Verkkokauppa Com Oyj

Good morning and welcome to bergokauppa.com Q4 presentation. If you have any questions during the presentation, please feel free to send them to investors at bergokauppa.com and questions will be then handled at the end of the presentation. Today joining with me and also available for questions, CFO Jesper Blomster. As always, I will start my presentation first on the market that we were facing during the fourth quarter, then some highlights out of the report of this morning, a few words about a company's strategy execution, and before the end, we have also market outlook and guidance for this year. So let me start with the market environment. We have been operating pretty much in the same kind of atmosphere throughout the year. The consumer confidence has been quite low throughout the year, also during the fourth quarter. Consumer is seeing this time of being really unfavorable for any discretionary shopping, and this is impacting our line of business significantly. What is also small development is that consumers' confidence in own economics, in own employment has slightly decreased from the third quarter. So there are uncertainties, at least in the Finnish market and the Finnish consumers' mind at this point. If you look at our performance, the tough and low demand impacting our line of business in basically most of our channels and categories, total revenue declining by 6.9%, most of that to be seen in discretionary categories such as TVs, mobiles, gaming, for example. On the other hand, we saw positive development in IT categories and toys, for example. IT categories typically is a category where there's a certain demand and that cannot be postponed, especially from the B2B side. So certain investments and the devices and investments in those need to be done. We were also quite successful in Christmas sales with our toys categories. Consumer business has been tough. B2B business, on the other hand, was closer to previous years, although small and mid-sized businesses have also seen some struggling. But in a bigger picture, those are not as volatile as we see in the consumer business. Online business, online sales slightly better than our average. On a positive note, we have been outgrowing the market with our own brand's own categories clearly throughout the year. That's also the case in the fourth quarter. All brand sales growing almost 20%. So nice performance from that side. The significant improvement came from our margin work. Cross-margin improved significantly to 16.6 during the fourth quarter. This is pretty much one of the highest levels that we have ever reported during the fourth quarter. There are certain drivers behind it. First of all, we did quite much work during the third quarter to be able to have a clean slate. inventory levels were low, we got rid of obsolete stock. So we were in a position to purchase new stock lots, new batches for the upcoming season with really good commercial terms. On the other hand, we were not forced to drive out inventory throughout the quarter with additional pricing or campaigning. And we were also not in the position that we had to do some write-offs significantly at the end of the period, for example. And then we stuck to our plan. We had a clear plan with the investments that we'd done, so plan relating to pricing and campaigning. We didn't make any ad hoc changes into that, and that also protected our margins. So if we sum up the really good performance in our comparable operating environment, comparable operating profit. The big part comes from the margin work, but also the work done on cost efficiency and cost efficiency measures taken are clear to be seen in comparable costs relating to personal or comparable costs relating to other costs as well. comparable operating result was at 3.8 million which is a good level and also the profit profitability significantly improved to 2.7 percent of revenue there were some items impacting the comparable comparability 0.8 million mainly regarding the restructuring so the ebit was also on a good level 3 million Down left, you can see clearly the significant change that we did the turnaround in our profitability. The inventory levels the year before were actually already on a good level. Despite that, we were able to improve even from that and ended up in a level of 51 million, down by almost 20%. It impacted our profitability significantly in the fourth quarter, but it also enables us to be in a better position when starting the year with healthy inventories, good levels of inventories. So we are also again in a position to invest in purchase with good commercial term when we see an opportunity or we see the market to be uplifting. From financials, few words. As always, the financial position of the company is solid. Really strong cash flow, improving even from previous year's levels by almost 20%. Our equity ratio is stable. We are not satisfied with the absolute level. We are working on that. Really strong cash position at the end of the year. Obviously, tight to the inventory levels going down. and a really low investment kind of business that we are running. We are not forced to make any significant investments, mainly due to our platform, our online site, our logistic flows, for example. So the financials of the company, as always, in a good position. So if I sum up the year, it was a tough year for us. It was one of the toughest markets that we have been facing throughout our history. We took some measures. We made the necessary changes in our structure of working in our organization to make sure that we get back on track. Revenue we lost by 7%. The demand for discretionary shopping has been low. So we worked really hard on our margin levels and had a nice outcome at the end of the season, as well as with our cash flow and comparable EBIT, where we made the turnaround towards the end of the year. So going towards the end of the year, things were really getting into the right direction. Few words about strategy execution. Our main goal is to accelerate online shift in the Finnish market through fast, seamless shopping experience and the fastest deliveries that are there in the market. We are outperforming and outgrowing the market with our fast deliveries. Sales from fast deliveries growing by 20%, which is really significant. And that line of business is already 16% of all our online sales. So it's a major part of our total business. And what's interesting to see that consumer is the most happy when they are interacting with us purchasing from our e-commerce site and getting the things delivered fast home. The NPS for fast deliveries is as high as 82. So this is a really nice and significant tool when gaining market share. We already mentioned our own brands. These are important for us to have qualitative own brands where we can also have some interesting price points for the consumers, especially in these kind of economic uncertainties. Own brands, like I said, before sales developed nicely, we have Now, during the fourth quarter, 10 million business from the own brand. So it is a certain size of business already. It amounts to almost 7% of total sales. So it's getting bigger and bigger and more important for us. We have the strategic goals to be at 10% of total sales. So why not even slightly more of that by end of 2028? The Finnish market is probably one of the toughest in the Nordics, probably one of the toughest in Europe. So it really makes sense to look outside the Finnish borders. This is also in core of our strategy to find out new ways of growing new Revenue streams new profitability pockets. Our international sales grew by 2%. It's not much, but still it's going in the other direction than the Finnish market. We are quite successful with our initiatives in Sweden and Denmark. We have some interesting negotiations on the table at the moment. So we are really pushing also to have some additional growth outside the Finnish market because we see that the growth will start elsewhere faster than it will start from the Finnish market. We have also implemented a new platform for all our international wholesale clients to be interactive with us and and doing that as cost efficient as possible our sustainability program got renewed and and we published that a few weeks ago emissions from our own operations scope one and two is really on a low level it's gone into a good direction. The goal is to be at zero level by end of this year. We are investing in circular economic, doing that not only because it's the sustainable way, but also we see that that's a good opportunity for providing customers with interesting price point products. What I'm personally most proud of is the way we are conducting our business here in Finland. It can be reflected by the low return rates that we recorded last year. Only 0.7% of all products sold are returned. And that is really, really low. What it says to me is that first of all, we are only selling for a cause, for a need. Secondly, it tells us that the customer is purchasing the products that they are using or utilizing at home, and also that the quality of the products is of high level and there's no need to return that. And that's a good way of running a business. So what do we see going into this year? The Finnish market is tough, like I said before. There are indicators that it will be going into a better mood at certain point. Inflation has been quite stable for quite a long time already. Interest rates have been going down. Those will be incorporated in personal loans throughout the first half. So it is expected that the purchasing power will start to increase during this year. And when that will start, we also expect that to have a positive impact on our line of business. The first half will probably be tougher. We expect those kind of drivers to be shown more during the second half in consumer behavior and the market. We do believe that we have the right strategy. We have a lot of positive indicators that we are doing the right things. We are moving, shifting online sales to fast deliveries. We are outgrowing the market on that. We have been implementing new categories and new products in our own brands set up. We are gaining traction and sales out of the Finnish border. So all of the strategic components are in place. And because of this, we also believe that the whole year will be a year of growth. We guide our revenue to grow from last year, and we also guide our comparable profit to increase from last year. So if I sum up my presentation, the market and the consumer demand was weak. That was not a surprise for us. We have done the needed changes in our ways of operation and structural changes. We have been really working hard on our margin levels. Now it paid out and we pulled through a really nice profitability improvement during the fourth quarter. All of our key strategic drivers are yielding positive results. Fast deliveries are growing. Own brands are growing. International sales is growing. So we are on the right track to be the first one in the position to start gaining growth again. And that's the reason that we are also expecting growth for this year. Now I look in to the crowd, there are no questions. So at this point, thank you all and have a great day.