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CarParts.com, Inc. (PRTS)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 11, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to U.S. Auto Parts Second Quarter 2015 Conference Call. On the call today from the Company are Shane Evangelist, Chief Executive Officer and Neil Watanabe, Chief Financial Officer. By now, everyone should have access to the first quarter 2015 earnings release, which went out today at approximately 04 PM Eastern Time. If you have not received your release, it is available on the Investor Relations portion of the U.S. Auto Parts' Web site, at usautoparts.net by clicking on the U.S. Auto Parts' Investor Relations tab. This call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on the Company's Web site through August 25, 2015. Before we begin, we would like to remind everyone that the prepared remarks contain certain forward-looking statements and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. These statements do not guarantee future performance and speak only as of the date hereof. We refer all of you to the Risk Factors contained in U.S. Auto Parts' Annual Report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed discussion on the factors that can cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement. U.S. Auto Parts assumes no obligation to revise any forward-looking projections that may be made in today's release or call. Please note that on today's call, in addition to discussing the GAAP financial results and the outlook for the Company, the following non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA. An explanation of U.S. Auto Parts' use of these non-GAAP financial measures in this call and the reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures required by SEC Regulation G is included in U.S. Auto Parts' press release today, which, again can be found on the Investor Relations section of the Company's Web site. The non-GAAP information is not a substitute for any performance measure derived in accordance with GAAP and the use of such non-GAAP measures have limitations, which are detailed in the Company's press release. Unless and otherwise stated references to this quarter in comparisons to last year, refer to the consolidated 13 week period of Q2 2015 as compared to the consolidated 13 week period of Q2 2014. Also, percentage and basis points discussed are calculated using net sales with the exception of advertising, which we will be discussing and comparing to net online sales. Additionally unless and otherwise stated all financial data reported including and not limited to revenue, gross margin, operating expense and net income loss, excludes are AutoMD reporting segment. We have included a chart of summarized segment information in our press release detailing the base U.S. Auto Parts, AutoMD and consolidated financials to provide the components of our business. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Shane Evangelist.

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, and thank you all for joining the call. And as always, I would like to start by thanking our team members at U.S. Auto Parts for their hard work and dedication to the business. Your efforts are valued and appreciated. Our results for the quarter came in as expected. We continue to get excited about our private label revenue growth and recent improvements in profitability. Revenues for the second quarter on a year-over-year comp basis, came in up 1.2% despite being up against difficult comps. Our private label business was up approximately 10% demonstrating continued revenue growth strength in spite of some pricing actions during the quarter that resulted in negative impact on sales, but improvement and profitability in gross margin return on investment. These actions lead to over 28% gross margins in June, and we continue to see that similar trend in July. Even with price actions, private label sales continue to be strong thus far in the third quarter up over 15%. Overall sales for the third quarter to-date are trending up mid-single digits year-over-year. Branded sales for the quarter were down double-digit, this has been driven by lower organic traffic specific to key words related to branded terms and our resistance to sell branded products at prices that do not meet our profitability targets. Borrowing a significant in change traffic, we anticipate branded sale to be negative going forward and become a smaller mix of our overall sales. This will put some near term pressure on overall revenue growth, but as we transition to more private label sales, we anticipate year-over-year growth acceleration, as well as healthier gross margins and adjusted EBITDA. Gross margins for the quarter came in at 27.2%. As I mentioned, gross margins expanded in June to 28% as we took specific…

Neil Watanabe

CFO

Thank you, Shane. I’m going to provide a bit more detail about the financial results reported in the press release and then I’ll touch on some of the key business metrics and initiatives that we are focused on to drive improved profitability. Our comp sales for the second quarter of 2015 increased 1.2% excluding the West Coast wholesale operations from last year’s sales numbers, due to its closures as part of the consolidation and elimination of our Carson, California distribution center. Net sales for the second quarter of 2015 were $76.4 million compared to $76.9 million last year. These results are largely in line with the guidance provided during our last earnings call, which anticipated that our second quarter will be the toughest comp of the year as we were lapping very strong revenue growth in the second quarter of 2014. Now let me break down net sales for you. Online sales were down 1.1% as we experienced some lower growth in sales, which was impacted by certain pricing actions we took within the quarter to improve the profitability of our business. Our online marketplace sales increased by 28% in Q2 as we anticipated softening based on our lapping high comparable sales a year ago. Our e-commerce were affected by lower traffic and slightly lower average order value partially offset by higher conversion and revenue captured during the quarter. The decrease in online sales was partially offset by an increase in our offline sales, which grew 4.4% in Q2, 2015 primarily due to the addition of new customer accounts in our wholesale business. Taking a look at our sales by product category, our private label business was up approximately 10% offset by our branded business being down low double-digits. The branded business decline continues to reflect our intentional strategy to…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Jeff Martin of ROTH Capital Partners.

Nick Meyers

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners

Hello guys this is a Nick Meyers, I’m on for Jeff Martin today. How are you guys doing?

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Hey Nick. Good. Yourself?

Nick Meyers

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners

Doing very well, thank you. Yes, so just the start off I want to talk about improving profitability you guys have strong conviction in doing so could you elaborate may be a little bit on the factors that will lead to this?

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, so in the second quarter we took some actions on sort of lower performing SKUs, decent price increases as well as some overall pricing action in general. We saw really good results happen in June and profitability on the overall business was improved. We saw the trend continue in July and so we’re pleased with the where the actions we took in the trend that are continuing.

Nick Meyers

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners

Perfect, thanks Shane. Thanks for the color. And then also yes last quarter’s you guys detailed a four step plan to increase the lifetime value of your customers. Can you provide may be a little bit of an update on the progress toward that plan and what kind of results you are seeing?

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, so LTV obviously a big initiative for us as we think the expansion of LTV allows for us to reduce our dependency on organic search, and the four points of the plan certainly, the first point in that plan is increasing gross profit percentages in dollar and we’re seeing that expansion now. So we’re pleased with that obviously driven by our private label mix and our commitment to the private label business as we outlined earlier we certainly brought in more resources in the first half of this year to ensure that we could private label, so we like the expansion there. From a repeat purchase perspective we’ve seen good net promoter score increase specifically around our returns processing and so we anticipate that will turn into LTV or repeat purchases longer term and our conversion continues to improve. So three of the four fronts we’re seeing progress or at least we’re certainly seeing indicators that should help down the road. On attachment which is the third piece or size of the basket, we’ve got some initiatives we’re launching in the back half of this year and we hope to see some improvement there. So all-in-all we’re very pleased with the progress we’re making, we think the investments were smart investments and early signs look good.

Neil Watanabe

CFO

We’ve also have seen some good improvement on the gross margin per transaction which is also an indicator towards that improved profitability.

Nick Meyers

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners

Perfect. Thank you, guys. That was good. And then also just one last question. Can you provide also an update on the impact of a shift in your marketing spend from online to more direct marketing.

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Yes Nick, really what you are seeing is the shift itself is consistent in the channels that we’re marketing into, most of its around search affiliate or other online channels. What we are seeing is a small mix of organic traffic which obviously doesn’t cost anything and so as the mix shifts from organic to what you consider paid traffic, you are seeing an increase in the actual customer acquisition cost. That said, the actually customer acquisition cost is not significantly changing. The dollars that we spend to acquire a customer, and the process we spend around the return on that has been consistent and frankly probably more efficient now. We actually thought increase in our paid channel by about 10% to 11% this year or this quarter, but only a 2% in actual dollar spent to bring that in. So we think we’re getting some leverages and efficiency on the customer acquisition side.

Nick Meyers

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners

Okay. Perfect. Thank you, guys very much. Good luck.

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Nick.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Mitch Bartlett from Craig-Hallum.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

Good afternoon.

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Mitch.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

So I wonder about, in days past we’ve talked about kind of that delicate balance of between branded and private label. First Neil, I think you talked a percentage of private label in the quarter and I didn’t pick up on that. What was that percentage?

Neil Watanabe

CFO

It was just over 60.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

Just over 60, so it’s kind of flat with Q1.

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Yes. As a percent of sales but over last year with 54, last year Mitch, so you are up 6% on a year-over-year basis.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

Okay. What about that blend, first is did you see any lift in price competition on the branded side, which caused you pull back on the branded more perhaps than what you would like or was that different change of pricing on the branded side is getting tighter and tougher?

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Yes. It’s two things Mitch. One, we actually saw some traffic decline specific to branded key terms and we talked about that in the first quarter. We saw that play out more in the second quarter. So it’s related to a key word like best top which is a term that you would sell for an accessory category. We actually saw a decrease in our position on branded key terms. So some of it is that we didn’t get as much traffic and we didn’t see a change in competitive pricing significantly. As I indicated, we set some margin floors in place on both the branded business and the private label business and as such we had some impact on sales. We do however, like to pickup in the profitability side.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

From the private label margin associated with the mix shift.

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Yes.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

Yes. Okay.

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Mitch just so we are clear. It’s not just the mix shift. We actually saw an increase in gross margin per transaction as well. So it’s a combination of mix, but also the fact that we are having higher gross margin percent and dollars per transaction on private label.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

So the trajectory of private label as a percentage of a mix changing from kind of previous thoughts? Is it going to be a larger percentage than you thought before? I guess this is what…

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I mean that’s right. It will be a larger percentage. So put in perspective, it was 60% of revenue, it was over 70% of actual transactions. So it’s certainly on the higher end of transaction volume. And if you look at the business right now, you are seeing branded decline, but private label grow as I indicated in the third quarter of 2015 and over 2015, on private label in the third quarter with the branded business being down close to similar double-digit, since while you had a mid-single digit growth continue. Under this current trend if the branded business continues to drop this way, you will see a much larger mix of a very healthy growing private label business coupled with what we consider a strategic business inside the branded side, which obviously provides a large assortment for our consumers, allow us to also sort of up sell into our private label product and it also brings traffic to site still. So we still like the branded business from a strategic aspect, but certainly current trends would indicate that our private label business will grow at a faster rate, which should see margin expansion. And Mitch I would also say, I want to hit this home, we like the private label business outlook, the backlog of SKUs we have lined up to bring in, the current trends are positive.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

I guess Shane, where I was headed though was I always thought you use the branded as a hook to up sell the private label and if it is a different mix, is it going to make the private label sale down the road more difficult.

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

No, overall traffic was down 4%, so we’re still driving a lot of people in Mitch and we still continued to use the branded business to sell into private label. So that hasn’t changed, we’re fighting a little bit of traffic decreases, which is why you’re seeing probably branded at a bigger decrease than private label.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

And the movement between Q2 and Q3 the improvement 10% to 15% in private label and the like, is that because of the comparison or is there momentum in addition to it, the year-over-year comparisons…

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Yes, some of it. Yes, Its probably more the year-over-year comparison Mitch, I mean I the second quarter of 2014 was really big specifically around that weather that took place in the first half of that year. So its probably just so much comparison, we still had good solid sales, we’re up against a tougher comp.

Neil Watanabe

CFO

That’s 13%.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

And was branded really strong in Q2 of last year?

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

No branded was still negative 2Q of last year, it was down three last year. So branded didn’t turn positive for us until the first quarter of this year. So we were still running against a negative comp on branded last year.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

Last question. I don’t mean to [indiscernible] the private label.

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Keep going.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

What kind of percentage, looking into 2016 where could private label be as a percentage of your overall revenue and for transaction mix?

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

I mean it could probably run at a similar pace you’re seeing today, Mitch where you up 5% to 6% year-over-year. If you just run the math up 15% to down 10%, you are going to get close to that.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

So 2016 for the full-year private label could represent 65% of total sales or?

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Yes and be clear on this , by no means are we giving guidance for 2016 on the percentage mixes. I think on a year-over-year basis we saw 6% increase under current course and speed, you could see that happen again. That said Mitch, the branded business could turnaround, we could see traffic pick up as well. The one thing I feel pretty good about and believe is that the private label business will continue to grow with the pace it’s growing now, its feels pretty solid.

Mitchell Bartlett

Analyst · Craig-Hallum

Got it. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Shane Evangelist

Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Mitch. End of Q&A

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes our Q&A portion. I will turn the call back over to our speakers for closing comments.

Neil Watanabe

CFO

I would like to thank all of you for joining our call today. As always we are available for any additional questions you may have so please don’t hesitate to call. Also, please note that we will be presenting at the Liolios Group Gateway Conference in San Francisco on September 9 and 10, the B. Riley conference in New York on September 16 and the LD Micro Conference in Los Angeles during the first week of December. We hope to see some of you there.