Good afternoon. I would like to welcome you to the Aterian Inc. Q4 earnings report. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star when again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Ilya Grozovsky, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development. You may begin your conference.
Thank you. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Aterian's fourth quarter 2023 earnings results. On today's call are Joe Risico and Arturo Rodriguez, our co-CEOs. A copy of today's press release is available on the Investor Relations section of Aterian's website at aterian.io. Before we get started, I want to remind everyone that the remarks on the call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are based on current management expectations. These may include, without limitation, predictions, expectations, targets, or estimates, including regarding our anticipated financial performance, business plans and objectives, future events and developments, and actual results could differ materially from those mentioned.
These forward-looking statements also involve substantial risks and uncertainties, some of which may be outside of our control and that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties, among others, are discussed in our filings with the SEC. We encourage you to review these filings for a discussion of these risks, including our annual report Form 10-K filed on March 16, 2023, and our quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed on November 8, 2023, and our upcoming annual report on Form 10-K when it is available on the investor portion of our website at aterian.io. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. These statements are made only as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise them for any new information except as required by law.
This call will also contain certain non-GAAP financial measures, including Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin, which we believe are useful supplemental measures that assist in evaluating our ability to generate earnings, provide consistency and comparability with our past performance, and facilitate period-to-period comparisons of our core operating results. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures and definitions of these indicators are included in our earnings release, which is available on the investor portion of our website at aterian.io. Please note that our definition of these measures may differ from similarly titled metrics presented by other companies. We are unable to provide a reconciliation of non-GAAP Adjusted EBITDA margin to net income margin, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure on a forward-looking basis, without unreasonable efforts because items that impact this GAAP financial measure are not within the company's control and/or cannot be reasonably predicted.
With that, I will turn the call over to Joe.
Thank you, Ilya. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Today I'm going to touch on our 2023 year, including our fourth quarter financial results, and I will also discuss the actions we are taking to foster growth for Aterian in 2024 and beyond, as we remain focused both on achieving Adjusted EBITDA profitability in the second half of 2024 and on positioning Aterian for substantial growth beyond 2024. Arty will then cover in more depth our financial results for the fourth quarter and will provide our outlook for Q1. For those of you joining for the first time today, a quick primer on Aterian.
Aterian owns and operates its own brands, marketing and selling consumer products in the following categories: home and kitchen appliances and accessories through our hOmeLabs, Mueller, and PurSteam brands. Health and wellness, primarily through our Squatty Potty brand. Iron-on transfer paper through our PPD or Photo Paper Direct brand. E ssential oils through an umbrella of brands, including Healing Solutions. We sell our products primarily in the U.S., and we derive most of our revenues from the Amazon.com marketplace. 2023 was a year of change for Aterian, with Arty and I taking the co-CEO role last July. Arty and I have a strong partnership, and it's been a pleasure to be sharing the role with him.
We set out on a mission to focus, simplify, and stabilize Aterian, and together with our team, we have accomplished quite a bit to reposition the company for success and growth, and we are excited about the value we believe we can deliver for shareholders.
Some of the things we have accomplished thus far include refocusing Aterian as a consumer products company by eliminating non-core initiatives that don't serve our products business. Shifting away from internal-only developed software to a more agile and efficient third-party model. Eliminating a significant number of non-core SKUs. Further strengthening of our balance sheet through the amendment of our credit facility with our lender. Restructuring our people and vendor costs to better align with our newly focused core business. Reducing the number of seller accounts from 31 accounts to approximately 8. Further streamlining our fulfillment operations. And further optimization of the marketing and performance aspects of our core SKUs. We are pleased with the results of these actions thus far, and we look forward to growing Aterian from this baseline.
With respect to the fourth quarter, we are pleased with the trend in our operating results and, in particular, the progress that we have made thus far to stabilize our business, notwithstanding pricing pressure across a number of highly competitive categories and a challenging discretionary spending environment. Our fourth quarter results also reflect the completion of our previously announced SKU liquidation program, which we believe has well positioned us for success in 2024 and beyond. We also continued efforts to optimize the marketing and performance of core SKUs. While this work is never-ending, we made progress on that front across each of our categories, and we are seeing early results from these efforts in Q1 of this year.
In 2024, we will continue our strategy to focus and simplify and, to a lesser extent, given the work we've done thus far, stabilize how we operate in order to not only position Aterian for Adjusted EBITDA profitability but also drive profitable top-line growth. We will be focused on product development, omnichannel expansion, and inorganic growth in new and existing categories. With respect to new products in 2024, we will largely be focused on our existing portfolio, refreshing a number of existing products, and also launching new products that are variations in our existing portfolio that we believe will provide value to a meaningful segment of consumers. For example, as previously announced, we expanded our essential oils portfolio to address consumer needs for healthier, chemical-free products, and we have seen promising early results thus far. We intend to continue to expand this offering throughout the rest of our oils brands.
In addition, we are working hard on our Squatty Potty brand with a view towards further expansion for its flagship toilet stool product and also expanding the product categories under the brand. We will continue to focus on our omnichannel strategy, primarily through expansion to new marketplaces that we believe can drive profitable revenues for our existing product portfolio. For example, and as previously disclosed, we launched on TikTok with most of our SKUs. Results to date have not been material. We intend to continue to invest in that platform and to evolve alongside that platform. Also, in the near term, we will be launching a number of our products for sale on Mercado Libre in their Mexico-based marketplace, one of the leading marketplaces in Latin America. We will also be expanding to Amazon Canada in the near term.
Further, we are actively exploring a number of other marketplaces as we endeavor to position our products everywhere consumers are shopping. Regarding our inorganic strategy, M&A remains an area of focus. We recently completed a small investment in 4th & Heart, a leading ghee butter brand in the United States. We believe investment in new high-growth brands can be an opportunity to help drive significant value for Aterian as well as open up new categories. We intend to continue to explore investing in earlier-stage brands, and we believe Aterian can be a valuable partner. Before I pass it along to Arty, a few words on Aterian's Nasdaq compliance with the $1 minimum bid rule. We expect to regain compliance prior to the April 22nd deadline set out by the Nasdaq through a reverse split.
While today we are not providing specifics on the reverse split ratio or timing, what I can say is that we are excited to regain compliance given that we believe we have addressed the most significant underlying operating and other issues that have been affecting our stock's underperformance over these last years. With that, I'll pass it along to Ily. Thank you.
Thanks, Joe. It's great to partner with you too. Good evening, everyone. We continue to make progress on our path of focusing, simplifying, and stabilizing Aterian. We continue to see certain results from these missions, especially on our balance sheet, as it continues to get stronger, with inventory almost at normalized levels, a great accomplishment considering the levels we were just a year ago. Although our Q4 results are better than anticipated, we still have a long way to go on our path towards Adjusted EBITDA profitability. With some of our recent moves, such as aligning our fixed cost to our go-forward size and scale of our focused company and our extension and increased flexibility of our credit facility, has further strengthened our balance sheet.
We continue to grow more confident that we are on the right path to deliver 2024 second half Adjusted EBITDA profitability, and we have the balance sheet strength to deliver these results. Now, moving to the Q4 results overall, as expected, we saw our revenue decline primarily due to our strategy of discontinuing sales of non-core SKUs, coupled with challenging consumer discretionary spending and competitive pricing pressures across our portfolio. Coupled with our previously announced fixed cost savings, we believe we are starting to see our Adjusted EBITDA losses narrowing. Now, moving on to the details of the fourth quarter 2023 net revenue, net revenue declined 40.3% to $32.8 million from $54.9 million in the year-ago quarter. $32.8 million fourth quarter net revenue by phase, as defined in our press release, broke down as follows: $25.2 million sustain, $0.4 million in launch, and $7.2 million in liquidate and inventory normalization.
The year-ago quarter net revenue of $54.9 million by phase broke down as follows: $40.8 million sustain, $1.0 million in launch, and $13.1 million in liquidate and inventory normalization. Our sustained net revenue decrease of $15.6 million is primarily as a result of our SKU rationalization efforts, which have discontinued poorly performing SKUs, coupled with reduced consumer discretionary spending and competitive pricing pressures. Our liquidation net revenue decreased by $5.9 million as the efforts of liquidating high-cost inventory have essentially reached its conclusion. 8 variations were launched late in the fourth quarter, and we are continuing to be thoughtful in the timing of our new product launches through 2024. Overall gross margin for the fourth quarter increased to 51.0% from 37.1% in the year-ago quarter and increased from 49.4% in Q3 2023. The improvement was driven by product mix and lower liquidation of higher-cost inventory compared to the prior periods.
Our overall Q4 2023 contribution margin, as defined in our earnings release, was -0.8%, which improved compared to a prior year's -11.5% and decreased compared to a third quarter 2023 CM of 3%. The year-over-year increase in contribution margin was driven by product mix and the level of liquidation revenue of higher-cost inventory compared to the prior period, offset by competitive pricing pressures on our core business. Q4 2023 saw our sustained products contribution margin decline slightly year over year to 6.9% versus 8.3% in Q4 of 2022. The decrease in contribution margin was driven by competitive pricing pressures and product mix and the completion of moving certain higher-cost inventory. Looking deeper into our contribution margin for Q4 2023, our variable sales and distribution expenses, as a percentage of net revenue, increased to 52.8% as compared to 51.6% in the year-ago quarter.
The increase in sales and distribution expenses is predominantly due to product mix and an increase in fulfillment costs. Our operating losses of $8.2 million in the fourth quarter improved from a loss of $22.8 million compared to the year-ago quarter, an improvement of approximately 63.8%, primarily driven by the improvement in CM and the reduction of fixed costs. Our fourth quarter 2023 operating loss includes $1.6 million of non-cash stock compensation expense, a reserve for barter credits of $0.3 million, and a non-cash loss on impairment of intangibles of $0.3 million, while our fourth quarter 2022 operating loss includes $2.7 million of non-cash stock compensation expense, a reserve of barter credits of $1.6 million, and a non-cash loss on impairment of goodwill of $0.5 million.
Our net loss for the quarter of $7.7 million improved from a loss of $20.3 million the year-ago quarter, an improvement of approximately 62%, primarily driven by the improvement in CM and the reduction of fixed costs. Our fourth quarter 2023 net loss includes $1.6 million of non-cash stock compensation expenses, a non-cash loss on impairment of intangibles of $0.3 million, and a reserve of barter credits of $0.3 million, while our fourth quarter 2022 net loss includes $2.7 million of non-cash stock compensation expenses, a reserve for barter credits of $1.6 million, a non-cash loss on impairment of goodwill of $0.5 million, and a gain on fair value of warrant liability of $2.8 million.
Our adjusted EBITDA loss of $5.6 million, as defined in our earnings release, improved by 65.4% from a loss of $16.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, primarily driven by the improvement in CM and the reduction of fixed costs. Moving on to the balance sheet. At December 31, 2023, we had cash of approximately $20 million compared with $28 million at the end of September 30, 2023. The decrease in cash, as expected, is predominantly driven by our net loss in the period and our decision to build up inventory in advance of the 2024 season to avoid tariff impacts, specifically for our beverage cooler. This higher inventory balance should remain through Q3 of 2024. At December 31, our inventory level was at $20.4 million, down from $31.5 million at the end of the third quarter of 2023 and down from $43.7 million in the year-ago quarter.
We are happy to report that we believe that our current inventory of 20 million is almost at the appropriate levels, and the high-cost inventory normalization that we have been working on for many quarters is now behind us. As we mentioned, our inventory includes an additional 3 million of beverage coolers purchased in advance to mitigate tariff risks. Our credit facility balance at the end of the fourth quarter of 2023 was $11.1 million, down from $14.2 million at the end of the third quarter of 2023 and down almost 50% from $21.1 million in the comparable prior year period. We recently right-sized and extended our credit facility by two years to December 2026. Aterian now has access to $17 million in current commitments, which can be increased to $30 million, allowing sufficient flexibility for growth when needed.
Also, the credit facility extension reduces the minimum liquidated financial commitment from a peak of $15 million down to $6.8 million of cash on hand and/or availability, providing further flexibility as the company focuses on Adjusted EBITDA profitability and eventual growth. We believe today, based on our current forecasts, our extended credit facility, coupled with our existing cash, has further strengthened our balance sheet as we continue on our path towards Adjusted EBITDA profitability in the second half of 2024. As we look at Q1 2024, considering the continued challenges in the consumer environment, we believe that net revenue will be between $18 million and $21 million.
Using the middle of the range, this would be an approximately 45% decrease from last year's Q1, primarily driven from a reduction in SKUs from our strategic SKU rationalization and certain competitive pressures, and a 40% decrease from our sequential quarter of Q4 2023, primarily from our seasonality and our strategic SKU rationalization. As a reminder, our first quarter is our lowest quarter, and we expect that Q1 will drive slightly lower seasonal splits than previous years. As we have previously discussed, our decrease in net revenue is expected as we continue to focus our go-forward business on our best brands and products. Our primary focus today continues to be getting to Adjusted EBITDA profitability in the second half of 2024. For Q1 2024, we expect Adjusted EBITDA loss to be in the range of $2.5 million-$3.5 million.
The middle of this range represents an improvement of approximately 30% compared to Q1 2023 and a 48% improvement from a sequential quarter of Q4 2023. Again, we continue to be laser-focused on our target of turning Adjusted EBITDA profitability in the second half of 2024, and with our Q1 guide, you can see we are starting to realize some of the results of all our hard work and initiatives. We also believe, based on our forecasts, we have sufficient cash above our covenants to achieve our goal without raising additional equity. As previously stated, if we pursue additional financing, it will be predominantly for growth through M&A. We do expect a few housekeeping items in the coming weeks.
We do expect to refile our S-3 shelf to allow us to opportunistically raise capital as part of our M&A strategy over the coming year or two, if we decide to do so and if we decide to acquire any brands. We believe this is good corporate governance. Finally, as we do annually, we expect to file our 10-Q shortly after the 10-K. In closing, we believe our products, our strong balance sheet, and with our cornerstones of focus, simplify, and stabilize, we are turning the corner and look forward with confidence as we continue on our path towards Adjusted EBITDA profitability and ultimately to maximize shareholder value. With that, I'll turn it back to the operator to open the call to questions.
If you would like to ask a question, press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open.
Great. Thank you. I just wanted to start at a high level about the demand trends. The year-over-year decline in the sustained revenue has been consistent for the last three or four quarters, but the pressure appears to be getting worse, at least based on the first quarter guidance. I'm sure there's the inflationary environment that's not making it any easier on consumers, yourself, supplier pricing. I know you talked about seasonality, but help us understand what you're seeing in terms of this significant step down in revenue in the first quarter in sustained, please.
Arty, maybe you touch on this a bit, and I'll come in on the back end just around okay.
Sure. Yeah. Hey, Brian. Hope you're doing well. Y eah, I listen, we've been working very hard. We've said previously we've cut well north of 1,700 SKUs. S ome of the decrease you're seeing is the fact that we're really trying to focus this business down to our most profitable products and brands. W e do expect this revenue decrease. There is definitely still environmental pressures out there, right? Consumer spend seems to still be volatile. But overall, we're very happy to where we're tracking to. Again, our goal being the most important is getting to Adjusted EBITDA profitability. The fact that the Q1 guide is in the middle of roughly $20 million or $19.5 million isn't surprising to us, especially considering the amount of SKUs we've cut out.
I think the seasonality impacts and other things that we're doing to stabilize the business may have a little bit of the effect in that number where you mentioned it may be lower, but I don't think overall we think that's a trend that we'll continue to see in the sense of an overall shrink quarter-to-quarter that you've seen in the previous years, especially as we've rationalized our SKUs.
Yeah, that's great, Artie. I would just add that to some extent, we've lost some share, and I believe we talked about this the last time, Brian. F or some of the SKUs that go forward, which, again, we're excited about, we've done some work to regain share there. We have sustained some loss there. I think some of it is that. T hen I would just say overall, demand in general, I think, it looks pretty resilient. I think that the challenge for us is to compete, right, and to win sales for our products. W e're feeling pretty good about it, about the work we're doing to make sure we can do that.
Then two more, and I'll do them both, and then I'll move on and step into the back of the queue. Is there any revenue from the SKUs that you're getting rid of in the fourth quarter, whereas in the first quarter, you'll have no revenue, so there was some benefit in that fourth quarter? That's the first question. T he second question is, with the cost-cutting announced a few weeks ago, what's the new quarterly revenue run rate that you believe gets you to an Adjusted EBITDA profit?
Arty, you want to go for that?
Yeah. Brian, if you could repeat that first part of that question? I got the second part. I just wanted to hear the first part.
Oh, yeah. Sorry. You were mentioning that in the first quarter, the SKUs that you're getting rid of has an impact. I'm curious, from some of the SKUs you've discontinued, was there revenue in the December quarter, or is there? Won't be in the current March quarter? That's the first question.
Yes, so for sure. And it's not necessarily something we planned to disclose, but you could sort of see the liquidation numbers that you've seen in our table that we provided in the press release. When you look at sustained versus liquidation, some of that number won't be there. So that's part of the dropdown on top of the fact that there's no seasonality.
Brian, I mean, there's nothing in sustained. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, there's nothing in sustained. I mean, there's no revenue from these SKUs you're getting rid of in sustained.
Very little. Very, very, very little. Yeah, very, very little. Yep. Now, as to the second part, what do we think the run rate revenue is going to be? Listen, I don't think we're ready to talk about that in kind of full disclosure. I think we've guided the Q1 number to be roughly again, I'm speaking in the middle of the range, the $20 million. I think in some aspects, the way we look at our path to positive Adjusted EBITDA is really about, first, the focus, which is reducing the SKUs, and number two, cutting our fixed cost. I think when you look at where our key brands and products will shake out towards the second half of the year, we do think that those products will be back to a 15%-plus type CM, which will be healthy.
I think when you look at the $4 million of savings that we announced just in February on top of the savings we announced earlier in 2023, I think those combinations is what's going to get us to that kind of profitability on top of some other initiatives that Joe mentioned as we continue to simplify and stabilize. I think because our primary focus is Adjusted EBITDA, we're still working through kind of that back end of the year. So I think in theory, I don't think we're ready to actually give that number out today. I think we'll be more in line of sight when we get into later into the year in Q2, but we do feel that we have line of sight of getting to that goal, especially with those initiatives that we've kind of achieved so far.
Okay. Thank you.
Your next question comes from a line of Matt Koranda with Roth MKM. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. It's Mike Zebran from Roth MKM. Maybe just starting with new products. We recently talked about adding beverage cooler products and expanding essential oils. Given the consumer purchasing environment is still relatively deal-sensitive, how are we thinking about balancing these new product introductions with maintaining market share and adhering to a price-sensitive consumer in 2024? I guess just given we're working towards a higher margin profile in the coming quarters.
Yeah. For your question, I'll grab this one, Arturo. Maybe you can chime in. For sure, it's a challenge, right? All the things you ticked off are a challenge. When we think about the portfolio, we think somewhat in terms of good, better, best. I think some of our products, with the way historically we've gone to market, a number of those products are sort of geared towards sort of the better, best kind of version of a product. And so some of the things that we're doing are aimed at getting sort of the good product, right, better value for the price to the consumer through variations. To the extent you're on Amazon, right, those variations usually, right, not always, but usually show up on the same listing. And so now, if you think about that listing, now it's addressing a broader market of consumers.
And so hopefully, if you did your job well, you're getting more conversion on that listing. You're getting market share, and you're getting ranking, right, which means you're going to be more prominent. You're going to have a more prominent placement. And so we're not going to go crazy with new product launches, right? But there are a number of areas where we think it's appropriate for us to come to market. And so let me stop there. Does that address your question?
Yeah. No, that's clear. I guess last one from me. On the profitability target in the second half, there's a lot of moving parts to the business right now. It looks like we're doing the right things to prioritize profitability, which is great. I guess what could potentially push this profitability date out? Are we factoring in a lower promo environment or any certain pickup in product categories? Maybe just provide more color on if the profitability guide counts on any change in the macro environment. I know we talked about new market expansion earlier in the call. Is that factored in? Just speak to why we're confident and where the bar is set.
Arty, do you want to take that one?
Yeah. I think it's a good question. Listen, we feel very confident right now, right, of what we just said it 4 minutes ago on our earnings, our prepared remarks. We do feel that we're very well situated to continue to make progress and focus in stabilizing some client business, and that should unlock that goal of the second half Adjusted EBITDA profitability. I think specifically on our SKU side of the house, listen, Joe said that we're doing a lot of great things. There's still pressures out there, but we're trying to mitigate that through a lot of the actions and initiatives that he highlighted in his prepared remarks. The nice thing about the SKU rationalization is that we're really putting all our energy and focus around our core SKUs and brands.
So there's a lot more attention that we give today to every single one of the remaining brands and products than perhaps in the past the company was doing when it was dealing with 4,000 SKUs across 14 brands. So I do think that allows us to be a little bit more protective and reaction to any type of macro environment that may happen. And again, listen, the world is very wild these days. There's a lot of things that a few years ago, we probably wouldn't have ever talked about. But certainly, I do feel that the way we're currently set up does mitigate some of that risk and gives us some protections.
That said, I think, as Joe said, we're very focused on omnichannel expansion, which is important to us because I think the one thing that we feel we are very concentrated on is we are still very concentrated on Amazon, where almost 85% of our revenue north of that is there. I think some of the initiatives that the team's doing will hopefully help diversify us that over certainly through the second half of the year into next year in order to mitigate any type of impacts you may see from there.
That's clear. I appreciate that. Just want to nail down on, is there any new market expansion that we called out in the call? Is that factored into the guide?
No.
Okay. So that would just be icing on top if we're successful in those efforts.
Yeah. I mean, I think Arty and I think that marketplace expansion is important. And I think if to be if we're being fair, maybe we're a little bit behind where we should be on that. But you just have to keep in mind that you don't exactly light up a marketplace, and it automatically materializes into results, right? Particularly when you're thinking about a new phenomenon like a TikTok, for example. We see lots of reports of products that do extremely well seemingly overnight. I think the rest of the world, it's a little more complicated. I t's important. We're going to be in the marketplace that I mentioned. There are going to be other ones. And then we think of these as longer-term pillars of growth for the company.
Got it. Very clear. I'll hop back in with you. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from Marvin Fong with BTIG. Your line is open.
Thanks for taking my questions, and congratulations on all the progress. I guess I'll ask maybe one of the more obvious questions, but I think a lot of us saw the bankruptcy at Thrasio, which was probably or has been in the works for a while. But you guys did announce this small acquisition. So any change in the assets that might be for sale? And also, should we view the way that you sort of use both cash and stock for 4th & Heart as sort of a good template for how you might structure any deals for the foreseeable future?
Yeah. Artie, I'll take this, and you can jump in. So yes, we saw the Thrasio bankruptcy, and yes, it's been in the works to our knowledge. The way we think about the aggregator space is largely, right, they're all under tons and tons of duress. And then it's really not the aggregators at this point. It's largely the lenders, right? There are a couple of lenders. They have very significant portfolios of aggregators to which they've loaned money to. And so what you're largely seeing in the space is the lenders pushing together their portfolio companies. That's sort of the next wave versus, I think, Thrasio, which they're looking to try to reorganize, right? I think most of the lenders that are trying to consolidate their portfolios, that's the next move. Obviously, all their portfolio companies have significant amounts of debt.
But the hope is that by consolidating them together, they will find a way out of this. And so what that means for us is in the medium term, not likely to be opportunities to buy assets from those aggregators. Not that we're looking for that, right? 4th & Heart, obviously, has nothing to do with aggregators, right? We're kind of looking way beyond that at this point, Marvin. Having said that, if there was an opportunity, we would look at it, but it's not something we really think about at this point.
Okay. That's fair. And I guess, yeah, you mentioned bringing in the cooler inventory early to avoid tariffs. And I guess just as a broader topic, I mean, there's some if the election goes a certain way, we may see much higher tariffs on products from China. So could you just kind of remind us of your strategy? I think you said in the past, talked about efforts to kind of diversify your supplier base into other countries. Is that still the case? Have you moved some production outside of China, or where do we stand there? And do you have just a general strategy if, in fact, tariffs do rise?
Yep. Arty's got this one.
I'll grab that, Joe. Thanks. Thanks, Marvin. I guess political beliefs aside, I think we've seen some very large numbers, I guess, announced by our former president, Trump, as far as campaign rhetoric. Listen, especially with SKU rationalization, as we see that kind of come to completion, right now, about 85% of our inventory is produced in China with about 15% bottled or assembled in North America, which is an improvement over the last year, especially through SKU rationalization since kind of, I think, in 2022 or even earlier, we're kind of closer to like 95% or something like that. So we have improved on that. That said, a lot of our remaining categories, it's difficult to move away from China, right? Any electronics. We continue to look and see opportunities for that, but it is difficult.
Outside of buying inventory like we did with the beverage coolers and that, which we have flexibility to do some of that, if there were tariffs to be implemented, it's not just to Aterian. It's really across the board. I t would hit us and our competitors equally. At the other side too, we've got to listen, the election is still, it seems like, very far away, though it's always in everyone's front-page paper these days. I do think we have some time to continue to think through that. I do think the other side of that is it's kind of against what the Fed's and the public's desire is right now. With everyone trying to reduce inflation so hopefully interest rates come down.
I do think if tariffs were enacted, I do think that they're probably not going to be as widespread or as large as currently promised during what we're seeing in the current campaigns because I think the antithesis of what they're trying to do for inflation is, from an administration perspective. Gotcha. Okay. That's all fair. Thanks so much, Arty. I'll hop back back in ques.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Ilya Grozovsky for closing remarks.
As part of our shareholder perks program, which, as a reminder, investors can sign up for at aterian.io/perks, participants have the ability to ask management questions on our earnings call. I wanted to thank all the shareholder perks participants for their loyalty and their participation in the program and their questions. I've picked a few of the most popular questions that they have submitted. The first question, does Aterian have any plans to buy back company shares?
Joe, Artie? Yeah, yeah. I'll grab this one. J ust on behalf of Arty and myself, again, as Ilya said, we're grateful for the folks that are in perks and the retail folks that follow us and support us. So in the near-term, foreseeable future, the answer is no. Cash that we have on hand, we think, is going to be best deployed by investing into Aterian to pursue the strategies we've talked about on the call today. Thank you.
Great. Next question is, can the company provide an update on its efforts on TikTok specifically?
Yeah. So as I discussed earlier, we've got, I believe, most of our products there, if not all of our products on the platform. And what the results to date are, again, not material to our results. Having said that, we are spending time investing, leaning in to that platform just to do our best to sort of dial in a formula recipe that translates into results. Again, just a reminder, right? TikTok is a discovery platform, right? People are buying, seeing content, and then making a decision to buy versus Amazon, where people are coming to the platform with the product in mind, and they're searching for it specifically. So there's an adjustment there. There's a learning curve. We're working hard on it. We'll continue to talk about TikTok. And so, again, appreciate the question, and that's where we are today.
Great. Thank you. This concludes the Q&A portion of the call. In terms of the upcoming calendar, Aterian management will be participating in the 36th annual Roth Conference on March 17th to 19th in Laguna Niguel, California. We look forward to speaking with you on future calls. This ends our call. You may now disconnect.