BARK (NYSE:BARK) Q4 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Tiffany, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the BARK Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty twenty six Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

0:32 I would now like to turn the call over to Mike Mugis, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mike, please go ahead. Good afternoon, and welcome to BARK's fiscal fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty six earnings call. Joining me today are Matt Meeker, Co Founder and Chief Executive Officer and Brian Dossi, Interim Chief Financial Officer. Today's conference call is being webcast in its entirety on our website, and a replay of the webcast will be made available shortly after the call. Additionally, a press release covering the company's financial results was issued this afternoon and can be found on our Investor Relations website. Before I pass it over to Matt, I want to remind you of the following information regarding forward looking statements. The statements made on today's call are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual future results and outcomes to differ.

1:22 Please refer to our SEC filings for more information on some of the factors that could affect our future results and outcomes.

1:29 We will also discuss certain non GAAP financial measures on today's call. A reconciliation of our non GAAP financial measures is contained in this afternoon's press release. And with that, let me now pass it over to Matt. Thanks, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. We set out to do two things in fiscal twenty twenty six: sustain adjusted EBITDA profitability despite tariff and macro volatility and accelerate the diversification of our revenue to build a more resilient business while laying out a strategy for the way forward. We believe we have delivered on each. Adjusted EBITDA was positive $200,000 for the year, marking our second consecutive year of positive adjusted EBITDA and meeting our goal of ending the year on the positive side.

2:17 This builds on the progress we made in fiscal twenty twenty five when we achieved our first full year of positive adjusted EBITDA, an improvement from a $58,000,000 loss just three years earlier. Additionally, Commerce and Air represented 21% of total revenue, up from 15% last year, reducing our reliance on any single channel and improving the durability of the model. With sufficient cash, a debt free balance sheet and a leaner cost structure, we are well positioned to build on this foundation in fiscal twenty twenty seven and beyond as we pursue renewed growth. Before I discuss the year ahead, let me walk through some of our key highlights from the past year.

3:06 I will stick to our full year figures and Brian will go into more detail on the quarter and full year. Starting at the top, total revenue was $395,000,000 This reflects a deliberate decision to pull back on marketing and promotions to prioritize bottom line durability in the face of historic tariffs and a volatile macro environment. We reduced our total marketing investment by over $24,000,000 year over year, choosing to protect our margins rather than chase inefficient growth. While this approach means we are entering fiscal twenty twenty seven with a smaller D2C subscriber base, we believe the underlying quality of that base is stronger, as evidenced by our steadily improving retention rates and growing average order values.

3:57 Our Commerce segment delivered $70,000,000 in revenue, a $1,500,000 increase over last year. Notably, while this segment remains a growth engine, the first half of the year was marked by caution among our retail partners as tariff uncertainty weighed on the market. With greater clarity following the Supreme Court's recent ruling, we believe the environment is becoming more manageable. With these headwinds behind us, we expect strong momentum for commerce in fiscal twenty twenty seven with accelerating expansion across wholesale and marketplaces. BARK Air revenue more than doubled this year to over $12,000,000 With utilization rates averaging 90% and consistent five star reviews, the business has demonstrated a clear demand and a differentiated customer experience.

4:52 However, in line with our focus on profitability and cash conversion, our priority for BARK Air in fiscal twenty twenty seven is the bottom line. We are focused on improving unit economics over top line expansion, and as a result, we do not expect significant revenue growth in BARK Air over the next year. Moving on, we delivered a very healthy consolidated gross margin of 61% for the year, consistent with the prior year over year despite Commerce and Era representing a larger share of total revenue. On that note, our D2C gross margin was 68%, up over 200 basis points year over year. We also reduced year over year costs by $55,000,000 across G and A, shipping and fulfillment and marketing.

5:43 While we expect these efficiencies to benefit the company in the year ahead, we will remain flexible, adjusting our marketing spend up or down based on the returns we see. On that note, let's turn to our focus for fiscal twenty twenty seven and our strategy more broadly. I want to start by spending a few minutes talking about the opportunity for the business and why I'm confident in the way forward. Over the past several months, I've spent considerable time listening to our customers, talking with our team and analyzing the data behind our business. I've dealt with some hard truths, company moving at the pace we've been moving doesn't always give itself permission to sit with. At our core, BARK is a business with generally exceptional foundations despite the headline results.

6:31 More than 1,500,000 households have invited us into their homes. We've built an exceptional supply chain over the past decade. We have direct customer relationships that few consumer companies of our scale can claim. These are real durable advantages. But to this point, we haven't fully leveraged them. In many ways, we fought the wrong battles. We've been optimizing a model that the world has started to move past. The revenue trajectory you saw in today's results reflects that. What I want to spend the next few minutes on is what we intend to do about it and why I believe the position we're in is more advantageous than the recent numbers suggest. Let me start with what hasn't changed because I think it gets lost in the noise around our results.

7:22 There are 71,000,000 households in The United States with dogs, which is more than half of all households domestically. U. S. Spending on pets has grown from $12,000,000,000 in $2,000 to over $158,000,000,000 today. This is not a market in decline. That is not a category under pressure. If anything, the cultural and demographic tailwinds behind pet ownership has strengthened. Dogs occupy a different place in the American household than they did twenty years ago, and that shift is structural, not cyclical. There's also no dominant leader in this space. No single brand owns the dog. That remains true. The category is enormous, resilient through economic cycles and wide open at the top.

8:10 We built this company on that belief and that belief remains valid. What we need is a sharper answer to the question of where specifically we intend to win and how. The subscription box, the model we built and which took us from zero to over $05,000,000,000 in annual revenue was built on a form of personalization that was, at the time, genuinely differentiated. We understood that a large dog and a small dog are not the same customer. That insight was right. It still is. But the world has evolved. What was differentiated has become the floor. Mass personalization that is knowing your dog size, your dog's age, whether they're a heavy chewer, that's table stakes now. Our customers know it.

8:58 Our retention data reflects it. The opportunity we see and that we are now building toward is a fundamentally deeper level of specificity, not size, not age, not chew style, the actual dog. The specific nature of a specific dog. What that dog needs, how that dog plays, what that dog's health profile looks like, what a community of owners of this that same dog cares about. We're not going to do that by adding a few more quiz questions. We're going to do this by rethinking the purpose of our relationship with the customer. The insight that's guiding our next chapter is this. BARK box is not a box. It is a relationship between a brand and a dog mediated by a human who loves that dog.

9:47 The job is not done when the box arrives. The job is done when the dog is happy. That standard changes everything. What goes in the box, how we measure retention, how we handle service, what we sell, and most importantly, what we build next. And we are calling this relationship commerce. It has three dimensions we're building against. That, how well do we truly understand each customer? Density, how many meaningful touch points exist between us and the customer? And durability, does the customer give us permission to offer new products and services over time. Those three things, compounded over millions of customer relationships, are what a successful business looks like in this category.

10:34 We also believe AI is a competitive advantage that will allow us to adapt and evolve at a rapid scale. We've been studying this carefully. We are not behind the curve on it. We intend to be the ones who get there first and get there right. We have more to share on the specifics of our strategy in the coming quarters. What I can tell you today is that the direction is clear, the team is aligned and the work is underway. The market is huge, the relationship is ours to deepen. And for the first time in a while, I feel like we're asking the right questions. As we build for the long term, we are consolidating the brands and products we will build around. As part of this, we will sunset products where we have not seen adequate returns, including our kibble and toppers lines.

11:27 That decision will allow us to reallocate capital and resources toward higher return categories where we have proven our right to win. This will also simplify the business and help improve overall profitability going forward. On B2C, we are entering the year with a smaller subscriber base following the deliberate pullback in marketing spend last year. We expect D2C revenue to be down year over year in the first half before stabilizing in the second half and returning to growth thereafter. In Commerce, we expect our momentum to remain strong in FY 'twenty seven, with the segment representing nearly one quarter of total revenue in FY 'twenty seven versus 18% in FY 'twenty six.

12:18 As we continue to expand with both new and existing retail partners. Additionally, our cookie program with the Girl Scouts is expected to launch late in the fiscal year, providing another incremental revenue growth and brand awareness driver. Despite prioritizing gross margin and profitability over near term growth on BARK Air, we expect BARK Air and Commerce to collectively represent over $100,000,000 of revenue, further advancing our diversification strategy. Turning to guidance. For the first quarter of fiscal twenty twenty seven, we expect total revenue of 77,000,000 to $79,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of 0 to 1,000,000 For the full year, we expect total revenue of $325,000,000 to $340,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of 7,000,000 to $10,000,000 a meaningful step up from fiscal twenty twenty six and consistent with our commitment to sustained profitability.

13:22 I also want to note that our Board has authorized a share repurchase program of up to $40,000,000 to be funded by ongoing free cash flow. This reflects the Board's conviction in the long term value of BARK and our belief that the stock represents compelling value at current levels. Our debt free balance sheet and improving free cash flow profile give us the flexibility to simultaneously invest in the business and return capital to shareholders. We ended the year with a debt free balance sheet, dollars 19,000,000 of cash and inventory of $76,000,000 a reduction of approximately $13,000,000 year over year.

14:06 We delivered our second consecutive year of positive adjusted EBITDA and expect to do so again in fiscal twenty twenty seven as well as positive free cash flow. Taken together, these improvements, along with a sharper product focus and a more diversified revenue base, position us to drive sustained value for our customers, partners and shareholders.

14:30 We still have work ahead, but we are operating from a stronger foundation and a clearer path to growth. We needed to fix the underlying business so we could actually pursue the growth strategy I've outlined. With a lot of this difficult work done, we can now start pursuing a growth plan. I'm more excited about this business than I've been in years, and I have confidence we're going to do something truly special. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brian. Thanks, Matt, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll begin by reviewing our financial results for the fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2026 and then discuss how we're positioning the business for fiscal twenty twenty seven. Starting at the top, fourth quarter revenue was $86,600,000 compared to 115,400,000 in the prior year period.

15:23 For the full year, revenue totaled $394,800,000 versus $484,200,000 in fiscal twenty twenty five. As Matt mentioned, this top line decline reflects our intentional pullback in marketing spend and promotional activity as we prioritize bottom line durability over inefficient growth.

15:46 Looking at our segments in more detail, full year D2C revenue was $324,900,000 This includes total $400,000 from BARK Air for the full year, of which $3,100,000 was generated in the fourth quarter. Total fourth quarter D2C revenue was $74,000,000 While entering fiscal twenty twenty seven with smaller subscriber base impacts our near term top line, the underlying quality of this base is stronger, driven by healthier retention trends and higher average order value. Turning to Commerce. Full year revenue increased 2% or $69,900,000 Fourth quarter Commerce was $12,500,000 down about 18.3% versus the prior year period.

16:34 The fourth quarter variance was largely driven by timing of retail shipments year over year, and we continue to view commerce as an important long term growth driver for the business in fiscal twenty twenty seven and beyond.

16:47 Moving down the P and L. Consolidated gross margin was 61.3% for the full year and 62.7% for the full fourth quarter. Our cost of revenue this quarter reflects $2,700,000 of AIPA tariff refunds recorded as a loss recovery. We paid an additional $7,100,000 in AIPA tariff refunds allocable to our cost of revenue in FY 2026. This month was not yet eligible for submission under the U. S. Customs and Border Protection's new IEPA tariff refund portal. As a result, we were unable to record this amount as a reduction of cost of revenue in FY 2026. Turning to operating expenses. Fourth quarter marketing spend was $12,600,000 down roughly $4,700,000 year over year.

17:34 For the full year, total marketing investment was $59,200,000 down more than $24,000,000 from fiscal twenty twenty five. Moving forward, we intend to maintain this discipline in the near term while remaining flexible to reinvest if customer acquisition dynamics improve. Shipping and fulfillment expenses for the full year were $119,400,000 down from $139,100,000 last year, primarily driven by lower DTC volume. General and administrative expenses were $103,400,000 for the full year, representing $10,800,000 drop from fiscal twenty twenty five. For the fourth quarter, G and A was 26,800,000 down $1,900,000 year over year, reflecting our ongoing efforts to streamline our cost structure.

18:25 Collectively, these structural cost improvements protected our bottom line and resulted in our second consecutive year of positive adjusted EBITDA. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was 200,000 including the fourth quarter where we generated $3,200,000 All macro factors compressed our absolute margins for the year, hitting our full year profitability goal demonstrates the resilience of our leaner operating model. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the year with a healthy cash balance of $19,000,000 Our accounts receivable balance as of 03/31/2026 includes $3,300,000 of IEPA tariff refunds, dollars 2,900,000 of which we subsequently received. I previously mentioned that not all IEPA tariffs paid by the company were eligible for submission under the CAEP portal.

19:15 We currently expect an additional $12,100,000 of IEPA tariffs of which $7,100,000 relates to cost of revenue in FY 2026 and $5,000,000 relates to current inventory or cost of revenue for FY 2027 that we will be able to recognize upon eligibility of submission. Closed the year with $75,500,000 in inventory, down nearly $13,000,000 year over year, and we expect to drive further inefficiencies throughout fiscal twenty twenty seven. This disciplined working capital management, complying with our full year free cash flow expectations, should result in a strong liquidity position. In summary, the actions we took throughout fiscal twenty twenty six delivered meaningful operational and financial improvement.

20:01 Although this isn't resulted in smaller subscriber base entering fiscal twenty twenty seven, the underlying quality of the is higher, reflecting in healthier cohorts and improved retention. Combined with a leader cost structure and continued focus on profitability, we believe we're well positioned to further improve adjusted EBITDA and generate positive free cash flow in fiscal twenty twenty seven. And with that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for Q and A. Your first question comes from the line of Kanti Siroong Tamwadi with Jefferies.

20:59 This is Conti filling in for Tom at Jefferies. Can you provide the building blocks to your 7,000,000 to $10,000,000 adjusted EBITDA guidance? You're operating from a lower revenue base compared to years past, given the focus on a smaller base of DTC customers. Just curious what the levers are, and then I I'll have a follow-up. Thank you. Sure. Hi, Conti. This is Matt. The the levers are Brian was saying that throughout the year, we've we've improved our unit economics pretty well across the board. The average order value of a subscriber is higher. The costs have come down. And and then when you, last year's product costs were were certainly burdened by, by tariffs, and we we don't see that burden nearly to the same extent going forward. So that's very helpful.

22:04 But more efficiency throughout the the p and l, stronger retention leading to those stronger cohorts. So the quality of the customer is one aspect of that. Another is, the cost reduction efforts that we've taken earlier this year, earlier in the calendar year that is, downsizing the team, really leaning in quite a bit on AI and automation across the team, replacing more expensive SaaS software contracts, things like that. So across the board, just a leaner more lean operation with much better unit economics all the way through.

22:52 And that sets us up for, being able to invest in growth once we get the the new playbook that we have in mind in place for that. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. So on top of that, you know, can you kind of just remind me or us in terms of is the situation, like if I recall correctly, you're mainly relying for the most part on one specific country from a like, from a production perspective. And does that still stand true, or, are you doing something, quite different on a go forward basis?

23:42 It it's not entirely true. No. Coming into fiscal twenty six, we almost entirely on the toy side of things, our non consumable side, we're almost entirely relying on China. Once we came into the year and faced the tariff headwinds that that the whole world faced, we quickly got our got to building diversification throughout our supply chain. So we're now not including the consumables in The U. S. Or any other U. S.-based products. Now we at least have the option of bringing products in from a handful of Southeast Asia countries and South America as well.

24:32 So there's a bit of mixing and matching due based on the overall cost, any cost of tariffs, quality. So we've got much more diversification and flexibility there. And, you know, theoretically, if a large tariff popped up somehow in China, it's it's a pretty quick operation for us to fail over or move over to another country. Gotcha. And I apologize for misspeaking earlier. Yes. I I specifically for toys and you answered my question. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on. Thanks, Conan. That concludes our question and answer session.

25:19 Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.