Morning, Henry. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the 2024 Annual General Meeting of Temple & Webster Group Limited. My name is Stephen Heath, and I'm the Chair of the company. It is 11:00 A.M., we have a quorum present, and I therefore declare the meeting opened. Thank you for your attendance today. In accordance with our usual practice, cameras and recording devices are not to be used during the meeting, and I'd like to point out the fire exits in the event of an emergency or evacuation. If we do have that occur, please use the doors that you came in from at the front, or there is another exit door, the green man there over to my right. If you do need a bathroom, they're also just through the corridor here, on my right as well.
Before we begin, Temple & Webster Group would acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of country throughout Australia. We recognize their enduring connection to the lands, the waterways, and the skies. We acknowledge the Gadigal and Wangal people, on whose lands our corporate head office is located, as well as all other First Nation countries we operate across. We pay our respects to elders past, present, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. I'd like to start by introducing the members of the board and our company secretary. I'm joined today by our Managing Director and CEO, Mark Coulter; directors, Conrad Yiu, our Deputy Chairman; Belinda Rowe, Chair of our Nomination and Remuneration Committee; and Melinda Snowden, Chair of our Audit and Risk Committee; and Company Secretary, Lisa Jones. I'd also like to welcome the company's new CFO, Cameron Barnsley. Welcome, Cam.
Cam's here for his first AGM with Temple & Webster, and Co-founder and Chief Experience Officer, Adam McWhinney, along with other Temple & Webster staff. The company's auditor, Rachel Rudman, from EY, and will be available to address any questions you may have about the audit of the financial statements later in the meeting. I also welcome Phil Dehennin and Marian Perry from Link Market Services, share registry provider, who will conduct the final voting poll. The purpose of today's meeting is to deal with the formal business as set out in the notice of annual general meeting. I will deliver the chairman's report, and then our Managing Director and CEO, Mark Coulter, will present his report on the financial year ended thirtieth of June, and provide an update on our broad strategic intent to drive our future growth prospects.
We'll then consider the resolution set out in the notice of meeting. I will outline votes ahead of that section. There will be an opportunity for shareholders to ask questions during the formal items of business as they relate to the resolution being considered. Okay, let's make a start. As reported in August, Temple & Webster delivered a strong FY 2024 result, with revenue of AUD 498 million, which was up 26% on the previous year. This was a particularly strong result, as it was achieved in a period that faced significant macroeconomic headwinds. Our result highlights continued market share gains as our numbers grow every day as a result of our dynamic business, the strength of our product offering, our value that we deliver with every shop.
EBITDA for FY 2024 was AUD 13.1 million, excluding one-off costs, which was at the high end of our target margin range, with all other margins within or above target ranges. The group finished the year with a closing cash balance of AUD 116 million, with no debt, and remains well-funded to continue to execute on our growth plans. The strength of our balance sheet has enabled us to implement our second on-market share buyback program that commenced in June 2024 for up to AUD 30 million in Temple & Webster shares. During FY 2024, the business bought back a total of 1.7 million shares for AUD 12.5 million. The board considers the buyback program as an effective and flexible capital management strategy.
As a result of us executing on our mid-market strategy, the group has been able to drive significant market share gains. Our share of the total furniture and homewares category, which includes both online and offline, reached an all-time high of 2.3% in FY 2024, which was up 31% year on year. This share gain speaks to the strength of the group's proposition, particularly around our range, pricing, and service offering. The flexibility of our supply chain model has allowed the team to rapidly meet ever-changing customer product and price preferences. We are still in very early stages of online penetration adoption cycle, especially in our category. Even at 20% online penetration, which is the latest Euromonitor estimate for furniture and home, we lag other markets, such as the U.S. and U.K., which are already approaching 30%.
Temple & Webster's market share also lags comparable category business - sorry, leading businesses, which shows the upside if we continue to execute well. In August 2023, we outlined our midterm strategy of reaching over AUD 1 billion in annual sales within three to five years, and we firmly believe that now is the time to accelerate our growth and market share gains to reach this goal as soon as possible for the following reasons: firstly, the category is undergoing a once-in-a-generation shift from offline to online. As we have seen previously, we expect Australia to catch up to online penetration rates seen in other markets, such as the U.S. and U.K., over the coming years, driven by demographic trends independent of macroeconomic factors.
Millennials are now overtaking baby boomers as the largest population segment, and these digital natives are entering their core furniture and homewares buying years as we speak. Secondly, Temple & Webster is the largest online retailer in the category. At AUD 498 million in revenue, we have overtaken all online-only competitors and have the resources and scale to continue to increase our market share. Thirdly, as we scale, there is a flywheel effect for Temple & Webster as our competitive advantages get stronger through further increasing of our leadership proposition. Finally, the group is well-placed to build on this platform for growth with an asset-light, cash-generative model and is fully funded to execute on both organic and inorganic growth plans. As our operating platform continues to strengthen, we are well-placed to leverage our experience and capabilities into adjacent markets and product categories.
As Mark will talk to further in his address, we remain on track to reach our mid-market goal of AUD 1 billion in annual sales. An update on governance and team. Temple & Webster continues to develop its policies to align with best practice corporate governance. As we outlined in August, we amended our securities dealing policy to broaden the trading window for non-executive directors and key management personnel, as we established a minimum shareholding policy for non-executive directors and the executive leadership team to ensure better alignment with shareholder interests. We also continue to assess ways to strengthen the composition of the board, and we are in the process of recruiting additional directors to further enhance the board's capabilities and diversity. In September, we welcomed Cameron Barnsley as Chief Financial Officer.
Cameron joins Temple & Webster with a wealth of experience in capital markets and advising companies on their growth strategies, both locally and internationally. Cameron's expertise and experience will be invaluable in our next phase of growth. We've known Cameron professionally for years, and he's already working seamlessly with the team, supported by Deputy CFO Chris Berner and former CFO Mark Taylor, in his new position focused on IR and growth. Mark has been an instrumental part of why Temple & Webster is where it is today, and we're grateful to have him remain on board for our next stage of growth. As you will see, I'm up for re-election at this year's AGM. This will be my tenth year with the company, and I remain as excited today as I did when I joined, as we progress towards our next milestone of AUD 1 billion in annual sales.
On behalf of the board, I would like to thank Mark Coulter and our broader management team for their hard work and dedication in what has proven to be another successful year for Temple & Webster. I'd also like to extend my thanks to my fellow directors for their expertise, commitment, and stewardship. And finally, I'd like to thank you, our shareholders, for your continued support. I'll now hand over to Mark for his address.
Thank you, Stephen, and good morning, fellow shareholders. As Stephen outlined, Temple & Webster delivered a strong FY 2024 result, generating close to $500 million in revenue. Our growth was driven by a significant increase in active customers, up 31% year on year. This was driven by healthy growth in both first-time customers and repeating customers, with orders from repeat customers up 36% year on year, which represented 57% of all orders. Now, we did face a headwind of lower average order values as customers migrated to lower-priced items in search for value. However, this was partially offset by mix, as less discretionary furniture products outperformed higher discretionary homeware categories, which supports customer basket sizes. Pleasingly, this headwind has become a tailwind, with average order values back in growth for this new financial year.
In line with our goal of becoming a top-of-mind brand in the category, FY 2024 was a year of experimentation at scale to get a statistically significant read on the benefit of adding incremental channels to our marketing mix. We ran three campaign bursts across TV, out-of-home, audio display, and social in different markets across the country. We then worked with a data analytics company to deploy media mix modeling to understand the benefit and ROI of these additional channels. The good news is that the results concluded that diversification of channels is leading to incremental orders and customers, with acquisition costs anticipated to improve with further channel optimization. As a result, we've continued our brand-building efforts into FY 2025. Importantly, even after this brand investment, our average...
On average, our customers in FY 2024 remained profitable on their first order, which provides great unit economics for a growing e-commerce company. If you exclude the additional brand marketing investment, our 12-month ROI remains at a healthy two times our customer acquisition costs. Over the year, our revenue from products exclusive to Temple & Webster grew to 43% of total revenue. This includes growth in both private label and exclusive dropship products. Approximately 70% of our top-selling 500 products are now exclusive to Temple & Webster, which is a good leading indicator of where our catalog is heading as we scale. We also launched our internal industrial design team, which has created over 80 new product designs, which are working their way through the various trade stages of production, with the first products on sale this financial year.
We continue to make good progress towards building market-leading AI, data, and technology capabilities. In FY 2024, we added new hires to the team, combining machine learning and generative AI knowledge. Our internally built AI solutions are delivering material and tangible benefits. Product recommendations, live chat, and on-page content generation are now driving, in aggregate, more than 10% improvement in conversion rates across the site, and in FY 2024, we realized around AUD 4 million in annualized cost savings from automating our customer pre- and post-sale support.
Finally, in terms of our next growth horizons, I am pleased to report that our trade and commercial division, or B2B area, grew 27% to AUD 45 million in revenue, while home improvement achieved AUD 29 million in revenue at a 26% growth rate, which is a strong result given we were focused on only one website versus two in the prior period. For both areas, we're investing in range development, including using our private label division, our fulfillment services, such as palletized shipping, and category and sector-specific marketing and sales capabilities. Trading update. Now, in terms of year-to-date trading, the business continues to deliver significant market share gains in the face of the current cost of living crisis.
Year-to-date revenue from the 1st of July to the 24th of October is up 21% on the PCP, and we continue to see good momentum in leading key indicators. Average order values are now back to growth, and 60% of orders are now coming from repeat customers. As I mentioned earlier, the media mix modeling analysis provided promising results, giving us confidence to continue our brand investment into FY 2025, including a cross-channel campaign over the November, December, and Black Friday sales period. In fact, I think it's gone live over the weekend. Margin levels continued to track in line with our target range, despite some increases in international freight rates, and our balance sheet position remains strong, with over AUD 100 million in cash and no debt.
In terms of outlook, the group remains on track to achieve its medium-term target of AUD 1 billion in annual revenue within three to five years from FY 2023. We also expect the November and Black Friday sale period to keep increasing importance in the retail calendar, especially for online shopping. From the EBITDA guidance perspective, we remain confident of achieving our stated margin objectives for FY 2025, and our AUD 30 million dollar market buyback program remains in place to improve shareholder returns in the absence of more creative opportunities. I'd like to say a huge thank you to the Temple team. Your commitment, adaptability and resilience are as inspiring as ever. Without you, we wouldn't be able to make the world more beautiful, one room at a time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mark. Some exciting things happening. Okay, so we now welcome some questions, or comments on either my report or Mark's report. If you do have questions, those holding a yellow and blue card are able to ask questions in relation to those reports. Before asking any questions, please state your name and whether you're a shareholder in your own right, or whether you're attending as a proxy for one or more shareholders. If you're attending as an attorney of a shareholder or proxy, please state your name and the name of the shareholder or proxy you represent. Any questions on the reports? No? Great. All righty. So let's move to the formal part of the meeting.
As set out in the notice of meeting and explanatory statement, there are four items of business today, which are displayed on the screens behind me. Item one is for consideration only, with no vote required. All other items involve ordinary resolutions, which require a shareholder vote. Upon registering for the meeting this morning, you will have received either a yellow, blue or red-colored admission card. Those who received a yellow or blue admission card may speak and ask questions. The persons entitled to vote are all shareholders, representatives, and attorneys of shareholders and proxyholders who hold yellow voting admission cards, which also can be used as poll voting cards. If you are attending in more than one of those capacities, you will have been issued with as many yellow voting admission cards as you have separate capacities.
If anyone believes they're entitled to vote in any capacity and does not have a yellow voting card, please raise your hand now and a member of Link will assist. Anyone think they need to vote and haven't got a card? No. Great. If you are a proxyholder, a summary of the votes to which you are entitled has been attached to the yellow voting admission, voting card. If you have already voted, you will have been given a blue non-voting admission card. Red cards have been assigned to visitors other than shareholders and do not carry rights to speak or ask questions when the business of the meeting is being conducted, nor the right to vote. If you have a question, please hold up either your yellow or blue admission card and state your name prior to the question being asked.
Please direct any questions you may have to me as the chairman. I'll then either deal with the question personally or ask someone who is better placed to respond. We'll do our best to answer all relevant questions raised. As chairman of the meeting, it is my intention to cast any undirected proxy votes in favor of all resolutions. I will declare the proxies held by me at the start of each resolution by showing them on the screen. As you will have seen from the notice of meeting, the board recommended voting by direct vote for all resolutions. Direct voting enables shareholders to vote without attending the meeting or appointing a proxy. Voting on all items of business will be conducted by a poll.
The vote by poll will be conducted by Link, and I now declare the poll open for each of the resolutions in the notice of meeting. Phil Dehennin of Link will conduct the poll as Returning Officer. Your voting cards will be collected by Phil at the conclusion of the formal business. If you need to leave early, please complete your voting card and present it to a staff member of Link at the door. As Chairman of the meeting, I will ensure that there are opportunities for separate deliberation concerning the items of business at today's meeting. Discussion will be invited on each of the items. It is important, however, that comments and questions are succinct and restricted to the subject matter of the business and resolutions set out in the notice of meeting.
Details of proxy and direct votes for each resolution will be shown on the screen at the conclusion of the discussion. A copy of the notice of meeting and explanatory statement containing the resolutions to be considered today were provided to shareholders last month, and I'll take the notice of meeting as read. I'll now move to the formal agenda of the meeting. Item number one, the financial statements and reports. The first item of business is to receive and consider the annual financial report of the company for the financial year ended 30 June 2024, together with the declaration of the directors, the directors' report, the remuneration report, and the auditor's report. The reports are contained in the annual report, which was released to the ASX on the 27th of September, 2024 .
I will take the reports as read and now formally lay them before the meeting. Shareholders were invited to submit questions in advance of today's meeting to our auditor on the conduct of the audit, the preparation and the content of the auditor's report, the accounting policies adopted by Temple & Webster relating to the preparation of the financial statements, and the independence of the auditor in conducting the audit. Are there any questions on the annual report or audit opinion for either the auditor or the board? There is no requirement for a vote on this item, so I now move to the items of business which require a formal resolution. Resolution one, which is the adoption of the remuneration report.
Resolution one is an advisory, non-binding resolution required by the Corporations Act in relation to the adoption of the remuneration report, which forms part of Temple & Webster's annual report released on the 27th of September. The remuneration report is set out on pages 34-67 of the annual report and provides information concerning executive and director remuneration. The resolution is displayed on the screens. I'll now be happy to answer any questions or receive comments you may have on the remuneration report. No questions? Okay, thank you. I hold 56,000 and 24 undirected proxies, and as noted earlier, I will be voting those in favor of the resolution. As the next item relates to my own re-election, I'll now hand over to Belinda, Chair of our Nomination and Remuneration Committee, to move to resolution number two. Thanks, Belinda.
Thank you, Stephen. Resolution two concerns the re-election of Mr. Stephen Heath. The resolution being considered is displayed on the screen. Stephen's credentials have been outlined in the explanatory statement attached to the notice of meeting and are outlined in the annual report. Sorry, would anyone like to ask any questions or express a view on this item? Thank you for those. There was no questions, sorry. No comments and feedback. Details of the direct and proxy votes that have been received are displayed on the screen. The chair holds 26,000 undirected proxies. I will now hand back to Stephen Heath to move on to resolution three.
Thanks, Belinda. Resolution three is the approval of the non-executive directors' equity plan. Resolution three seeks shareholder approval to grant non-executive directors restricted rights under the Temple & Webster Group Limited NED Equity Plan to eligible NEDs in office from time to time for the next three years. Further details are set out in the explanatory statement attached to the notice of meeting. Would anyone like to ask a question or express a view on this item? No? Okay, thank you. Details of the direct and proxy votes that have been received are displayed on the screen, and I hold 56,000 and 94 undirected proxies. I now ask shareholders, proxy holders and corporate representatives holding yellow voting cards to complete the card, if you have not already done so, to finalize your poll votes. Would Phil of Link please come forward to collect the voting cards?
Hold your hand up so Phil can see you've got a card to collect. Just hold your hand up, guys, so Phil can see you've got... Thanks, Phil. Okay, has anyone still got a yellow voting card in their hand? No. One last chance, if you think you needed to vote and you haven't done so, we can sort that. No, all good? Okay, you all right, Phil? Okay, so we now declare the polls on the resolutions closed. Link will now count the votes, and the results will be available on the ASX platform later today, and as you can see from the direct and proxy votes received, all resolutions will pass by a majority, so at this point, I'll hand over for any general questions from the floor. If anyone has any matters of general business you want to raise? No? Great.
Okay, well, I'd like to thank you all for attending today. In addition, I'd like to thank our all shareholders and our customers, the executive leadership team, and the staff of Temple & Webster. You guys do a sensational job day in, day out. Thank you. The company's advisors and auditors, and Link Market Services. That concludes our business for today. I now declare the meeting closed. Thanks, everybody.