Helen of Troy Limited (NASDAQ:HELE) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Noel Geoffroy: Yeah. And then in terms of SKU rationalization, as we mentioned, overall, the SKU rationalization initiative touch the wellness portfolio more than the others, but that’s where the impact was felt the greatest and it did start to impact us in Q1, as we mentioned in the remarks and I would expect to see that kind of continue and take into our outlook for the remainder of the year as those choices kind of flow through — flow through throughout the remainder of the year. Again, the emphasis is more on wellness than the others, although there’s some impacts across the board as we looked — we really did a comprehensive look bottoms up of the entire portfolio.

Susan Anderson: Great. And then, if I could just add one follow-up on the hair appliances. It sounds like you mentioned that Prestige was performing better. Was that also in the appliances? Are you seeing Drybar perform better than the lower cost tools? And then, I was curious, I know you rolled out that lower cost tool at Walmart. I was curious how that’s performing? And then if there’s any newness also coming in hair tools as we kind of look to the back half that to maybe re-jump start that category? Thanks.

Noel Geoffroy: Yeah. Sure. So in hair tool, yes. I would say overall, if we look kind of big picture Prestige or the higher end hair tools are performing better than the kind of mid-tier hair tools. So Drybar, et cetera., in that realm is performing stronger as you think about kind of a more affluent consumer having more discretionary spend to be able to continue to purchase in those areas. We do have a lot of new innovation coming out. The one I mentioned in the remarks on Drybar is a smooth shot paddle brush that kind of continues up in that one-step insight that has worked so well for us, that’s a new one that’s coming out there in addition to a range of very different Drybar Liquids. When it comes to the mass part of the business, we have gotten the new planograms in to some of our mass merchandisers that I’ve mentioned in some of the past quarters.

And we’re seeing point of sale pick up very nicely as we’ve gotten that new range in. So we’re encouraged by what we’re seeing there.

Susan Anderson: Great. Thanks so much. Good luck for the rest of the year.

Noel Geoffroy: Thanks, Susan.

Operator: Our next question is from the line of Anthony Lebiedzinski with Sidoti & Company. Please proceed with your question.

Anthony Lebiedzinski: Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions and nice start to the fiscal year. So just a quick follow-up first as far as the SKU rationalization. I guess we were to think about this in baseball terms. Are you guys like in the early innings of that process or middle or how should we think about that?

Brian Grass: In terms of cadence of impact, Anthony, we’re in early innings because we’re really just realizing a lower weighted impact in Q1. It will get a little bit heavier in terms of impact through the remainder of this year. So it just so happens it was kind of spread where the majority of the impact will fall in this fiscal year. It’s a little bit lighter in Q1 and get a little bit heavier Q2 through Q4, and then we’ll be through it. Now as we talked about in the past, this is something we’re going to continue to do. We don’t know at this stage if it will be meaningful enough that we’ll continue to call it out going into fiscal year ’25 based on whatever we find through the results of the process, but it will be a continuing process that we’ll have in future years. But the majority of the impact from this initial SKU rationalization effort will be in fiscal year ’24. It was a little lighter in Q1 and it will get a little heavier in the remaining quarters.