Boozt AB (publ) (BOOZT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Boozt Q1 2025 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Hermann Haraldsson; and CFO, Sandra Gadd. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning to all, and welcome to the presentation of our Q1 results. Let's turn to the first slide. The operating environment remained challenging in the quarter with consumer confidence in the Nordics declining even further, most likely fueled by the increasingly uncertain geopolitical situation. In terms of top line, we increased revenue with 2% in the quarter or 3% in local currency. Growth was primarily driven by Booztlet.com, which saw a strong 18% increase. As we did during the second half of last year, we have used Booztlet.com to clear inventory in the quarter. Our price initiatives on Booztlet helped keeping our inventory fresh, while contributing to building Booztlet value brand franchise. Revenue from Boozt.com declined slightly in the quarter by 1%, but remained flat in local currency. This, we believe, reflects both the current cautious consumer environment as well as the fact that we deliberately are less aggressive on pricing on Boozt.com. While this impacts short-term sales, we do this to preserve Boozt.com's more premium brand value, a strategy that is supported by Booztlet's ability to clear old inventory. Our customer base continued to expand in the quarter, reaching 3.8 million active customers across both platforms and growing 7%. Furthermore, 52% of Boozt.com's customers now purchase for more than one product category, illustrating the continued success of our department store strategy. In the quarter, we maintained our high levels of customer satisfaction. Our Trustpilot score was 4.2 and our Net Promoter Score was 74, indicating strong -- continued strong customer loyalty. In terms of profitability, our adjusted EBIT margin improved to 2.3% compared to 1.2% in the first quarter last year. The positive development was largely driven by the efficiency gains in fulfillment and distribution as well as the exemption from customs in Norway. Our cash position remains solid even after buying back shares worth SEK 134 million this past quarter, finalizing our SEK 200 million buyback program for the year. With the current program finalized, our Board now intends to launch a new program likely at a level comparable with the previous program. Finally, this quarter, we took a significant step to strengthen our position for the future. In February, as previously announced, we streamlined our organization, reflecting the growing impact of technology and the wider adoption of AI-driven tools across our value chain. This included a 10% reduction in our total workforce or about 20% of our white collar staff. Turning to outlook. We have revised our guidance to reflect the increased market uncertainty and the unfavorable currency movements observed since our previous report. We now anticipate revenue growth in the range of 0% to 6%, adjusted from the prior expectations of 4% to 9%. Our EBIT margin is now projected to be between 4.5% and 5.5%, compared to the initial guidance of 5.8% to 6.5%. I will elaborate on the updated guidance in more detail later in the presentation. So now let's turn to the next slide. Despite the difficult environment, we successfully attracted a significant number of new buying customers to our platforms in the quarter. Our active customer base on Boozt.com grew by 2% at the same time as Booztlet saw a strong 22% increase in the quarter. This means that a total of around 270,000 new customers shopped in the 2 shops during the quarter. While our focus remains on increasing the category awareness, expanding our active customer base is a continued priority. In a market with muted consumer sentiment, attracting nearly 300,000 new customers, I believe, is a testament to our underlying strength. The increase was broad-based across both platforms and regions. Active customers in our main region, the Nordics, grew by around 6%, primarily driven by growth in Booztlet, supported by the current price initiatives as well as price-sensitive consumers, which is benefiting our outlet Booztlet.com. Active customers in the Baltics continued to increase significantly, and we were up around 28% on Boozt.com and 84% on Booztlet compared with last year. This continues to be from low levels, but with a continued high average order value on par with the group, we see decent profitability as well as a strong growth opportunities in the Baltics. Finally, active customers increased by around 10% in rest of Europe, driven by a positive development in both Boozt and Booztlet. But also, please bear in mind that for this metric, we are looking at the last 12 months. Look at -- let's go to the next slide. In the quarter, we continued to see an increase in the number of customers shopping across multiple product categories on Boozt.com. Driving multi-category purchases remains a key strategic goal of our department store model with a direct impact on our financial performance. In the current macro environment, where consumers are cautious and holding back on renewing their wardrobe, the ability to offer other categories helps us absorb the negative effects of the lower fashion demand. Over the past 12 months, as shown on the slide, we observed an increase of between 2% and 8% across all customer groups shopping from 2 to 6 categories on Boozt.com. This means that 52% of our Boozt.com customers now purchase from more than one category. While this is a modest increase from 51% last year, it's important to consider that this metric is consistently influenced by the fact that new customers typically begin by shopping within a single category. And with around 170,000 new customers joining Boozt.com this quarter, the result is quite encouraging. Despite our focus on encouraging multi-category purchases, growing our overall customer base remains a key objective as we have a strong track record of both retaining customers and successfully introducing them to new categories. Looking at total active customers over the last 12 months, we are now above 2.7 million on Boozt.com corresponding to an increase of 2% versus last year. We would have liked to see our customer base increase faster, but growing the base has been challenging given the current market environment. If you turn to the next slide, turning to multi-category buyers in Booztlet, which we have not shown before, we also see a gradual increase. 42% of Booztlet customers shopped for more than one category in the last 12 months compared to 41% in the previous year. This was supported by around 80,000 new customers making multi-category purchases in Q1. Like it is with Boozt.com, this year-over-year comparison is influenced by the substantial number of new customers acquired by Booztlet over the last 12 months. We are gradually expanding Booztlet's product assortment beyond its traditional focus on fashion, and it is quite encouraging for us to see customers buying into the new categories. This diversification also mitigates the potential stock risk within Kids, Sports, Beauty and Home, as Booztlet now provides a clearing channel for all categories. So with this, I will hand it over to you, Sandra.

Thank you, Hermann. So please turn to the next slide. Revenue increased 2% in the quarter, as Hermann mentioned, or 3% in local currency, with growth being relatively stable throughout the quarter. Once again, growth was mainly driven by a continued good development in Sweden as well as Norway, where we saw revenue growth around 10% for the quarter. Our performance in Denmark continued to be soft, impacted by the continuous decline in consumer confidence. Revenue in Denmark declined 3% in the quarter. Looking outside of the Nordics, revenue was down slightly by 1%. While the Baltics are still performing well for us, Germany and the Netherlands saw a decline. This is mainly because we're holding back on marketing here as we remain focused on being profitable on every order in these countries. Additionally, Q1 last year was a very strong quarter for Germany and the Netherlands. Looking at categories, the nonfashion categories continued to show good progress, while revenue from men's and women's fashion declined in the quarter. However, while women are holding back on fashion, they are increasing their spend, particularly in the Kids category, which, together with the Home category were the best-performing categories in the quarter. The gross margin was 38% in the quarter and down 0.9 percentage points compared to last year. This was mainly driven by a lower gross margin on Booztlet where we are clearing inventory at higher discounts. Additionally, the gross margin was impacted by timing effects related to other revenue. However, these timing effects will revert in the second quarter. The adjusted EBIT margin was 2.3%, up from 1.2%. This was driven by good progress in fulfillment costs as well as the administrative costs, which I will come back to in a minute. So let's change to the next slide. So if we look at the 2 platforms, Boozt.com saw a slight revenue decline of 1% for the quarter, which translates to flat growth in local currency. The performance was significantly affected by the overall market sentiment. In terms of shoppers, we continue to see an increase in active customers. Around 170,000 new customers bought on Boozt.com during the quarter. However, as consumers remain very hesitant to spend, we also see that they on average buy less frequently. Number of active customers in the last 12 months increased by 2%. The average order value declined 1% to SEK 957, which was to a large degree driven by currency. In the Nordics, revenue on Boozt.com was flat. However, Norway outperformed with more than 10% growth. Sweden also did relatively well, growing 2% in the quarter. This is supported by a strengthening market fueled by lower mortgage rates and tax cuts. Revenue from Denmark was, however, down 5% in the quarter. Consumer confidence in Denmark continues to decline, which has a significant impact on the fashion demand in the country. Sales outside of the Nordics declined 6%. As mentioned earlier, this was impacted by lower sales mainly in Germany and the Netherlands. The adjusted EBIT margin for Boozt.com increased 2 percentage points to 3%. The margin improvement was mainly driven by increased efficiency in fulfillment and distribution, supported by the transfer sales introduced in '24. Furthermore, margins were positively impacted by Boozt, no longer being subject to customs payments in Norway as well as a slightly higher product margin due to the lower markdowns on Boozt.com. But if we look at Booztlet, we see a revenue increase of 18%, which was supported by the price initiative that we introduced last year. In the quarter, we successfully continued to clear out older products from prior seasons to keep our inventory fresh. This has been well received by customers, in particular in Sweden, where sales increased almost 40%. Active customers during the last 12 months were just over 1 million, which corresponds to an increase of 22% versus the same period last year. The average order value was slightly up compared to last year at SEK 982, despite the lower prices offered on Booztlet. This was due to a slight increase in number of items per order. The adjusted EBIT margin for the quarter was a negative 0.2% compared to a positive 2.6% last year. The decline was mainly due to the temporarily lower prices on the site. If we move to the next page. Here, we see the development of the cost ratios in the quarter. And if we start with the fulfillment cost, we saw a good improvement in this quarter, down to 10.8% from 11.6% last year. So now part of this is thanks to better deals that we negotiated with our distribution partners. But importantly, we're also starting to see the real benefit of the transfer sales that installed at the fulfillment center last year. They are now fully up and running in Home and they're making a significant difference in how efficiently and how quickly we can process orders. On the marketing cost, our costs stayed relatively the same at 10.1% compared to 10% last year. We're still seeing the benefit of having more returning customers and a growing number of Club Boozt members, which naturally reduces how much we need to spend on marketing. However, as planned, we increased our spending on off-line marketing this quarter. This is a deliberate effort to increase awareness in the Nordics for our nonfashion categories, which include Sports, Kids, Beauty and Home. Looking at our adjusted admin and other costs, the ratio decreased by 1.1 percentage points to 10.7%. The main reason for the improvement is that we're no longer paying customs in Norway. The nonadjusted ratio improved a bit less to 12.7% from 13.3% last year, and that is due to the severance costs of SEK 27 million related to the reorganization, which was booked in this quarter. The depreciation cost ratio for the quarter was 4.1% and unchanged compared to last year. So my final slide here is the cash development, and we ended the quarter with a working capital of SEK 1.4 million corresponding to 16.9% of revenue. This is to be compared to 12.7% at the end of Q1 last year. The increase was due to higher inventory position due to a lower sell-through than expected coming into the autumn/winter season. While this has an impact on inventory, we still believe our inventory is in good shape and up to date, supported by our ability to clear older stock through Boozt.com. CapEx was down to SEK 42 million in the quarter versus SEK 97 million last year. Last year, we were starting to invest in the transfer sales that we mentioned earlier, which explains most of the decline. Free cash flow in the quarter was a negative SEK 619 million compared to negative SEK 685 million last year. This improved cash flow was mainly due to the lower CapEx. It is worth noting that cash flow in Q1 is typically low, largely due to the relatively high inventory at the end of the quarter in preparation for the spring/summer season. Our net cash position was SEK 8 million at the end of the quarter, down SEK 228 million compared to last year. Our cash position continues to be impacted by our share buyback program. In the last 12 months, we have repurchased own shares for SEK 134 million. Finally, I'd like to mention that we have now, as expected, received a cash payment of approximately SEK 100 million from the Norwegian tax authorities regarding the wrongfully paid customs in Norway, providing a further boost to our cash position. This will, however, impact the cash flow statement in the second quarter. This ends the financial overview. And back to you, Hermann.

Thank you, Sandra. And before we move to the guidance, I would like to take a moment to address our position in the current market environment. As previously mentioned, the operating conditions have remained quite challenging throughout the quarter. After a couple of years of muted consumer sentiment following the COVID pandemic, we had expected consumers to start being more optimistic. And what we have seen is actually the opposite. Consumer confidence has declined across the Nordics, driven by increasing geopolitical uncertainty, basically a growing certainty about where the world is heading. As a result, we have observed more cautious consumer spending, particularly in the fashion sector. That said, we are constantly managing the business to navigate these challenges effectively, ensuring that we stay well prepared for what lies ahead. As part of this, we streamlined the organization during the quarter with a key focus on leveraging AI and technology to enhance efficiency. This process included a 10% reduction in our workforce, and we expect these efforts to deliver a net improvement of around 0.3 percentage points to our adjusted EBIT margin in 2025. With these actions, alongside the steps we've already taken, we are reinforcing our foundation and further strengthening the resilience of our organization. For one, we maintain tight control of our costs and our cash position remains solid. Secondly, the growing diversification of our product portfolio is helping reduce our reliance on the more volatile fashion sector. And third, our efficient and adaptable supply chain ensures that we're well equipped to handle the ongoing market challenges. So while we acknowledge the challenging environment, we are confident in the steps that we've taken and the strength of our business. We believe that we are well prepared to navigate these rough waters, and we are positioned to capitalize on improvements when market conditions become more favorable. So now let's move to the next page and our guidance. As mentioned earlier, we have updated our financial outlook to reflect the increased market uncertainty we have seen since our Q4 report. Specifically, we now anticipate net revenue growth to be in the range of 0% to 6% compared to our previous expectations of 4% to 9%. And our adjusted EBIT margin is now expected to land between 4.5% and 5.5% compared with the 5.8% to 6.5% we have stated before. The revision of our guidance is primarily driven by 2 key factors. First and most important, our initial outlook assumed a continued challenging but also stable market. However, the Nordic retail environment has become increasingly uncertain, mainly driven by the geopolitical unrest we're currently seeing. This volatility is evident in our performance so far in April, which has been extremely volatile following the increased trade tensions. While we hope for stabilization, we anticipate that any substantial improvements is unlikely before the second half of the year. Adding to this, the Swedish krona has strengthened since February when we gave the guidance. Assuming exchange rates remain at current levels for the remainder of 2025, the strengthening is expected to negatively impact our net revenue by approximately 3 percentage points. In addition, given that the majority of our costs are denominated in Swedish krona, we're also projecting a negative impact on our adjusted EBIT margin of around 1 percentage point, assuming no change in these currency rates. Finally, regarding our capital expenditure, the CapEx forecast for 2025 is now expected to be in the range of SEK 150 million to SEK 170 million, a decrease from our previous range of SEK 170 million to SEK 200 million. As we announced last year, our plans to invest approximately SEK 500 million in capacity expansion between 2025 and 2027 remains in place. Of this total, approximately SEK 65 million is now planned for investment in 2025, which is a reduction from the previously communicated figure of around SEK 75 million. The remaining difference is primarily due to slightly lower expected CapEx related to IT development. This concludes our presentation. So, operator, will you please open up for questions?

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Benjamin Wahlstedt from ABG SC.

As far as I understand that the lower guidance is primarily a reflection of adverse FX movements. And while I see your point mathematically, it seems you've applied sort of the FX sensitivity assumptions from the annual report where the implicit assumption is that your actions during the past year are unchanged basically. And I would like to ask you this. I've spoken to some of your suppliers, I've spoken to your customers and I've spoken to competitors of yours. They are all of the impression that products sold on Boozt are very attractively priced. This should mean, I think, that you should be able to offset some of this negative FX impact through pricing. What are we missing, or what am I missing when I'm making this assumption, please?

I think in general, we are not assuming it's FX -- effects all of it. It's a combination of -- it's mainly the lower demand and the pricing pressure that we are expecting. FX, of course, plays a role and has done so basically throughout our lifetime, but -- and we've always been able to navigate it, but just acknowledge that it has an effect. Of course, long term, that will be mitigated, but it has some short-term effects. But our guidance is a reflection of mainly the uncertain consumer or trading environment and also partly the FX. So I think it's difficult to do an exact mathematical explanation because, of course, when we do our forecast forward, different FX scenarios are included in the forecast. So I think you cannot directly say that it's only FX effects that is influencing our guidance.

All right. And then speaking of these heavy fluctuations in demand, is this the same across all markets you're operating in? That's first question. And then second, are there any product categories that are impacted more than others? Or is it this broad-based, please?

As you will see, Sweden has been performing quite well in the quarter. Norway has also been performing well, partly due to the fact that we're able to invest a bit more in Norway since we're not paying customs. Denmark has been hardly hit. And as someone who is living in Denmark and experiencing the rhetoric about the crisis in, that's not a surprise. So -- and Finland has also been quite affected. If you look at the categories, it's mainly fashion that is heavily affected by this. The other categories are probably more muted than we would have liked them to be, but they don't seem to be as affected as fashion.

All right. Final one from me then. Winter never really arrived in Stockholm, and I would assume the same for Copenhagen. I know your inventories are quite a bit higher in Q1 than in Q4. I realize that parts of this buildup is preparation for spring. But I would like to ask about your view of the quality of the current stock. Should we expect more sort of discounting of autumn/winter products in Q2? Or what's your view on the current inventory?

You should definitely expect more discounting on inventory in Q2 because, as you see, the inventory levels were elevated compared to what we'd like them to be. And again, this is also you can see directly by how much we are using Booztlet to clear inventory because we think it's better to do kind of a gradual write-down than taking one big write-off. So that's why we are actually using Booztlet to clear. Booztlet is actually not profitable in the quarter because we want to keep the Boozt.com site clean as a premium site and using Booztlet to avoid having any overstock. So -- and in general, not only also winter, but I also believe that the SS25 stock market in general will be quite elevated. So I think you will expect that the consumers will be able to do very good bargains in -- over the next months.

The next question comes from Niklas Ekman from Carnegie.

Yes. Can I ask when you talk about a very challenging market, I mean, we've had a challenging market for quite a few years now. And I'm thinking in particular of 2023, when you delivered tremendous growth despite a weak market. Can you tell us what is different now besides that you obviously have tougher comparisons than some of your peers? But is there anything materially different in the consumer behavior now compared to the past 2, 3 years?

Well, you have a new President in the U.S. who is relatively aggressive in his trade agreements. And you have talks about increasing war, increasing military spending, war taxes across the region. So consumers are being told that they should stash for -- make perhaps for -- in the basement, have cash in hand. So there's not a lot of talk about kind of a positive outlook for both world economy or personal comments. I think it's kind of obvious when you look at developing consumer sentiment that the consumers are not getting happier than they were before. So -- and I think it's kind of you're fooling yourself if you believe that it's happy days ahead. It's not. We are working with the assumption that we're going into a recession. We are quite well prepared. And even though we are lowering our EBIT guidance, we are still the most profitable e-commerce company in Europe. So we're just saying that there will be a bit more headwind than before. So -- but definitely, the world has not improved since '23. And personally, I believe it's actually probably at a slightly worse state than it was in 2023.

Yes, that's very clear. Can I ask on the margins as well. And then this new margin guidance, I'm a little puzzled why the margin was so strong in Q1 and still you're so cautious on the full year. And I realize that you had the absence of the Norwegian taxes, but -- or the Norwegian import duties. But I think even adjusting for that, your underlying margins were up some 40 basis points in Q1. Is that correct?

Yes. It's actually a very good question, Niklas, because our margin in Q1 was strong. And I think it reflects the investments we've made. It reflects that we are becoming much more efficient. What we saw is that the market actually got worse during the quarter. And it is just, I think, that kind of a reality check for ourselves saying that there will be headwinds and the gross margin will go down because it's obvious that there is overstock in the market. And as you know, we are allergic to having too much stock, and we act quite fast. So when we see that there's a potential overstock issue, we use price to mitigate it and we use Booztlet. So it's just that being prudent and not fooling ourselves that we can save stock for later. So our experience is that it's probably cheaper to have a discount now than have a sellout in June. So this is -- because you're right, Q1 was actually quite strong. Profit was strong. And all our investments in technology and efficiencies actually kind of prove to be in place, but we're just cautious and mindful that it's going to be quite challenging over the next 3 to 6 months.

Great. And can I follow up on that? When you say that Q1 here was -- that it was becoming increasingly challenging during the quarter. Was that mainly because I think you faced very tough comparisons at the start of Q4 -- or sorry, in the start of 2024 because of the strong sellout in late '23 that the comps then made sales basically slow this year? Or do you think that there's an underlying trend towards deterioration? And has that also given the renewed guidance here, the lower guidance, has that trend also continued into April?

I think there was -- there's no doubt that there was an underlying trend in the revenue during the quarter and March was worse than we expected. You even had Easter in March, which you didn't have - we had Easter in March last year, which didn't have this year. So I think that kind of the underlying trend was bad. And you've seen that with the consumer confidence, in general, that as the conflict in Ukraine has not been solved and as trade tensions increased, the consumers are getting more nervous. And literally, when the tariffs were announced in the U.S. with what they call Liberation Day, we could see that on sales immediately. So that's why consumers are nervous and especially within fashion and especially within mid-to-premium fashion, you're probably quite cautious and wear you dress or your coat a bit more than if you were optimistic and willing to spend.

Very clear. And can I also just follow up on what you said about the expansion plans for your fulfillment center, given that your growth rate now has been a lot lower in '24 and slowing further in '25 based on your guidance? Have you considered delaying the expansion of your fulfillment center? Will you still be needing that to be fully in place by '26, '27?

It's a good question. And the answer is probably that it will be delayed because it's not only the slowing sales, but it's also that we are actually getting much better output from the current warehouse. And we've talked about it before, but the -- our DC in Home is increasingly becoming a kind of an output hub so that, that kind of the needed automation infrastructure per krona is actually going down. So we are -- so we haven't updated the CapEx plans for the expansion, but kind of we can see that the need to expand and our ability to utilize the current setup further is actually less need and more output. So that's why kind of CapEx will continue to be delayed and on the low end. And it's also why we expect quite a strong cash conversion this year.

The next question comes from Daniel Schmidt from Danske.

A couple of questions from me. Hermann, maybe just starting with the guidance. It is a quite drastic change to the outlook. And you started referring to April. That's only been 3.5 weeks. But I guess you include what happened in March as well when I listened to you. But do you still think that it's a fairly short valuation period to be taking quite a big sort of change in outlook?

That's a very difficult question, Daniel. Yes and no. As I said, we saw the weakness starting already in March. And January and February were quite good. In March, it was weak. And February, actually -- and it's important to say that we don't talk about -- we don't provide current trading, but I will do a slight exception this time. April started quite strong, but then with the trade wars kind of breaking out, it literally kind of stalled. And I'm not the right one to tell you when the conflict in Ukraine ends or when -- if you would go back to normal trading conditions. But I think it's kind of for us, our biggest risk is stock. And if we fool ourselves in believing that it will be better in 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks and delay taking actions on our stock, then we will have a much bigger problems in 6 months. So we might overreact and we might kind of overclear stock, but I'd rather do that than having stock problem in 6 months. And as I said again, if we have sold out too much stock now, there's no doubt that there would be a lot of campaign stock to buy next month or in 2 months' time. So I think it's better to be prudent. And yes, I know that it sounds dramatic with the margin, but we're talking about going from 6.2% to 5% EBIT margin in a market that is very volatile. And I think it's kind of -- I think it's more prudent for almost, say, to be mindful and careful.

Yes. I think it's just sort of the combination of you doing a lot of stuff on the cost side and still this quite a big shift in terms of outlook. And it does sound like it is a bit company-specific or maybe industry-specific when it comes to the stock levels in the market and your stock level that plays into how you view the outlook that you now give, because when you listen to others that have reported in the last few days or today, they're not really saying the same thing when it comes to the shift in consumer sentiment, at least not what I've heard yet. But do you think it's specific for fashion? Or sort of what's your view on that?

Yes, I know it's within fashion that there is a very elevated stock level in the market. And the best indicator is that we are getting calls regarding campaign buys already. So there's no doubt that there is a very elevated stock levers in the market in fashion.

Okay. And just a detailed question on FX. I do understand that you get negative translation effects and all that. But when it comes to transaction, you do buy your goods in euro and dollar, right?

No. We mainly buy in SEK. We try to hedge kind of, so it's reflecting our sales. But of course, we have a substantial amount in Swedish krona.

Yes, around half, on or around half. We're not across the dollar...

We're not buying in dollars. It's either SEK or euro or DKK.

I'm just saying that those suppliers are themselves buying in euro and dollar and then you're buying from them. And so indirectly, I guess, you're exposed to the movements in the dollar and the euro?

But the price has been fixed 6 months in advance, so -- or even longer. So that's -- so short term, it's not affecting the price that we are paying the suppliers.

But 6 months out, it is.

Yes.

So that's why I'm not really sort of understanding why the impact is so big on FX. I completely understand that the Danish and Norwegian krona and sort of the Finnish euro is weaker, but on the purchase side, I don't really get it. I understand what you're saying now, but a couple of months out, it will be different.

Well, if we look at the calculation we made with expecting like 1 percentage point effect on the EBIT, around half of that is related to the inventory buys, but then the half is on the other cost structure of the -- due to the cost structure in OpEx and others. But we can give you a detailed tour at some other time.

The next question comes from Erik Sandstedt from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Just a few follow-ups here. I mean, I guess you were alluding to the fact that performance here in the quarter primarily relates to the challenging market, right, and the hesitant consumers. But have you also seen any changes in the competitive landscape?

Yes, it's mainly the market that we're saying. We actually don't see any real changes in the competitive landscape. It's not that we see more investments in marketing or anything like. So kind of the competitive side is relatively stable. And so nothing -- if anything, the Chinese seem to be backing a bit off, but we're not seeing kind of increased or decreased competition in the market.

Is that [indiscernible] you're referring to?

Yes, yes, yes.

Yes, yes. But it also seems you're doing much better in Sweden than in Denmark. Is that primarily then relating to different consumer confidence levels? So I'm a bit curious if you have seen sort of more competition in the Danish market.

Firstly, currency effects didn't apply for it very much in the first quarter. So that was not the fact. We believe it's the consumer sentiment because we haven't seen any increased competition on the Danish market within our categories. So our view is that it is the consumer sentiment. What we are seeing is that the cohorts they are spending less. So meaning that we can see that they are still coming back, but they seem to be coming back a bit less than they have normally done so. And I think this is an indicator that we have -- we still have the customers, but they are more kind of -- they are more mindful of how much they're spending.

But do you -- I mean, more of a general question. Do you think they are spending their money elsewhere? Or are they not spending it at all?

I have no idea. I know my own household. I know in my own household, I'm telling my kids to save money, but it's like I wouldn't know if -- I believe that the spending/saving rate in Denmark is very high at the moment. But I wouldn't know if they're spending it on travel or lipsticks.

Yes, yes. Then I just want to come back also to the inventory position. I know you've spoken about it already here, but it obviously remains pretty big despite the clearance sales that you've done at Booztlet in the quarter. So just comment again, please, on how do you feel about the inventory level or position and also how we should think a little bit about it going forward?

Yes, the inventory position is on the high end. And this is also why we have provided an adjusted EBIT bottom at 4.5% because we know that if you have too much stock, the only thing you can do about that is to use price to clear that and use Booztlet. So we are actively looking at inventory. It's still fresh. It's not more concern than it's normally, but we're very mindful of that, that we need to keep an eye on it and we need to clear inventory. But fortunately, now with Booztlet having 1 million customers and growing, we can use that without compromising the Boozt.com brand franchise.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Okay. Thank you for listening and for some very good questions. This concludes the call, and I wish you all a good day. Thank you.