Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Shaver Shop Results Presentation and Investor Conference Call for the 2024 financial year. Please note that today's call is being recorded. There will be a presentation followed by a Q&A session. Presenting today will be Cameron Fox, Shaver Shop CEO and Managing Director, and Larry Hamson, Shaver Shop CFO and Company Secretary. If you wish to follow along with the slides, Shaver Shop presentation has been launched with the ASX, and is also available from Shaver Shop Investor Center website. I will now hand over to Cameron Fox. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today. As always, please note the forward-looking statements slide at the end of the presentation. But in terms of our agenda today, I'll first walk you through a bit of Shaver Shop's history, our business, and what differentiates us in the market. We'll then move on to provide an overview of our FY 2024 results. I'll then hand over to Larry, who will take you through our financial results in a bit more detail before I speak to our FY 2025 priorities and our trading update. We do have a bit to get through today, so let's get right into the main agenda items for today. So let's start on slide four, which provides a high-level snapshot of our business. Shaver Shop was founded back in 1986 as a men's shaver repair shop.
This is important to note because its service-based ethos and focus on product knowledge remains core to our DNA today. Over time, we have developed a trusted and recognized brand in Australia, with unprompted brand awareness of around 87%, and Shaver Shop being increasingly known as the market leader for men's and women's personal care and grooming solutions in this market. We are the only large-scale, pure play specialty retailer in our sector, which means we're intensely passionate about the categories we sell and ensuring our customers' needs are met. It also means, given our scale in these categories, that we are able to negotiate exclusive access to new and innovative products being launched by our major global suppliers like Braun, Oral-B, Philips and Panasonic. These are strong, long-standing supplier partnerships that have been forged over decades in the business.
We are a true multi-channel retailer with 123 stores across Australia and New Zealand. We also have around 23% of our sales being generated online. All of our online sales are fulfilled by the closest Shaver Shop store to the customer, which means they can be comfortable shopping online with the knowledge that the local Shaver Shop will assist with any post-sales services they need. Our balance sheet is strong with net cash and no debt. A hallmark of our business is strong cash flow generation, which is being used to reinvest for growth, as well as paying a healthy dividend yield. Finally, we have a strong and experienced leadership team with an average tenure of more than 10 years. Now, moving on to our growth drivers. We have many business fundamentals that underpins Shaver Shop's growth trajectory.
We are in a robust and growing market, particularly in men's grooming, where there is less competition and an increasing acceptance in society for men to adopt a beauty regime. We drive brand loyalty and repeat purchase by investing heavily in training, so that all our teams are product matter experts and deliver exceptional customer service. We have built a very strong and proven omni-channel capability. Our well-established store network comprises 123 stores across Australia and New Zealand, and has been consistently profitable, which means we rarely close stores. Our customers often share the same passion about the products we sell as we do, so we leverage our scale, 38-year experience, data, and insights about the sector to drive profitability. Finally, in terms of business fundamentals, we have a strong balance sheet.
We generate robust operating cash flow and a proven profitability, which allows us to support ongoing investment in the business. Now, on top of these strong business fundamentals, we have the strategic priorities to drive incremental growth. Three key growth strategies are listed on this slide. The first is strategic category management, which is designed to extend our category leadership through range differentiation, like exclusive access to products and brands, ensuring we have the broadest and deepest offering in our core categories, and ensuring we minimize any gaps in our range. The second key growth strategy is range expansion, which means we are looking at opportunities to expand into adjacent categories or add innovative products and brands that have strong growth opportunities for Shaver Shop.
Third, with the amount of activity in sourcing new and differentiated products, we need to continue evolving our store design so that we can merchandise properly and continue delivering our customers an engaging and enjoyable shopping experience. In summary, Shaver Shop is a solid business with a strong track record, and we have both business fundamentals and strategies that we expect to drive future growth. With that, let's move on to our financial results overview on slide seven. Sales were down 2.3% in FY 2024 to AUD 219 million, with online sales continuing to represent approximately 23% of total sales. Margins remained solid at 44.4%, down ten basis points, and we maintained tight control over operating expenses. This led to Shaver Shop generating net profit of AUD 15.1 million, down 10.1%.
Consistent with prior years, Shaver Shop once again delivered strong operating cash flow of AUD 34.1 million, which was used to reinvest in our business, as well as return AUD 12.8 million to shareholders by way of fully franked dividends. With AUD 13.3 million in net cash on our balance sheet, our financial position remains rock solid, and today, the board declared a AUD 0.055 fully franked final dividend, which brings total dividends for the year to AUD 0.102, consistent with last year's payout. Our customer service metrics remain exceptional, with NPS averaging 89 out of 100 across the year. So moving on to slide eight. We made good progress with our key priorities last financial year. In terms of strategic category management, we were very active.
We secured the five-year exclusive distribution rights for Skull Shaver, a brand with a global cult following that has quickly become one of our fastest-growing ranges. We were also able to secure exclusive distribution rights for Epilady, Silk'n, and Oclean, which will be launching in the coming weeks across Australia and New Zealand. As a market leader in men's and women's personal grooming solutions, we can offer overseas suppliers a simple, turnkey, go-to-market strategy for building their brands and sales here in Australia and in New Zealand. This is true for both new and existing brands in the market, and by having the exclusive rights, Shaver Shop is executing its strategy to be the category leader with a unique and differentiated offering for our customers. In terms of range expansion, we added brands like American Crew, Jericho, and Cremo to our men's consumable range.
We revitalized Foreo to give us a stronger female beauty offering, and we added a number of leading shampoo and conditioning brands like Kevin Murphy, Olaplex, and K18. Finally, we are continuing to optimize our store network, having secured improved store locations for our stores in Frankston and Woden. These stores now have a store footprint and the linear wall space to allow us to properly merchandise our entire product and category lineup, something that just wasn't possible when the stores were 50-60 sq m . We also continued to refit our older stores to ensure they reflect our latest brand standards and improve our merchandising to make it easier for customers to shop and find the products they want. This activity will continue into FY 2025 and also beyond. I'm now on to slide nine to discuss our sales trends over the last financial year.
The graph on the top right shows the improvement in sales growth across each quarter. Now, after a very soft first quarter, we were able to turn small declines in sales in the second and third quarters into positive growth over quarter four. What we've increasingly seen is customers focusing their shopping intensity around the key gift-giving periods like Black Friday, Boxing Day, and end of financial year, when promotions are the strongest, and they can maximize value from their spending budget. We continue to work with our suppliers to secure highly compelling offers over these key periods that drive customers into our stores and give us the greatest chance to secure a sale at attractive margins. This balancing act worked well with declines in sales volumes being largely offset by increases in average transaction values across many of our categories. Now, we're looking at the split by sales channel.
Online sales have stabilized at around 23% of total sales and stayed relatively flat over the year, at around AUD 51 million. So let's now look at some of our operating metrics on slide 10. In terms of in-store, the most significant driver of the decline in sales last year was outside customer foot traffic, declining 13%. In-store customer foot traffic also declined, albeit not to the same extent as the outside measure, and our store teams did a good job converting customers that entered our stores, with sales conversion at 43.3%. Now, this was not enough to prevent transaction volumes declining 6.1%, but we're able to mitigate some of this impact, with in-store average transaction values increasing 3.6% for the year.
In terms of online, total unique visitors were 10.5 million, with sales conversion of approximately 3.2%, which was up on the prior year. Total active online customers were approximately 330,000, and consistent with in-store, we were able to maximize transaction values, which were up 7% to over AUD 145 on average. Now, this was in part driven by changes in category mix. Overall, given the headwinds we faced, we think it's a solid result in a pretty complicated and challenging retail environment. Our focus on being product experts and delivering exceptional customer service is evident on slide 11. Our net promoter score remains around 89, a world-class result that reflects the passion and dedication of our store teams day in and day out.
I'm extremely proud of this metric, as it ensures our customers are leaving our stores after having a positive shopping experience. Something that we hope will spur word-of-mouth recommendations and ensure we have these customers returning in the months and years to come. Our sales conversion metric, the number of customers that buy something in our stores as a percentage of customers that enter our stores, dipped slightly in FY 2024 to 43.3%. A reflection that propensity to spend dropped during the year as shopping budgets became tighter, following the high interest rates and the cost of living pressure over the last 24 months. Now, that said, we're still very pleased with this result, and in our view, we're achieving the right balance between actively selling to our customers without them feeling too pressured to buy.
Moving on to our gross profit trends on slide 12. Despite channel mix changes towards the lower margin, long-term hair removal and hair styling categories, we were able to hold gross profit margins roughly flat at 44.4%. Now, going back 12-18 months, we felt hair styling and long-term hair removal solutions would prove more resilient, so we backed up our conviction with good stock weight and commitments with our suppliers. Our female categories remain very important for our go-to-market strategy. Remembering around 50% of our customers are female, but generally, they come into our stores shopping for the men in their lives. However, they increasingly leave our shop understanding we range leading female beauty brands like GHD, Cloud Nine, and Foreo.
Overall, I'm very pleased with our FY 2024 gross margin result, as it shows we were able to again achieve a good balance by retaining or growing market share and maximizing gross profit dollar contribution. I'll now hand you over to Larry, who will walk you through our financial results in more detail.
Thanks, Cameron. I'll first speak to our financial performance on slide 14. As Cameron mentioned earlier, our sales declined 2.3% to around AUD 219 million. In-store sales were down approximately AUD 5 million, or 2.9% for the year, while online sales were effectively flat, declining only AUD 0.1 million. In addition to maintaining gross profit margins, we tightly controlled our operating expenses, with our cost of doing business increasing only 0.7% in absolute terms across the year, or about AUD 0.4 million. As a percentage of sales, cost of doing business were up 80 basis points to 27%, more influenced by the drop in sales rather than an increase in expenditure.
With our average lease tenor continuing to decline, an increasing proportion of our store rent costs were in lease amortization, as opposed to lease interest, leading to EBIT of AUD 21.9 million. With the increase in interest rates on deposits, we're able to generate a decent yield from our net cash balance across the year, with interest income of approximately AUD 0.7 million. All these factors combined led to Shaver Shop generating net profit after tax of AUD 15.1 million, down 10.1% on last year, with basic earnings per share of AUD 0.117, down 10.7%. Cash EPS, which adjusts for the tax benefit on the franchise buybacks completed in prior years, was AUD 0.125, down 10.1% on last year.
This tax benefit finishes in FY 2025, with the final deduction being worth approximately AUD 780,000 to cash NPAT. Let's now look at our cost of doing business in more detail. Our biggest operating expense is employment costs, and with the minimum wage increase of 5.75% last year, it's probably no surprise that the biggest inflationary impact was from this line on the P&L. Occupancy expenses increased, again, we didn't receive any COVID-19 rent relief in FY 2024, in contrast to the beneficial impact of the prior two financial years. We continued to test and experiment with our marketing spend and with the intent of maximizing returns on investment. This led to lower television spending, as well as a reduction in absolute terms in digital advertising spend.
We may have cut too hard in some cases, so I'd expect that marketing and advertising expenditure would return closer to FY 2023 levels in dollar terms in the coming financial year. We are also able to drive savings across operational expenses as well as our corporate overheads. Overall, we think our cost control last year was a solid result for the business and a critical factor in our profitability, remaining fairly resilient in the face of declining sales, as well as an inflationary cost environment. Now on to our financial position on slide 16. Our balance sheet continues to be very solid, with net cash and no debt. We have AUD 30 million debt facility at our disposal, but have not needed to draw down on this for the last three financial years.
Inventory levels increased by AUD 1.2 million- AUD 23.1 million at 30th of June 2024. We feel this is still slightly below optimal levels, with strong end-of-financial-year sales leading to lower than optimal stock levels in our stores at year-end. Right of use assets and lease liabilities continue to decline as Shaver Shop generally renews most leases now on three-year terms. We feel this is prudent, given consumer demand remains subdued, leading to continuing uncertainty around tenancy mix in some centers. As Cameron will speak to, we are also working to evolve our store format to align with changing merchandising requirements, so shorter lease terms provide more flexibility if there is a need to change locations. Our trade payables balance was slightly higher than last year, caused by one of our suppliers having payment terms that extended into early July.
This helped our net cash position and operating cash flow for FY 2024, and will have the reversing effect next year. Lastly, our net asset position increased by AUD 3.2 million to AUD 87.7 million. Now moving on to our net cash flow on slide 17. Shaver Shop continues to be a highly cash-generative business. Operating cash flow was AUD 34.1 million, up AUD 1.1 million on last year's result, but was in part supported by the AUD 3.8 million in stock purchases, which were due on the first of July, as referenced on the last slide. We used our strong operating cash flow to invest AUD 3.4 million into the accretive five-year exclusive agreement with Skull Shaver, as well as to continue investing in the business by way of store investments and continuing our technology stack improvements.
We also returned AUD 12.8 million to shareholders by way of fully franked dividends, leading to Shaver Shop finishing the year with AUD 13.3 million in net cash, down around AUD 0.2 million on last year. Which leads us to slide 18 and our capital management. Our solid balance sheet, strong operating cash flow, and resilient profitability has led to Shaver Shop's board today announcing a AUD 0.055 fully franked final dividend. This brings total FY 2024 dividends to AUD 0.102 for the year, and means that Shaver Shop has increased its payout ratio to around 88% of reported net profit after tax, and 82% of cash NPAT. This is slightly higher than the board's target payout range of approximately 60%-80% of cash NPAT.
With Shaver Shop's strong financial position, we intend to continue to invest in accretive opportunities for the business, such as exclusive sourcing arrangements, like the Skull Shaver license that was announced in June, to ensure we continue to offer our customers a unique shopping experience with the broadest and deepest range in our core categories. We'll continue to build our private brand offering to fill gaps that exist in our current range. As well, we would like to maintain the flexibility to consider other growth initiatives should they occur. Importantly, Shaver Shop's return on capital employed remains very healthy at 25.2%. I'll now hand you back to Cameron to walk through our FY 2025 priorities and trading update.
Thank you, Larry. Our FY 2025 priorities build upon our business fundamentals and our key strategic growth priorities. Being category leaders with the latest innovative brands and products in our core grooming ranges is crucial for our ongoing competitiveness. With exclusivity for Skull Shaver now secured for the next five years, we're really excited to maximize this opportunity. Over the last three to four years, while Skull Shaver has been a massive success for our business, we had been doing all the heavy lifting in building the brand in Australia and New Zealand through paid advertising spots via ESPN, as well as through our social channels. While this worked very well for Shaver Shop, we're convinced it was also driving sales to competitors, including directly to Skull Shaver themselves.
Now that we have exclusivity locked in for the next five years, with full rights to sales from Skull Shaver's local website, all over and above advertising will drive returns to Shaver Shop without dilution. Now, as discussed earlier, we also intend to use the Skull Shaver arrangement as an example of what we can do for other innovative suppliers that want to establish a presence or grow their brand in the Australian, New Zealand personal care market. We have also made great progress with our social media presence over the last twelve months on TikTok, as well as Instagram and YouTube. Finally, we know consumer budgets are tight, so it's crucial we maximize our share of wallet over the key gift-giving periods like Father's Day, Black Friday, Christmas, and Boxing Day.
Our promotional programs for the first half are already largely locked in with suppliers, so it's now a case of ensuring our store teams are fully trained and engaged to maximize performance over these key trading periods. To this end, for the first time in five years, we are bringing all our store managers to Melbourne for a training and development conference in September. This is a really important event, which has been designed to create alignment across our key priorities for the coming months, as well as building excitement and momentum across our network as we enter our most important quarter. With the new product and brand launches I'm about to talk about, we think our teams will be highly energized as we go into the quarter two period, which is critical to Shaver Shop.
Moving to slide 21, the first half of FY 2025 has the greatest number of new brand launches for Shaver Shop that I can remember. Pleasingly, they are within our core categories, like long-term hair removal, hair cutting, power oral care, and men's wet shaving. I'm very excited for the potential of these brands within our business. Epilady is offering a novel laser-based home treatment that is FDA approved and safe to be used on all skin and hair colors. Now, this is a game changer in the industry, given more traditional IPL solutions shouldn't be used on skin with darker pigments and isn't as effective for people with lighter hair colors. Silk'n also offers a novel, FDA-approved home pulsed light solution that offers safe and effective long-term hair removal at home.
We've expanded our men's consumable product offering by adding American Crew, Jericho, and North America's leading wet shave brand, Cremo. Oclean is a new power oral care brand that differentiates itself by using the latest technology to help users brush their teeth better. As an example, their top-of-the-range model has a touch screen, several cleaning modes, and will talk to you if you're brushing too hard. This brand has successfully launched overseas, with customer reviews rating their product four point nine stars out of a maximum of five. So we're pleased to have the exclusive rights to the range across both Australia and New Zealand. Finally, Meridian has a range of award-winning men's and women's body groomers and trimmers that come in a contemporary range of colors that we feel will resonate strongly with consumers.
So in summary, we have lots of new product innovation that is sure to create a lot of buzz and excitement with our store teams as the products start hitting our stores over the next few months. But we've not just been working hard to expand our range with global branded products. We've also been diligently identifying gaps within our current portfolio and sourcing high-quality products that'll be launched under Shaver Shop's first true private label brand, TRANSFORM-U. With our deep domain knowledge of local customer needs and wants, Shaver Shop is uniquely positioned to identify gaps in our product range and work with global manufacturers to design products that match the specific requirements for our quality, performance, and value for money. TRANSFORM-U clearly builds upon Shaver Shop's long-standing tagline of Transform Yourself, and was selected after months of consumer research and focus group feedback.
In total, our intention is to launch 30 lines in time for this Christmas period. While this is an important step for our business, and one that we think is strategically important over the long- term, we are not expecting a material contribution from this brand over FY 2025. That said, because we are now sourcing and importing products directly from overseas, there is a working capital impact of approximately AUD 2 million-AUD 3 million that will impact FY 2025 as we buy initial minimum order quantities and build adequate stock levels within our stores. Now, we hope this initiative will drive incremental sales and margin growth for Shaver Shop over the medium to long- term, but we're also clear that our global branded partners will always remain the most important sales contributor to our business.
Lastly, on our FY 2025 priorities, we need to continue evolving our store design to create a pleasant and engaging shopping experience for our customers. It also needs to reflect our latest brand standards and our contemporary look and feel. Our new store design must ensure shoppers that are passing by our stores feel invited to come in and touch and feel the products that we sell. Tactility is an essential aspect to our sales process and crucial in trade-up conversions with customers. Finally, our store evolution needs to clearly showcase that we are the house of brands, with all the leading global players adequately represented. As we continue to expand our brand portfolio, we think it's also necessary to evolve the layout of our stores so there is adequate floor and linear wall space to properly merchandise and simplify the shopping experience.
Otherwise, our stores can easily feel cluttered, with customers somewhat overwhelmed. Some of our stores, like Frankston and Woden, were only around 40-50 sq m . So as you can imagine, it's very difficult to properly merchandise these stores of that size, and it's why we've worked with the respective landlords to increase our store footprint in these centers. We think the optimal store size is currently around 80-100 sq m , but we intend to continue testing and evolving our store layouts over time, so we create the most stimulating and enjoyable shopping experience possible for our customers. This brings me to slide 24, and our trading update for the first 7-8 weeks of FY 2025.
Following a strong end of financial year sales period in June, where we saw the strongest monthly sales growth for the business in more than twelve months, July proved more challenging when the end of the financial year sales campaign ended. August sales, however, have improved, with total sales growth returning through the 21st of August, with our Father's Day promotion resonating well with customers in our core hair removal categories. FY 2025 year-to-date sales are now effectively flat, being down 0.8% in total, and also on a like-for-like basis. We are continuing to try to balance top-line sales growth with maximizing gross profit dollars, leading to gross margins being roughly in line with last year.
Now, looking forward to the remainder of the first half, we're very excited to launch the greatest number of new brands that we've seen in some time, including our new TRANSFORM-U private label offering. This will create a buzz in our stores that will hopefully translate to strong sales in the all-important second quarter. As discussed already, TRANSFORM-U will result in an incremental working capital investment of approximately AUD 2 million-AUD 3 million in FY 2025 as we pipeline fill our stores. Now, just to reiterate, we don't think TRANSFORM-U will have a material impact to our FY 2025 financial performance, but are hopeful that it will drive incremental sales and margin for the business over the medium to long-term. Over the next two to three years, we are clear on our strategic priorities.
We must continue to drive our category leadership by securing a differentiated range with a high percentage of exclusives. We need to continue evaluating category creep opportunities and securing access to new products that will drive like-for-like sales. We also need to continue evolving our store format so that it showcases our house of brands and delivers the best possible shopping experience for our customers. In closing, I'd just like to thank our store and our support office teams for their ongoing passion and dedication to Shaver Shop. With their positive contributions, we have a very strong and resilient business, as evidenced by FY 2024 financial results, in what was a pretty challenging retail environment.
As we look forward to the second half and beyond, we hope to see stronger consumer trends emerge, where interest rates begin to moderate and cost of living pressures subside over the next year or so. That said, we're not waiting for the macro environment to improve. With a full slate of priorities to act on to drive our business forward. Consistent with prior years, and having regard to the importance of Black Friday, Christmas, and Boxing Day trading results to Shaver Shop's FY 2025 performance, it is not appropriate to provide sales or profit guidance at this time. Now, that concludes our formal presentation. We'd now like to invite any questions you may have. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while we poll for questions. Your first question is from the line of Andrew Johnston with MST Financial. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Cameron and Larry. A couple of questions around the new products and that whole focus of starting to shift that business, probably more aggressively than we've seen you've done for quite a while. There was a comment there about category creep into adjacencies. Is that what we're seeing with the new products you're bringing in? Or is that a reference to something else that you're looking at?
No, I think it's a combination of both, Andrew. So we obviously have a lot of new brands that we're bringing in, and then obviously, category creep opportunities. But in addition to that, if you look at some of the brands we're bringing in across men's hairstyling, women's shampoo and conditioner, fragrance, you know, I'd classify all that as category creep opportunities. We just feel there's a natural opportunity for Shaver Shop when people are coming in, purchasing their product, to increase basket size through these ancillary opportunities and category creep opportunities specifically.
Okay. So the question that's partly related to that is about M&A opportunities. And just wondering whether you can add any more color to things you've looked at, you know, to what extent these are the things you're looking at adjacent to what you're doing, or step out, or maybe you don't want to mention anything at all about those? Yeah, I'll leave that there.
I think we've mentioned before, Andrew, we're always open to M&A opportunities, as you know, any good and experienced board of management team would be. However, you know, in terms of the M&A deals that we're looking at or could be looking at, I think it's a combination of things. You can't really simplify it. Yes, adjacent categories may make sense, but you're also looking at what's a good fit from a you know, a management core competency point of view as well. Because at the end of the day, Andrew, as we've discussed, you know, we've got a very, very good business here at Shaver Shop. It's a bit of a cash cow business. It's very profitable, and our focus still has to remain on the core business.
So if an opportunity comes up, obviously we'd look at that, but we also appreciate that, it's easier said than done.
Just to add a little bit onto that. So we've looked at a couple of things in the last six to twelve months. We're not actively looking at anything at the moment. You know, it's more of an opportunistic thing. If something comes across our desk that looks interesting, we'll take a look at it, but nothing's sort of matched what we think is the right fit for Shaver Shop.
You previously, just on that year, I think it was a year ago or when you talked about starting to look at opportunities, which was, you know, shift coming out of COVID. You indicated that if there was a sort of a time period, and if you hadn't really seen anything, then you might start looking at some sort of capital return. Is there any more thoughts on that? I mean, I suppose you, you've actually sort of mentioned that you're pretty keen to keep the balance sheet in the shape it's in, so maybe that's the answer to the question I'm asking.
Yeah, I think at least at the moment, where we're seeing good opportunities to drive accretion into the business through some of the deals that we've been able to source, like the Skull Shaver deal, we think that's, you know, a really strong prospect that for the business, that's gonna drive some really incremental value for shareholders. So as long as we still see those types of things coming through, then absolutely, we think the right thought at the moment is to keep that cash on the balance sheet so that we can drive incremental returns for shareholders. You know, if that changes down the track, you know, the board's always considering capital management, so we'll look at it at that time.
Just to be clear on TRANSFORM-U, is really the only cost there, a balance sheet, inventory cost for introducing that product?
It's primarily the stock investment that is there, but there's also some incremental cost just in terms of, you know, brand development and those types of things. Create the logos, design the boxes, and the packaging, and those types of things. But it's largely just around the stock. The others is pretty immaterial in comparison.
Okay. And if I can just sneak in one more question. A pretty impressive performance versus the foot traffic trends that you were seeing. Can you give us any more color around that foot traffic trend about how that's evolved over the twelve months?
I think it's been probably pretty consistent. Just seems to be that the outside passing traffic within shopping centers, certainly the shopping centers we are in, you know, is down that sort of double digit figure or thereabouts. Inside traffic, in terms of our stores, is not quite as pronounced, which is hopefully testimony to the good, strong brand awareness we have in equity. That people are coming in our doors a little bit more than what they're, you know, the ratio is to decline in shopping center footfall.
But the key always comes down to, Andrew, ultimately is our customer conversion, and that's why there's so much focus on that, so much focus on our product training, as well, and our staff training, because ultimately, if your foot numbers are declining in shopping centers, obviously your team has to be very on point, and conversion has to be up. And that's why things like conversion percentage, basket size, ATV become particularly critical.
Okay. Well, that makes that chart on figure nine, that quarterly sales growth on figure nine, perhaps even more, even more impressive. Okay, that's it for me for now. Thanks very much, and congratulations on a good result, guys. Thanks.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you. Your next question is from the line of James Casey with Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Oh, good morning. Just had a question on the new private label range. So just wondering if I could get a bit more background as to how long you've kind of been developing these products, where the products will come from, and then if you've incurred any costs along the way that have been capitalized for the private label program?
Yeah, I'll answer the first couple. I mean, in terms of, you know, background and work, you know, probably 12 months. And, you know, we certainly haven't leaned forward too much with the prospects on this because, you know, you test products, you look at products, and 99% of them don't stack up, in terms of quality and/or, you know, fit for Australian purposes or commercials. So it's been a really extensive process. Hell of a lot of, you know, due diligence placed on this. Of course, then you get the product, and then you've got to go hit the consumer market research, get your branding right.
So yeah, it's taken time, but at the end of the day, we were really conscious that we did not want to go to market unless we were very, very confident that the offering we had and the branding we had was on point, and we are. We're very comfortable with it, as comfortable as we can be, with the product range we developed.
I'll speak to more of the financial questions. So, most of the products, as you'd probably expect, are sourced from China. There are some that are being sourced from Europe as well, but primarily from China. So there is a bit of an increased FX risk, because we are sourcing it in US dollars, but again, as Cameron said, it's not sort of a material number overall. And the last point, sorry, your last question, was around capitalization of potential capitalization costs. We haven't capitalized any costs to the P&L and FY 2024 relating to this. There were some incremental costs indirect in relation to brand research and, you know, brand development, but those were all expensed.
Okay, great. And then obviously there's an increase in inventory that you've highlighted, this, AUD 2 million-AUD 3 million. So does the inventory to sales ratio move up to kind of 12% or 13% permanently? Is that the way to look at it, of sales?
I mean, the reality is the stock levels sort of fluctuate a bit throughout the year. If you're looking at that year-end number, then that's the year.
P robably relatively close. So we've highlighted two things. So we ended the year with AUD 23.1 million in inventory. We said we thought just in normal business, that was probably AUD 1 million-AUD 2 million lower than optimal because of the strong sales in June that we had. And then we're looking to add another sort of AUD 2 million-AUD 3 million in terms of the TRANSFORM-U brand launch. So that sort of gets you up to around that AUD 27 million-AUD 28 million, I guess, number at the end of the financial year.
Yeah. Okay, great. Thanks, guys.
No worries. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one. There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand back the conference to Mr. Fox for his closing remarks.
Thank you. Just a few closing comments. In terms of the Shaver Shop, we are a segment leader in both online and offline. We are a large and growing market driven by changing consumer preferences and new product innovations. Now, our product range is applicable to almost all demographics. We've spoken a lot over the last half an hour or so about differentiated and resilient specialty retail business model. We deliver excellence in customer service, and we have unparalleled product knowledge in our categories. We have a plethora of product exclusive opportunities, and we offer competitive value-based pricing. Excuse me. We also have the potential to further increase market share. We have high brand awareness in Australia. New Zealand is a growing opportunity for Shaver Shop. We have a proven and highly profitable omni-channel model.
Again, we have a clean balance sheet, no debt, with very high cash conversion. We have an experienced board and management team, and we are focused on investing for growth and improving total shareholder returns. And finally, we have an attractive dividend payout and franked dividend yield. That concludes our presentation today. Thank you for everybody's support.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.