And so now were looking at ways to increase that margin. One of the things we did in March of 2022 was do a price increase across the board. And one of the reasons – the main reason for that was to help address this issue of the increased cost of our labor. We are now looking at ways to be more streamlined on the clinic experience itself. And so we’ve spent a lot of time always focusing on that new patient count, but what were recognizing is that we can do – this is with our new CMO is that we can also focus on our existing patients and our lapsed patients. And so with our existing patients to make sure that they’re staying with longer; and with our lapsed patients to make sure they come in earlier, because we do know if that average patient stays with us for roughly six months and then they drop, we also see that the 25% of them on average will come back within the next six months because their pain comes back.
And so we feel there’s some opportunities there with some of the marketing materials were having and some automated marketing programs that we can influence those decisions about how long our franchisee, our patients stay with us and how quickly they can come back.
Anthony Vendetti: Okay. Just on the 48 months, Peter, how many of your clinics are four years or older? And then in aggregate, I guess, they are down 3% in terms of the revenue. What do you attribute that to?
Peter Holt: Well, I think part of it is maturing of the system; a part of that, I think, I directly attribute it to the new patient count and so – or the new patient counts is that in those more mature clinics where they’ve been established and they’ve drawn the core of patients that are in that area, it’s harder to get newer patients to come into that territory or into that clinic. So I think that’s one of the reasons you’re seeing kind of that drop in those clinics who are open more than 48 months compared to a clinic that’s open less than that. I think that’s probably the main thing I would look at right now. I don’t know, Jake, your thought?
Jake Singleton: Yes. I would say, as you think about 2023, we did a 4% comp for the full year and the mature stores did negative 1%, so you had a 5% spread there. Because of rounding, it was a 6% spread here in Q1. But I think I would just point to, because we are on a fiscal calendar, March just having the Sundays with Easter and us not rolling over what was a longstanding new patient contest and allocating those dollars to some marketing efforts in the April-May timeframe, I think, had impact on that March period, in particular, that drove down the comp for the quarter. But the spread was relatively close.
Anthony Vendetti: Okay, that’s helpful. And then just lastly, very big picture, obviously, we saw Starbucks come in very light in terms of sales and they were saying the occasional customer has not frequented Starbucks as often as they used to. Do you think the economy in general is having some negative impact in terms of getting new patients to come in the door? Maybe just to the extent that you are able to measure that, is that something you are seeing, because it’s not just Starbucks, we are seeing that across other franchises as well this quarter.
Peter Holt: Yes. No, no, Anthony, I think, it’s a real issue. It’s that we know that, okay, if you go back to fourth quarter GPV growth, I think, was what, 4.3% and this quarter still like 2.3% GPV. And so we are not in a recession, that’s very clear. But you still have half the American people saying, you know what, I am personally that I am paying more at the grocery store, I am paying more to fill up the car with gas, I am paying more to pay my interest rate, on my credit card, or my mortgage. Rents are going up. And so I think that if you look at the demographics, the economic demographics of our patient base, that average income is somewhere between $50,000 and $105,000. And so that group is, in fact, being hit by these increasing costs and feeling more uncertain about the economy and that they are, in fact, who is our patient base.
And I’ve talked about this before on some of the other calls that we do think one of the factors that we’ve seen in our lower patient count it is the fact they are feeling that with that economic uncertainty, they’re holding back. So that they’re going over-the-counter medicine before they come in are not coming in at all. But those that do come in, they are converting at a higher rate. Those that do come in are staying longer as a member. So I think that there is still great value and the importance of the service that we are offering. But I just think in this kind of economic uncertainty that it does impact specifically the demographics of our patients or the economics [indiscernible].
Anthony Vendetti: Okay. That’s very helpful. Sure. That makes sense. I will hop back in the queue. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Operator: Your next question comes from C. J. Dipollino with Craig-Hallum Group.
C. J. Dipollino: Hi, everyone. I am on for Jeremy Hamblin. Had a couple of questions for you. Wanted to start with the refranchising effort, it seems like you’re still fairly early on the process, but just curious if you have a time line on when we can start to see those transactions go through? And anything you can share on kind of expected deal economics would be really helpful.
Peter Holt: Sure. And well both answer this. What I would say is that we’re well into the process. And as I said on the call that – we’ve got a lot of interest from our franchisees, we’ve also opened this up to franchisees outside The Joint world. And so we’ve been looking at hiring an investment banker who specializes in refranchising effort, because – well, and I’ve talked about this before, this is not a fire sale. Were not just trying to get these off our books. These are valuable assets that we want to put them in the hands of the franchisees who can most effectively run them. I don’t need to trade problems. And so we are, in fact, going through a very structured process to make sure that we put them in the hands of the right franchisees.
