Shaver Shop Group Limited (SSG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
November 10, 2021
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveGood morning, and welcome. My name is Brodie Arnhold, and I'm the Chairman of Shaver Shop Group Limited. Today, we're holding our second virtual AGM using streaming technology provided by our share register, Link Market Services. We, as your Directors, would have preferred to been able to meet face-to-face, of course. This is -- fingers crossed, this is the last year we'll host our AGM virtually. However, given the global pandemic and ongoing difficulties in traveling and meeting safety, a virtual AGM is considered the most appropriate approach again this year. Please bear with us if we encounter any technical difficulties. We doubt there'll be any. But if we do experience any technical issues today, a short recess or adjournment may be required depending on the number of shareholders and directors being affected. If this occurs, I will advise you accordingly. I draw your attention to Slide 2 regarding forward-looking statements contained in this presentation. It's now 11:00 a.m. Melbourne time, the appointed time for holding our 2021 Annual General Meeting. Notice of this meeting was duly given out and the meeting has been properly convened. I'm advised that we have a quorum, and I therefore have the pleasure in declaring this meeting open. Thank you all for attending. We'll turn to the items of business and voting later in the meeting. Please note that any shareholders, proxy holders or shareholder company representatives may vote. Voting on all resolutions will be conducted by way of a poll. Shareholders attending the meeting online will be able to cast their votes on the electronic voting card received when online registration is validated. Please refer to the virtual meeting guide or use the help line specified in the AGM portal. Questions regarding each item of business will be discussed prior to disclosing the proxy votes received on each item. This year we will be taking questions on the phone as well as online. To utilize the teleconference facility, holders must use their unique PIN provided to them by Link Market Services. If you don’t have a phone PIN and would like to ask a question via the phone, please contact Link on 1 (800) 990-363 in order to get your PIN. When you dial in to the conference center, you will be asked to mute your online sound and listen to the meeting by phone. There is a delay between the teleconference system, which is effectively live, and the online system, so it's important that you only listen through your phone. [Operator Instructions] Following our review of each item of business, general business questions will be taken. Shareholders participating online through the virtual meeting website, please click on ‘Ask Question’ button, type your answer (sic) [ question ] and click submit. I encourage shareholders attending online, and who have questions, to send their questions through as soon as possible. Shareholder questions received prior to the meeting will be addressed during the general business questions session. Now onto the agenda. Following some introductory remarks from myself, I will hand over to Shaver Shop’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, who will speak to a number of the growth drivers that position Shaver Shop strongly for the years ahead. After that, Cameron will provide a brief trading update on what has been a very volatile first 4 months of the 2022. From there we will move onto the formal part of the meeting and voting on the various items of business that were outlined in the Notice of Annual General Meeting. With that, I would now like to introduce you to your directors. Shaver Shop's Board is made up of 5 independent Non-Executive directors and 1 Executive Director, Cameron Fox. Like you, they are all participating virtually. Craig, Brian and myself have now been working with Shaver Shop for approximately 10 years and so we have a very deep understanding of the business. Trent Peterson joined the Board shortly before our IPO in 2016, and we were fortunate that Debra Singh, our newest director, joined the organization in September of last year. Craig is the Chairman of our Audit and Risk Committee, and Trent is the Chairman of our Nomination and Remuneration Committee.The members of these committees is clearly outlined in our Corporate Governance Statement that's on our investor relations website and was lodged with the ASX. Also present today is Daniel Rosenberg, our audit partner from PwC. Daniel will be available to answer questions on our financial accounts at the appropriate time. Jeremy Wickens from Norton Rose Fulbright, who will assist if there are any technical questions which will require legal advice during the meeting, who's also present. And we also have the team from Link Market Services who are facilitating this virtual meeting with their AGM technology and shareholder support services. Shaver Shop is a remarkably resilient business. This is in part due to the sector we operate in, which tends not to be significantly affected by changes in the economy. While we are classified as a discretionary retailer, history has shown that many of our products are essential from the consumer's standpoint. Grooming and personal care products are required in both positive and negative stages of an any cycle and across almost all demographics. Shaver Shop is a specialist retailer operating in a mass market that has proven to be largely insulated from the economic downturns. We also had global suppliers introducing new product innovation on an ongoing basis. Many of these new products are designed to enable our customers to get the same beauty outcome at home that they used to only be able to get in a specialty salon or barber. These DIY solutions also tend to be more cost effective which supports demand during economic downturns. However, unlike previous cycles and downturns which supported demand for Shaver Shop products largely for financial reasons, both financial and government-imposed drivers led to significant demand across several of the product categories that we sell. Hair clippers, long-term hair removal solutions for women, hair styling products and body groomers all benefited from the COVID-19-led changes in demand over the last 18 months. However, the demand has not been uniformly strong. As the nature of lockdowns have changed, the narrative from government officials has changed, [ this is a ] demand and propensity to spend. This has led to significant volatility in trading and quite challenging operating conditions for the entire Shaver Shop team. The management and store teams have done an exceptional job overcoming these challenges with the business in significantly better shape today, than prior to the pandemic. This is a tribute to the culture and the passion of our team members in being able to adapt and drive positive results from an incredibly difficult operating environment. The volatility in trading has also been reflected in our share price, most particularly at the start of the pandemic. More recently our share price has stabilized despite the extended lockdowns in Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT, as well as in the North Island of New Zealand. Since the start of 2020, our share price is up more than 50%, and we have returned $0.103 cents per share by way of dividends in that time. When you look at the 5-year performance trends of the business, we set the following records in 2021. Sales were up 9.6% to $213.7 million. This led to record in net profit after tax of $17.5 million, up 68.3% on last year's $10.4 million. With a relatively fixed cost base, Shaver Shop generates significant operating leverage from top line sales growth, and this together with strong gross profit margins, supported the outstanding profit results in 2021. Your Board remains very focused on managing capital efficiently with return on invested capital increasing to 24.1% last year. We also significantly increased capital returns to shareholders with fully franked dividends of $0.082 per share, up 71% on last year's $0.048 partially franked dividends. Our key financial indicators are very strong, with a very sound balance sheet with no debt. This provides us with the flexibility to continue investing for growth while at the same time maintaining a healthy dividend stream for shareholders. Unless we find a highly accretive investment opportunity that we believe will drive strong growth and increased returns for shareholders, we intend to continue to increase our dividend payout. And while we have no debt on our balance sheet today, while trading and economic conditions remain volatile, we have decided to maintain a relatively conservative capital approach. Moving onto our progress against the key strategic initiatives I outlined in last year's AGM. Our numbers suggest, and anecdotal feedback from suppliers further supports, that we gained market share in our core hair removal categories over the last 12 months. Shaver Shop completed 2.4 million transactions with customers last year, and we now have almost 800,000 members on our e-mail marketing database. We continue to make progress in further understanding our customer and building customer lifetime value. After rolling out the option for e-mail receipts from in-store transactions, we have been better able to understand customer behavior with online journeys established to drive enhanced engagement and more relevant offers, we are working to increase transaction frequency, of course. Our suppliers continue to innovate and we are working very closely with them on our new product launches. For example, the Wahl Stainless Steel Trimmer, one of Shaver Shop's top selling products over the last 4 years, has now been launched in a waterproof version, exclusive to Shaver Shop. Oral-B's new iO range of electric toothbrushes were launched exclusively with Shaver Shop in Australia, the only market in the world where exclusivity was granted. In addition to new innovations, we are expanding our range in men's and women's fragrances as well as in men's haircare with American Crew. These are natural additions to our line-up and complement our core categories. Pleasingly, we have been able to continue to secure exclusive access to new products with 26 of our top 30 products being exclusive to Shaver Shop last financial year. Lastly in terms of digital excellence, our ongoing investments in Shaver Shop's omni-retail experience continue to pay dividends with online sales of $61.2 million representing 28.6% of total sales in FY2021.. The investments in this area are continuing, with a significantly more personalized and engaging online experience that more closely resembles the experience in one of Shaver Shop's store. We are dissecting our customer data to better segment and target cohorts with relevant offers that are suited to their interests and we are on track to start leveraging our data through AI. We're also making it even easier for customers to transact with Shaver Shop by offering traditional payment mechanisms as well as several buy-now pay later schemes. So Shaver Shop has made significant progress on many fronts despite the challenges brought about by the pandemic. That said, we still see significant potential for our business. Whether it's in refining and improving our social media presence and following, continuing to expand our category mix, increasing our brand awareness, particularly in New Zealand, or most significantly, leveraging the mass significant customer database that we now have. As we move towards our most important trading period, we are well positioned to capitalize now that most of our stores have reopened. We are confident that we have the right strategies, team, product, range and promotional plans in place to deliver strong returns for shareholders in FY '22 and years to come. In closing, I would like to express my sincere thanks on behalf of the board and our shareholders, to the entire Shaver Shop team. Your passion for this business and your ongoing pursuit for customer service excellence has been remarkable and is what has contributed to Shaver Shop emerging from the pandemic in an even stronger position than when it began. I will now hand you over to Cameron Fox, our Managing Director and CEO. Thank you.
Cameron Fox
executiveThank you, Brodie, and good morning everyone. I would also like to thank the Shaver Shop team for their efforts over the last 18 months. Under some extremely challenging circumstances, our business has continued to flourish and our focus on the customer has not wavered. Our store teams have been particularly resilient, managing through several snap and longer term lockdowns, and despite this have returned to work with the same passion, dedication and work ethic that has supported Shaver Shop's success over many years. I'd like to spend time reviewing some of the factors that should support Shaver Shop's long term growth on Slide 11. Firstly, we operate in the attractive and growing personal care and beauty market. And in our specialty area of men's grooming, we believe there are even stronger tailwinds as men continue to be more beauty conscious and use more tools to cultivate the look they desire. We estimate that our total addressable market is approximately $7.5 billion to $8.0 billion and today we hold around to 2.5% to 3% market share, meaning we have plenty of room in which to grow in the future. We have strong uncompeted brand awareness today but we can be doing more to further cement our position as the leading omnichannel retailer in our sector. This is especially true in New Zealand where we have traded very strongly over the last 2 years while we still having relatively low brand awareness across this region. We believe this positions us very well to grow further in New Zealand as we rollout our new stores and improve our online offering. Thirdly, we are seeing very positive trends in how we are leveraging our customer data and how we are building out additional customer journeys and technologies to better segment, target and engage with our loyal customer base. We continue to expand our product and category ranges and have been able to maintain exclusivity on a large percentage of our top selling lines. Maintaining exclusivity in our core categories will remain a key focus in the years to come. Our store network is performing well, when open of course, and we continuously review our operating metrics to ensure we maximize returns from each location. We have committed to opening 3 new stores in Australia this year and we are relocating 2 more. We also see the opportunity to open 5 or 6 new stores in New Zealand, so we are keen to get across the Tasman as soon as possible when the borders reopen. Finally, in terms of optimizing the store network, we continue to refit key doors and bring them to our latest brand standards. Lastly on growth drivers, we are investing in new technologies that will help simplify internal processes, improve customer service and drive efficiency across our business. These investments are being made across our stores as well as our national support office. These growth drivers mean Shaver Shop remains extremely well positioned as a business to generate strong returns for shareholders in the years to come. Now the next slide illustrates how the omni-retail investments that we called out in early FY 2019 have underpinned the exponential growth in online sales over the last few years and led to the online channel now representing close to 29% of total Shaver Shop sales. Over the last 4 years our online sales have grown at an average rate of close to 55% per annum, that's an outstanding result. We processed more than 0.5 million online orders last year or around 21% of our total transaction volume. But in dollar terms online represents close to 29% of total sales. This reflects the higher average transaction values coming through online channel due to changes in product mix. Website visitation continues to grow strongly due to brand awareness as well as improvements that we have made in organic and paid search activity. We feel we are the leading omnichannel retailer in our core categories, but we still see many areas of opportunity, including improving our social media presence. As a result, we believe our online channel will continue to grow and increase share of sales over the long term albeit perhaps not at the same growth rates that we have experienced over the past 4 years. That brings me to the average contribution by sales channel on Slide 13. . As a multi-channel retailer, we as a management team often get asked whether we prefer for shoppers to purchase online or in-store. The reality is that we are happy for our customers to shop with us whichever way they prefer and the relative contribution margins from each channel support this. Average contribution margin is close to 20% both in-store and online which means our focus can be 100% on ensuring we provide the best customer experience whatever channel our customers choose. We truly believe that for the personal care and grooming sector, a multi-channel approach, with compelling in-store and online offerings, provides the best possible shopping experience for our customers, and that ultimately this will drive higher customer loyalty and lifetime value than a purely online or in-store model. Moving onto Slide 14. Shaver Shop's customer service record is first class. We measure customer experience at every store, every day, every hour and we review and take action on the feedback we receive from our customers about their in-store experience. We use this data as a continual improvement mechanism as we strive to delight our customers with every single shopping interaction. This is reflected in our net promoter score being 89, near its highest ever level and customer experience being ranked 9.8 out of a maximum score of 10. I am very proud of these results and based on the market research we have recently undertaken, we have made progress on our brand being associated with a highly satisfying shopping experience. Moving onto Slide 15. Pleasingly the growth in our business is seeing us increase both active customers as well as those customers that we want to receive -- who want to receive ongoing communication from Shaver Shop through our e-mail marketing database. We had almost 0.5 million active online customers last financial year and now have approximately 800,000 members in our marketing database. Many of these customers have only been introduced to Shaver Shop in the last 12 to 24 months, which means we have a fantastic opportunity to convert these into repeat customers with high lifetime value. Pleasingly, we are seeing this happening through our online channel. An increasing percentage of our sales are coming through returning customers with more than 70% of our active online customers since Q3 FY 2021 having shopped with us before. And from a revenue perspective, both the value and proportion of our online sales from returning customers are increasing over time as you can see in the right-hand graph on this slide. This shows that we should have an increasing recurring revenue stream over time. We will of course continue to seek to attract new customers to our business and continue to build our marketing database as we believe the breadth of our product offering is still not fully recognized by the consumer. So now I move to Slide 17. So we are seeing an increase in customers returning to Shaver Shop -- at Shaver Shop and very high levels of customer service. But what have we learned about our customers or consumer insight over the last 18 to 24 months? Well, first and foremost, personal care, health and wellbeing has never been more important and many of the products we sell enable our customers to look and feel great from the comfort of their homes. In terms of customer behavior or consumer behavior, extended lockdowns benefit Shaver Shop as customers still have personal grooming needs. When stores are closed, unsurprisingly our online sales grow. Customers have recognized that Shaver Shop is a leader in hair removal, hair styling and personal care appliances which has led to a further improvement in our unprompted brand awareness in Australia. As the narrative around lockdowns change and government officials begin to discuss stores reopening to the general public, online sales slow significantly as consumers prepare for the stores to reopen. Now, importantly, in-store sales rebound with intensity when stores reopen and while online sales then start to moderate, they generally remain higher than the prior year. We believe this reflects the fact that while many shoppers choose to race back to stores when they reopen, some stores remain more cautious and choose to continue to purchase online. The pandemic has also made customers comfortable shopping online. As an omnichannel retailer, this works very well for us both from an in-store perspective and online sales, as both channels continue to grow. Now another key observation is that during lockdown, men tend to grow more stubble and beards with a corresponding increase in consumer demand for beard trimmers. This transitions toward our clean shaven categories like men's electric shavers and men's manual shaving when corporate offices reopen. Pleasingly we are market leaders in both beard trimmers and men's shavers so we are very well placed from a category perspective both during lockdowns and after they conclude. When customers do return to store, they are generally already well educated about the products they wish to buy, often having researched online before coming to a store, and therefore having a strong intent to purchase. So while foot traffic is already lower, browsing and dwell times are lower, sales conversion is actually higher leading to a much more efficient sales process for our in-store teams. We've also been very pleased to see that customers overall are generally very considerate and respectful about the new check-in requirements and health and safety regulations that our teams must adhere to. So in summary, we are very pleased for our stores to be back open as it provides the best experience for both our customers and our store teams. So this provides a nice transition to now discuss our trading update and our outlook. Clearly, as Brodie mentioned, the first 4 months have been challenging for all discretionary retailers that have operations in Victoria, the ACT, New South Wales or New Zealand. Government imposed trading restrictions have led to Shaver Shop losing approximately 39% of available in-store trading days in the period from 1st of July 2021 through the 7th of November 2021. So with that context, over the period from 1st of July 2021 through 7th of November 2021, total sales have decreased just 0.9% versus last year, but are up 15.7% versus the same period 2 years ago. While in-store sales have suffered, online sales have remained strong, up 58.6% versus the prior corresponding period and up 329.4% compared to 2 years ago. This means online sales have represented more than half of Shaver Shop's total sales on a year-to-date basis. So pleasingly, when stores have reopened across New South Wales, the ACT and Victoria, we have seen a strong rebound in sales with total corporate sales being up 17.4% since New South Wales stores reopened on 11th of October of this year. On a state basis, New South Wales corporate store sales have increased 51.2% versus the prior corresponding trading period since the New South Wales store network reopened on 11th of October of this year. This very strong result is partly due to the last 6 franchise stores we reacquired in February 2021. For more context, in Victoria, since our stores fully reopened to the public on 30th of October 2021, we have seen total Vic sales growth of 28.8% compared to the corresponding period last year. So these are encouraging signs and provide increased confidence for the important events of Black Friday, Cyber Week, Christmas and of course Boxing Day's promotion which are all upon us. While stock supply has been difficult to forecast on some lines, we have been planning and working with suppliers for many months to ensure we have adequate stock cover to support our season promotions. As a result, we do not currently foresee any material risk to sales from supply chain challenges. Also a reminder, we opened our new store in Bunbury, WA, 2 weeks ago and have committed to open 2 more stores in the second half of the financial year. We continue to maintain a cautious approach to new store openings, however we are highly confident these stores will deliver attractive returns. And finally, in terms of outlook, having regard to the ongoing uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the importance of the upcoming Christmas and Boxing Day trading periods to our full year results, Shaver Shop does not believe it is appropriate, at this point in time, to provide guidance on FY 2022 sales or earnings. Now that concludes my presentation today. Thank you for your ongoing support and for attending the AGM today remotely, of course. I will now hand you back to Brodie.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveThank you, Cameron. We'll now move to items of business. After this, we'll address any general shareholder questions for the Board or CEO in the Q&A session. Resolution-specific questions, we'll answer these as we move through each of the resolutions. Our company secretary has confirmed that the notice of meeting has been sent to all shareholders and other persons entitled to receive it within the notice period. The matters requiring consideration today are outlined in the detail in the notice of the meeting. The notice of the meeting is taken as read. We'll be conducting a poll today for all items of business. You are welcome to enter your vote online at any point during the meeting, and we'll hold the poll open for 5 minutes following the conclusion of today's meeting. Votes will be counted after the end of the meeting and voting results will be published on the ASX and Shaver Shop Investor Relations website. Shareholders can cast their vote using the electronic voting card received after validating online registration. [Operator Instructions] To then cast your vote, click voting card button. The proxy votes have been submitted and will be set out on the slide shown for each resolution. As indicated on the proxy form, in the notice of meeting and my intention as Chair is to vote all discretionary or undirected proxies held by me in favor of each resolution. The first item of consideration is the financial statements of the company and repots of the directors and the auditor of the company for the financial year 30 June 2021. The report will be tabled but will not be subject of the resolution that is not required by the Corporations Act. Our auditor, Daniel Rosenberg from PwC, is here to respond to any questions. There are no questions on the financial report received prior to the meeting. The statement reports are now laid before the meeting, I open the floor to questions and discussion. For each resolution, I'll ask via a moderator, if there are any questions from the phone lines first before moving to any questions that have been raised online. Operator, are there any questions?
Operator
operatorChair, there are no questions from the telephone audience.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveNow to our Company Secretary, Larry Hamson. Larry, are there any online questions on the financial statements.
Lawrence Hamson
executiveNo, Mr. Chairman, no online questions.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveAre there any further questions?
Lawrence Hamson
executiveNo, Mr. Chairman?
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveif there are no further questions, I'll now move to the second item of business. Item 2 is in relation to the adoption of the remuneration report. Operator, are there any phone line questions in relation to this item of business?
Operator
operatorThere are no questions, Chair.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveThank you. Larry, are there any online questions in relation to the remuneration report?
Lawrence Hamson
executiveNo, Mr. Chairman, no online questions.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveIf there are no further questions, I'll now disclose the way in which proxy votes have been directed for the item 2. Please note that for all resolutions, I'll be casting the undirected or written proxies given to me in favor of the motion. Thank you. Let's now move to the next item of business. In accordance with our constitution, Craig Mathieson retires by rotation and being eligible for election, and it's put to the shareholders that he be reelected as a Director of the company. Craig became a share -- a Director on Shaver Shop's Board in 2011. He brings to the Board extensive experience in finance and banking, general management, property and investment management. He's been a valuable member of the Board over this time, and we're fortunate to have someone with his deep and broad experience in our business. Operator, are there any questions in relation to Craig's reappointment?
Operator
operatorChair, there are no questions.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveLarry, are there any online questions?
Lawrence Hamson
executiveNo, Mr. Chairman, no online questions. Thank you.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveAs there are no further questions, I'll now disclose the way in which the proxy votes have been directed for item 4 and encourage shareholders who haven't already done so, cast your vote. Thank you. We'll now move to item 4. Item 4 is in relation to approving the amended loan share plan. The LTI plan is designed to align interest of management and shareholders. This approval will be, amongst other things, enable the company to continue to incentivize its executive directors and leaders within the business without affecting its capacity to issue equity securities under ASX Listing Rule 7.1, because shares are issued under Amended LTI plan during the 3 years following the date of this meeting will not be taken into account for calculation of the company's 15% capacity limit under ASX Listing Rule 7.1. Operator, are there any questions in relation to item 4 from the phone?
Operator
operatorThere are no questions, Chair.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveLarry, are there any online questions?
Lawrence Hamson
executiveNo, there are no online questions, Mr. Chairman.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveI'll now disclose the way in which proxy votes have been directed for item 4. Consistent with all other resolutions I'll be casting the undirected proxies given to me in favor of the motion. Now moving to the last item of business, the approval of the issue of securities to Mr. Cameron Fox, our CEO and Managing Director. Under the ASX Listing Rules, shareholder approval is required for the issue of shares to a Director. The allocation of shares to Cameron that is contemplated by this resolution is relatively consistent with the allocation from last year. That being said, we've now changed the performance period in the issue from 3 separate tranches based on 1 year, 2 year and 3-year terms to 1 tranche for the 3-year term. Operator, are there any questions in relation to this item of business?
Operator
operatorThere are no questions, Chair.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveLarry, are there any shareholder questions from the AGM portal?
Lawrence Hamson
executiveNo, Mr. Chairman.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveI'll now disclose the way which the proxy votes have been directed for item 5, and I encourage all shareholders to cast your vote. We'll now move to general business questions.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveAre there any general business questions from the phone lines, operator?
Operator
operatorThere are no questions from the phone lines, Chair.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveLarry, are there any general business questions from the online portal?
Lawrence Hamson
executiveYes, there are, Mr. Chairman. The first question is from [ Austin Taylor ]. It reads, Shaver Shop announced that it now -- it has now completed the buyback of all its network stores from both a financial and operations perspective, what are the benefits of this?
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveThank you, Larry. I'll start with that, and then Cameron, you can chime in if you have anything further to add. So we've commenced the buybacks about 7 or 8 years ago, with Shaver Shop. From a financial perspective, obviously, it's fairly clear that we get an increased sales revenue, which now is part of the revenue for the company as well as the EBITDA from the stores. They're all trading profitably. So they're all very positive contributors towards EBITDA. It's also a lot from an operational perspective to have complete control of the network. This includes marketing, buying, merchandising and also to fit out for all the retail outlets. So from our perspective, it was fantastic to have the franchisees involved on the way through. There came a point in time where we felt we were the better custodians of the stores, so we acquired them back and they continue to perform very well. Larry, are there any further questions?
Lawrence Hamson
executiveYes. And there is another question from [ Austin Taylor ]. In previous meetings and reports, management has spoken about the hybrid sales strategy with physical stores acting as distribution hubs supplemented with online sales providing increased selection and scalability. Has COVID-19 and extended lockdowns changed this strategy at all?
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveI'll ask Cameron Fox to add to that question. Cameron are you comfortable to add to that question? You're may be on mute.
Cameron Fox
executiveApologies. I just gave a great answer, then I was on mute, so I'll start again. Yes, look, the strategy is pretty consistent. Austin's absolutely spot on. We do have our stores acting as mini distribution centers for distribution of online orders. We're obviously seeing, I think, our omnichannel strategy really comes to the fore, as we discussed in the presentation. The benefit, I think, of being strong online retail through lockdown is where we're seeing a significant uptick in online sales over that period. And then obviously, when the stores reopen, we're getting a pretty significant uptick in our bricks-and-mortar business. So there ain't any subtle changes, we do see through the period of lockdowns is product mix changes, which we have called out as well. We do see some categories such as IPL category, which is long-term hair removal solution for females being particularly strong over lockdown periods and also haircuts biz as barbers are closed, et cetera. Our haircut category sales have been very strong over the lockdown periods, and therefore, we tweak our marketing communication and our communication strategy to ensure we optimize that opportunity over the lockdown period, which I think we've done a pretty good job of.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveThank you, Cameron. Larry, are there any further questions from the online portal?
Lawrence Hamson
executiveYes, there's one final question from [ Austin Taylor ]. It reads great to see that customer NPS has increased significantly. 89% is a world-class result. What do you believe has driven this? And do you believe there will be permanent changes in customer purchasing behavior in a post-COVID world?
Cameron Fox
executiveYes, I might jump in on that, Brodie, if that's okay?
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveYes.
Cameron Fox
executiveYes. Look, I think in terms of the -- the NPS has been increasing for some period of time, and I do think that partially goes down to investment in staff trading and the [ cultural ] store level. Hopefully, any customers who have gone to our store has seen -- or experienced the same passion that our store teams have. We've got a wonderful retail team, a wonderful retail director and just a very passionate field force. We really do love what they do. So I think that will continue over time. And the other thing which has contributed to a high NPS score is some of those refits that we have undertaken. Our research has indicated that one of the opportunities for us is basically upgrading the merchandising standards of our stores. And when we've done our refits for our full refit stores such as Broadway in Sydney, the in-store experience for the customer has improved, which has therefore driven an uptake or an uplift in the overall NPS score. So we still have a refit program where we're going to intend to refit the big doors. And hopefully, that further drives improvements to the customer experience in-store and also support higher NPS scores in the future.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveThank you, Cameron. Larry, are there any other questions on the online portal?
Lawrence Hamson
executiveNo. Mr. Chairman, that concludes the questions that we've received.
Broderick Ernst Arnhold
executiveGreat. So thank you very much. As there's no more further questions, it's time to finalize your voting, if you've not already done so. The poll remains open for a further 5 minutes. You may obtain the results of the poll later today by visiting the company's website or the ASX. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your attendance and interest and for your support of Shaver Shop. That ends the formal part of the Shaver Shop Annual General Meeting for 2021. I now officially declare the meeting closed. On behalf of all your directors, I wish you a very great day. Thank you.
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