Clas Ohlson AB (publ) (STO:CLAS.B)
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Q2 23/24

Dec 6, 2023

Operator

Welcome to the Clas Ohlson Q2 2023/2024 Report Presentation. For the first part of the presentation, participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing star five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO Kristofer Tonström and CFO Pernilla Walfridsson. Please go ahead.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Good morning, and welcome to the Clas Ohlson Q2 Report Presentation. My name is Kristofer Tonström, I'm the CEO, and I'm here with Pernilla Walfridsson, CFO. We will do a short presentation before we move into the Q&A. So I'll cover the business updates, Pernilla will take us through the financial development, and then I will go through the events after reporting period and a summary. So looking into Q2, we have delivered strong sales, strong sales development with 10% organic growth across the quarter. We've also been able to improve the both gross margin and operating profit, and we have continued with our cost-saving programs, and thereby also focused on becoming even more efficient and flexible.

The good news is that we see that, the growth is broad-based from across all our key categories, and also, we have a high amount of new products being launched that also drives sales growth. Also operating cash flow has recovered versus last year, and today we also reported November, where we saw 7% organic growth, and we'll come back to that a bit more in detail. So starting with the business update, just reminding ourselves about our targets. We wanna deliver 5% organic growth, per year, with a 7%-9% EBIT margin, and we want to become industry-leading in terms of sustainability. So those are the overarching objectives.

Looking at focus areas for this year, relating back to our strategy that we launched back at our Capital Markets Day in 2022, we have three main focus areas. The first one is to make our assortment relevant 12 months a year, and the second one is to drive profitable growth on e-com, and the third one is to start expanding our store network. So just briefly touching what has happened over the quarter across each of these. So first of all, in terms of assortment, I'll come back to a bit more detail, but all in all, we do see that the growth is broad-based across the categories that we have prioritized. We have done a lot of work to ensure that we can adapt quickly to changing consumer needs.

We see the flexibility in the assortment as critical. We have also launched thousands of new products this year, and we do see an effect of the product news also driving sales growth. On our e-com business, the online sales have grown 15% now in Q2. Our online business this quarter now versus end of pandemic has actually doubled, so we have seen good progress there. Still, 50% of online orders are delivered via our store network, so obviously the combination of our physical store with our e-com is continuously helping us to deliver great service and also enabling good profitability.

We also see that we have become even more efficient in terms of having products available, and we have also, as part of the product launches that we have done, we have launched a lot of new products exclusively online to try out new ideas before we roll it out more broadly, or products that are more suited for a specific e-com purchase behavior. On the store network, obviously, we have a few years behind us of optimization of the store network. In the quarter that we're reporting, we had 1 store less than last year, but already in November, we opened three new stores, and we have also rebuilt or moved stores, so the optimization of the network continues. We're on track to open the 10 stores that we communicated for this year.

And we've also signed already now four quarters or sorry four stores ahead of next fiscal year. Obviously, the growth drivers, the focus areas are all enabled by being very efficient in terms of how we communicate to customers, and here we're shifting... We have shifted most of our spend online, and we do a lot of work in terms of digital marketing, both in social and paid search, et cetera, and it's playing out well. Also, Club Clas is a great enabler. Looking at Club Clas this quarter versus last year, same quarter, we actually have half a million more members, so a membership group of 5.2 million members, which also allows us to communicate frequently with the most important customers.

Our work with ensuring a competitive cost base has continued, and as previously announced in the last few reports, we aim to save SEK 210 million on an annualized basis, and all the plans have progressed as planned. And on sustainability, one of the key things we've done this quarter is to roll out more bigger parts of our spare parts assortment. For us at Clas Ohlson, it's critical that we sell products, high-quality products at good prices, that consumers can keep and use for a long time, and if something happens, that they can also repair what they've bought. So having a broad spare part assortment available is critical for us.

Looking then a bit more deeply into the way we work, both with assortment, but also in terms of the categories that we're prioritizing in our communication. Since our Capital Markets Day, we have talked a lot about our five consumer missions. So tidy up your home, light up your home, creating a conscious home environment, connect and enjoy your home, and fix your home. So those are the five big destinations where we know that customers are really thinking about Clas Ohlson when they have a problem or a need at home. And looking at this quarter, we do see growth across all five. If I compare to a year ago, we saw growth in two out of five, so that's obviously one big change.

We're really thinking about this as building out more of an all-weather portfolio, where we always have something that we can offer based needless of customer needs or seasons shifting. Then on an everyday basis, we are also focusing a lot on sustainability, spare parts, and obviously, seasons is critical for us, not least the season we're in right now, the Christmas season. So the five missions are here to drive traffic, and then we have also expanded our consumables assortment over the last couple of years to ensure that we can also complement the other categories with more consumable products. Looking a bit more into, I mentioned product news, so we have launched thousands of new products this fiscal year. And a big part of the organic sales growth comes from new products.

We have been able to identify gaps in our assortment and also identify new needs from a customer point of view. I also believe we've been able to price this at good levels, attractive levels, which also has helped our both gross margin and value perception with customers. Looking at where we stand from a customer point of view, we do know that the consumer sentiment in our markets is still low. It's been improving slightly, but it's still far below historical levels. We really can tell that the households and our customers are extremely price sensitive.

Then obviously, it's critical for us to ensure that we deliver high value for money, and we track this every quarter, and we see that the customers really look at Clas Ohlson as high value for money as the discounter competitors. We need to ensure we do everything to remain competitive from a pricing point of view. Last but not least, we also deliver outstanding customer service. Our NPS is at 57. In our store network, it's even higher, and we do see that that makes us stand out versus a lot of other retailers out there.

And all the work that we've done in terms of taking out overhead costs, et cetera, is also to protect the customer meeting, also physically in our stores, because we see that that makes a big difference for our customers. And then my last point before handing over to Pernilla. We're also very happy that as of 8 November, we have also closed the acquisition that we announced back in October. We have acquired the group Spares, which consists of two consumer-facing parts, Teknikdelar.se and Batteriexperten, and two business-to-business parts, Spares and Zand Group. We did this acquisition first to ensure that it adds value to Clas Ohlson.

We expect this to be EPS accretive upon closing, and we also do this to really continue our strive for delivering both on our connect mission, but also to build out in terms of our spare part assortment. We do see this as a very big underlying trend. We're gonna integrate the Spares Group as part of our Q3 report, so we will come back more on this in our next report. So today, we do not have that much more information to share. But we're excited about the deal closing, and we believe this is a big opportunity for us both here now and longer term. So with that, I'll hand over to Pernilla to take us through the financial development.

Pernilla Walfridsson
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Thank you, Kristofer. Good morning, everyone. Now let's dive into the financials of Q2 and the first six months of this financial year. Looking at the sales development, I think we have shown strength, and we have maintained the positive momentum from the first quarter into the second. Total sales in Q2 is up 9% to almost SEK 2.5 billion. Organic sales is up 10%, and like-for-like sales, sales in comparable units is up 10%. We strengthen our positive view on opening new stores. I also think it is important to underline that we strongly believe in the combination of physical stores and online sales. Online continued to drive a significant share of total growth, up by 15% in the quarter. When it comes to our different markets, we see strong total sales growth in all markets in Q2.

Organic sales growth also shows positive figures for all markets. Measured in local currency, Norway is the strongest growth market, with a 13% organic sales growth in the quarter. A positive milestone that we now have reached about SEK 1 billion in Q2 sales, both in Sweden and Norway. Before moving on and commenting on profitability, I would like to briefly remind you of the macro factors impacting our business. Firstly, it is very positive that the freight prices have stabilized on a historical, more normal level. The pandemic effects on logistics are now roughly one year behind us, which means that we have very small lag effects left in our inventory. This graph shows spot prices for transport as an illustration of the market condition. As you can see, prices have been quite stable on a reasonable level since October last year.

Less encouraging is the continued weak SEK compared to the U.S. dollar. In a three-year perspective, the SEK has lost approximately 25% versus the U.S. dollar, which impacts us a lot. When it comes to mitigating primarily the effect of the weak Swedish krona, we constantly adjust our prices, optimize sales mix, and balance campaigns and share of private labels, to mention a few. With those factors I mentioned in mind, we see a great uplift in gross margin in the quarter. We have shown pricing power, but also the ability to adjust the product mix in a good way. Sourcing and transportation costs have declined, which we can conclude had a major impact on gross margin. These positive factors were largely offset by currency effects with the weak Swedish krona compared to the U.S. dollar.

In summary, we reached 3.6 percentage points higher gross margin compared to last year. Summarizing our income statement, we have improved operating profit substantially. The operating profit, excluding non-recurring items in Q2, totaled to SEK 277 million. We are, of course, pleased with this development, but it should also be seen in the light of last year's relatively soft Q2. Share of selling expenses decreased by 2.3% to 28.1%, mainly thanks to increased sales and conducted cost savings. Administrative expenses was flat at SEK 50 million. Looking at the six months summary, we see a similar pattern with increased profits and even larger non-recurring items, with disposal of IT systems and costs for white collars reductions.

All in all, we have a profit for Q2 at SEK 173 and 147 million for the six-month period. As always, this time of the year, we have an increase in inventory ahead of peak season. The inventory is also affected by external factors, such as the Swedish krona, US dollar exchange rate. Compared to end of October last year, the inventory level is however, down, with almost SEK 200 million. So last year, inventory was a bit high, and we believe that this is a better level. Our ability to generate cash is a strength, and we saw a solid development in the quarter. Cash flow from operating activity totaled SEK 192 compared to - 167 million last year.

The improvement between the quarters is mainly due to a higher profit and a different in working capital due to normalized inventory buildup. At the end of the quarter, our credit facilities totaled SEK 600 million, of which 100 million was utilized at the end of the period. After the end of the reporting period, in connection with the acquisition of Spares Europe AB, the credit facility was increased by SEK 510 million to 1.1 billion. Of this SEK 1.1 billion, SEK 506 million was utilized after the closing of the acquisition. Net debt to EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16, was 0.0x , which means that the financial position is well in line with our financial targets. I hand over to Kristofer.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Thank you, Pernilla. So looking at the events after the reporting period and our November sales development, we again saw a solid development, with organic sales growth of 7%, net sales growth of 4%. Obviously, the difference is driven by the weak Norwegian krona, and like-for-like up 6%. Again, as for Q2, we saw organic growth across the three markets, and we also saw organic sales growth across the five missions, so similar to Q2 development. Our online business in November grew 12%, and in the numbers, we also have included the November sales of Spares, both in terms of the total and also for online.

And we believe that Spares is progressing exactly as we expected, but obviously, we'll come back as of Q3 closing to share a bit more detail. So here we only have the absolutes included. Moving on into summary and then Q&A. So, obviously, the key for us is to continue to execute on the plan that we laid out a couple of years ago. And, we do know, and we do see that the market environment and the uncertainty around the consumer spending remains. We are still very humble when we look into the spring.

We do know that, Clas Ohlson is incredibly strong, in the Christmas period, and, we are working a lot of plans to, continue to deliver in the spring, but, it's, again, we're also very humble in terms of the development. Also, as Pernilla mentioned, we need to remember that, the first half, we were also meeting fairly soft comparables, whereas, of course, in the second half, the picture is a bit different. We keep working on the key things that we believe will drive us forward. It's the relevance in our assortment, it's value for money for our customers, and also remaining our high flexibility, so we can adapt based on how the customer needs are adapting.

Also, we have some exciting store openings to look forward to in the spring, and we wanna continue to drive our online sales growth also in the spring. Again, we, of course, stay very cost-focused. We have executed on the programs that we laid out, so we're gonna continue to be cost-focused and ensure that we do not add any cost, but actually do everything to become even more efficient, also moving forward. So with that, let's move into Q&A.

Operator

If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Niklas Ekman from Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Niklas Ekman
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Thank you very much, and congratulations on very strong results here. I have to ask, this like-for-like of 10%, I believe that's the strongest growth you've reported in almost 20 years. Can you tell us a little bit more on how you've actually achieved this? How much of this is related to price? How much are you seeing in significant increase in footfall? Can you just elaborate a little bit because it's a bit difficult to understand the magnitude of this improvement? Thank you.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah. Thank you, and good morning, Niklas. So, obviously, as talked about, its assortment is a big driver. And, as you know, we do not report volume and value separated, but I can say that for the quarter, we have seen also volume growth. Obviously, we are coming out of a period where prices have gone up over the last year, but, in this quarter, we have also, of course, worked on pricing, but I think it's really the product mix that is also helping us. As said, we have launched, actually thousands of new products, that is also playing out now for this, for this fall.

In terms of footfall, we do see traffic increase, but we also see that when the customers come to us, both online and in our physical stores, they tend to buy a bit more. So the combination of traffic driving from the mission with also complementing sales on consumables, et cetera, has an effect. So those are some of the key things, i.e., assortment is a big driver, but then also we've been able to get the messages out there to drive traffic. So I think our communication and marketing is working in a good way, both for both channels, actually. So that's some more flavor on the sales development.

Niklas Ekman
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Very good. And this thousands of new products you're talking about, how does that compare to a normal year? Because I guess you always do replacements every year. Is this a dramatic increase, and have you actually increased your assortment, or have you replaced a similar amount of SKUs?

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

So these are high levels, also, looking back historically. Back at our Capital Markets Day, we showed a graph where we showed that we had actually decreased the Clas Ohlson assortment with approximately 10%, over the last, the years, before. Since then, one of the key strategies from our end was to expand the assortment, so we have increased the number of SKUs. We've also found a good way to work with our e-com channel as a way to launch products, test products at smaller, smaller volumes, and then when we see it working, we can either increase volumes online or roll out more to the physical store.

So, we have launched more, we have expanded the assortment, and then, of course, we're also doing a lot of work on the tail, to ensure that we also stop selling things that are not performing as well. So, to your original question, I, you know, looking back many years, we are at higher levels than than we have been, in a very long time.

Niklas Ekman
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, very clear. And store openings, you mentioned this as well at the Capital Markets Day here. And I think you have 11 net new openings now before next spring, and that's also, I think, the highest pace of openings since 2017. How do you see this? Is this the beginning of a new trend where you are continuing to expand and opening 10, 10+ new stores per year, or is this kind of a one-off adaptation?

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Obviously, we hope that store expansion is a driver, also more longer term, but we wanna do this in a very controlled way. So we have opened three new stores in November. We have 10 new planned, of which six will happen this fiscal year, and then four are planned for next fiscal year. And obviously, we decided in the spring to start going for expansion, and this was driven by a few different factors. One, the fact that our like-for-like store network was now performing well. We have done a lot of optimization, closed a lot of stores, moved stores, et cetera, so like-for-like was developing positively.

The second thing is with the both headcount reduction, but also overall cost reduction, obviously, we are giving ourselves the possibility to become more profitable on a store level. And third, obviously, looking at the macro environment right now, a lot of retailers are shrinking store networks, moving out of cities, et cetera, which, of course, give us a good opportunity when it comes to discussions with landlords, et cetera. So, given that, we want to ensure that we capture this opportunity when the market is soft... to find the right places for us. That also means that there are a lot of store opportunities that have come up now in a fairly short period of time.

That doesn't mean we're gonna keep the exact same pace every year, but it has given us a really fast start now this year. And then, of course, we wanna be very, very careful. We wanna ensure that we go for quality and not quantity in terms of new stores. So for every new store that we open, it needs to deliver on the bottom line. So we're opening a lot of stores now, but we also wanna carefully evaluate those store openings, and then decide on how to move forward. But, of course, our hope is that it plays out well so we can continue a careful expansion.

Niklas Ekman
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Very clear. Thank you. Just a, a quick final question. The SEK 210 million in cost savings, how much of that have you delivered on by now?

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

So, from an organization point of view, most of the 160 FTEs have left, and obviously, we have reported most of the one-off costs related to that. Also, when it comes to office, shrinking office space, et cetera, most of that has also been executed. And also the depreciations are obviously captured now as well. So, the plan has been executed, and then the effect of that will obviously gradually have an effect. What I think is important to remember is that if you look at the numbers going forward, we would have had SEK 210 million more cost unless we did this.

But then as we also communicated when we announced these changes, we have seen, of course, cost inflation in parallel, so salary increases, rental increases, and we're gonna see that also in 2024. So it's, it's not gonna be possible to find exactly SEK 210 million, line by line in terms of net-net savings. It's also been down to, to offset. But all the changes have now, most of them have, have been executed. And Pernilla, I don't know if you wanna add anything.

Pernilla Walfridsson
CFO, Clas Ohlson

So from an one-off cost perspective, we will not have much left, a couple of million SEK, maybe something like that, so.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Niklas Ekman
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Very clear. Super, thank you very much.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Magnus Råman from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Thank you very much, and firstly, congratulations on the results, of course. I think I will tie into to previous questions a bit, but coming back to the price increases here, if we look forward instead, I mean, a lot of the surveys show that Swedish and Nordic retailers plan to increase prices also in 2024. At the same time, you mentioned here you expect a continued weak macro environment in the next year. So in that backdrop, do you expect price increases to be possible next year? That's the first one.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

I think on an overall level, we'll see less price increases than we have seen because, of course, over the last one and a half years, we've had a huge impact from transportation, currencies, et cetera. So I think in general, we'll see less. And then, of course, we need to remember that as we shared in the graph here, we compare ourselves in terms of value for money with discounters, and we've also seen less price movement across the discount competitors than we have seen in some other parts of the market. So for us, it's critical to remain competitive. And then as we always do, we work very strategically with different categories and different product items where we need to be and want to be competitive.

So on some products, we're gonna take down prices, on others, there might be an opportunity or the in prices might have gone up more where we need to adjust upwards. But I think as a general answer, I think the price increase expectation on the market, I think is lower in 2024 than what we've seen in 2023.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Great. And then the second one, price, I mean, you report here a good gross margin development year-on-year, but it's still clearly down year-on-year two years, so Q2 two years ago. And you mentioned here that you sort of constantly adjust prices to adjust for the weak SEK, the imported inflation that you have experienced on your sourcing. So do you expect that there is a catching up here? I mean, this relates, of course, to the first question, but do you think there's a catching up to do for Swedish retailers, that they have not been able to adjust fully given the weak consumer climate, or how do you view that, also in sort of relation to you possibly getting back to your previous gross margin levels?

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah. So I don't think I wanna comment on the, you know, all other retailers. But if I look for Clas Ohlson, I think fairly, I mean, as you say, we haven't taken out all the prices to end consumers. I mean, that we can obviously tell from the gross margin of the last couple of years or one and a half years. And then we have seen an improvement, but also, as you mentioned, it's not back to historical levels. And we also expect and aim for improvement in the coming quarters, but the year-on-year improvement is not gonna be as much as we've seen in the first two quarters, where the rebase was weaker.

Then I think we need to remember the gross margin two years ago that you referred to was also very high. I think it was up to 43%, and then historically, we have been more closer to 40-41% in Q2. So, net-net, we always want to balance. I mean, value for money for customers is the number one priority, and then it's about the balance in margin and growth. And we want to ensure, especially that we do not discount and promote too much, but rather identify the correct right price point and launch new product at the correct price point from the beginning.

And I think we have seen that in Q2, and that's a bit what we refer to when we talk about price mix. So we want to continue doing that moving forward as well. So I don't know whether that answers the question, but I think you're correct in those conclusions.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

No, that's all good. One final for me here on your assortment changes and this mix shift of assortment. Is there any way to give us some kind of idea here? For example, you mentioned in the presentation your different focus sort of categories, where you have one you call Fix Your Home, which I guess includes tools and building material related products, and so on. If one would think of that category and its share of sales today and its share of sales for Clas Ohlson, say, a couple of years back, is there any way to sort of describe how that mix shift, the magnitude of it? How much has that category declined as share of your total sales?

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yes, I think looking across those five over the last couple of years, Tidy Up, so Organize Your Home, has developed well, and also parts of the Light Up Your Home mission. So those two have performed fairly well. What we saw and I think we also shared at the Capital Markets Day, what we saw was a decline from a Clas Ohlson point of view, both on Connect and Fix. Those are two overall areas that consumers... You know, we have high, what we call mental availability in those categories. You expect Clas Ohlson to have a strong offer across Connect and Fix, but that's where we saw decline the years previously. So, I think you can say, without going into the exact percentage points, that the share of sales was down on Connect and Fix.

If you look at a lot of products we have launched now, this both summer and fall, we have done a lot on both Connect and Fix, so I think we are, regaining a bit share of sales on those two, areas. Then the Conscious Home Environment, that's the smallest of the five, but it's also one of the ones we believe in for the longer term. So we've also launched a lot of things there, but it's much smaller than the other four. But I think it's fair to say that, that we have been bringing back share of sales to Connect and Fix, and that is something our customers really expect us to do.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Is it a fair conclusion to draw that that sort of tools and bigger ticket items related to Fix are at lower gross margins, while consumables are at higher gross margins, so that you have an accretion to your gross margin if you shift out and increase consumables, or is that the wrong sort of?

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

No, I don't think-

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

To draw.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

I mean, if you look at Fix, of course, you know, Fix is a very broad-based. I mean, you have everything from small screws to spray paint, to d-c-f ix products, hangers, et cetera. A lot of things with very high gross margins. Then, of course, if you talk about branded power tools, of course, they have slightly lower gross margin, but there we also have a private label assortment that is solid. So we try to balance balance gross margin across all five. So, we're not expecting structurally gross margin to go down just because we grow Fix. But then, of course... Yeah, so I think that's the, that's the overview.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

All right. Thank you very much.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Thank you.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Nicklas Skogman from Handelsbanken . Please go ahead.

Nicklas Skogman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Yes, hello, good morning, everyone. A couple of questions from my side, please. First on the SG&A cost development, which seemed to be broadly unchanged year and year in Q2, and I think you will basically have the same level of cost savings in Q3. So is it a fair assumption that on an underlying basis now in Q3, if we exclude the Spares acquisition, that you will have pretty much unchanged SG&A costs again?

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

So obviously across what we could see was that on selling, it's down and admin, it was flat. I think it will vary a little bit, by quarter, because of course, there are other things in there as well, like marketing, et cetera, that is more flexible. So of course, as I said before, the SEK 210 million, they will go away, but then there will be other things impacting. But I don't, I don't think I can give a straight outlook on Q3, but and you'll see this a little bit, depending by quarter. But the SEK 210 million, the cost saving programs have been executed, so, so that part is happening.

Nicklas Skogman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Yeah, good. And then you, you mentioned the continued focus on costs and then not adding any costs, and so on, and also mentioning rent and salaries going up next year. So do you see room for any bigger cost out actions heading into next year as well, or are we talking more smaller moves?

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

No, I think, you know, we're not expecting, today, we're not expecting any other, any more of these overall, big cost programs. We have executed two in a fairly short period of time, so we believe that we are, fairly competitive from a cost, point of view. Then, of course, we want to become more efficient, all the time. And I think especially as, you know, as we open new stores, we're trying to rethink how you can operate stores in an effective way, when we source product. You know, we try to become more and more effective in the day-to-day in all the operations, but I'm not expecting any overall cost-saving programs, looking at the outlook right now. So we try to do these changes with, also next year's inflation in mind.

Nicklas Skogman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Okay. Very good. And on the gross margin, it looked like a rather big tailwind there from lower input costs. Is that tailwind becoming bigger now in Q3?

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

No, I wouldn't say bigger. But then obviously, transportation, if you look at the graph that Pernilla shared, obviously now transportation costs, the very positive tailwind from transportation, is not gonna be as significant, obviously, in the next few quarters. It's gonna meet also fairly lower base. But I wouldn't say more tailwind from sourcing, apart from the transportation. I don't know whether you have anything else, Pernilla?

Pernilla Walfridsson
CFO, Clas Ohlson

No, but, I mean, we continue to have a pressure from the currency effects.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yes.

Pernilla Walfridsson
CFO, Clas Ohlson

We also see, I mean, the development of the NOK has not been especially good lately-

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

No

Pernilla Walfridsson
CFO, Clas Ohlson

... so that continues.

Nicklas Skogman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Okay, perfect. And then lastly, on the November sales, I had some questions whether perhaps there's been some sort of a pull forward in Christmas shopping to November. I don't know if you're able to sort of discern that based on what you were selling in November or not.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

I mean, we did, we did start with the Christmas season early, and it, it's almost like every year we say it starts earlier and earlier. But yeah, there is, in November, there's been some Christmas sales. I mean, Christmas trees and et cetera, have started to sell already in November. And, and then obviously this year, Advent, and Black Week were separated. They, they were together, in the same weekend last year. But, yes, we saw some early Christmas sales already happening in November.

Nicklas Skogman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken Capital Markets

All right. Excellent. Thank you very much.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Thank you.

Operator

There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.

Speaker 7

We do have one written question from the webcast. It's from Daniel Ovin, Nordea, and it's relating to Spares Europe. And even if it's early days, have you seen a pickup in the demand of spare parts and accessories in the consumer electronics space over the last few months?

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yes. Hi, Daniel. So, yeah, we do see a big demand increase on anything related to spare parts and accessories. So the demand is high out there, and obviously, anytime new devices are being launched, you see that accessory sales, the demand is going up, and then also, after a while, for the spare parts. But in general, demand for spare parts and accessories continues to be very high.

Speaker 7

By that, we don't have any more written questions, so I'll hand it back to you, Kristofer.

Kristofer Tonström
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Okay. Thank you very much, everybody, for calling in. And we will obviously see each other again back in Q3, when we also have a December month, or we will share the December month before, but then we will be able to conclude on the full quarter. So, thank you very much. Now we're gonna go back to pushing Christmas sales. Thank you.

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