The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Warby Parker reported another quarter of growing sales and profit. The eyewear maker’s revenue grew 11 percent to $166 million in the second quarter of the year, and it generated $14 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, up from $6 million a year earlier.
Warby Parker continued to reduce online marketing spend, this time by 30 percent year over year. It also opened 13 new stores, an approach that has become a dependable lower cost customer acquisition tactic than Facebook and Instagram ads.
The brand is a rarity among publicly-traded e-commerce brands who are seeing diminishing profits and declining sales amid lower discretionary spending and return to in-store shopping.
The performance in the second quarter prompted Warby Parker to increase its revenue projections for the year. The company now expects sales to grow as much as 11 percent year over year in 2023, from a previously projected increase of 10 percent. Its stock jumped more than 7 percent in pre-market trading.
Warby Parker said it will increase its marketing spend in the the third and fourth quarters of this year, which could spark higher sales growth, but will test its ability to simultaneously increase profits.
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For Many Digital Retailers, Profits and Growth Appear to Be Mutually Exclusive
DTC brands and e-commerce platforms delivered some rare good news this week in the form of shrinking losses, but investors were largely unimpressed.
Cautious investors are finding safer bets in tech-focused platforms that create products for digitally-native brands over traditional DTC start-ups.
The Gen-Z intimates brand’s sale to a little-known strategic is the latest in an ongoing series of less than desirable exits for unprofitable digitally-native start-ups.
Brands like Warby Parker, Allbirds and Olaplex have successfully slashed digital advertising costs. Now they need to figure out new ways to find customers.
True Classic has emerged from a sea of men’s brands promising the perfect t-shirt, managing to build a big audience without bleeding cash.