Solo Brands, Inc.

Hello and welcome to the Solo Brands Inc. First Quarter and Fiscal 2022 Financial Results Call. My name is Alex and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you'd like to ask a question at the end of the presentation, you can press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, you may press star 2. I'll now hand over to your host, Bruce Williams, to begin. Over to you, Bruce.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call to discuss Solo Brands' First Quarter 2022 results. which we released this morning and can be found on the investor relations section of our website at investors.solobrands.com. Today's call will be hosted by Chief Executive Officer John Maris and Chief Financial Officer Sam Simmons. Before we get started, I want to remind everyone that statements made on this call and the earnings release contain forward-looking statements regarding our financial outlook, business plans and objectives, and other future events and developments. including statements about the market potential of our products, anticipated financial performance, and our goals and strategies. These forward-looking statements now involve substantial risks and uncertainties, some of which may be outside of our control, and that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include those described in the company's earnings release and other filings with the SEC speak only as of today's date. In addition, our discussion today includes references to certain supplemental non-GAAP financial measures, including net income as adjusted, diluted earnings per share as adjusted, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin, which should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for our GAAP results. We use these non-GAAP measures in evaluating our ability to generate earnings, provide consistency and comparability with our past performance, and facilitate period-to-period comparison of our core operating results. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures and the most comparable GAAP measures and definitions of the reference non-GAAP measures are included in our earnings release and our filings with the SEC, which are available on the investors portion of our website at investors.solobrands.com. Now, I would like to turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Bruce, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter earnings call. I will begin today by reviewing our performance in the first quarter. After, I will provide an update on our strategic initiatives and then turn the call over to Sam to discuss our financial performance and outlook for 2022. Despite a challenging macro environment, we were able to achieve a revenue increase of 19% to $82.2 million over the same period of the prior year, including contributions from acquisitions. During the quarter, we saw a channel shift weighted toward wholesale. Demand among our wholesale customers was strong with growth of 224.2% to 22 million due to increased store growth and strong sell-throughs across retail. Sales in our digital direct-to-consumer channel declined 3.4% due to difficult year-ago comparisons. Despite this channel shift, we were able to achieve gross margins in line with our expectations. We continue to see a tremendous opportunity to leverage the power of our platform, and as noted last quarter, invest behind our growth. We believe these investments will begin to pay off in the back half of this year and over the long term. We are pleased that our indicators of brand health remain strong with our net promoter scores in the high 70s, referral rates above 40%, and repeat purchase rates above 50%. Additionally, of our growing customer base of 3 million, the total number of customers that have purchased from at least two brands has risen from 25,000 to 42,677, an increase of 70% since the end of the year. We remain focused on what we believe is the greatest opportunity for solo brands, which is the organic one with our core products here in the U.S. There is tremendous room to significantly grow our total customers and increase our current estimated market penetration of less than 2% for solo stoves. Chubby's, Oru, and Isle have similar opportunities. We also remain convicted in our five key strategic priorities, which we believe position us for long-term sustainable growth. First, our focus on product innovation across all our brands. Second, building and leveraging our data in order to drive conversion and marketing efficiencies. Third, international expansion to help facilitate good moments and lasting memories all over the world. Fourth, we remain committed to meeting our customers where they want to shop, and we are adapting by strategically growing a retail channel. And finally, we continue to actively pursue opportunities to expand our business through acquisitions. Innovation is the core pillar, and we are tirelessly focused on product newness that will expand the reach of each of our brands. As Solo Soap, our much-anticipated heat deflectors rolled out in the first quarter, and we have sold over 26,000 units, which is well ahead of our internal expectations. We listen to our customers and meet their needs with products that enhance their experience and helps to strengthen our relationship with them. This leads to long-term value creation for customers and shareholders. We are enthusiastic about the strong early response and heat deflectors are becoming a meaningful add-on purchase that will be especially attractive as we move into the key winter selling season. Our pie launch was also well received by our customer base and while it is still very early, we are encouraged by the momentum we are seeing for this product. We introduced Colorways late last year. Colorways is gaining momentum and we are leaning into this opportunity by expanding into retail where there is growing interest for colorways. This is another great example of how our innovation is allowing us to broaden our assortment as well as our appeal to customers. While our corporate channel is a relatively small part of our business, it is growing at a very fast clip. We continue to innovate and expand our personalization abilities, which we believe will be a large market opportunity for us. We currently offer etching on stainless steel and are introducing personalization on colorways, which we expect will be well-received Personalization has been mostly limited to high-quantity purchases, but we are exploring adding the ability to personalize individual purchases by the end of the year. In preparation for this, we have expanded our collegiate offering over the past year and are now offering collegiate logos of 47 schools. As you can see, we are starting to realize the benefits of the investments we have made in product innovation at SoloStove, and we have a healthy pipeline of new products introduced in the back half of the year. At Chubby's, we see significant room to broaden our assortment. To that end, we recently introduced a new silhouette and fabrication, our Performance Wear T-shirt. While it's still early, the initial response has been good, and we plan to offer more innovation in the back half of 2022 with the introduction of a category-expanding product. At Oru Kayak, the response to our Oru Lake Kayak, our introductory price point kayak, has been very strong. We launched the product on Kickstarter, and it has raised over $2 million during the duration of the campaign. which was 2x the amount raised from our previous Kickstarter campaign, The Inlet, in 2020. The enthusiasm for this new product demonstrates the growth of the Oro brand and the demand for the unique product offerings that Oro is known to produce. At IO, we plan on launching a category differentiating product in the third quarter. More to come on that on our next call. Next, we see a meaningful opportunity to leverage our customer database of 3 million customers to cross-market our brands. As mentioned earlier, today we have 42,677 customers who have purchased from at least two of our brands, and we are focused on increasing this number. While still early, we are encouraged by our data investments that are accelerating awareness across the platform and driving cross-brand purchases. As we lean into this incredible opportunity, we believe that the investments we are making to mobilize our data should yield significant returns this year and for the years ahead. Turning to our channel expansion opportunities, we continue to see strong momentum with our wholesale partners and are leaning into this demand. We are expanding our presence with some of our existing retailers, such as Ace Hardware, Dick's, and Tractor Supply. Our goal remains to move toward an 80-20 balance between direct-to-consumer and wholesale over time. Our international expansion is off to a strong start. We have launched localized sites in Canada and throughout Europe, and we have been pleased with the response and improving marketing efficiencies Customers in Canada and Europe are realizing how amazing it is to sit around a solo stove with friends and family, all while avoiding the typical game of musical chairs, trying to avoid the smoke that comes with a traditional fire pit. We will continue to invest strategically in our international expansion, and we plan to enter the Australian market in the third quarter and are optimistic about the opportunity there. Oru Island Chubbies will soon follow a solo stove into these markets. Finally, we continue to evaluate strategic acquisitions and are enthusiastic about the opportunities we are seeing. Our focus here is unchanged. We look to find unique, disruptive, profitable brands that are founder-led to complement our existing portfolio. Turning to supply chain, we have seen some factory closures in China recently, which has had some adverse impacts on our business, primarily in the delivery timeline of our pie pizza oven. Fortunately, our other products across all brands have been minimally impacted due to the strong inventory position of our existing products. With contracted freight rates secured, we can now confirm that we are expecting freight rates to be higher than last year, which will put some pressure on gross margin this year. We have seen some reprieve though, as spot rates have come down from 2021 highs. We are and will continue to opportunistically use these rates if they are lower than our contract rates. I would like to provide an update on the current trends in our business. The volatility we experienced in the first quarter has continued into the second. We believe it is a combination of laughing strong comparisons from a year ago related to stimulus, as well as to consumers continuing to feel the pressures of higher inflation, which is impacting their spending. In times like these, we believe offering innovation becomes increasingly important. We are focused on what we can control, which is delighting our customers and living amazing products and building a world-class team. We are continuing to listen to our customers and invest in innovation to bring them more products that allow them to share lasting memories and in turn continues to refer us to their friends and neighbors. Before turning the call over to Sam, I would like to thank him for all of his hard work. We announced today that Summer Webb will be taking over as our new CFO starting May 16. I will now turn the call over to Sam to discuss our first quarter results in more detail.

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. I'm looking forward to walking you through our 2022 first quarter results and then follow that up with commentary on our outlook for 2022. For the first quarter, we delivered sales and margins in line with our range of expectations and guidance. Net sales increased 19% to $82.2 million compared to $69.1 million in the prior year period. Growth was driven by an increase in volume, specifically an increase in total orders, which increased 34.6%, and our average order value increased 13.3% driven by products mixed, both of which were due to acquisition activity. One note on revenue is that we had significantly less deferred revenue in the first quarter of 2022 compared to a year ago. In the fourth quarter of 2020, we had higher levels of deferred revenue due to the supply chain disruptions, which impacted our ability to ship product for orders placed during the quarter. Our 2020 year-end deferred revenue was $20.2 million, and we recognized that revenue once we were back in staff in the first quarter in 2021. In contrast, as of December 2021, our deferred revenue bounced to $2.5 million, which is in line with our normal trends. By channel, direct-to-consumer sales decreased 3.4% to $60.2 million. compared to $62.3 million in the same period in the prior year, accounting for the impact of deferred revenue. Wholesale net sales increased 224.2% to $22 million, compared to $6.8 million in the prior year. We are pleased with our multi-channel positioning and our ability to meet customers where they are, including successfully satisfying demand in the wholesale channel. Moving to gross profit, gross profit increased 5.1% to $48.9 million. Our gross margin rate was 69.4% compared to 67.3% in the prior year. Adjusting for the impact of purchase accounting adjustments related to the fair value write-up of inventory for transactions, adjusted gross profit increased 16.6% to $55 million. Adjusted gross margin was 66.9% compared to 68.2% in the prior year, with the variance to prior year primarily driven by higher endowment rates and logistics expenses, and also by the integration of our acquisitions. Selling, general, and administrative expenses for the first quarter increased to $45.6 million, or 55.5% of net sales, as compared to $18.7 million in the same period last year. The increase in SG&A was primarily due to higher expenses from our acquisitions, which accounted for $12.4 million of the increase. Additionally, SG&A increased by $6.7 million in employee costs as a result of equity-based compensation and increased headcount, and an increase of $3.4 million in advertising and marketing spend. As a result of these factors, first quarter net loss was $3.2 million, and net loss per share was $0.03. First quarter adjusted net income was $11.1 million, and our adjusted EPS was $0.19. Adjusted EBITDA was $14 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 17%. As a reminder, Q1 is our smallest quarter each year. As a result, strategic investments that we are making in the platform had an outsized impact on adjusted EBITDA margins in the quarter. Now, turning to the balance sheet, at the end of the period, we had $15.9 million in cash and cash equivalents. As of March 31, 2022, we had $52.5 million in outstanding borrowing under the revolving credit facility and $98.8 million under the term loan agreement. The borrowing capacity on the revolving credit facility was $350 million as of March 31, 2022, leaving $297.5 million of availability. Inventory at the end of the first quarter was $126.5 million. As we moved into the second quarter, our historically second largest selling season of the year, we proactively decided to increase inventory levels across our brands to combat supply chain disruptions in China or congestion and expectations of rising freight costs. This decision ensures we can meet demand and deliver on our customer service expectations. I would now like to review our top three strategic investments for 2022. First, we have accelerated our innovation investments to enhance and improve our design and manufacturing capabilities. We have a strong pipeline of innovation planned for the back half of the year and well up to 2023 and 2024. Second, we are making meaningful investments in data infrastructure in terms of both people and systems as we look to consolidate and leverage our platform to expand the lifetime value of our existing customers, increase marketing efficiencies, and respond to increasing data privacy changes. Third and lastly, we have continued to invest in infrastructure to expand our international operations in Canada and Europe and our planned launch of Australia in the third quarter. Turning to our forecast, we are providing guidance based on the visibility that we have today and our historical seasonal trends. From a macroeconomic perspective, we have experienced a number of headwinds during 2022, including lapping stimulus checks and child tax credits from Q1 of last year, and rising fuel costs, inflation, and other impacts on discretionary purchases in 2022. These factors have weighed on our first quarter results. While the environment remains volatile, given the strength we are seeing in international and wholesale, combined with the upcoming product innovation and solar stove's peak season yet to come, We are reaffirming our full-year guidance of $540 million to $570 million in revenue and an adjusted EBITDA range of $121 million to $132 million. In conclusion, I remain enthusiastic about our future, our unique assortment of remarkable brands, our innovation pipeline, and our highly disruptive ETC platform. We believe in our long-term algorithm of 20% net sales growth, mid-20% adjusted EBITDA margin, and 20% to 25% adjusted net income growth. Before turning the call back over to the operator, I would also like to thank John and the entire SolarBranch team for an incredible run so far. What we have accomplished together has been truly unique, including the acquisition of three amazing brands and a successful initial public offering. I know the best is yet to come and wish the SolarBranch team continued success in this tremendous story. I will now turn the call back over to the operator to take your questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, you can press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, you may press star two. Please ensure you're unmuted locally when asking your question. Our first question for today comes from Chris Horvath from J.P. Morgan. Chris, your line is now open.

Thanks, and good morning, everybody, and congratulations, Sam and Somer. My first question is, as you think about the volatility that you saw in the first quarter and what you're seeing so far in the in the second quarter and you know on top of that sounds like you're reaffirming basically because the expectation that product innovation and international will ultimately flow through and so we're sort of dragging in you know some of the potential upside to the model that had existed and you know it's allowing you to reaffirm is that the right way to think about it and then given the volatility and so far year to date How does this shape of the year from a revenue and EBITDA perspective change relative to what you thought coming in? Thank you.

Good question, Chris, and thanks for bringing all of those questions to light here. So the first thing that I'll just point out, yes, to your first question, we like what we're seeing in international markets. We also like, you know, what we have in the back half of the year in terms of, you know, new product rollout and innovation. I'd also just point out that didn't really shine through in the script, but if you think about Q1 in terms of a normalized fashion, so kind of accounting for the deferred revenue that we had that carried over from Q4 of 2020 to Q1 of 2021, The growth, while it looked like in our earnings is negative 3.5% or something like that on a year-over-year basis for our direct-to-consumer business, without the deferred revenue, it was closer to 15% growth. So instead of a negative, it kind of turns to a positive. So it wasn't all bad. And that, coupled with the international and the products, I'd say, There is some momentum behind the platform. It's not just related to kind of taking some of this upside and rolling it forward. It's also just in the organic and inorganic opportunity and growth that we're seeing across the platform. So I think you're in the right direction. And I just kind of would add that momentum that is a little bit covered up because of the deferred revenue noise that we have in the financials.

Yeah, maybe I'll piggyback John. Oh, go ahead, Chris. No, go ahead.

No, no, no. You're probably going to answer what I was following up on, so go ahead.

I was just going to speak to seasonality of revenue. Is that where you're going, Chris? Yeah. So this year – oh, yeah, go ahead. Okay.

No, that's what I'm saying.

Like from a seasonal revenue perspective, how are you thinking about it? So we expect revenue to be in line with our historical trends. adjusted for what we're seeing this first half with some softness, then adding that additional weight in the back half, like you've mentioned, like John's mentioned, do the ramping of investments, including international, wholesale, corporate, the pull forward of our innovation timeline, the ability to leverage data in the back half. You know, just from a high-level standpoint, historically we've been a little more than a third of our annual revenue in the first half of the year and a little less than two-thirds of our revenue in the back half of the year. And so it's just going to be a slight shift in that weighting. to more to the back half. Again, very aligned with our historical trends for a large back half and especially a large Q4 driven by the nature of our brands and products.

Got it. And then as a follow-up question, just as you think about the fill and the wholesale channel, we've seen that in many of those stores that you've referenced in the call. I mean, to what extent do you think about maybe the risk on the wholesale side that You know, it's a late spring, some of the spending shifts, some of the pressures on the consumer that, you know, that channel sort of backs up. So I guess maybe the right question is, how are you thinking about the growth in the wholesale business in, you know, in the balance of the year?

Yeah. If we think about the back half of the year, you know, we really, it really leans towards what Sam was just talking about around seasonality. You know, we have two, two peak seasons for the platform Q2 and Q4, and generally our wholesale business is kind of lagging up in front of that in terms of getting the shelves stocked up. So Q1, you'll see generally an outsized wholesale and then Q3 as they ramp up for the higher seasons of Q2 and Q4. We saw that for sure, and you're seeing that reflected in our Q1 results as retailers were preparing for the Q2 ramp. So, you know, it stands to be told, right? I mean, we're going to see those results shining through right now as we go through Q2. Early signs are positive. We've already seen reorders from some of those retailers we just mentioned for Q2, and those are very positive signs. as we think about rolling through to Q3 and getting orders for the Q4 season. I just also add that there's a lot of excitement that we're feeling from our retail partners around the product innovation. So, you know, one of the benefits of this innovation is not only our ability to go directly to our consumers on our website, but also to go to our retailers with fresh new offerings. And we'll talk probably more about this as we get later into the call, but we're all hearing about this shift that consumers are making towards experiences over products, experiences and services are really experiencing something special now. And our platform is just full of brands that deliver experiences. You know, our whole brand mantra is good moments, lasting memories and putting smiles on people's faces. So we think that we've got a suite of products that are going to be attractive to retailers who are trying to attract people in to give them experiences over things.

Got it. Thank you very much.

Let me add one more comment there. Thanks, Chris. On the wholesale channel. So just historically, if you look at 2020, wholesale was 8% of our total revenue. Last year, 2021, wholesale was about 12%. And so as you consider this year, I would just keep that track record in mind in terms of growth and wholesale. We've talked before about shooting for that 20% wholesale, 80% D2C mix. And again, good momentum this year on that path. So just a couple data points to think about as you update your models. Thank you.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, that's star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please note, we will be limiting yourselves to one question and one follow-up question only. Thank you. Our next question comes from Robbie Owens of Bank of America. Robbie, your line is now open.

Oh, thanks. Good morning. Hey, I wanted to follow up on Chris's questions. Can you maybe talk a little bit more about the, I think at the press release, you said leaning into wholesale. So is the leaning into wholesale more solo stove or is it very broad across brands or maybe some color on how, say, Chubbies is doing it wholesale in the brands And the other question is, you know, maybe for Sam, could you, you know, sort of talk about the, is there any change in the gross margin assumption for the balance of the year, you know, related to mix of wholesale versus D to C or anything like that, too, that we should think about in getting to your EBITDA guidance?

Great. I'll take the first part of that and then have Sam take the second part. So on the wholesale mix in terms of solo-stow versus Chubby's versus even Oro and Isle, it was consistent. So we saw really good demand and growth with wholesale across the platform with all of the brands all the way down through Oro and Isle. It wasn't just a solo-stow thing. And I think that's just representative of what really the entire industry David Miller, Digital direct to consumer space, you know, was was feeling in Q1 in terms of, you know, that lapping of traffic trends and conversion rates. David Miller, So it's been consistent and we're really happy with with the demand that we're seeing come through and the desire that these wholesalers and retailers are having to to take on the product and get it on their shelves for the consumers.

And to your second question, Robbie, on gross margin. So just in general, in terms of modeling gross margin. So John mentioned freight costs higher than last year, as we expected, I would say in line with our expectation between contracted and spot rates. And then to your point, where there could be some movement is in the mix with wholesale. As of right now, there's, you know, There's no change other than, you know, just optimism, obviously, with a good Q1 and seeing, you know, retail flow through, like John mentioned, going very well and repeat orders coming back in. So feeling very good about wholesale, still very early to Chris's point. So don't have anything, you know, baked in just yet, but definitely keeping an eye on that mix.

I would just kind of, Maybe, Robbie, just one thing on that that I just pointed out, but just as a reminder, because of the timing of when retail wholesale business comes through and our seasonality of our overall business, it's important that we get through Q2 before we really understand if there's any major significant shift from B2C to wholesale because Q1 is going to be outsized just by nature of them stocking up shelves. And so once we get through Q2, uh we'll have better information to be able to come back to you and say yeah it's you know the mix shift is right in line with kind of what we would would have expected in terms of the you know the the growing uh retail wholesale business or you know it's outsized or it's you know it's on par or whatever it is got it thanks great thanks guys thank you thanks robbie

Our next question comes from Sharon Zacfia from William Blair. Sharon, your line is now open.

Yeah. Hey, guys. Good morning. This is Alex. I'm for Sharon. Thanks for taking our questions. So just kind of a follow-up on the consumer trends you guys are seeing with macroeconomic headwinds and such. Can you maybe talk to any of the qualitative trends you're seeing within the business as in Are you seeing any typical consumers that would maybe purchase a higher priced product starting to trade down to more of a middle or lower priced product? Essentially, are you seeing any price sensitivity on the higher priced items more than you maybe normally would?

I mean, I think the softness in Q1 was representative of consumer sentiment overall and just you know, where the softening that, that happened as a result of customers or consumers, you know, being pinched at the pump and pinched in, you know, in the grocery store at restaurants and so forth. And this overall kind of this wait and see with inflation. But I would say on an overall basis, you know, where we feel like we're differentiated as, as a house of brands and as a platform is back to this, this notion that, you know, rather than being, you know, discretionary purchases of products that we really are a platform of, of products that lead to experiences. And so, you know, rather than being an expensive or a high priced product, it becomes kind of a low, a low price vacation, if you will. So if somebody is making a decision between spending two or $3,000 going on a vacation or spending, you know, four to $500, on a solar cell fire pit as an example, something that they can sit around every weekend and get those same joyful memories and smiles on their faces that they would going on a vacation to a theme park or whatnot. We have just a great place for customers to go to invest in those experiences. I think if anything, we are feeling and sensing this shift towards experiences for sure. I would say that the wideness of the consumer that's out there investing in experiences is broad, and it's allowing us to continue to have a relevancy in a time where discretionary spending does definitely feel like it's seeing headwinds because of all these macroeconomic factors that are going on.

Okay, great. Uh, yeah, that's helpful. Um, and then, uh, just kind of a follow up on that, uh, with consumer trends. Um, are you, uh, are you seeing sort of, uh, as you referenced the typical seasonality in terms of more of the summer facing brands are, are consumers still wanting to, uh, get outside and use the outdoors as much as an activity, kind of as much as they had in the prior two years with the pandemic?

Yeah, the seasonality ramp has been real. And remember, Q2, even for solo stove, even though Q4 is so outsized in terms of seasonality, is still a large quarter for the solo stove brand. But, yes, we've seen momentum coming out of Q1 into Q2 in terms of that seasonal ramp in line with what we've seen historically.

Awesome. Thanks, guys. That was helpful. I'll pass it on.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Camille Gadrawala from Credit Suisse. Camille, your line is now open.

Hi, guys. Good morning. First question on supply, kind of a combination of it sounds like you feel very comfortable going into the second quarter, but maybe thinking a little further out for the full year, which is how comfortable do you feel in terms of where you are on supply and ability to continue to replenish supply as you continue rolling out.

Yeah, it feels like we're in a really solid position. You know, Sam talked about this just a few minutes ago in terms of leaning into ramping up supply, both because of, you know, ongoing, you know, even this, you know, the kind of the COVID resurgence in China and the poor congestion and other supply chain challenges, and then our expectation that freight costs were going to go up. And that's paying off, you know, dividends for us because we're in such a strong position for the back half of the year. And obviously, you know, Sam just talked about the seasonality and being, you know, roughly over a third in the front half of the year and roughly under two-thirds in the back half of the year in terms of overall mix. for the year. And so we're in a good spot. And our suppliers are navigating well the challenges that they're facing over there. We have good relationships with our freight carriers. We're getting the space that we need. We're not seeing rolled containers. And albeit higher than last year, the freight rates that are coming through on a blended basis are in line with what we expected and what we budgeted for, which is, you know, which is in large part, one of the reasons we're able to, to reiterate our guidance.

Okay, great. So that wasn't really a two Q comment. It sounds like you feel okay for the, for the year. Um, on the EBIT, on the EBITDA range, um, it's quite a tight range for a business that's as seasonal as yours with two quarters left and given all the volatility and the things that you've talked about, um, Where are the layers of cushion in case things do get worse than even where we are now? I know they're not great from a cost perspective, but we don't really know which direction they're going. So maybe if you could just talk about where the flex might be in the P&L.

Yeah.

Sam, do you want to kick off there and I can layer on?

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's always in our variable model and the fact that we have relatively low fixed costs. And as long as we drive our efficient marketing, again, that's part of the investment, continued investment. We have strong referral rates, strong repeat purchase rates. That's what makes our business economical in addition to low customer acquisition costs. And so as we continue to operate and drive that model and keep our fixed costs low, we can sustain that high-quality EBITDA margin. I would say as well that we are making investments. like we've talked about international innovation data and, you know, those we believe and, and, you know, Ken, we are already seeing that they're, they're paying off well, particularly on the international and, uh, innovation side, as we are able to come up with what we think are going to be very impactful, you know, new products. Um, And then, you know, on the data side, obviously haven't been able to leverage that to its full strength yet. But just from the expansion of going from one brand to two brands, there's significant dollars there that, again, is effectively free growth. And so it's really leveraging the model, you know, to maximize profitability is where we'll be able to do that.

Okay, great. Thank you, guys.

Yeah.

Thanks, Camille.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, that's star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Randy Kinnick from Jefferies. Randy, your line is now open.

Yeah, thanks a lot. I guess, John, for you, the commentary around wholesale seems to imply that the wholesale channel is very stable, the sell-through rates are pretty even relative to the direct side or DTC side, which is way more volatile than Can you expand upon what, in your view, is driving that massive amount of disconnect in volatility in direct versus wholesale? And then following up on that, within the volatility comments, are you seeing the business or the brands equally volatile across Chubbies and Solo, or is one of the brands more volatile in demand versus another?

Yeah, so I'll just quickly answer the last one and then go back to the first one because the last one's a little bit faster. It's pretty equal in terms of volatility on digital direct-to-consumer across the platform. So, you know, nothing outsized in terms of volatility for so-and-so versus Chubbies versus Orinile. In terms of the question around, you know, what is my sentiment or feeling around what's driving the disconnect between wholesale demand and direct-to-consumer demand. Again, this is my personal feelings on it and my personal take on it, just being close to it and looking at it every day. I think there's, in part, just this real element of people are just, they spent the last two years being pent up and worried about leaving their home and going shopping and walking the aisles and touching and feeling products in person, outside of the grocery store maybe, There was just not a lot of in-store, and we are seeing a resurgence towards customers just wanting to get out and walk the aisles. And I definitely think that that's having a major impact right now in terms of what we're seeing. Like I said, we expected outside the Q1 as retailers were going to be stocking the shelves for Q2 because of our seasonal mix. So, you know, in part, this was expected, and that's why it's really important for us to get through Q2 before we say, yeah, it's really like outsized is even the right term, because if Q2 does what it's done historically, it may not even feel outsized for what happened in Q1. I will just add that I think personally, you know, during COVID, I think that there was a camp of people that felt like, we were on this path towards 50, 60, 70% or something of, of overall shopping happening online coming out of COVID that people wouldn't go back to stores, uh, you know, to the degree that they have. And I think that we're seeing that customers still like the brick and mortar experience. And, and I think, um, you know, that's relevant and important. It doesn't mean that direct to consumer is going away. There's already massive growth happening in direct to consumer. prior to the pandemic, but I don't think it was the acceleration that some people thought in terms of, you know, it just being this, this crazy takeover and that brick and mortar was dying. Um, and so that's, uh, you know, that's something that we're seeing and, and again, is, is, uh, it's a good balance. I think it's healthy. I, we, we really like, uh, in a lot of ways, what we're seeing between the wholesale to brick and mortar, the wholesale brick and mortar to the, to the direct to consumer digital, direct to consumer balance. And, And that's why we still are continuing to say we think an 80-20 split between those two channels over time is still the right place for us to target as an overall platform.

Helpful. And then the last question is going back to the questions around the EBITDA dollar guidance for the year. Can you give us some perspective on what that embeds from a promotional posture perspective? Does it incorporate higher promotionality at all? And then same question on the EBITDA guide, what does it embed from a cost to acquire customers perspective? Just want to understand how you're thinking about that in terms of laying out that EBITDA dollar guide. Thanks. Thanks, guys.

Yeah, thanks, Randy. As we think about marketing spend in particular, we talk about this a lot. We've talked about it on prior calls, but We have a promotional strategy across the platform and in large part of promotional strategy is really unchanged from what has been historical. We're constantly iterating testing and then making adjustments to campaigns. We're, we're, we're looking at contribution margins. So, you know, there's a lot of factors that go into contribution margin, but the two big drivers are how promotional are you, which is ultimately, you know, how, how easy is it for you to attract? traffic and convert that traffic to a sale and marketing spend. And so, you know, in theory there is correlation between, you know, if you're more promotional than generally marketing spend becomes more efficient. If you're less promotional than you spend more to acquire the customer and finding that sweet spot to where you, you are generating the maximum output in terms of contribution margin is really the name of the game. And we have a world-class team in house that's out executing in that every day. So as we think about, This year, our strategy will continue to be what it has been, which is to maximize contribution margin and profits. I think hopefully for all of you that are on the call and for anyone out there, to be able in this environment to still be talking about generating and delivering a 20%-ish EBITDA margin on the year in an environment like this is pretty remarkable. We're really, really proud of what our team is able to accomplish this through this model, through our direct-to-consumer model. And I think that that's what you could come to expect from us as we continue to execute throughout the year is to maximize profits by watching contribution margin and then moving our promotions up and down along with our marketing spend to find that sweet spot to deliver maximum profits.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our final question for today comes from Peter Keith of Piper Sadler. Peter, your line is now open.

Hey, this is Matt Egger on for Peter. Thanks for taking our question. The first one from us is, can you, kind of talking on that discounting policy, can you all maybe walk us through your MAP pricing policies with your wholesale partners? Are the retailers allowed to do more discounting or is there certain windows and when they're allowed to do more discounting? That's our first one.

Yeah, that's the best way to think about it. So we do have a map policy with all of our retailers. We do map holidays like many other brands do with retailers, sometimes in line with when we're running promotions. But more often than not, in certain seasons where the retailer has specific sales going on. So one of the ones that comes to mind for me that we participated in historically is with REI, who runs a once a year spring sale. That's really important for their brand and for their members that are going into the co-op. We will definitely partner with our retailers and provide them the ability for some reprieve from MAP during certain windows of time throughout the year so that they can have a differentiated offering in the store.

Yeah, that makes sense. And then the last one from us. Can you give us an update on the competitive backdrop for Zolo? We've seen some big box retailers kind of start selling knockoff. similar stainless steel fire pits. Has the knockoff competition stepped up and has there been any patent violations?

There have been some violations for sure and we've seen step up is probably a fair word in terms of knockoffs coming through and And we're actively protecting our IP, which we feel we should be. And so there is some live cases right now that we're working on with some knockoffs that have come up that are specifically in contrast to our IP.

Perfect. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. We have no further questions for today. That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.