Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Mimi's Rock Corp Third Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to David Kohler, CEO of Mimi's Rock Corp. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our 2022 Q3 results call. As you know, we filed our third quarter results on Monday the 7th. I will turn to Andrew, our CFO, in a few minutes, but first, I would like to offer some color on the results we released. Most importantly, our financial performance represents the continuation of our quarter-over-quarter as well as year-over-year improvements. Revenue and adjusted EBITDA continue to grow and outperform prior years and periods. As per our release, we are pleased to report a 19% growth over Q3 2021, as well as over 500% growth in our adjusted EBITDA for the same period. The performance trend is continuing. We are excited to say we are stacking quarter on quarter, and we are well on our way to a record year. And some more important context to provide. We are seeing this level of growth and performance despite the signs that the Amazon Marketplace is more competitive than ever. For those of you who follow Amazon or stay abreast of the trends in e-commerce, you will know that cost per click rates are up 23% in Q3 of this year. Those are the prices paid for placements related to winning customer searches. For instance, if a customer types in fish oil, the company which has bid the highest price on that term will be the first one presented as an option to buy. What this means is that the competition for consumers on the Amazon Marketplace continues to be robust. Despite this dynamic, management is happy to report that the strategies we have been undertaking have and continue to work well. Despite increased competition, we are winning customers and seeing our business grow. Q3 was obviously appreciably better than the same period last year. This has been the ultimate measure of how the efforts we have undertaken are impacting the business. The four P's of traditional marketing are very much in play in the e-commerce world. Product, price, place, and promotion are all crucial. We have taken careful aim on each one of these areas. While we have always striven to produce tremendous products and have earned loyalty from our customers, as is evidenced by our Subscribe & Save numbers, we have additionally been hyper-focused this year on price, place, and promotion. Following a comprehensive strategic review last year, we started taking selected and methodical price increases while also shifting gears on the type and number of online promotions we run. The team has been utilizing myriad different promotional search-driven opportunities to continuously evolve and to take advantage of the ecosystem in which we operate. The results are clear. We are seeing our price increases have stuck, and our margins are therefore increasing significantly. This is the strongest quarter we've had, not only in our trailing 12 months, but even if you look back to the year prior as well. Andrew will dive a little deeper into the financial results released shortly, but I wanted to point out that our sales are up, our margins are up, our adjusted EBITDA is up, both sequentially and year-over-year. While it is early in Q4 at this time, I can advise you that the trends are continuing. As touched on in previous releases, we've taken steps this year to streamline operations and have focused on reducing our SG&A line. We've made strategic decisions which are now having impact. They will also continue to bear fruit in the periods ahead. Andrew will speak to some of these points and some one-time costs momentarily, but our trends are very good. Despite the slowdown driven in part by interest rates that we are seeing in our broader economy, our business is gaining momentum. Previously, we reported that due to the challenges in the Chinese marketplace, we would get to see any meaningful materialization of the sales volumes we expect. I'm happy to report we are now starting to see movement and sales in that market. While they have not yet become material, as it's only been a couple of months, we are seeing orders coming in and ramping up and expect that as soon as Q4, meaning now, we'll start to see the Chinese market start to contribute revenue and margin. As a reminder, we have a store set up on Tmall and have a distributor with whom we are working. We remain very bullish that the Chinese market will be a robust one for us. These impacts are now starting to materialize and are completely incremental. We also saw somewhat of a bounce-back quarter for our skincare brands. Aided by some special product placements during event days, we enjoyed a lift in both of these lines. Noteworthy is that we're also seeing traction in the European markets and Australia in particular for the All Natural Advice range of products. These off-continent sales are important as we continue to seek to diversify our channels and portals. The U.S. is still our clear number one market, but additional distribution gives us upside for our brands, as well as greater security and diversity of revenue. At the end of Q3, we saw a relatively sudden and significant move in the FX rate on the U.S. dollar. Thus far in Q4, the high rates have held. As we've begun Q4, we find ourselves in a position of having some tailwinds in our business. Revenue for the year is up, margins are up, costs are down, we have more than adequate price increases to offset any supply chain cost inflation we've seen, and we see a better than forecast FX rate ahead. All of these things set us up to finish the year very well indeed. Further, those of you who attended our investor call following our Q2 release may recall I spoke about the importance of momentum within the Amazon ecosystem. Our sales velocity contributes to the Best Seller Rankings, which impact searchability and ultimately organic sales. Velocity is crucial, but it can sometimes lure sellers into a downward pricing spiral. Well, we've not just found momentum, but we've maintained it now and expect to do so in the future. Higher prices, strong velocity, High seller rankings and growth. Each is additive to the others, and management believes we have achieved strong enough momentum to carry us well into the periods ahead. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Andrew to provide us with a view of the financial results. Thanks, David. Q3 2022 reflected the continued uptrend in the company's core business, with both revenue and Adjusted EBITDA at the highest levels since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Revenues in Q3 of 2022 were CAD 10.2 million compared to CAD 8.6 million in Q3 2021, an increase of 18.6% over the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA, which removes the impact of foreign exchange and non-cash stock-based comp, was CAD 1.2 million for Q3 2022 compared to just CAD 0.2 million for the same period last year. The solid performance was despite some one-time G&A costs in the period, meaning Adjusted EBITDA might otherwise have been CAD 1.4 million for the quarter. The company's third quarter also outperformed the second quarter, leading to the company's best ever Q3 performance in terms of both revenue and EBITDA. Same currency revenues were similarly strong over the last two quarters for the BTI business, as price increases and lower overall discounting resulted in considerable increases in the top line. Foreign exchange began to play a role late in the period, but the impact to reported revenues was minimal in Q3. Revenues in the 2022 period were also achieved with higher overall average prices, thus gross margin was higher as the company focused on increasing average revenue per unit by limiting the amount of promotional discount. The company's skincare businesses, All Natural Advice and Maritime Naturals, saw considerable improvement in top-line sales during Q3 2022, boosted by a strong Prime Day event in July. Participation in these top traffic days are important and key to attracting new customers to the brand. Gross margin for Q3 2022 was significantly improved at CAD 7.8 million, which is 76%, compared to CAD 5.9 million or 68.1% for Q3 of 2021. Gross margin has improved despite headwinds from foreign exchange as a result of both increase in list prices and a disciplined approach to promotions. Online advertising in the period continued to remain higher than historical levels, mainly as a function of ongoing campaigns which are shown to drive these higher volumes. Advertising spend in the third quarter of 2022 was focused on key promotional days, including Amazon Prime Day in July, as well as towards driving efficiency and spend on top products. With top-line revenue increases, we expect selling and marketing expenses to trend lower as a percentage of revenue over the long term. As discussed earlier, G&A expenses were slightly higher in the current period compared to the same period last year, due to approximately CAD 200,000 in one-time legal and professional fees recognized in the quarter. Staff and operational costs are currently relatively stable and expected to remain so going forward. Unusually high foreign exchange losses, mostly unrealized at period end, contributed to a net loss of just under CAD 100,000 for the quarter, compared to a net loss of CAD 300,000 in 2021 period. Year-to-date, the company's put together three solid quarters such that revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2022, were CAD 29.8 million compared to CAD 28.1 million for the same period in 2021. Cash from operations was CAD 2.7 million year-to-date 2022 compared to just CAD 500,000 in the 2021 year-to-date period. From a balance sheet perspective, the company continues to make all scheduled repayments on its debt, reducing the principal by over CAD two and a half million so far this year. Working capital remains tight as a result, although we are confident in our ability to meet our commitments and continue to grow the business both from a revenue and an earnings perspective. I'll now pass the call back to David. Thanks, Andrew. When we look at Q1 through Q3 of 2022, we're seeing sequential growth as well as year-over-year meaningful improvements. Revenues, adjusted EBITDA and margins are all up. Operational costs are under control and moving lower. We're pleased to see the resilience of our brands and that our strategies are working. Our results are improving despite declines around us. Q3 reports from third parties have suggested that many categories of e-commerce have become hypercompetitive, including health and beauty. This makes our performance even better in context. When we last spoke, we reported a strong first half of 2022 and alluded to our expectations that the back half would see continued success. This is clearly coming to fruition. As we work to capitalize on the strategic moves we've made, we expect to see continued strong revenue and EBITDA performance. We look forward to discussing this with you at upcoming calls. In light of all of this, we are confident we will continue to stack record quarters. With that, I'd like to now open the line for questions. Operator? Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. Our first question comes from Antonia Borovina of Bloom Burton. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on a strong quarter. My first question is just related to your revenue growth year-over-year. I'm just wondering if you could tell us what that would've been on a constant currency basis. I know you said the FX happened late in the quarter so it wasn't a meaningful factor, but I don't know if you could provide us with that number. I actually can. Hi, Antonia. It's Andrew. Not an exact number, but in terms of the FX, effectively, most of that, almost all the growth, I'm going to say, upwards of 90% of the growth quarter-over-quarter was constant currency basis. In other words, there was very little impact year-over-year in the currency. Okay. In terms of Obviously, that is between the different brands, but the majority of that growth was in the Dr. Tobias brand. Q3 in particular, last year was quite soft and this year was quite strong. That brand, in particular, grew in the quarter, and it was a constant currency basis as well. We got a CAD 1.6 million delta. I'm going to say CAD 1.4 million, just approximately would be of just constant currency impact in terms of same units, same sales. Not units, but same recognition, sorry. Yeah. Okay, great. What about the trajectory of the volumes year-over-year, particularly for the DT business? Yeah. Is it flat or like- Yeah, we don't typically break that out. Again, I'll give you sort of a range of where it is. The units are not yet at the same level they were, and that really speaks to the amount, and this is year-to-date. Year-to-date, nine months, and in the quarter as well, but particularly nine months, because in 2021, we were doing a lot of discounting, meaning we were selling a lot more units and generating revenue by basically pushing volume. This year, we basically pulled back a lot on that over the course of 2021 into 2022. Now as you see the period-over-period, year-over-year, there's quite a difference as we go forward. In the nine months, I think it's single digits, but it's still down in terms of percentage of units for DT. Somewhere just under 10% low in units, but then revenue in terms of dollars would be double digits higher. How are you thinking about this business going forward? I know you mentioned you're expecting growth to continue. Do you think that there's still room to grow this business on a volume business, or is most of that growth going to come from pricing? Again, I'll let Dave maybe throw some comments in. From my perspective, what's clear, and I think we've tried to sort of articulate this throughout the different calls that we've had, is that Amazon, which is still the primary driver of our revenue, is very much momentum-based. Meaning that as you do better, it feeds into doing better, and so it sort of builds on itself and obviously when it goes the other way, it's harder to counter as well. We had the opposite of that in 2021. We were fighting some really difficult momentum challenges, mainly as a result of COVID and continual just little blitz, nothing significant, but it constantly sort of stopped the momentum. We have done a very good job in 2022 of avoiding those momentum disruptions and continuing to build it. As we do that, we have not really seen the growth slow down. I don't want to speak too much to what we're doing now, but obviously it's not typical in the back half of the year to be doing as well as we're doing now. I think, we're very optimistic that we can continue to grow, and we're not seeing a slowdown yet. Maybe if I can add on a bit, Andrew. Hi, Antonia. We obviously have been hyper-focused as a business on the U.S. market historically, but we've been making lots of moves over time to diversify our revenues and our portals and our geographies. When we think about where the growth comes from, as Andrew just noted, we're experiencing it in our existing markets now. We're having a great year from that perspective. We're also now into other markets as well, Europe, China, Australia, to name a few. Recently Singapore, which sells into the Malaysian market. There's a big world out there that we have not really taken material advantage of. While the business originally was 100% focused on Amazon in the U.S., we've diversified into other countries like Canada. We've diversified into other portals. We're now into Europe and the East. We think there's tremendous opportunities for growth here still. To answer your question, I think there's absolutely growth ahead, not just in the short term, but long. Right. Just one to clarify with regards to the price increases. I know you took some earlier, I guess, in 2021, on some key products and then more broad increases about mid first quarter. Just wondering, were there any following that or was that it really the mid first quarter? Also just kind of following up on that, Amazon did note some weakness in this business. Just wondering, are you anticipating having to go back to discounting going forward, or is the health supplements market more robust? Well, maybe in reverse order. I think that while Amazon is seeing a little bit of weakness, if you look at it's been charted and well documented that they saw a massive uptake at the start of COVID, which has flattened out a bit. If you look at it over time, they're right back to the trajectory they were on, which was growing e-commerce rapidly in North America particularly, but globally. While they've softened a little bit, as we noted, I tried to allude to that in my earlier comments, we're seeing growth despite that. Pleased to see how robust the brands have been, and that they've got that kind of stickiness with consumers. Regarding pricing, both increases and discounting, what we've seen is that we have a good loyal customer base. We use a lot of Subscribe & Save data to support that thesis. Moreover, we've taken advantage of opportunities to increase prices when we look at just the general economy and inflation and consumer tolerance for inflation, because it's been so much in the news and it's happening everywhere. We've taken some general increases, but we've also been very surgical, where we've been able to look at our competitive set on a per product basis and doing analytics to see who our real competitors are, who are the others that are popping up on screen with us when consumers are shopping. We've taken opportunities, sometimes penny, sometimes nickels and dimes, and more to raise our prices to what we think is the optimal level. We're hypervigilant on that. Price increases is not a one-time event. It's really just part of the product management that we do now. We're making sure that we're optimizing every sale we can get. That's really translating into the improved margins, not just the top line as well. Great. Then, on your skincare business, you mentioned you had a really successful Prime Day. You said something about placement of the products. I'm just wondering if you can provide us a bit of color on what drove the success of the skincare business this quarter. Yeah. That's a good question. I apologize, I don't know how much people would generally know about how Amazon runs their Prime Day, but you have to qualify to be into the deal bucket for that day. They don't just pull companies at random. You can't buy your way in. It's a combination of performance and placement and Best Seller Rankings and all these things. Anyway, within the skincare family, we qualified for some highly placed deals, some deals of the day, for example, which are high profile, front page kind of stuff that really bombards the consumers. Based upon that, we saw a significant volume out of those days. What we refer to as the halo effect after the fact. You've got new consumers, big first time buyers. You get the knock-on effects of that. They enjoy the products, they buy them again and again. I don't know if that specifically answers your question, but we had some really high-quality placements on Prime Day, which led to great volumes. Great. Then just my final question. Historically, Black Friday and Cyber Monday haven't been big sales days for you guys just because supplements aren't really something people buy that time of year, but first quarter is typically stronger. Given the success of the July Prime Day, I'm wondering if you have any plans for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, if you will be going all in on promotion and what we can expect there. Well, you are correct. That holiday period is typically not health and wellness focused. It's more of electronics, frankly. With that said, we know that there's lots of traffic on the sites in those days. We have taken some placements, particularly with the skincare businesses. I believe it's primarily on Black Friday. I wouldn't call it going all in, but we're definitely going to take advantage of some traffic increases. Okay. Great. Thanks for that. You're welcome. Once again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to David Kohler for any closing remarks. Thank you. Thank you all for joining us on the call today. We will be putting a transcript of this call on our website. You can contact us through that portal at any time at www.mimisrock.com. Certainly, feel free to reach out to me personally with any other follow-up questions. I look forward to communicating again soon. Just to thank you all for your time and wish you a great day. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.
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