Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Earnings Call for the Second Quarter of 2023. This call is being recorded, and we'll make the recording available on our IR website after the call. Please submit your questions by email, and we will answer them according to their order of arrival. Thank you.
Thank you, Vicky. Good morning, everyone. Once again, thank you for being a part of our video conference call about our earnings for 2Q 2023. I have with me Rafael Sachete, our CFO, and IR manager, Vicky Machado. This second quarter shows once again, what I've always been saying, even since the times, tough times of COVID. If we analyzed the Arezzo&Co values, obviously, we always have to have financial statements that are truly grounded. The biggest value that this company has is its culture.
In September, we will celebrate 51 years of constant growth and of a capacity that we can address any scenario. We have a very strong team in everything that they do, and one of their main features is passion. When we have a company with those characteristics, any scenario is a scenario where we can deliver results. Once again, you can see that in 2Q 2023, coming from a very strong foundation since 2021. In addition, on our team, we have a very high differential in our business models. Our ability to interpret trends and transform that into products, take them to market, take them to the stores with a fast lead time and awaken desire and generate sales, enables us to have that ability to adapt, and all of that is done in a very consistent manner.
Over 20 years with the sell- in, sell- out calendar that's been that has been having a fixed cadence in those 2 decades, making us turn with a very constant frequency. Our brands are always more desired, our investments in brands always showing the ability to generate desire at the end. As I mentioned, not just the differentials that has brought us this far will guarantee our future growth, but we were the pioneers, and we are still very unique in what brings in the high share in our revenues, which is digital. We still have over 2-digit growth in e-commerce, and in addition to that, our omni sales is becoming increasingly more robust, especially through a tool that's in a very high stage of evolution.
On Sunday, August 6th, in the sales convention, we launched a new version of our ZZ App, which is how the salespeople contact their customers on an ongoing basis, accounting for 56% of the 65% of the sales. 2 million contacts per month. In that new version, it's more agile, it has an integrated view of inventory in e-commerce, and we just rolled that out. Now the process to migrate the 7,000 salespeople from women's shoes and bags to the new ZZ App, that also has a frictionless payment system, will leverage our sales even more. About the figures, BRL 1.4 billion in revenues this quarter, a growth of 21.6% year-over-year.
If we compare that to 2021 and pretty much an organic growth, with the exception of Paris Texas and no Vicenza , because it wasn't integrated yet, we had a growth of 100.8% compared to Q2 2021. Before I continue with the presentation, I'd like to give you some highlights about our international market, where we still believe in the competitive edge that we have in product and the speed of delivery and change the vector. Even though the total results are not as we expected, we still have great signs of growth in retail.
The Schutz store on Broadway, 540, is a huge success, selling over $450,000 a month in a moment where the entire market's on sale and they're still selling full price, enabling us to have a 20.5% growth in the retail channel in the U.S. market and strongly selling full price on e-commerce. When you look at the public companies in the U.S., they also had a slowdown in their revenues. So to offset all of that, by seeing that movement, we started our entry in Europe. We decided to go through an M&A, and we already have EUR 30 million in the second quarter through Paris Texas, and we've opened many doors. In September, we have the sell-in for our brands, Arezzo, Schutz, Alexandre Birman, in the European market with synergies compared to Paris Texas.
That's a mid to long-term process. We do believe in this operation, and it's higher than the break-even for this quarter. We're very bullish, considering these medium to long-term investments, and our ability to execute has been shown to be very resilient. About the outlook of the Brazilian market and the results of our company. 2Q was once again marked by the speed in which Arezzo&Co can read the scenario and adjust the path when we see a better one. As shown, we made some structural changes, reducing some areas that support the business, that were still in the maturation phase, and that would not generate the return that we expected. We decided to leave AB Plus brand portfolio, which is always the assumption.
During the pandemic, we tried other product segments, other target segments, that did not present the results that we expected. Since we're agile, we decided to end operations and generating some non-recurrent, extraordinary one-off expenses in this quarter, but have already showed a lot of leverage for the second half of 2023. Those are my highlights. Now the highlights about the operations. Volume growth, of 10.6%, achieving 7.2 million products sold, 4.4 million pairs, and 2.1 million pieces of clothing, and 760,000 bags. Our channels that sell direct to consumer, achieving BRL 1.2 billion revenues, 14.7% growth year-over-year, gross revenues of BRL 1.4 billion, and gross margin of 54.9%. Recurring EBITDA of BRL 198 million.
Growth higher than revenues of 22.1%. Recurring net profit, BRL 114 million, and ROIC, 26.3%. On the next slide, we have solid growth of all of our brands. The beauty of our business, and that it has been an assumption since our IPO, that dates back 12 years now, is that we are definitely a multi-brand and multi-channel company. Here, on the pie charts on the right, you can see relevant percentages and balance out that the main brands account for, and especially in our channels. It does seem like a pizza pie with four equal pieces. 25%, pretty much in web commerce, owned stores, franchises, and a little bit more in multi-brand.
We do master the management of our portfolio of own stores, our e-commerce, the B2B relationship with franchisees, that we are very careful with always. We are constantly evolving that area and always having that ability of working side by side with our operators. Our multi-brand store owners that distribute our products across many small towns in Brazil. We'll have, next month, the last sell-in here in São Paulo. Everybody's invited to attend. It's an event for the multi-brand stores. Vicky will give you more details about that, and for also, for all our franchisees, for high summer and Christmas collection. Some detailed highlights about the brands. The Arezzo brand, that's our legacy brand that originated our entire business, with a robust growth of 20%. The average of the brand across the year will be from 15%-18%.
Sell-out is mirroring what we expect about the continuity of the growth of that. When you look at omni-channel and web, 29% of web is already omni sales. Schutz is going through a very important moment of bringing in the lifestyle concept. We've learned a lot in the past months. On October 20, we'll inaugurate the definite store, according to this concept. We already did some rebranding work. If you take a look at the Schutz Instagram, you'll see that we're starting from scratch for summer. Younger customers and sneakers, that's 30% of sales, so we're gonna focus even more on that category, and we're very confident that Schutz is the brand for Brazil in 2024 in growth.
Anacapri, who after COVID, had a slower pickup, but very solid, demonstrating very strong growth in this shoe brand of 28.9%. This brand still has high potential to achieve and w hen we compared that to the number of stores of Arezzo, of 440 stores. We're gonna work with a new store model. In September, we'll inaugurate a concept will, and Anacapri will have their own headquarters on Oscar Freire Street. It'll be called Anacapri Station. In addition to a 40 sqm store, it's a large building. It'll also count on a mini mall experience, the coffee shop, cosmetic stores, and others, to really have-- feel that experience on the second floor for presentations, theater presentation, plays, and our team, and the entire Anacapri team will be at that HQ. They really have huge potential in all channels, not only franchise, franchise, but also multi-brand and e-commerce.
Alexandre Birman brand, very strong growth, especially in Brazil. We already have 12 owned stores and relevant sales per square meter. Some are over BRL 600 million/sqm per year, and the potential of some stores with high revenues and some expansions and renovations will be done because the stores, as I mentioned, already have very high productivity. The e-commerce for the brand, for the first time in July, achieved BRL 3 million. The portfolio of brands includes AR&CO portfolio, with robust growth, more than the scenario at the time of the purchase, and we're still going through great routes to continue to grow strongly and a gain in market share in the apparel category. Now, speaking about our sellout, we achieved BRL 1.2 billion year to date, with a 14.7% growth in the quarter.
We're very confident of our capacity to generate desire on the consumer's end, and maintaining a loyalty of our consumers, regardless of the post-pandemic boom, and our brands continue to grow, gaining market share. Speaking about our monobrand channels, the franchise with 19% growth and the sell-in to our franchisees, with strong results of our own stores, with BRL 327 million in the period. Multi-brand channels in which we have a strong presence and a strong loyalty from our customers, a share of wallet at the stores that is very relevant. This growth will be continuing with new brands like Vicenza. We have good opportunity in handbags as well, but we also have a market in which we have great penetration in multi-brands. Now, I would like to highlight our digital operations.
As I mentioned at the beginning, we achieved almost BRL 300 million in pure web commerce in Q2 2023, a traffic of almost 80 million, achieving 78 million accesses to our website. Also the sales in our apps is important. It's a recurring sale after download, and the cost of acquiring client is much lower than those that enter through the website. It accounts for 36% of our e-commerce sales, achieving BRL 78 million in the second quarter. Our web tickets also had a strong growth, 36.2%. 5.4 million customers bought at our stores, in our mono-brand stores in the first half of 2023. This shows the evolution of our customer base, showing that our brands, per se, have been growing the base, despite having a strong market share.
We have the opportunity to continue growing strongly on our customer base, especially the omni-channel customer. They have stronger recurrence. We already had a growth of 14.9%, buying both in brick-and-mortar stores and at the web commerce. This is where we want to offer this digital experience. I received a message the day before yesterday, of a person telling me about a great experience. She wanted to buy, something for her daughter. They didn't have her size at the store, and she bought it on web commerce and received it, in 24 hours. Our omni experience, although being very strong and mature, we still have the capacity to invest.
That might not bring results in the short term, but it's very important for the future of our business, having an omni business that shows our excellent efficiency in managing this part of the business. I'm gonna pass the floor to Rafael Sachete, who's gonna talk about the financial highlights.
Thank you, Alexandre. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being with us at our earnings call for the second half. For the first half, this is our financial statement. We have a gross revenue of BRL 1,417 million, considering the base, it was a growth of 65%, it includes all the brands. Our gross margin, we had a reduction of 110 basis points, especially because of the North American operation, that accounts for the 70 basis point reduction, also the impacts in the quarter.
We gained efficiency of 40 basis points in the quarter. Gained efficiency in expenses, with highlight to fixed expenses that grew 13.7% year-over-year. We're gonna detail even more in the next slide. We achieved 17.7% in EBITDA margin, 0.3 percentage point. Our net income impacted by expenses and earnings have different characteristics from last year. In February, we received money from Foro and the cash at the end of the second quarter. We have a net margin of 13%. This funded our growth with working capital acquisitions and opening new stores, showing the strong growth that we had in 2022 and 2023. Next slide, with details of our expenses, with highlight to fixed expenses that grew 13.3%.
It's important to highlight that all the lines of expenses were of the apart companies already added, so also the expansion of new stores from last year. We had gains already brought in the quarter with the use and reductions that we did at the beginning of the first quarter of 2023. The occasional expenses are discretionary, and variable are in line with our revenue, that vary according to our growth. Reconciliation of our EBITDA. It's important to say that we saw an adjustment of non-recurring expenses accounting for BRL 20 million. It's important to highlight the strategic decision that we have of restructuring our corporate team and others that weren't performing or weren't aligned with the strategy in the next cycle of the company.
These operations were closed in this quarter, bringing costs of lowering, off-writing inventory and layoffs, and closing stores. It's important also to detail the second item, the M&A expenses concluded with operations. As I said, these expenses are cost with lawyer fees, hiring audit teams to evaluate and review the M&A and what is necessary for listed companies to be able to incorporate and capture this company. We don't have operational expenses. We don't have costs linked to buying the company, and we shouldn't have more expenses in this line either. One important point is that our distribution center is operating since 2022, and strategic decision was to preserve the safety of the operations in the first half of 2023. We work with two DCs in parallel.
The new DC is already operational, as of the third quarter, we won't have new expenses there either. Now, our ROIC, we achieved 26.3%, a recurrent ROIC in the quarter, very important for our accounting. There are two pieces of information about our strong growth. In the first quarter, we had impact of inventory suppliers, and we have significant improvements in this quarter that had a positive impact in the growth in the NOPAT. It's important to talk about July. We incorporated a company that increased revenue. If we look at days of inventory, in the past 12 months, our growth in this quarter was 3 days. However, if we exclude that, we have the same number as before, so it's flat. These figures show important improvement compared to the first quarter in which we had growth of 8 inventory days.
That's not our best performance. We have a lot to improve. For the next quarter, we expect to see consistent improvement of our inventory line on this item. About suppliers, in the first quarter, we made a decision of supporting our suppliers for accounts payable. We don't have an impact in this quarter. In the third and fourth quarter, we will resume the levels of days of accounts payable that we had in 2022. For this quarter, that will generate an improvement in cash generation for the next quarters. Next slide. Our debt business. We have a gross debt of BRL 1.028 million. We have a very consistent cash flow, which accounts to 0.5 x our EBITDA.
Looking forward, there's a gradual reduction of this debt, seeking efficiency in the second half, both in inventory and accounts payable, also our EBITDA and our gains in efficiency, as we mentioned, with the expenses, due to our strategic decision, that is to reduce the size of our structure. The payment flow is very high, we expect advances for the next half year. About our cash, for the first half, we show the use of our resources already used in working capital acquisitions and paying dividends. Our generation of future impact will be even more consistent for our EBITDA in the second half, and significant improvement of cash generation for the company, allowing paying dividends and also continuous reducing the amount of leverage that we want to see by the end of 2023. These were the highlights. Alexandre, I pass the floor to you, so we can have Q&A.
We have Q&A session. The first is from Danny, from XP.
Could you detail if people working on a domestic project, how can we think about this going forward?
Thank you, Danny, for your question. We had a CapEx investment of 33% above last year. The first quarter, we already mentioned that we were going to advance opening new stores and renovation of the same store, so we will have a CapEx similar to what was in 2022, but with higher than the first half. If you look at the stores line, we're deeply focused on AR&CO, and our investment in the United States with a new store that is bringing exceptional results.
Here we're talking about corporate, then BRL 36 million in investment. There's 32% growth year-over-year, and mainly related to our Distribution Center. That still required investment in the 2Q, but now it's finalized and ready, and fit according to the framework that we need to support the company in terms of logistics. The rest of the amount is the continuity of investments in technology. We have squads and teams for new applications, new functionalities, as well as the ones that are supporting the integration of the new companies to our business. We believe that that CapEx level could be lower in the future, but not substantial, because it's necessary, and that's what's guaranteeing the business being supported in the digital lines and integrating the channels, which is our vision in the big transformation of retail for the future.
It'll also connect our products, stores, and our brands to consumers. That's the idea behind that.
Sachete, the next question is from Ruben from Santander.
Once again, you and the changes that you've announced show how agile you are in recognized areas to correct the route for some projects. Could you give us some more flavor on the criterion reasons that you used to select the brands that were discontinued, and thinking about the learnings in this process, should they influence the strategic direction of the company moving forward in the brand architecture? I'd like to hear more about the structural changes that were promoted in the first half and that announced clearly now, streamlining the brand portfolio and restructuring that.
Okay, wait a second. Hold your horses. Okay, let me start with the end. If I forget something, you can go back to the beginning, okay? Thank you, Ruben, for your question. Alexandre speaking. First of all, we will have no further impacts. We've cleaned up that, so for the expenses in the second quarter. Second, about the learnings. Trying to go into B- category, that's not a path for our company. In DTC, gross margin is greater than 70%. That's where we really know how to navigate, we no longer have the intention of testing the waters in other categories, even in bags and shoes, in by B - and C classes. It was a test during the pandemic, driven by an opportunity to create a white label for a big e-commerce, but it didn't really strategically fit.
It wasn't just financial. That was an important learning. That's part of the, the business, right? Testing fast and correcting fast. What about the question? How does that change for us in the long term? Oh, the value of those savings, all those savings should be about BRL 80 million a year in our SG&A line. That's a significant amount. Like I said, what changes, I'm not gonna test anything unless it's AB Plus categories. That already eliminates many issues in M&A, that there were some speculations in regards to that in our company. About the learnings, I can say that we'll always want to test. The company is rebellious, restless, over 50 over 100 years old with the startup spirit, but does really value dividend payment and cash generation. Since the IPO, 12 years ago, it was over 1 billion dividends paid in that period.
On average, BRL 100 million per year, even though COVID was 3 years ago. The company's assumption is to have a cash position close to net cash and 0 as possible. However, we do like to test things, and we're very agile. I believe that the pandemic was the biggest example in history that we had. Now, to a lesser extent, but also important, some business areas that were supporting the business, that were in the maturation phase, we could see that the return would be more in the long term. To think that we have gross 50% in the cycle 2022 compared to 2021, that generates a new company. We're gonna end the year with revenues over BRL 6 billion, without a doubt. If compared to 2021, the company made BRL 3.6 billion. It's pretty much double the company that we had 2 years ago.
We're very fast in making changes. We really have things in control and an awesome team. That decision was very important. The first quarter showed us that it would be a more challenging scenario. We didn't wait. We had a lot of support from the board of directors, as always. The brands that are no longer in our portfolio, My Shoes and my brand and Bambini and Fiever, because too much concentration on sneakers. That's the only one that upset me a little, because it was the brand after this second phase, you know, first Arezzo and the others, then we have BAW, very similar to Fiever, with a higher recurrence than Fiever. So a bit of an overlap between the two. We decided to discontinue Fiever. The others were pretty much testing, but I, I really liked Fiever. I really liked it.
But BAW is a brand that brings in the young people, the underground street people, that tribes that really add to fans.
Thank you, Alexandre.
The next question is from Luiz, BTG.
I'd like to understand the level of verticalization of production that you achieved versus the target, and if you can comment on how you see the evolution of the pricing point in the American market.
Okay, they're very specific questions, so help me out here. I'll start off, though. How are you doing, Luiz? Thank you for your 2 questions. I'll start off with verticalization. Here, once again, I'd like to address the more cultural aspects of our company. When you go to Rio Grande do Sul, where we operate the most, we have in caps on the walls, speed. In the beginning of the pandemic, where we have a boom in demand in 2021, especially because many of the U.S. brands were sourcing in Brazil with China closing down, we quickly saw an opportunity to improve our own production because our origin back in the '70s was a plant. For 20 years, we were just that. We were a plant, so we really know how to do that.
We saw many plants that were decommissioned, so we quickly invested, and it wasn't high investment, so that we can guarantee the sourcing. During that strong growth cycle in 2021, 2022, you never saw us not delivering or not having revenue because of the disruption in the supply chain. The reality changed completely. The U.S. market heated up, China opened up, and there's the U.S. dollar. Consequently, there was a huge opening of production for our products here in Brazil, showing that we did not need to continue growing in a verticalized manner. One of the non-recurring write-offs was closing the plant in Veranópolis because it didn't have strategic sense, and even the labor that we had was higher than expected. That shows our ability to adapt fast.
The level that we delivered from 16%-17% in own production in footwear, it showed that it wouldn't be higher than 25%, but now the growth would be through outsourcing. That's the initial model that we had. The plants that we have for shoe, for shoes, that's very well structured. That's been here for 23 years. It's Schutz, that's where I started my life. It's essential for the brand because it gives us the flexibility of producing many different types of shoes, very fast, fast replenishment, and our plants in Bahia, that has our lower price point. The labor has very appealing cost and excellent productivity. We also invested in bags. That was very important for our business.
Verticalization is in bag production, because that's where we have to grow a little more, especially because bags has a lot of outsourcing in the sewing, and the most important part is cutting, because there's expensive machines, and we've invested in an extremely modern machine, $1 million in a machine, but it will give us savings of almost 16% in leather consumption. That's the type of investment that we will have, mainly focused on bags. Now about pricing in the U.S., that was the second question, right? Yes. Well, with the US dollar, we had to make some adjustments of 7%-8% in our prices in U.S. dollars in the U.S. market. That's based on the sell-in for the beginning of August, or based on that, for the August sell-in, it was well accepted by the department store.
There is a certain inflation in the shoe wear market, well, in all categories in the U.S. It's okay. That wasn't a big issue. Our target price is $128 for Schutz. We export $100 up to $148. The Alexandre Birman brand is operating in a segment that has a lot of price elasticity, and even part of that production, as of 2023, 2024, will be done in Italy, the same plan as Paris Texas. Alexandre Birman, $595 price point will be that, that will be the range. The Arezzo brand, recently entering Macy's, the launch will be on Independence Day in Brazil, September 7. Macy's winter will be full of Arezzo. That's $99. It's more sensitive price point. We can't go over that too much.
We really have to work on our sourcing and the volume that Arezzo has to get appealing gross margins, even with a much lower price point than our average. I'm absolutely sure that the Arezzo brand will have excellent results in sell-out compared to the competition. The brand's already operating on the level a bit over $100.
Still about the U.S., Marcus from BBA says that we've seen a sequential improvement in the second half. What are prospects for operating in the second half?
Well, perfect. Not too many short-term levers to improve our operation. We're reviewing how to roll out the new retail model that Schutz has found by opening the flagship on Broadway. It already has a positive bottom line, not just a very high top line. The store already has very interesting profitability level. We're preparing a model that can be rolled out, that can be replicated, and many shopping center operators are looking for that, but that's not gonna happen in the 2023 cycle. In addition, strengthening our e-commerce and increasing full price sales and Arezzo jumping in, which can lead to very fast growth. We already have this 2nd sell-in for Arezzo in August, and Macy's is really confident about the growth capability of the brand. 1st quarter, 2024, we believe there will be great revenues for Arezzo brand in the U.S.
Alexandre Birman, with production in Italy, increasing its perceived value. We already have to include Paris, Texas, in revenues. Very strong share in the U.S., but it's still the beginning. We don't have exponential changes, but instead, gradual and continuous improvement of our operations in the U.S. market, stabilizing our expenses, which is very important. We're very confident that the operations that the made in Brazil shoe wear is unique in the U.S. and balance out our investment level versus return. We do trust that the operations in the U.S. market are on the right path.
Thank you, Alexandre. The second one from Citi, from João Soares.
Asking about multi-brand growth, how it's working in the Arezzo&Co growing and prices versus markdowns.
In multi-brand, we have the share of wallet that's very relevant, and Vicenza coming in will give us an interesting upside because the brand, it's very under-penetrated, as we've shown in the acquisition thesis. It's only present in 500 points of sale in Brazil. Schutz has 1,200, we have a good share for Vicenza's strong growth. In the bag category, we still don't have cross-selling in multi-brand that we have, especially in Arezzo, that we have in the monobrand chain. It's a very strong cost push here. And Brizza, it's worth noting, we've been investing increasingly more in Brizza in multi-brand. It's been showing excellent performance in multi-brand. I can't say there's a silver bullet that will help us grow strong in multi-brand and maintaining that rate of 26%-28%. It's a distribution chain that we really master. We have state-of-the-art B2B system with our electronic showroom.
We're very agile in product launches and collecting the orders, so we're going to maintain the consistency. The mix of our sell-in in multi-brand is pretty much full price. We have one registry online that every now and then purchases some leftover pieces from our collection, and in AR&CO, we have very strong since the acquisition. It's different than a shoe wear boutique. In the second half, it'll be more challenging in AR&CO multi-brand. We've been transferring the good practices, and AR&CO will see the sell-in, where that will take place next week, and we're absolutely sure that we can evolve in that AR&CO in multi-brand.
Thank you. Our next question is from...
I would like to understand in the second quarter of 2023 how the company is thinking about growing gross margin.
The competitive scenario is very challenging. The shoes brands have an absolute leadership. We have 3 largest brand, brands in the Brazil for the upper income classes. Our sales at malls show sales per square meter that are much higher than any other competitor. The distribution of the brands in the multi-brand, as I said, with high loyalty from our stores, it's almost a one-stop shop here in terms of price and brand. Today, we don't see strong competition. About growth, a consolidated growth in 2nd half, and the quarters to come will be similar to what happened so far, and we're confident of achieving our guidelines for revenues and for the year of 2023. Marketing, we have good news.
The savings we have at the beginning of 2023 will be fully captured in the third quarter, We're seeing a possibility of good improvement of margin in our results, be it EBITDA or net income.
Our next question is from Vinicius, from UBS.
How could you see the different brands of women's apparel? How is your mind for long-term strategy?
She's talking about our company? Well, that's a point of attention. We've been learning a lot with this category. Our challenges in supply are huge. I have a positive highlight for Carol Bassi. In terms of the percentage of our revenue being low, Carol Bassi is growing very, very strongly, with a very high profitability. It's a brand that will surpass BRL 35 million in EBITDA in 2023, with growth of above 60% year-over-year.
We're gonna open a new store in a different format, and we're gonna test it. It's not gonna be a mega store. It's gonna be the first store with 120 sqm at Leb lon Shopping, with a much lower CapEx. We're very confident in, in the operations of that store. It will show our capacity of future expansion. We also want to open a Carol Bassi store in a more mega store format, with a good allowance at a mall in Curitiba. In addition to renovating the flagship at Cidade Jardim . It's hard to believe that it's almost BRL 60 billion in revenues per year, so it's the same store since it opened in 2019. It will be... We're working on a pop-up store inside the mall, in a Carol Bassi competitor at Cidade Jardim Mall. It's doing very well.
This is what we have for Carol Bassi in 2023. The store, in a smaller format, has the potential to open hundreds of stores, we're very hopeful. About our women apparel in our brands, in Schutz and Reserva, the reality is a bit different. About Schutz. We're very confident that we saw which is the best assortment. The store at Oscar Freire has been having interesting sales in BRL 500,000 month. We defined, it was one of our assumptions, of which format we should roll out, that apparel is an accessory for shoes. The stores that we're gonna roll out, will have a mix of apparel, shoes, and handbags, and in the future, maybe sunglasses within the same format. The first store will open at JK Mall, in the same place we have a store today.
It's an 84 sqm store. It took a long time to achieve the c-concept of a project that would align the brand with the capacity of displaying stock, all the products. The level of confidence is very high for this store. We're going to wait for the results to mature in November, to roll it out. We're gonna open two more stores, still in 2023, with the same format. I think we got the niche right. It will apparel will account for 25%-30% of the Schutz brand. This is what we want to do with this brand. We haven't taken it to multi-brand, although having requests from many store owners wanting Schutz brand, we don't believe that's for the cycle of 2023 or not even for the winter.
That will start in September, October, for winter 2024, we're gonna take it to apparel. At the Leblon Mall, due to the revenue, the results are good. Our greatest performance at Reserva has been with the stores of Reserva. The rollout is incremental sales and operations that account for 12% of the store's income. We there's a level of 8%-10% of incremental revenue when the gears are working well, very few SKUs, so we don't take up a lot of the area. What we have organic is women's apparel.
These initiatives that I just mentioned, I hope it's clear that our process with the adjustments that had to be made for the company to have growing margins in the bottom line, analyzing opportunities of inorganic growth, now we have a little bit more flavor in our strategic decisions.
Thank you, Alexandre. I have some questions about working capital from Vinicius, from JPMorgan . About this normalized cash cycle with a mix of sellout. I think we mentioned this a bit about the changes in working capital. He wants to understand how this will work going forward.
Thank you for your question. It's important to talk about the business. Alexandre already mentioned that we won't have structural changes in the future. Of the 12%-17% is our normal now. For the sales levels, it seems that they're more normalized for what we have today, and these channels should increase and progress in a similar fashion. We've been seeing a higher derivation of B2B in the second half. Going forward, we have improvements in inventory, but we don't have gaps in days, inventory days, as we had in the past. If we look at net income, it was related to the inventory that we have from Vicenza, and the inventory days are similar to 2022, but we believe that we can be more efficient, and we're working in that direction to improve days of inventory for the second half.
About accounts payable, we have an improvement, bringing that to the same numbers we had in 2022 for the 2nd quarter and part of the 3rd quarter of 2023, and part of that in the 4th quarter. I'm gonna summarize my answer. It's between 21% and 22%. Today, we have 27.8%, but we did have that impact of Vicenza in the past 9 months. The normalized going forward, will be between 20.5%-22%, and that's the best that we can see going forward.
The next question is from Irma. I have a comment. This advance of our accounts payable, is spearheaded by the company. It wasn't any pressure that we received or felt. We have a mission, which is to care for the financial health of our stakeholders, be them, our suppliers or franchisees. During the pandemic, for example, we didn't cancel any orders from our suppliers. We supported the franchisees, extending payment day for royalties and other initiatives shows how the company really takes care of their stakeholders. This is key. We saw a scarcity of credit for the suppliers. We used our balance sheet that is very robust, we're in a very comfortable position. If we look at comparing the average of the market of our peers, 0.5% times our debt makes us confident that we can pay a percentage of dividends, as always been done.
That's our assumption. But in cycles, we help our stakeholders. For the second half of 2023, I can say that we're only going to improve our working capital over net income. It was a deliberate decision, and we're very happy after closing the cycle, when we could help the suppliers that with times of very high interest rates. Irma also wants to know about how we're taking the positioning of pricing in the main brands and how the consumers have been reacting.
Okay, perfect. Great question, Irma. We achieved a level that is the ideal limit on the upper range. We've been doing this consistently despite our pricing system being cost plus, so we have a fixed sell-in cost. With the COGS, which is part of our product, to know what the price will be at the store and each model that we develop, and now we're looking at a reduction in the price of raw material. For high summer, we're gonna have a huge launching next week, we see a great reduction of that growth, an average price in line with the same collection of 2022. It was a cycle that was pressured globally. I see that now we're more going towards stability, and the increases we had so far hasn't affected sales since the volume was very impressive in the second quarter.
The last question from Citi, he talks about the Sell-in, how we see the health of the franchisees on the purchases for this half.
The Sell-in that we're going to perform is already for the first fourth quarter. For the third quarter, the purchases were made in June and July. We had some advances for the summer collection, Sell-in. You saw that in this quarter, our same store Sell-in was similar to the same store Sell-out. We do that deliberately, looking at the capacity, as you said, for them to pay, balancing that rate with the franchisee. The multi-channel, it's a continuous growth, so we're looking at a more extended cycle for the second half of 2023. We're going to maintain growth rates similar to the first half, but a variation in the third quarter and fourth quarter is already part of our calendar.
Those were the questions we had. We can conclude.
1 hour of call. I would like to thank you all for being part of this conference call for the third, second quarter and first half of 2023. Thank you for your attention, and I would like to congratulate our team. It's a wonderful team and the Arezzo&Co ecosystem that really makes our heart beat faster and our blood flow through our veins, and our Board of Directors, and the support of our financial team that helps our, our company and make us be better and better. Our tireless struggle towards 2054. Let's go. Thank you, everyone.