Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Shaver Shop's results presentation and investor conference call for the half year ended 31 December 2024. 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's CEO and Managing Director, and Larry Hamson, Shaver Shop's CFO and Company Secretary. If you wish to follow along with the slides, Shaver Shop's presentation has been lodged with the ASX and is also available from Shaver Shop's Investor Center website. I will now hand you over to Cameron Fox. Please go ahead.
I look forward to updating you on Shaver Shop's performance for the first half, a challenging as well as exciting period for our business. In terms of the agenda today, I'll first take you through an overview of our business and strategy. We'll then discuss the highlights from our first half. I'll then hand over to Larry, who will take you through the financial results in more detail. We'll then close with an update on our progress towards our FY 2025 priorities, as well as a quick training update. Finally, in terms of housekeeping, you'll know we have a disclaimer around forward-looking statements in the appendices to this presentation. With that, let's move to Slide Four and our business overview. We have presented the next couple of slides previously, but given we have a very unique business model both here in Australia and around the world, it's worth revisiting.
Shaver Shop was founded back in 1986 as a men's shaver repair shop. We started as a service business with little to no retailing activity. Over time, we've established one of the leading specialist personal care and grooming retailers across both Australia and New Zealand, with 124 stores in the network. That said, we've never lost that service-oriented mindset and approach. We take pride in being product matter experts, and we consider ourselves the leading specialty retail experts in personal care and grooming appliances in this market. We have a very passionate team, and we invest heavily in staff training imperatives. Our core business is men's grooming, where we have the broadest and deepest range of any business in Australia and New Zealand. Many of these lines are exclusive to Shaver Shop, which means we have a unique proposition for our customers.
This is a core pillar to our strategy, which we'll discuss more on the next slide. We are a well-positioned financially company with net cash and no debt. We also have a AUD 30 million debt facility at our disposal, which is currently obviously unused. Our business generates strong cash flows, and given some of our categories are less discretionary, our financial performance has proven to be very stable over time. We return a significant proportion of our net profit back to shareholders by way of fully franked dividends, and we have a highly experienced management team with an average tenure at Shaver Shop of more than 10 years. In summary, we're a very sound business with a differentiated business model in a growing market with an experienced team that continues to push for the growth and development of our business.
While growth has been more challenging in the recent macroeconomic environment, we believe there are robust medium to long-term growth drivers that will lead to top-line growth again in the future that I'll discuss on Slide Five. First, 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. Second, we drive brand loyalty and repeat purchase by investing heavily in training so that our teams are product matter experts and deliver exceptional customer service. Third, we have built a very strong and proven omnichannel capability, so that means customers can easily shop with us however they choose.
Fourth, our well-established store network comprising 124 stores across Australia and New Zealand has been consistently profitable, which means we have rarely closed stores, and where we have done so, it has been to optimize profitability across the network. Fifth, our customers often share the same passion for our products we sell as we do, so we leverage our scale, 38-year experience, data, and consumer 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 as well as paying a strong dividend to shareholders. On top of these strong business fundamentals, we have strategic priorities to drive incremental growth.
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. We'll speak to this in more detail across this presentation as our new TRANSFORM-U private brand is proving to be a core part of this initiative. The second key growth pillar is range expansion, which means we're looking at opportunities to expand into adjacent categories or 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 continue to evolve our store design so that we can merchandise products adequately and continue delivering our customers an engaging and enjoyable shopping experience.
This is likely to lead to an increase in our average store size over time. As you'll see in subsequent slides, we have been very active in driving these strategic initiatives forward over the last six months, which is really exciting for the business. That now takes us to our first half highlights on Slide Seven. I should just draw out a slight typo on this slide. The slide actually references our gross profit margin for the first half at 44.5%. It is, of course, 45.5% as per the ASX announcement that we issued supporting this presentation document. Onto this slide, total sales were approximately AUD 126 million in the first half, down 1.0% on the prior comparative period. In-store sales were relatively flat, and pleasingly, we were able to offset the lower shopping center customer foot traffic with higher sales conversion in our stores and increased transaction values.
Online sales proved more challenging with sales down 5.1%. Similar to in-store, we saw lower traffic to our websites, but we were not able to offset this like we did in-store. One of the true highlights of our financial results is once again our gross profit margin, which I alluded to at the start of this slide, which was up 110 basis points versus last year. Despite the ongoing inflationary pressures, costs were well controlled up 2.1%, leading to NPAT dropping 3.5% to AUD 12 million. Net cash at AUD 24.5 million reflects the normal seasonal high for the business, and we are supported by operating cash flow of AUD 28.1 million for the first half. All of these factors have given the board the confidence to increase our interim dividend payout to AUD 0.048 per share, fully franked up AUD 0.001.
Now moving on to our operational highlights on Slide Eight, our service metrics continue to be very strong. Our average NPS for the first half was almost 89. Sales conversion averaged 46.0%, which was up on last year. As I mentioned earlier, our average transaction values increased overall, which was entirely driven by our in-store activity. Outside foot traffic was down approximately 8% on average across the shopping centers that we operate in, continuing the decline that we saw last year. In terms of online, we saw 23.4% of our sales come from this channel. Pleasingly, we were able to increase the percentage of customers choosing click and collect to more than 15.5% of all online orders in the first half.
This is strategically important for us, given it provides us with another opportunity to delight our customers and educate them on the products that they have purchased or offer them new products when they come into the store. Let's move on to Slide Nine now and discuss what we believe is one of the most exciting developments for Shaver Shop in a number of years. As announced in August, we launched our first private brand, TRANSFORM-U , in the first half. We ranged some accessories in our stores in July and August and received the first shipment of our clipper, trimmer, and grooming appliances in late October and early November. As mentioned before, these had gone through extensive sourcing, quality analysis, and testing by our internal team before we decided to import the initial range.
Now we were quietly confident that the launch would prove successful, and I'm very pleased to advise that sell-through well and truly exceeded our expectations on almost all models that we promoted over the Black Friday, Christmas, and Boxing Day trading periods. The TRANSFORM-U brand represented more than 10% of category share in our hair cutting category. Now this is our largest category in terms of dollar value. Over the November and December period, it represented more than 4% of total company sales over the same period. Within this, our trimmer range had 80% sell-through by the end of the half, requiring us to place top-up orders with suppliers well before Christmas to minimize potential out-of-stock risks in the second half.
Now, as you'll see in Larry's section of the presentation, as we continue to execute our strategic category management initiatives, either through securing exclusive distribution relationships like Skull Shaver, Epilady, and Silk'n, or by expanding TRANSFORM-U , this will have an impact on our working capital requirements, given our terms of trade are very different with these lines. In contrast to local distributors, where we often receive extended trading terms of 60 and up to 90 days, for the distributor relationships, we need to pay for all the stock before it hits our shelves to sale. As we continue to evolve and build this aspect of our business, it will require additional working capital, as you will see in our first half financial results. Now back to TRANSFORM-U .
All of the sell-through across November and December effectively came from our stores, as we did not actively promote the launch online through social or other channels. We believe there is further upside for growth as we develop our digital branding strategy. In summary, we are extremely encouraged by the potential of TRANSFORM-U , and we look forward to extending the range where there are gaps that are not being filled by our global supplier partners. As mentioned in our FY 2024 results presentation, our global supplier partners will always represent the vast majority of our sales and focus. However, we are very pleased to be able to develop and bring to market products that offer great value to our customers that are not currently being offered through our current supplier relationships.
Moving on to Slide 10 in our sales and gross margin trends over the past six years or so. While sales have been relatively flat over the past three to four years, you can see that our sales remain well above pre-COVID levels. In addition, over the same period, we have been able to significantly increase our gross profit margins, now up 420 basis points from the first half of 2020, meaning that while our top line has been flat, we have been able to drive significant gross profit dollar growth and, in turn, after increased costs, retain a significant proportion of this increase as net profit for the business. While sales have increased 17% compared to the first half of FY 2020, gross profit dollars over the same period have increased almost 30%.
The 110 basis point increase in margin compared to this time last year was due to three primary factors. First, and consistent with recent years, we've been focusing on balancing sales growth with maximizing gross profit dollar contribution. In some cases, this meant we didn't seek to price match competitors on trade-wide models in highly competitive categories like hair styling over Black Friday and Boxing Day promotional periods. This meant the gross profit margins were higher across most of our categories in the first half. Secondly, we saw category mix change towards higher margin categories like hair cutting and away from power oral care and long-term hair removal solutions, which tend to have lower gross profit margins. Finally, we saw strong performances across our Skull Shaver and TRANSFORM-U exclusive brands in the first half.
Despite the slight drop in sales in the first half, the higher margin led to gross profit dollars growing 1.4%. Let's now review our operational metrics for the first half on Slide 11. Our customer service metrics remain at or near all-time highs, reflecting our team's passion in servicing our customers. NPS has remained consistently around 88 or 89 out of 100 over the last five years. In terms of in-store sales conversion, which is the number of people that purchase from Shaver Shop compared to the number of shoppers that enter our store, 46% of the shoppers that came into our stores ultimately made a purchase during that visit. Other than the COVID-19 impacted period in the first half of FY 2021 and FY 2023, this is the highest level recorded for the business since we started monitoring this very important metric.
In terms of what we control, our first half performance was one of the strongest in many, many years. Our promotional calendar was very well planned with many compelling value-orientated offers for customers that we worked closely with suppliers to secure. We had good stock distribution across the network with minimal out-of-stocks, and our store teams executed well on the shop floor, evidenced by the operational metrics we just discussed. Lastly, we launched TRANSFORM-U , which well and truly exceeded expectations across both November and December. Unfortunately and a bit frustratingly, this did not translate to top-line sales growth, but we did well to mitigate this through increased gross profit margin and controlled expenditure. I'll now hand you across to Larry for a more in-depth discussion on our financial results.
Thanks, Cameron. I'm now on Slide 13, which summarizes our profit and loss statement for the first half. As Cameron mentioned earlier, total sales were down 1.0% or AUD 1.2 million to AUD 125.8 million. In-store sales were relatively flat despite shopping center foot traffic dropping around 8% or so. Online sales were down 5.1% and represented around 23.4% of total sales. Same-store sales or like-for-like sales were down 1.4%, which is slightly lower than total sales and reflects the fact that we opened three new stores in the first half of the year, which contributed to total sales and not like-for-like sales. Cameron has already gone into detail around our gross profit margin performance and the reason for the significant increase in the first half of FY 2025.
It goes without saying that this is one of the real bright spots in our results and reflects the ongoing efforts we've had to maximize gross profit dollars, which were up 1.4%. The increase in gross profit dollars was able to be largely offset the increase in our cost of doing business, which were up 2.4%. Upward pressure on employment costs, largely driven by the minimum wage award increase of 3.75%, was the biggest driver of this increase, with operational costs and corporate overheads also increasing marginally versus last year. We remain focused on minimizing the inflationary cost impacts across the business that we're feeling and are pleased that our operating expenses have once again grown proportionally less than CPI. In terms of depreciation and interest, you'll see these have both increased compared to last year. The primary driver of this is the effect of lease renewals.
This time last year, we had a significant number of leases in holdover, particularly with the major national landlords. We have now renewed the vast majority of those leases, which has resulted in lease interest in particular being higher than it was last year. The other factor impacting interest expense is the lower levels of cash held within the business as we become the distributor for brands like Skull Shaver, Silk'n, Epilady, and now distributing TRANSFORM-U . These suppliers, together with our TRANSFORM-U manufacturers, require upfront payment for stock before it hits our stores, so our working capital investment has also increased accordingly. This should normalize over time because there is a bit of a one-off impact as we fill the pipeline for the first time. As we look to continue to grow the brands, it may continue to impact working capital somewhat.
Net profit after tax was AUD 12 million, down 3.5%, or around AUD 400,000 in total, leading to basic earnings per share of AUD 0.093 and cash EPS of AUD 0.096 . Our balance sheet on Slide 14 remains robust. We had net cash of AUD 24.5 million at the 31st of December 2024, which reflects a seasonal high for the business, given we get extended trading terms leading into Christmas from our local distributors. Stock levels increased AUD 6.7 million compared to the prior comparative period, which largely reflects the increased investment to support our distributor and private brands, and I'll speak to more of the increase in stock on the next slide. While stock value increased AUD 6.7 million, this has not been reflected in trade payables.
This points to what Cameron and I mentioned earlier in terms of how our new distributor relationship and private brand will impact our cash, inventory, and payables balances going forward. The impact of a high number of lease renewals in the first half is also clearly evident in our balance sheet, where right-of-use assets have almost doubled to AUD 27.3 million, and lease liabilities are up AUD 12.5 million versus the prior comparative period to AUD 30.8 million. We still have around 10-15 leases in holdover currently, less than half the level, though, that we had this time last year. Finally, on this slide, net assets have increased AUD 2.1 million to AUD 92.5 million. Slide 15 highlights the key drivers of our stock increase. The increase in stock is largely as we expected and primarily driven by four core factors.
The first is our investment in TRANSFORM-U stock and our exclusive distribution brands. This represents approximately 1/3 of the increase and is more of a one-off, as I said before, as we filled the pipeline of stock required for these brands across our network. The second is due to both category creep and broadening our range in complementary categories like fragrance and female beauty, as well as broadening the brands that we offer in core categories. Third, we had two more stores in the network compared to the 31st of December last year. Finally, the last component is due to slightly lower sales than what we expected across November and December, and that is reflected on the last bar in the graph.
We have no concerns around our ability to sell the stock across the second half and expect the investment in stock across TRANSFORM-U , Skull Shaver, and our exclusive distribution brands, as well as bolstering stock across the rest of the business, will drive gross profit dollar growth in the second half of FY 2025 and into next financial year.
We'd also like to be clear that we do expect stock levels to end fiscal year 2025 higher than 30 June last year. We'd already flagged this in our FY 2024 results presentation in August, but it warrants repeating. We expect our stock levels at 30 June 2025 to be around AUD 3 million-AUD 5 million higher than the same time last year, primarily due to two factors. The first being an additional AUD 2 million-AUD 3 million in stock related to TRANSFORM-U and the other distributor relationships that I've spoken about previously.
The second component is an additional AUD 1 million-AUD 2 million that's required to get inventory back to targeted levels, given we experienced strong end-of-financial-year sales last year, leading to lower-than-ideal stock levels at 30 June. Now onto our cash flow on Slide 16, which shows that our operating cash flow was AUD 28.1 million for the first half. You may recall from our FY 2024 results presentation, our 30 June 2024 cash balance benefited from the fact that one of our major suppliers had trading terms that extended into the first week in July, which effectively meant our 30 June 2024 cash balance was about AUD 3.8 million higher than what it normally would have been. If we adjust for this anomaly, our normalized operating cash flow would actually be AUD 31.9 million, or AUD 3.8 million higher than our actual result and more in line with last year.
The other reason for operating cash flow being lower than last year is due to the higher stock levels previously mentioned. Moving on to investing cash flows, during the first half, we were very active with three new store builds as well as store refits and relocations. This led to AUD 2.3 million in CapEx over the first half. Financing outflows were consistent in H1 to FY 2025 compared to the prior corresponding period, with both dividends and principal amounts of lease payments being AUD 6.9 million and AUD 7.7 million respectively, leading to net cash flow of AUD 11.2 million. Moving to Slide 17, as Cameron mentioned, the board declared a AUD 0.048 fully franked interim dividend earlier today, which reflects the ongoing confidence that they have in the business. Our dividend policy remains to pay out 60%-80% of cash net profit each year.
Our balance sheet remains conservatively geared, and we see very good opportunities to create incremental returns and value for shareholders through investments in building the TRANSFORM-U private brand, as well as seeking further accretive opportunities like the Skull Shaver exclusive license agreement that we signed back in June of 2024. That now concludes my section of the presentation, so I'll hand you back to Cameron.
Thank you, Larry. Let's move to Slide 19 and a review of the progress we've made since August in executing against our 2025 priorities. Firstly, the TRANSFORM-U launch has gone as well as we could have hoped, with strong sell-through, positive customer feedback, high margins, and low customer returns. This has given us the confidence to further invest in this area. Skull Shaver sales continue to resonate with customers and was our top-selling hair clipper brand in the first half. In terms of category and range expansion, we launched the Epilady, Silk'n, and KENZZI long-term hair removal brands, the Meridian range of body groomers, and also range Jericho men's wet shaving lines.
This took significant resource and effort to train our teams, and I'm pleased to say that our internal learning and education program has gone from strength to strength, with the most content that we've ever created in a six-month period. It is also of outstanding quality, which is also useful when we explain to new and existing suppliers how Shaver Shop is differentiated to that of our competitors. Moving to Slide 20, Larry spoke to the activity in optimizing our store portfolio with a significant number of relocations, fit-outs, and new stores. This is an ongoing process that we expect will optimize store network profitability over time. We're also progressing our thoughts around a larger store format, coupled with a step change in category creep. One of the areas we still need to improve is our social media presence and penetration.
We are continuing to invest in and develop in this area as we understand how crucial it is for connecting with customers and building our brand equity in today's environment, particularly with the younger generations. Finally, we realized that customers would be very value-driven and price-conscious, given the cost of living remains a very high priority for households. We executed very well over Black Friday, Christmas, and Boxing Day to maximize returns from these events. We've seen a structural shift with Black Friday being.
Pardon me, this is the operator. We seem to have lost connection with the speaker line. Please stand by while we get them reconnected. Yep. Yep. Pardon me, and now reconnected.
Apologies for everyone for that. We think we dropped out just on the trading update slide, so Cameron's just going to take you back through the trading update slide now.
Yeah, look, we'll go through that again. It is a pretty solid trading update, so let's do it again. The trends that we saw across the first half have not materially changed. Foot traffic at shopping centers is still lower than last year, but has been more in the low single digits rather than the 8% average drop we saw in the first half. We continue to execute well in store with sales conversion and basket size offsetting the decline in foot traffic. Gross profit margins also continue to be well above last year.
Total sales between 1st of January and 20th of February are up 0.3% compared to the same period last year, with in-store sales up 0.2% and online up 0.5%. Like-for-like sales are up 0.7%. In the second half, we'll continue progressing the key initiatives and priorities that I mentioned earlier, with a focus on expanding the TRANSFORM-U range, looking for new global brands that we can exclusively distribute in Australia, as well as optimizing our store portfolio through refits, relocations, and selected store closures. I'm also pleased that the Chadstone redevelopment is on track to be completed in late March, as operating two stores in this center has not been optimal for our business, neither operationally nor financially. Overall, a very solid first half of the business.
We remain focused on returning the business to top-line sales growth and have a number of initiatives underway that we're quite excited about and believe will underpin the business performance over the next six months and well into the future beyond that. That concludes the formal part of the presentation. I would now like to hand it over to the moderator to take questions. Apologies for the earlier dropout.
Thank you. 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're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question, it comes from Andrew Johnston from MST Financial. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Cameron. Good afternoon, Larry. A couple of questions. First of all, congratulations on the awesome launch of TRANSFORM-U . You seem pretty excited about it and clearly well above, well, at least above expectations from your perspective. That is great to see. If I can, I have three questions, but if I can start first with the TRANSFORM-U rollout. I mean, if you and I am guessing that you have picked the low-hanging fruit, in other words, you have picked the products where you think the biggest opportunity is. If you were to look at where the potential for TRANSFORM-U could go over the next couple of years, what percentage are you through the rollout of possible TRANSFORM-U products?
It's probably a bit early to go into the detail because we're really only two or three months into the launch so far, Andrew. Clearly, given we've had this initial success, we think there's good opportunity to bring additional products in, hopefully before the end of the first half of the calendar year, but definitely into the second half of the calendar year, we'd be looking to expand the range with some additional product lines. Yeah, it's probably a bit too early to go into any of the specifics in terms of targets for sales or targets for number of products, what share this could be of the overall business. It's really early days for us, and we're really excited. It's good news for the business, but we're still planning it out, basically.
Okay. Moving on to Skull Shaver, and there were some numbers that were released around the time you did the Skull Shaver deal. It sounds like things are going pretty well, but are you on track with meeting those numbers for the Skull Shaver deal?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've highlighted in the presentation that the Skull Shaver sales continue to grow and have driven good profit. One of the reasons why gross profit margins are up so significantly is due to that increment that we got on the Skull Shaver margins. If you look at the increase in the first half across the gross profit margins, up 110 basis points versus last year, it's basically split evenly around a third, a third, a third. A third is TRANSFORM -U and the launch of TRANSFORM-U in November and December. A third is Skull Shaver and the contribution of that over the first half with the incremental benefit we got on the increased gross profit margin after signing the deal.
The last third is the ongoing continuing contribution from effectively trying to maximize gross profit dollars and drive gross margin growth, which has, as Cameron mentioned, resulted in most categories in the first half increasing margin over the same period last year.
Have you got any other Skull Shaver-type deals in the pipeline?
We're looking at a number of things, but there's nothing that's near completion at this point, Andrew. They tend to take a little while to execute.
Yeah, I am sure they do. It was a pretty good deal in delivering the results. Sorry, just lastly on the trading update, if I can just squeeze in one more question. In this trading update, online sales appear to be performing much better than where they have been, with growth of + 0.5 against a drop of, sorry, I cannot remember the number, but I think it dropped in the sales were down, were they, online?
Yeah, down 5.1% in the first half. Yeah.
Yeah, so that looks like a pretty good recovery, right?
Yeah, I think it's pretty solid, Andrew. We've done a couple of initiatives in early January. We've basically launched a lot more YouTube content, which is driving some organic growth, which is good to see. I also think, obviously, November and December, it's a real balance because it's very competitive, and you need to watch your paid search in terms of your cost of acquisition. Sometimes that's one of those challenges that we spoke about, is you can drive top-line revenue growth, but if your ROAS is very poor and you're really not making incremental profit, sometimes you have to lose that war in the short term.
Okay. Thanks very much, and well done. That's some exciting stuff in that result. Thanks.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We'll now pause a moment to allow for any final questions to register. Thank you. Your next question, it comes from James Casey from Ord Minnett . Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Just a question on the outlook and the trading update. Some of the other retailers have reported some improvement in sales, particularly for the month of February, with January not so strong. How have you seen it in terms of foot traffic outside of your stores year-to-date in the second half?
Yeah, in the second half year-to-date, it's low single-digit declines, which compares to the - 8% decline on average that we saw in the first half. There definitely does seem to be an improvement in terms of traffic in the centers from what our sensors are telling us that are in our stores.
With the interest rate cut and improved consumer sentiment, would you expect to see some improvement as the half progresses? And your new initiatives, of course.
Yeah, I mean, we'd be hopeful. I think we're probably banking more on the controllables, things within our control: the TRANSFORM-U strategy, the Skull Shaver, the Category Creep opportunities, and some NPD, which is coming through. Yeah, obviously, if the macro environment improves, hopefully that transcends into improved customer foot traffic and higher in-store sales.
Okay, great. That's all I've got. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks, James.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Bruce McLeary from Burrell Stockbroking & Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Hi, Cameron, Larry. Just a couple of questions. I understand that the hesitation in telling us what other products might come from the TRANSFORM-U line, but taking it a different way, the initial launch, was that across all of your stores, or have you cherry-picked the stores to roll that out initially? There might be growth once you roll it out across your store network.
No, the products we did launch, Bruce, were across all of our stores. I think the key thing to stress is it was a very limited number of products that we did launch. On top of that, we really did nothing from a digital e-commerce point of view. That is why we feel really confident or positive about the future of TRANSFORM-U because there is still a significant amount of low-hanging fruit opportunities that we see that we can execute over the next 12 months and beyond, as well as getting that digital piece right as well.
Okay, thanks. Just a second question. Your marketing and advertising expenditure basically has stayed flat over the last couple of periods compared to previous periods. We've heard from other retailers during this reporting season that promotion has been elevated and aggressive in some businesses, but others haven't had to promote as heavily. What's your view on the promotional activity in the market at the moment?
Yeah, I think it's, I sort of see it at two different levels, personally. On the one hand, when you've got exclusive products like Skull Shaver and now TRANSFORM-U and we've got Epilady, where you've got a point of difference and exclusivity, I think you've really got to communicate them because it obviously alleviates some of the risk on price. Where they're trade-wide models, and particularly some categories like hairstyling and beauty, certainly from what I saw, it was as aggressive as ever I've seen it. That's sometimes where I referenced previously that paid search equation. You have to be very careful because your cost of clicks is increasing in some categories, and therefore your returns through paid activity through online conversion is actually diminishing. You have to get that balance right.
I think the key for us is leveraging our exclusive lines, still fighting the fight of trade-wide models, but where it becomes a bidding war and it's clearly not driving incremental profit, you've got to have the acumen and comfort to pull out of that race.
Okay, thanks for that. That's it for me. Yeah, congrats on a really good result, guys. Thanks.
Thanks, Bruce.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Fox for closing remarks.
Thank you. Just to conclude today, a couple of key points on Shaver Shop. We are a segment leader, both online and offline. We are in a large and growing market driven by changing consumer preferences and new product innovation. Product range is applicable to almost all demographics. We are a differentiated and resilient specialty retail business. We pride ourselves on service excellence and unparalleled product knowledge. Product exclusivity remains critical, and we are competitive value-based pricing on those trade-wide models that we have referenced throughout today's presentation. We have potential to further increase market share. We have high brand awareness in Australia, and New Zealand is growing off a lower base. We have a proven and highly profitable omnichannel retail model. We have a clean balance sheet with no debt, with high cash conversion, experienced management team.
We're focused on investing for growth and improving total shareholder returns, and of course, an attractive dividend payout, which is fully franked as well. Thank you for everyone's support and attention today, and we wish you all the best.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.