This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.
spk04: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Curate Retail, Inc. 2020 year-end earnings call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded February 26th. I would now like to turn the conference over to Courtney Chunn. Chief Portfolio Officer.
spk00: Please go ahead. Thank you. Before we begin, we'd like to remind everyone this call includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in the most recent forms 10-K and 10-Q filed by our company and QVC with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call, and Curate Retail expressly displays any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in Curate Retail's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statement is based. On today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted OIDDA margins, free cash flow, and constant currency. Information regarding the comparable GAAP metrics along with required definitions and reconciliations, including preliminary notes and Schedules 1 through 3, can be found in the earnings press release issued today on our earnings presentation, which are available on our website. Today, speaking on the earnings call, we've got Curate Retail President and CEO Mike George, Curate Retail Group CFO Jeff Davis, and Curate Retail Executive Chairman Greg Massey. Please note we publish slides to accompany the earnings release. These slides are available on our website. Now I'll turn the call over to Mike.
spk03: Thank you, Courtney, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We had a very strong finish to the year. We sustained top-line growth across all business segments as our team responded with agility to meet our customers' rapidly shifting needs in the stay-at-home environment. and to adapt offerings and events in the face of substantial product shortages and shipment challenges, all while significantly pulling back on promotional activity. We drove robust new customer growth and made good gains on our long-term strategic priorities in all businesses. We maintained tight financial management and drove strong overall net revenue, and free cash flow growth and return capital to shareholders, even as we invested to keep team members safe and provide them with enhanced pay and benefits. Additionally, we continue to support our community's well-being with innovative programs such as our Small Business Spotlight in partnership with the National Retail Federation Foundation to help small businesses challenged by COVID-19, including a second phase launched in August supporting Black-owned businesses. We publicly announced new corporate responsibility commitments with time-bound measurable targets focused on protecting our environment, curating products responsibly, and championing inclusion and empowerment. I am particularly proud to report that we received a 100% rating on the Human Rights Campaign's 2021 Corporate Equality Index, the nation's foremost benchmarking survey measuring corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ workplace equality. This recognition is a credit to our entire team and to their commitment to fostering a culture where all team members can do their full selves and do their best work. We are grateful for the commitment and the resilience every team member demonstrated this past year, while grappling with all the personal challenges this pandemic has wrought. In appreciation, at year end, we awarded a special one-time bonus to all regular and temporary team members who were not eligible for other bonus or success share programs. Now turning to the numbers. In Q4, we grew revenue 6% and EBITDA 13% in constant currency. And for the year, we grew revenue 5% and EBITDA 8%. We generated free cash flow of nearly $2 billion for the year, up more than 200%, supporting our ability to return cash to shareholders through special dividends and share buybacks. We continue to experience rapid new customer growth across all business units and all markets, with more than 2.8 million new customers added in T4, that's up 33% to last year, giving the total new customers for the year to 7.6 million, a 25% increase. COVID-19 has pushed millions of consumers to interact with retailers and brands online, and many will continue to do so long after the pandemic is over. We believe this is a fundamental long-term shift in consumer behavior. And given the vast array of online shopping choices consumers now have, our record acquisition and stable retention of new customers speaks powerfully to the relevance and the stickiness of our platforms and our experiences. Now taking a closer look at QHH's performance in the fourth quarter, As in the prior two quarters, we delivered outstanding growth across all home categories, partially offset by continued softness in our fashion businesses, although I'd note that we did gain share in apparel, accessories, and beauty in a down market, and a steep decline in consumer electronics. Excluding consumer electronics, net revenue at QXH increased 6% in the fourth quarter. The moderation in revenue growth in the prior two quarters reflected two main drivers that are unique to Q4. First, a late season snowstorm impacted our northeastern fulfillment centers, which forced us to move up cutoff dates for guaranteed Christmas delivery, costing us a final weekend of holiday selling. Second, we had significant product shortages in late November and December. These shortages were driven by vendor challenges keeping up with rising demand, compounded by chip shortages, factory delays, density of shipping containers in Asia, and significant backlogs at the West Coast ports. As the business that focuses on key items featured for the day, rather than broad, always-on assortments, last-minute shortages in these key items can be highly disruptive. While these shortages result across many categories, these are the greatest pressure in electronics, which normally represents over 20% of our sales in Q4, about double the normal mix. As a result, we were unable to meet demand for smart home items, tablets, and audio products. Additionally, in certain subcategories, such as gaming devices, that were particularly strong in the market, we intentionally don't have a meaningful presence given an unattractive margin profile on a customer base that is typically lower lifetime value than our target demographic. While the electronics challenges significantly impacted our revenue growth, there was not a meaningful impact at all to the growth due to the lower margins on electronics. Looking ahead, we do not believe that the impact of product shortages through 2021 will be nearly as significant as they were in Q4. We expect the global supply chain will begin to stabilize, and in the interim, we're taking stronger actions to increase our oversight of the inbound product flow from our vendors. Additionally, the much smaller mix of electronics in the first three quarters of the year significantly reduces our exposure. We drove strong growth in new customers at QXH, up 18% in the quarter, especially impressive in light of the consumer electronics decline, as that category brings in the largest share of new customers most holiday seasons. Excluding electronics, new customer growth was 36%. And over 60% of new customers in the quarter came in organically. either going directly to our websites or customer service agents, or finding us through organic search or organic social, with the remainder acquired through disciplined investment and performance marketing. These results highlight the combined power of our TV reach, our brand reputation, our social presence, and word of mouth coupled with highly effective digital marketing programs. And we remain highly encouraged by both the quantity and the quality of new customers we're attracting. Looking back at the customers acquired in the second and third quarters, 26% have made at least a second purchase within 90 days of joining. That's partly above last year's rate. And the percentage of these new customers who hit the 20-item purchase threshold that we considered a best customer in just their first 90 days is similar to prior years. So in addition to a record number of new customers in 2020, we added more new customers who have already become best customers than any year in our company's history. We advanced our strategic priorities, focused on driving sustainable long-term growth in our global video commerce business. As a reminder, our strategic efforts for both QXH and QVC International Our focus is around five themes, curating special products at compelling values, extending video reach and relevance, reimagining daily digital discovery, expanding and engaging our passionate community, and delivering joyful customer service. I'll briefly comment on a few of these priorities. As part of our focus on expanding and engaging our passionate community, we continue to invest in enhanced customer acquisition, development, and personalization initiatives to both increase our overall addressable customer base and retain and enhance the spend of existing customers. Our efforts included successfully testing new advertising programs, such as YouTube and TikTok, to reach new audiences, building on our success with personalized content and email communications to increase customer engagement and spend, and expanding personalization on the website to create calls to action based on shopper browsing behavior. We continue to expand video reach and relevance with the addition of new streaming platforms, including LG TV's Shoptime app and Pluto TV, the leading free TV streaming service. And last month, TVT debuted on YouTube TV, which has more than 3 million subscribers. QVC is the only live screen shopping channel on YouTube TV, which is available across smart TVs, streaming media players, smartphone apps, tablets, computers, game consoles, and smart displays. We continue to see strong growth of our own streaming app, which integrates extensive live, on-demand, and original content from QVC and HSN. Downloads of the app on Roku were up 63% in 2020, with average monthly viewers up 47%, and downloads on Amazon Fire TV were up over 240%, with monthly viewers up 75% since the start of 2020. Even as we see growing interest in our livestream shopping offerings, we also continue to benefit from high engagement with our traditional linear TV offerings, with the number of homes tuning in to a QXH network per day up 14% year-over-year in Q4. The reach and relevance of our networks and platforms and sophisticated development, sourcing, marketing, fulfillment, and customer service support makes us a highly attractive partner, as well as new brands alike, as we make strides on our strategic priorities to curate special products at compelling values. Our Big Fine program, which in 2021 virtual, helps us find new brands from up and coming entrepreneurs with compelling stories that we know our customers will love. From 2,400 entries from 60 different countries, 92 exciting new brands across apparel, accessories, jewelry, beauty, home, culinary, and electronics were selected for launch. and two-thirds of the brand's owners identified as women or minority-owned. During the fourth quarter and full year, we also added many premium brand partners. For example, QVC-US expanded its close relationship with Estee Lauder to now include MAC, Clinique, and Too Faced in addition to the namesake brand. Based on this success, we also began offering Estee Lauder in the UK in the fourth quarter. We also launched unique, exclusive, and timely collaborations with leading designers and entrepreneurs, such as Jason Wu's size-inclusive fashion line. And we created engaging new types of content, such as our original series, Curtis Stone's Travel Cook Repeat, which contributed to a 33% sales growth for the Curtis Stone cookware brand this quarter. Looking forward, we're leveraging our new merchandising organization, with the added resources and structure we put in the product discovery and business development. To go after high growth or emerging products and categories that we believe will be highly relevant for the consumer this year. In home, these include new proprietary and exclusive cookware and home decor brands as we build out our global design development and sourcing services and increase differentiation in these hot trending categories. For the enthusiast, increased focus on sporting goods, crafts, pools and spas, and games. For the cook, specialty kitchen electrics, from bread makers and ice cream makers to vacuum sealers, pasta makers, and wine sellers, along with plant-based food and wine products. To stay healthy, connected fitness equipment and wellness and hygiene products, from mattresses with virus blockers to easy sanitizing products, cleaning and disinfecting, air purification, and face coverings. On the fashion side, we're focused on expanding assortments in comfort at-home wear, athleisure and outdoor apparel, and wear, wash, and go footwear. And we're tapping into multiple growing beauty segments, including multicultural beauty and vestige and salon beauty. Turning now to QVC International, the team delivered exceptional performance in the quarter, with double-digit revenue in order to grow, including revenue and orbited growth in every market and across most categories, and strong new customer acquisition up nearly 30%. The broad trends in our international business mirror those in the U.S., with particular strength in the home categories and among new customers. However, product shortages were not nearly as significant, as most markets didn't face the same inbound supply constraints that we saw at the West Coast ports. Additionally, our international markets are making much smaller purchase orders, and therefore have more flexibility to meet their needs. I would also note that electronics represents only 5% of the international mix in the fourth quarter. We continue to see the benefit of having strong local teams in each market with highly attuned to country and regional needs, coupled with the test and learn mentality of our teams to lean into our global video commerce strategic priorities with a particular focus on enhancing daily digital discovery, including developing a new live streaming app built around user-generated content that's now in beta phase, deploying dropship capabilities to expand digital-only assortments, and expanding digital marketing. Our international team is also taking the lead on building and deploying new machine learning capabilities to optimize pricing and maximize airtime productivity, among many other applications, capabilities we expect to roll out globally as they are developed. Delily is gaining momentum on its great fresh-fine strategy, introducing premier brands London Fog, Honest Company, Mango, Ann Taylor, Hunter Boots, Pujo Boss, Vans, and Macy's, along with over 1,400 new long-tail vendors launched in 2020, largely through its China Direct program. The team is also making good gains diversifying its marketing program, building a new influencer-based affiliate network and strengthening its outbound marketing. Given this progress, we chose to ramp up our marketing spend in the quarter, yielding outstanding 74% new customer growth at Zulily and providing a strong foundation to continue growing into 2021. Cornerstone had another outstanding quarter with record revenue and adjusted EBITDA, benefiting from the surge in home spending, and we are excited about the long-term prospects for this business. Cornerstone had strong growth in home office, storage, outdoor living, and home decor, coupled with a focus on building highly differentiated for proprietary assortments. We saw continued strong margin expansion as the team pulled back significantly on promotional activity, along with improved marketing efficiency. I'd like to close with a few thoughts on 2021. We're confident that all our hard work positions as well successfully navigate this fluid environment. Given the pace of vaccine availability, we will not reopen our offices before September at the earliest. Our highest priority remains the safety of our team members, both those working onsite and those working remotely. I am excited for the year ahead of us, despite the uncertain background. The macro trends we're seeing perfectly aligned with our capabilities and our strategic priorities. The increasing focus on live stream shopping from Amazon Live to TikTok demonstrates that our business has never been more relevant than it is today. However, the key to success is not the latest technology or the flashiest influencers. It's building lasting relationships customer by customer. The fundamentals of great shopping have not changed. It's still about the power of human connection and the joy of discovery, wandering into your favorite shop, or in today's world, your favorite virtual shop, having interesting conversations, learning the stories behind the products, and getting inspired. As the pioneers of both livestream shopping and leveraging influencers, we have the experience, expertise, and global infrastructure to be the partner of choice for established and new brands alike seeking to reach customers at scale in an engaging way. And we have the financial strength to support our continuing investment in innovation, both in how we reach customers with personalized messages and how we engage with them on new platforms and new technologies. I am confident we will emerge from the pandemic stronger well positioned for sustainable long-term growth. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff. Thank you, Mike, and good morning to everyone. As Mike mentioned, we delivered strong revenue in the orbit of growth at Curate Retail in both Q4 and the full year. So let's get started with QXH. Revenue grew through continued momentum in home category, expansion of our customer base, and reduced customer returns. E-commerce revenue grew 6%, and penetration improved 270 basis points in the quarter. For the quarter total, customers grew 6%, with new growing 18%, the activated up 13%, and existing up 2%. While we only have access to comparable HSN customer data going back five years, We believe this is the largest new customer class in the history of both QVC-US and HSN. As illustrated on slide eight of our earnings presentation, we continue to have a sizable shift in category mix into home and away from primarily electronics and apparel. Revenue in home increased 17% as consumers maintain their focus on family and well-being with strong demand for fitness and wellness products, food and kitchen electrics, home decor and furnishings, and household, home environments, and cleaning products. Consumer electronics declined 17%, primarily from the supply chain pressures that Mike has mentioned. Yet, we were able to satisfy customer demand in several higher-priced subcategories such as home office and computers, and delivered increased overall product margins. With respect to our fashion categories, accessories grew 6% on the strength of loungewear and non-leather handbags. Beauty declined 10%, reflecting lower demand for cosmetics in the pandemic. And apparel and jewelry remained challenged in line with general market conditions but we did see pockets of strength in active wear and outerwear. Adjusted Orbita grew 10%, and adjusted Orbita margin expanded 130 basis points. Gross margin improved 200 basis points, which was led by 360 basis point expansion and product margin. Approximately 50% of this expansion was split equally between strategic sourcing initiatives, and promotional pullback. Another 20% from reduced customer returns and 15% from pricing to partially offset freight surcharges and rate increases. Given the impact of strategic sourcing work, I wanted to provide some additional background. Recall we initiated this work in 2019 as part of our overall synergy commitment. By bringing QVC and HSN merchandise groups together, we were able to work with our vendors across both brands on a broad program to reduce end-to-end supply chain costs, optimize assortments around vendors offering the greatest sales and margin productivity, and create new arrangements such as marketing funds to grow the brand. We started the work in just two categories and expanded across all categories through 2020. We'll begin to anniversary the benefits of this work towards the middle of 2021. Finally, fulfillment costs increased 150 basis points, primarily due to ongoing productivity challenges in our fulfillment centers from adhering to COVID protocols, freight surcharges and rate increases, which were partially offset by improved path factor. Operating expense, with 10 basis points unfavorable, primarily due to higher customer service and longer average call times associated with executing our upsell initiatives and addressing shipping status questions, partially offset from favorable conditions. SG&A, with 60 basis points unfavorable, comprised primarily of 180 basis points, which was split equally across marketing and administrative costs. Marketing reflects our continued investment to acquire, retain, and engage customers. Our total marketing spend while rising was still only 2% for QXH net revenue in 2020. We expect to increase the spend on average 50 basis points annually if we see attractive opportunities to further grow at attractive returns. Administrative costs are primarily due to our higher incentive compensation accruals. This marketing and administrative pressures were partially offset by 125 basis points of savable bad debt expense, which primarily reflects lower customer default rates and fewer offered installment payments associated with the pullback and promotional activities. In closing QXH, we remain on track to deliver 370 to 400 million cumulative HSN synergies through 2022, and we are over 70% complete as of year end. Moving to QVC International, which continues to generate very strong across nearly all categories with strong new customer gains and increased e-commerce revenue and penetration. My comments will focus on constant currency results. Revenue grew 10% with strong growth across all markets led by Japan, Germany, and the UK. Total customers grew 10% in the quarter with new up 28%, reactivated up 3%, and existing up 8%. For the year, QVC International attracted 1.2 million new customers, a record number for any year in the last 10. E-commerce grew 23% and e-commerce penetration increased 500 basis points. The business generated broad-based gains in nearly every category led by home and beauty. An adjusted EBITDA increased 16% and adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 90 basis points. A little more detail. So from a gross margin basis, it improved 120 basis points, primarily due to higher product margins, which reflect reduced customer returns, strategic sourcing initiatives. We also benefited from favorable fulfillment expenses driven by sales leverage and a higher average selling price. These gains were partially offset by higher inventory obsolescence, primarily due to outlet store closures and proactive inventory management. Operating expenses were favorable by approximately 50 basis points, primarily due to lower commissions reflecting higher e-commerce penetration, sales leverage on fixed-rate contracts, and renegotiated carriage contracts. SG&A was unfavorable, primarily due to incentive compensation and marketing investment to acquire, retain, and once again engage customers partially offset by lower administrative expenses and sales leverage. Moving to Zuloy, revenue grew 11% driven by outstanding gains in home and hard lines, as well as strong customer growth. Total customers grew 11% and new customers grew 74%. Adjusted EBITDA declined $7 million and adjusted EBITDA margin Declined 170 basis points primarily due to higher freight costs from international product mix, seasonal wages at our fulfillment centers, as well as incentive compensation accruals and marketing expenses. These pressures were partially offset by improved product margins and leverage of administrative expenses. Moving the cornerstone, once again delivering outstanding results in record revenue and adjusted co-orbita. Revenue grew 30% driven by sustained momentum in the home brands on the strength of core home decor outdoor categories. Barnard Hill returned to growth on the strength of home textiles and its cashmere products. Suggested boycott increased $28 million, primarily due to product margin gains in home brands and reduced promotions, as well as leverage of administrative and marketing expenses. These gains were partially offset by higher freight rates and surcharges. So let's quickly review the balance sheet and cash flow. CapEx with $92 million in Q4 and $257 million for a full year, which is a reduction from our initial 2020 indications. For 2021, we anticipate CapEx to range from $265 million to $300 million. TV distribution payments were $56 million in 2020, reflecting an off year of a two-year cycle for multi-year contract renewals. While we do not provide forward guidance, fiscal 21 will be higher than 2020. On average, our amortization of TV distribution payments average $130 million annually. As Mike said, we generated nearly $2 billion of free cash flow in 2020. This outsized growth was driven primarily by improved cash flow from operations. Working capital benefited from the extension of vendor payment terms, pullback of customer installment payments, reduced inventories, and increased accruals for management incentive bonus and returns. Separately, you recall we also received $267 million of pre-tax proceeds from the sale of a green energy investment in 2020. We expect to return to a more normalized level of free cash flow conversion in the range of 45 to 55%. Recall we generated substantial working capital improvements in the first half of 2020 from pulling back on offered installment payments, which reduced accounts receivable and strategic sourcing, which increased accounts payable. These items are now in our base and will not serve as a source of working capital this year. Finally, the accruals for incentive and other bonus compensation will be paid in the first half of the year, and these items will create more difficult compares for free cash flow in the first half of 2021. Looking at our debt profile, at the end of the year, we had nothing drawn under our revolver, and $2.9 billion of capacity. We had $806 million of cash and cash equivalents, and our leverage ratio as defined by our QVC revolving credit facility was two times. In closing, we have multiple paths to sustain net revenue and organic growth. As we look forward to 2021, we believe the same digitally driven macro consumer trends will continue with elevated home demand, supporting new and occasional customer growth, and upside with best customers as behaviors shift back to fashion. Morbid margins are reinforced by rebalancing our category mix, continued realization of our strategic management incentives, initiatives, and reduced commissions from increased e-commerce penetration and contract negotiations. These positive drivers will be partially offset by prevailing increases in freight and competitive labor rates as experienced across the industry, and increased marketing to support customer acquisition, retention, and expanded audience development. And now I'll turn the call over to Greg.
spk02: Thanks, Mike and Jeff. Well, in addition to a strong operating performance in 2021, Curate had superior capital returns of the year as well. We paid out nearly $1.3 billion in two special cash dividends. We also had a $1.3 billion dividend of an 8% preferred stock, which is trading at par now, trading very nicely. We resumed our buyback in late November. The stock did move meaningly higher as we reinstated our buyback, and the material movement of the stock ran through our grade and impacted our repurchase volume. We sometimes call that a high-class problem when your stock moves that quickly. And finally, we also repurchased nearly $50 million of our MSI bonds for liability and tax management. In 2021, we anticipate using the above tools, all of them potentially, deploy a substantial portion of the free cash flow that Curate will generate to our shareholders. And with that, we appreciate your continued interest in Curate retail and hope you all stay safe and healthy. And with that, operator, I'd also like to open the floor to questions. Thank you.
spk04: Well, thank you. If you would like to signal with questions, please press star 1 on your touchtone telephone. If you're joining us today using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, that will be star 1 if you would like to signal with questions, star 1. And our first question will come from Ed Yerma with KeyBank Capital Markets.
spk05: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I guess first, obviously, would be, you know, looking back at 2020 would be, significant amount of new customers you're able to bring into the fold, how are they behaving kind of out of the gate? I would guess that they're probably buying different categories than maybe your cohorts from previous years, and kind of how can you continue to encourage them to come back and become habituated users? And as a follow-up, I know you had a lot of favorability in 20 from a returns rate perspective. You were able to reduce the amount of easy pay. I know you don't guide in 21, but should we assume that we're going to see some normalization of those trends? Thank you.
spk03: Thank you, Ed. This is Mike. I'll take the first part of the question, and maybe, Jeff, you can comment on the question on payables. You know, we continue just to be very encouraged by the new customer performance, as I mentioned on the script, both in quantity and quality. You know, they're coming in. The first thing is that they're coming in on every single category, and they're kind of giving very similar behavior to prior classes. So what they're buying is aligned with what everyone is buying, so certainly more of a shift towards home. But we've been especially encouraged by the fact that we're actually seeing strong new name growth, even in the downtrending categories of apparel and beauty. So they're coming in on every category. As I mentioned, about a quarter of them are getting to a second purchase within 90 days. And I mention that metric because it's sort of one metric that has really stood the test of time is that You know, if they repeat purchase within 90 days, they're probably going to stick with you. And so we watch that metric carefully. That metric is at or above prior year performance. So we like how they're re-engaging with us. And we're even seeing a small product of these new customers get to this 20 purchase threshold, which is that threshold we talk about. When you get that threshold, you are absolutely an amazing customer for life. So on all of those dimensions, They're sticking with us. That's why we don't want to take it for granted. And so we are leaning into a lot of marketing programs. I would say a couple of big categories. We're looking at how to retarget new customers. I mentioned a new YouTube ad campaign, for example. So we'll retarget that new customer when she's on YouTube and present a really compelling video experience to her that very much fits with the brand and kind of reminds her of why she made that first purchase at QVC or HSN, proven very successful. We'll begin to innovate those kinds of programs. And then just a lot of personalized outbound marketing, both email and physical mail, because we're finding, as others are, that physical mail is a little disruptive right now, and people enjoy seeing a great culinary catalog as an example. And so we'll get folks back in through a really cool culinary experience through this catalog. So really pleased with what we're seeing. And, Chuck, do you want to take the second part? Sure. You know, Ed, part of your question was around the promotional activities. You know, we had the unique opportunity as a result of the pandemic, maybe a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kind of reset some of the promotions that we were doing with respect to installment counts just being one element of it. It's really important to note that that's really just one portion of our overall strategic actions that we were taking from a promotional element. As we move forward, as we see customers continue to possibly rotate back into other categories, we'll continue to evaluate how we pulse those installment payments in order to continue driving demand overall. As you may recall, that We really started this promotional pullback, if you will, in the second quarter of 2020. So as we kind of go through first quarter and going into second, we'll start to anniversary some of those items. But the one thing I'd want to leave you with is that a lot of these activities that we were taking was our opportunity to try and protect as much margin as we could, given the shift from fashion and beauty into homes. As we start to see, hopefully, that rotation back into some of our fashion and beauty categories, we'll have an opportunity to take a look at our overall margin mix and how we will continue to maintain and grow that. So promotional activities may get a little more aggressive and maybe less, but our real decision is around trying to be very disciplined in our actions going forward. And then the last piece, just to go on just one moment, is around returns. While returns have been favorable for us, it's really reflective of the categories in which she's currently buying, which has a lower return rate. But also, if you think about this, they usually have a little lower margin rate associated with it. So kind of getting back to my early portion where I think about the rotation back into some of our fashion and beauty categories, which may have a higher return rate, we'll also get higher margins associated with that business offset that return cost.
spk05: Thank you.
spk04: Thank you. Our next question will come from Oliver Wintermantle with Evercore ISI.
spk03: Hi. Good morning, guys. My question is more regarding QXH and on that with the strong decline. I think you said CE was down about 17%. that must have been a very big help from a mix shift perspective for margins and then the shift to home probably in addition to that. So maybe if you could maybe give us some, you know, qualitative or qualitative, you know, information about what that the mix shift do to margins, how much did that help? Mike, do you want me to take that? Yeah, Jeff, do you want to take that? Sure. Interesting enough, as a result of the decline in electronics in the fourth quarter, given its overall penetration, customer mix was actually probably one of the last favorable items, but in our kind of waterfalls, we think about what was supporting product margins. Customer mix, as a result, would have been maybe the last item. In our presentation, we outlined that strategic sourcing, promotional pullback, returns, and pricing were some of the major drivers of product margin increase. Category mix would have been a far distance to that, but it was modestly favorable for us. I'll leave it. I was going to say, part of the reason that you don't see a bigger benefit is because it was offset by that softness and fashion and beauty. So category mix, as Jeff said, turns out to be a relatively minor driver of the margin expansion. Got it. Got it. Thank you. And just two quick follow-ups on the balance sheet and cash flow. So you mentioned CapEx. I think you came in at about 1.8% of sales. I think that was below what you guys were. talking about it the last analyst day. But he said it's going to go up, looks like it's 2.1% of sales next year. What is this for? Like, what are you spending on there? Is it fulfillment centers? Is it, you know, distribution capacity and IT? Some will call it there. And then I saw inventories were down eight, you know, with sales up six or seven. With that, you know, what is the inventory level going into the spring selling season? Thank you. Yeah. So, Oliver, I can't necessarily opine or give you from a standpoint of, you know, the percentage of net revenue that we've been giving guidance for 2021. But as it relates to the absolute dollar of spend that we're anticipating, we continue to invest in our technology platforms We still have, you know, a little more work to be done while much less in the prior years in our network optimization. But it's really around continuing to expand capabilities in order to drive our strategies, but it's primarily in technology where the vast majority of the spend is, then followed up by sort of our supply chain and performance infrastructure. Oh, and then as it relates to inventory, you know, coming out of, you know, 2020, our inventories were down. Part of that is the result of some of the supply chain challenges that we've had. You know, we continue to really be disciplined around how we're growing our inventories and really focus on, you know, our supplier base and how we support our sales growth, you know, you would expect to see our inventories start to replenish as we go through the first half of the year and as we get away from hopefully some of these supply chain challenges.
spk07: Thank you very much and good luck.
spk04: Thank you. Our next question will come from Eric Sheridan with UBS.
spk03: Thanks so much for taking the question. I'll just ask one. You know, on international, that came in stronger than we had forecasted. You have this interesting array of countries that are in sort of various states of recovery or still in the midst of the pandemic. Any sense of consumer behavior across your array of international assets? What do you think that might tell you about how the business might operate as we go through 2021 and into 2022? Appreciate the call. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, we've been just delighted with the broad based strength of international, every market is performing well. And most categories are strong. Home is the strongest as it is in the US. But especially in Germany and Japan, we haven't seen the same level of pressure on the fashion and beauty, and even jewelry categories, they've held up better. UK, I would say, a little more mirrors what you see in the US in terms of consumer behavior and the category she's selecting. So it's a little hard to draw a lot of conclusions about what that means for the future, but we're certainly focused on making sure we're staying close across each of the markets to try to see any early, you know, early indicators of change. You know, clearly the lockdowns in Europe were stronger more recently than in the U.S., so that may have provided some additional benefit to the businesses in Europe that the brick-and-mortar environment is a little more constrained. But I think in the main, we've just seen sort of a more resilient consumer engaging across a broader array of categories. What that exactly says about the future, a little hard to say. the breadth and strength of the business international business confidence that we can sustain pretty healthy trends there over the long term.
spk07: Thanks so much. Thank you.
spk04: And moving on to our next question will be Jason Bazinet with Citi.
spk03: I just have two questions on the growth dichotomy between international and domestic. on a constant currency basis. Was there any other driver other than the electronics issue that you called out that probably hurt U.S. more than international? And then my second question is, I think there was a benefit to you guys when the corporate tax rate dropped on the exchangeable debentures. And if you can just sort of remind us how that works, I think it was a good guy. Is the Congress also true that if the tax rates go up, it becomes a slight negative in terms of what you have to pay back when those mature relative to the lower value to shield this lower federal tax rate we've had over the past few years.
spk02: Mike, I'll let you talk about the impact on the U.S., and then I'm happy to take on the DTO.
spk03: Thanks, Jason. I'm a growth driver of differential U.S. and international. So you're right. Consumer electronics was the biggest single component by far of the delta. The other difference is the fact that in Germany and Japan, they haven't seen this similar pressure in the fashion, beauty and jewelry businesses. So those businesses are growing as strongly as home, but growing so home pretty consistent globally. Fashion, beauty and jewelry challenge in the US and UK, and to some extent in Italy, and holding up better in Germany and Japan. So those would be the two big differences. And as a result of that, the overall customer base is and you're seeing sort of good performance across all elements of the customer base. Greg, I'll let you take the second.
spk02: So, Jason, as you noted, the way we issued those series of exchangeable debentures, which have the feature that we deduct interest at a rate, the imputed rate, rather than just the cash rate, and those deductions were taken at higher corporate income tax rates such that we were building the deferred tax liability knowing we would have to pay it back. When the corporate tax rate was reduced, our deferred tax liability was decreased. If the corporate tax rate increases, we will have to revalue the deferred tax liability, and it will likely go up. I will make two points about that. First is I have not seen any projections that it will go up to the rate at which we deducted. We will still be net ahead. having deducted at higher rates than the corporate tax rate is likely to get to. And two, you may have noticed over the last several years, we have been managing some of that DTL liability down by repurchasing some of the bonds that generated the DTL liability, like the MSI bonds, and in effect have been reducing that liability already.
spk07: Makes perfect sense. Thank you.
spk04: And our next question comes from Carla Casella with J.P. Morgan.
spk01: Hi, I noticed you've been keeping your leverage nice and low at QVC at about two times. Is that within your target range and how high would you be comfortable taking that either for the right transaction or for further dividends to the parent?
spk03: Jeff or Greg, you want to take that?
spk02: Jeff, you want to do that or I'm happy to? Go ahead, Greg. Okay, our stated corporate leverage target at the Q level is two and a half times We are obviously below that, probably around the two times, and so that does create some opportunity. We had a high-quality problem, enormous cash generation in 2020 that helped even with our one-time cash dividends and our share of purchases helped drive leverage down. So we do have some flexibility, and we'll monitor what we can do with that flexibility in the coming quarters and years.
spk01: Okay, and if I can just ask one follow-up on the answer to some questions about payables. Have you extended terms? So, was some of the payable increase permanent versus temporary, or would you call it all temporary and all going to reverse in the first half of 21?
spk03: So, all of the extensions of payables is one component, once again, of how we were strategically working with our vendors. That was all permanent. And those negotiations and how we put that into place happened over the course of 2020. So you'll start to see a reverse of that really starting in the second quarter through the end of the year. And just to put a fine point on it, both that and the reduction in our installment payments, which have benefited account receivables, again, these are meant to be long-term programs. So it's not that they reverse. It's just that you don't keep copying them. So you get it into the base. And then you have sort of a normal side of working capital trend off of that newly established base.
spk07: Thank you. Perfect.
spk08: Thank you. Operator, we're ready for the next question.
spk04: Thank you. Our final question will come from Sean Henderson with DA Davidson.
spk06: hi guys thank you for very much for taking my question uh just wanted to know if you guys could provide a little bit more color on just the new customer cohort that you guys are seeing um just in terms of any new you know demographic call outs and then also um are they being acquired at a kind of a lower customer acquisition costs and historically normal thank you yeah thanks for the question and i'll
spk03: I'll focus my comments on QXH customers just because they're the most valuable customers and there's so many different stories across all of the different businesses we have. So let me just focus on that. Broad stroke demographics of the new customers look literally identical to prior years. New customers tend to be six to seven years on average younger than the existing customers on average, kind of as you'd expect. that isn't changing. So I always emphasize the fact that our businesses tend to be very stable around age cohorts and kind of life stage, both for existing customers and new. That's remained true in the pandemic, and it's remained true as we've seen a lot of new customers come in through streaming services or other forms of digital platforms. The overall profile of those customers, even though they're coming in on different platforms, is very alike in prior year classes. And it's one of the reasons that this gives us confidence, along with the other more quantitative metrics, that these customers will behave in a similar vein to past year classes. Because on both demographic elements and on behavioral elements, they're remarkably similar. There's just more of them. Just the way I would think about cost of acquisition is, you know, when you think about the 60% of new customers that come in organically, there's effectively zero marginal cost of bringing in that 60%. And so the fact that we're bringing in a lot of them at zero marginal cost is obviously a very positive story. That 40% where we use paid marketing to bring them in, I would say paid marketing is – You know, about stable, hair less efficient in Q4 just because we grew it at a pretty rapid rate and we're still ROI positive, but obviously when you grow it faster, you tend to get a little bit less efficient. But if you wait all that out, you combine the organic and the paid, I think it's safe to say that per customer of all acquisition costs have come down just based on the volume of new customers that we're bringing in. I think that was our last question, so thanks to all of you for your time and continued interest and support, and I hope all of you stay safe and well as we go through what we hope is the final stage of this pandemic. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.
spk04: That does conclude today's conference.
Disclaimer