ThredUp Inc. (NASDAQ:TDUP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Sean Sobers: Yeah. On the gross margin, you’re looking at 2022 versus 2023. I think, overall, I just think it’s going to be slightly better than 2022. Obviously, our assumption is that the inventory kind of over is going to start to settle down, promotional environment will start to improve. But I think you can also break that down whether you’re talking about consignment or product. So it’s slightly going to improve there as well and the same thing would go if you’re going to split it between the U.S. and Europe, slight improvements across the Board.

Dana Telsey: Got it. And then just lastly, as you look at the environment now for apparel where value is certainly the mainstream of the day. In terms of whether it’s orders, whether it’s active customers, how are you navigating this environment? Is it at all different in your history from what you’ve seen before in terms of the value offering?

James Reinhart: I don’t think it’s too different, Dana, than sort of where we live prior to the pandemic. I think prior to the pandemic, the business was really growing very, very nicely and I think the value in resale was very clear to the U.S. consumer. And then I think the pandemic created a bunch of volatility in that sort of value proposition. So I think as we move through the year, I think, you’ll get back to a more standard assessment of the value of secondhand, which I think is more a taint the value you would have in the off-price context, which I know we’ve talked about in the past. So I think the value opportunity this year, certainly as we get further into the year, it’s going to be attractive given resales price point.

Operator: Your next question comes from Ed Yruma with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Ed Yruma: Hey, guys. Hopefully, this is a little bit clear. Let me try this again. I guess, first on the promotional strategy. I know you guys have experimented quite a bit in 2022 being less promotional or being experiencing more promotional. I think kind of what consumer is today and how close are you in kind of nailing that formula. And then just as a follow-up to the previous question on marketing expense, do you just think having a retail marketing kind of in front of when consumer demand improves or more coincident? Thank you.

James Reinhart: It was a little better, Ed. So I think we’ll get it. So I think the first question was around promotional strategy and how that’s evolved. And so I think where we are today and where we finished the back half of 2022 was just understanding both the mix of goods that we’re really going to delight the buyer and the context that they were in. And so how do we acquire more of those goods, how do we shape the assortment of what’s coming in and then what are the types of categories that are in demand, right? And so I think we got sharper around how that budget shopper and broadly, the resell shopper was thinking about value. And again, it’s — we’re a very data-driven organization. So we were really relying on the quantitative data around pricing promotion discounting.

But we’ll continue to sort of evolve our thinking on that. On the marketing spend, I think, what you’re asking is do we spend ahead of the customer recovery. And I think the answer is that, I think, we feel very good about the dollars that we’re spending now based on the customer acquisition costs and the LTDs that we’re seeing. But I don’t think we’re leaning in ahead of any potential consumer recovery. I think we’re playing the game on the field sort of as we see it, but feeling very good about those investments.