areas reflect our deliberate and targeted approach to accelerating our path to growth in the year ahead. By strengthening our underperforming but strategically important categories, expanding our presence through wholesale, and removing friction across the customer journey through targeted technology investments, we are addressing both near-term execution and the long-term durability of the model. I'm excited about the momentum we are building. Our teams continue to bring energy, discipline, and customer focus to their work. and I thank the Lulu's team for their dedication and care for our customers. Next up is Heidi Crane, Lulu's CFO, and she'll walk you through the numbers.

Thank you, Mark. I'm excited to have joined the team in a permanent capacity last month, and I look forward to continuing to advance our strategy for profitable growth and strengthening operational and financial discipline across the organization. Now to our results. In the fourth quarter, net revenue was 63 million, a decrease of 5% year over year, driven by an 11% decrease in total orders placed, partially offset by a 6% increase in average order value. For the full year, net revenue totaled 282.3 million, a decrease of 11% versus 2024, due to a 15% decrease in total orders placed, partially offset by a 2% increase in average order value. Gross margin for the quarter was 44.3%, up 640 basis points year over year due to a higher mix of full price sales and higher margin product categories, as well as improved outbound shipping costs, which resulted in over 700,000 of cost savings. For the full year, gross margin increased 200 basis points to 43.2% when compared to 2024. On the expense side, Q4 selling and marketing expenses totaled 11.8 million, down 0.9 million year-over-year due to lower marketing costs and merchant processing fees. For the full year, selling and marketing expenses were 66.6 million, a decrease of 6.3 million versus 2024. General and administrative expenses decreased 2.8 million to 16.1 million in Q4, a 15% decline year-over-year, primarily due to our ongoing cost control initiatives, including lower fixed labor and benefit costs driven by reduced fixed overhead, a decrease in equity-based compensation expense, a decrease in variable labor and benefits from a combination of lower sales volume and increased productivity, a decrease in liability insurance, legal and professional fees, and a decrease in software occupancy, depreciation, and amortization expenses. For the full year, general and administrative expenses were 68 million, down 13.3 million, or 16%, from 81.3 million in 2024. Our net loss for Q4 improved to 0.4 million from a $31.9 million loss in the same period last year, or a net loss of $3.5 million excluding a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $28.4 million in the same period last year. For the full year, our net loss is $13.7 million compared to $55.3 million in 2024, or a net loss of $26.9 million excluding a non-cash goodwill impairment charge. It should be noted that during the fourth quarter, we refined our methodology for estimating breakage related to store credits to better reflect changes in customer redemption patterns. This refinement increased breakage reported for the fourth quarter and full year beyond historical levels. As we continue to evaluate redemption patterns, adjustments to the breakage estimate may be recorded from time to time. Q4 suggested EBITDA was positive 2.6 million compared to a $3.3 million loss in Q4 2024, a $5.9 million improvement year over year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin was positive 4.2% versus negative 5% in the prior year period. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was negative 1.2 million compared to negative 9.7 million with a full year adjusted EBITDA margin of negative 0.4% versus negative 3.1% in 2024. Interest expense in Q4 totaled $487,000 versus $313,000 in Q4 2024. For the full year, interest expense totaled $2.5 million compared to $1.3 million in 2024. The increase is primarily attributable to higher average borrowings along with a $.9 million write-off of loan amendment fees related to the prior credit agreement with Bank of America. Diluted loss per share for the quarter was 14 cents compared to diluted loss per share of $11.44 in Q4 2024. For the full year, our diluted loss per share was $4.90, which was $15.10 better than 2024 after adjusting for the 1 for 15 reverse stock split, which was effective as of July 7, 2025. For the fourth quarter, net cash used in operating activities was 3.8 million, compared to 2.5 million of cash used in the same period last year. For the full year, net cash provided by operating activities was 1.4 million, compared to 2.6 million in 2024. Our inventory balance at quarter end was 32.4 million, a decrease of 1.6 million, or 4.7% year-over-year. With the decline in 2025 sales, this inventory reduction reflects our disciplined approach to inventory management as we work to reposition our casual wear and continue our focus on curating a higher margin assortment for our high-demand categories. Free cash flow used in the fourth quarter was 4.3 million, compared to free cash flow use of 3 million in the same period last year. Free cash flow use for the year was 0.8 million compared to free cash flow use of 0.3 million in 2024. We ended the year with total debt of 14.4 million, an increase of 1.3 million, and net debt of 11.7 million, an increase of 3.1 million compared to 2024. The outstanding debt, along with a $0.3 million letter of credit, are secured under our new credit agreement with White Oak Commercial Finance. As a reminder, we entered into this agreement in August 2025, which consists of an asset-based revolving credit facility with a $20 million commitment, a $5 million uncommitted accordion, and a $1 million sublimit for letters of credit. As we enter 2026, our focus is on driving profitability while continuing to strengthen the business. We are prioritizing higher quality demand and disciplined order economics while more aggressively resetting the format of our casual apparel and footwear categories. While the first quarter of the fiscal year is typically our seasonally low selling period, We made it a priority to use this quarter to specifically work through a slower moving inventory. In addition, we capitalized on the end of year clearance sale, which occurred in the first week of fiscal year 2026 versus the last week of the year in fiscal year 2024. The seasonal impact of these actions to sales and margins, along with the impact of the annual audit fees and ramping up performance marketing spend in March to kick off the spring season, We expect adjusted EBITDA to be negative for the first quarter, but significantly improved year-over-year. We believe these early actions will better align our assortment of customer demand, position the business for improved profitability during our peak selling periods, which typically occur in Q2 and Q3, and deliver stronger cash flows for the full year, as well as an improvement in adjusted EBITDA year-over-year for the full year of fiscal 2026. We expect adjusted EBITDA to reflect to positive compared to negative 1.2 million in 2025, and the net revenue growth trend to improve year over year compared to negative 11% in 2025. We expect capital expenditures to be between 2 million and 2.5 million, inclusive of capitalized software, which is comparable to 2025. And now, I'll turn it back over to Crystal for closing remarks.

Thank you, Heidi. Our fourth quarter capped a year of steady improvement and rising momentum for Lulu. The progress we've made reflects the strength of our strategy, the power of our brand, and the discipline of our team. We have entered 2026 with a stronger foundation and we're energized by the opportunities ahead. We remain committed to delivering a more focused, connected, and resilient business while driving enduring profitable growth. As always, I want to thank the Lulu's team for the continued effort, trust, and passion for our brand and love for our customer, and thank our stockholders for their ongoing support.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's conference. Please disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.