Greetings, and welcome to the Build-A-Bear Workshop Investor Presentation. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Glen Akselrod, President of Bristol Capital. Thank you. You may begin.
Thank you, Camilla, and thank you everyone for joining our webcast today with Build-A-Bear. The purpose of today's presentation is to give our audience a better understanding of the business through a presentation and then questions with management. Just as a reminder, this is not a quarterly earnings call, and our purpose today is to give a high-level broad overview of the business. Today's discussion is gonna be led by CEO, Sharon John, who is also joined on the call by Voin Todorovic, CFO, and Gary Schnierow, who recently joined the company for investor relations and corporate finance.
Before joining Build-A-Bear, Gary was Director of Research and Senior Analyst for RiverPark Funds, and like many of you, followed the company as an investor. Gary's happy to hold any follow-up calls from investors. You should see the presentation in the webcast. If you'd like a copy, simply email me at glen, G-L-E-N, @bristolir.com. We'll break for queue questions at the end of the formal presentation. When we do break, we do encourage those questions. As a reminder, we're only taking questions through the web portal.
If you're listening over the phone, please access the web link that we sent earlier today to ask a question. You can submit a question using the text box within the portal at any time. I'll ask the questions on the air for everyone to hear. Sharon or Voin will answer. I'm not gonna reference any names, simply read the questions asked. As we have a fairly large audience today, if I get to your question online in time and it's not yet been addressed during the call and can be, I'll come back to you by email.
I'm not gonna read the forward-looking statements, but I do state they do apply. Please read them, when you have time, and I reference them on page two of this PowerPoint. With that said, once again, thank you for joining us. Remember, this is fairly informal, and we do encourage questions to help you better understand the business and its growth path. Now I'll turn the call over to Sharon to start her part of the discussion and presentation.
Thank you, Glen. Appreciate it. Thanks for everybody being here today. We wanted to provide you with some updates on Build-A-Bear and where we are, give you a little bit of background for those that are new to the story and maybe some news for those that are fairly familiar. First of all, I think that if you look at page four, is where we're starting, we have been around for a while, since 1997. We just celebrated our 25th anniversary. For some of you who may have had kids at the time or maybe were kids at the time, we were widely considered to be a pioneer in experiential retail for kids.
At that time, we were mostly mall-based. That's where a lot of retail was. That's where the growth area was. We were a vertical retailer. What we've been doing over the past decade, since Voin and I joined the company, is pivoting to become a branded intellectual property company that monetizes this strong equity that we built through that one-to-one experience, through multiple channels in multiple categories against an expanded consumer base, even in extending into content.
We mean so much to people that broader ways than the way you might initially consider, which is just in the form of a fuzzy teddy bear. We evoke memories and have tremendous relationships with our guests over time. Our recent results have been a reflection of some of the changes, the fundamental changes that we've been making in the company.
Whether those changes are, again, that evolution of the brand, recognizing that the workshop, as we call it, is just one extension of who we are as a company, but that we can create value in other revenue streams. We also accelerated a lot of those activities during the COVID time period in 2020, although that was a very difficult time for a lot of other people, for us as well, but it served as a catalyst for us to actually prepare ourselves and be a little more assertive in areas of opportunity, particularly e-com.
That it helped us in from an enabling perspective, to post in 2021 and 2022, our most profitable years in the history of the company. This would have been that those two consecutive years of record-breaking profitability then. The first quarter of 2023, which we just announced, that represents nine consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth. At that first quarter call, we also reiterated our guidance that we provided at the end of the fiscal year in 2021, reiterating it here today. Still feel very confident about the 5%-7% on the top line growth and a 10%-15% pretax expansion.
Some snapshots, just a little bit by the numbers, because it's just a fun way to get to know a company or a brand. But we're surpassed now 225 million furry friends sold since we started. That's a big number, when you compare it to almost anything else that you might consider big, whether that's publishing or music or anything like that, what's considered meaningful, what's considered breakthrough from an iconic perspective. We're in that space.
We get the aided brand awareness of over 90%, have tremendous amounts of first-party data through our loyalty memberships, our data contacts, our social media followers, over $20 million. In fact, our loyalty membership has about an 80%, 85%, 86% capture rate when they come into our stores. Those stores generate over 50 million people crossing that lease line every single year. Now, those are not all individual parties.
You know, those would be, since we have often parties of three and four that come in at once because this is often a family experience. That access, direct access to our consumers to share information with them, provide them with updates, to provide them with offers, and send them on journeys associated with our much more advanced sales force and enabled e-commerce is been really a great opportunity for us to grow this business. We now have about 500, what we call experience locations around the world with multiple business models.
We have evolved our footprint of those locations to now have 35% of those outside of traditional malls. We are proud to say of the stores that we operate, 100%, virtually 100% of those are profitable. We've shifted that consumer base to 40% being to teens and adults. It's remarkable that over 80% or around 80% of our visits are planned in advance to those stores. To put that in kind of easy to remember terms, people are going to Build-A-Bear, and sometimes they end up in a mall. They're not necessarily going to the mall, and they end up in Build-A-Bear.
That puts us in a very strong position when you think about the relationship with our landlords because we create that traffic. We've had a lot of growth in our digital demand, given some of these efforts that I mentioned, and we're very proud of our associates who create that experience for people every single day. Some key considerations then, based on that data and based on our current business trajectory and expectations, is this brand power that I'm speaking of and that access to those consumers really does represent significant monetizable opportunity.
We are trusted, we're iconic, we're all about personalization and shareable experiences. That shareability piece is important because in today's today's market of social media, we're the type of brand and experience that people want to photograph and then amplify. We have people in our brand that love Build-A-Bear, that are enthusiasts, collectors, want to provide Build-A-Bear as a gift.
What you may not know is you can also record your voice. This one-to-one experience for multiple generations, spanning a lot of age ranges and, you know, demographics, lots of socioeconomic strata, gives us a wide net on who we are able to appeal to whom we are able to appeal. We believe now, again, given our consistency of delivering results at this point, that this is a proven strategy, and that this dynamic and diversified business model has prepared us for a bright future. We are now not in the process of seeking out that strategy.
We're in the process of continuing to drive toward the execution and advancement of that strategy. We're multi-channel, we're vertical from a, that experience location perspective, with a variety of formats that can go into numerous types of locations with a lot of different business models that are profitable to us. Those opportunities are in importance because they create that one-to-one relationship, but it doesn't mean that our e-commerce, that's not, of course, physical in its experience, is not a critical piece of that circle of value that we're creating for our guests.
In fact, our older consumers over-index on that e-commerce side. The advancement of our digital capabilities has been a key unlock for us in that area. Number three, that strength and momentum is enabling us to make the right kinds of investments to support those initiatives and continue that growth objective. We do believe that Build-A-Bear is in a unique competitive position.
There's really not another Build-A-Bear. There's nothing quite like us, particularly in the North American market, with that kind of brand awareness and the affinity, as well as the U.K., where we believe that we've been comparatively unrecognized or from a market perspective, in a from a stock market perspective. The data behind the thought process that we believe Build-A-Bear is beloved, is across consumers, brands, and trend data. This is a nice snapshot of some of the types of words that pop up in our proprietary research, the brand awareness that we have, the purchase consideration.
Another data point that's not on this page that we've mentioned in the past, 90% of moms believe that Build-A-Bear is fun for their child. Interestingly, because up to a third of our business is associated with birthdays, we have a remarkably balanced seasonality. I know it's easy to believe that, Build-A-Bear is a toy company, or, they're a mall-based kids' toy company. Of course, we're going to have this super high spike in the fourth quarter.
Although we do see an increase there, that birthday party business and the birthdays of one associated with our Count Your Candles program, which is our number one program to bring in new guests, has been incredibly important to us, and it does balance out our business model. These consumers, for the most part, are also highly coveted, and quite stable. There we have across, as I noted, across generations, which provides some information on that, on how we break down.
These households, you know, tend to not only have children, but they're stable from an economic perspective. They tend to have a little higher education than the average. Now, as I mentioned, we're really building that relationship with teens and adults in a way that we hadn't before. Because of Build-A-Bear's popularity, we end up in pop culture all the time, and we call it this iconic status that we have. We have generated billions of impressions, and we do that every single year. In fact, last year, we generated over three billion media and PR impressions.
Most of that is basically pass along or us being engaged in pop culture television programming or movies. Build-A-Bear is often mentioned. That power that we have stretches into the relationships that we create with a lot of leading brands. We do a lot of collaborations, is what we call them, and co-brands. This piece of the strategy has been important to us in the kids area for a long time, particularly when the film business was such an important part of driving the Build-A-Bear business each year.
Now that's the big unlock for us as it relates to some of the older consumers, the collectible business, things like, I said, Lotso Bear or the Friends collection in one of our microsites, for example, called The Bear Cave, helps us drive incremental sales beyond the type of sales that we may have had in a traditional format. That proven business strategy, to give you just a snapshot of how that works from sort of the, a value creation circle, is we do put the consumer in the middle.
We believe that those experiences, which are at the core and the heart of what we are, still, in many ways, is that first relationship. That first relationship, though, what we're doing at that point, again, is gathering that consumer data, and we're often expressing to the consumer what might be their next engagement with Build-A-Bear. Those next engagements are, in a growing manner, coming through, again, different categories, outbound licensing from bikes to pet toys, our content creation, which then puts the brand back top of mind and encourages the consumer to come back and have the experience.
The second time, it could be in store, it could be online, but it's still that experience. Underneath is that foundation that we've been building for the past few years for us to be strong and nimble and diversified to be able to continue to grow. On page 15, you see a little bit about how that dynamic business model gives us both consumer access and more business control, more ability to manage our business, to manage and deliver that profitability. It also gives us that ability to speak directly to the consumer and have that one-to-one relationship, not just in the stores, but post the store purchase.
As we move into the future, we expect to continue to diversify those experiences and business models. We also believe that the transformed digital capabilities that we've executed over the past few years, that we're still in the early stages of optimizing a lot of those opportunities. We also believe that we're still in some early stages of optimizing a lot of the consumer and category expansion, mainly gifting, although we've done a lot of research, and we know that gifting is highly regarded from Build-A-Bear by a consumer base for us.
From the experience location perspective, to give you a sense of where we believe we can continue to grow and diversify, is we do have, you know, award-winning concepts with a 25% four-wall average contribution margin. Those are, as I noted, we're more and more in places that you wouldn't have considered us to be in, you know, 25 years ago. Yes, we still have a footprint in traditional malls, but we have expanded beyond that.
I noted the 50 million guests that come through and all of the different flexibility that we have to take advantage of and be in places like Great Wolf Lodge, or Carnival Cruise Line, or Knott's Berry Farm, or a recent expansion to the Six Flags, or the NFL Hall of Fame. Many places where consumers want to create memories and go for fun and entertainment, all the way to airports, where we're now available in Hudson's or in vending machines, what we call Automated Teddy Machines or ATMs.
We now have such a variety of toolboxes of ways to get in front of consumers in different ways for different reasons. It gives us a lot of expansion opportunity. That fits part and parcel with the e-commerce growth because e-commerce tends to be for different consumers, the older consumer, for different reasons. That makes our e-commerce business additive, incremental for the most part, even though the value and the lifetime value of that consumer goes up when they go to both the e-com and online.
You get a sense of the primary and secondary approach and why how we're building this out from an incrementality perspective on page 19. On page 20, the different microsites and the diversification even of our website, on how we're building out different channels with different products for different reasons, for different consumers, which again, can drive toward an incremental strategy instead of a cannibalistic strategy for our future.
The next unlock, and I alluded to this earlier, is the optimization of many of the tools that we've put in place to drive that digital business, and to continue to expand, mine, and build on our loyalty program using our first-party data, which is so valuable to us. With that, you know, we've seen significant growth there, but we do believe the more journeys that we build out for specific occasions that are meeting the needs of specific consumers for specific reasons, which we're now capable of doing, much of which is due to a lot of our investments, our recent investment, is still in its infancy stage.
Across the board, we feel like we have continued opportunity with the expanded consumer base or our broader addressable market, continued opportunity with an expanded category base, for example, the expansion into gifting and collectibles, and continued opportunity even in our core business, which would have been better for retail by having all of the different models and understanding how to operate them profitably, which we've proven, I think, with pretty broad success. With that, I'll turn it over to Voin to go through, the financial snapshot.
Thanks, Sharon. As we pointed out throughout the presentation, all of our strategic initiatives and execution has resulted in 2022 to be the most profitable year in the Build-A-Bear Workshop history. That's on top of previous record high in 2021. We reported about $468 million in revenue, about 14% growth versus 2021, about $62 million dollar in pre-tax income. Again, $11 million more than what we did in 2021. Strong gross profit margins of 52.5%, and we finished the year with a healthy balance sheet and solid cash position.
Again, that's not the end. You know, we continued this strong momentum in fiscal 2023. In Q1 of 2023, we delivered the highest revenue, pre-tax income, and EBITDA in company's history for Q1. Thus, you know, we guided and reaffirmed our guidance on our Q1 call, that we expect our total revenue to grow on a full year basis of 5%-7%. This year reflects a benefit of an extra week that we called out of about $7 million. We expect to see growth in all of our operating segments. We expect to continue to improve our profitability and drive pre-tax income growth 10%-15% compared to previous record high, 2022.
The way we are gonna do that, we are expecting to open additional locations, 20-30 experience locations, combination of third-party retail locations and company-managed locations. Our CapEx guidance is about $15 million-$20 million. We expect our $13 million-$14 million in D&A, and we are assuming about 25% tax rate, excluding discrete items. If you just do the math, you know, like, we still expect to generate significant free cash flow in 2023.
One thing just to point out, as you know, some of the investors on the call may be new to the story, but I think this slide shows really the successful turnaround that we have achieved as the organization over the last decade or so, and some of these strong results in revenue. Again, you can see it's almost $100 million more in revenue versus a decade ago on a full fiscal year basis. About $100 million swing in EBITDA profitability over that same timeframe.
As Sharon pointed out, on digital transformations, we grew significantly our web demand, our digital demand, as a percentage of total retail sales, from about 4% to 15% as our retail businesses continue to grow. We are proud of some of those achievements. We improved profitability of our stores and basically now, you know, 100% of our stores in North America are profitable, compared to about 80% in 2012. What's even more remarkable, contribution margin, this is formal contribution, in these locations, was less than 10% in 2012, and it was over 25% on average in 2022.
As a company, we have done a great job diversifying our real estate portfolio, we have now more than one-third of our location in non-traditional malls, compared to that was only about 12% a decade ago. You know, as people continue to come and experience Build-A-Bear, we have been able to drive the overall ticket value from just north of $35 to over $50 in 2022. You know, the experience management team was able to drive these results.
Most of us came from multimillion-dollar organizations, and we are happy to be on this journey and continue to look forward to what Build-A-Bear has to do ahead of us. You know, in addition to just really managing things that from the business side, we have continued focus on shareholder returns. Over the last couple of years, we returned over $80 million to our shareholders in form of special dividends and share repurchases. We continue to stay focused on this initiative.
As of, you know, last week, we had about $36 million available under the current $50 million stock repurchase program that our board authorized in August of 2022. You know, with that, I'll pass it on to Sharon for some closing comments.
Yeah. Just in closing, to reiterate, we have a proven, well-known, beloved brand, and we believe that it is packed with value and equity that is just now where we're in a position to really start to monetize that equity. It appeals to a broad range of consumers, it translates across multiple categories, and it is ripe for expansion, and even from both in a physical and a digital environment. That expansion not only includes new formats, new locations, but also globally.
We believe that the business strategy that we identified a few years ago, has now proven itself with enough data points and enough consistency, that there is a belief structure beyond behind what we're doing, and believe that we can continue to invest in that model. Not only does it provide us a runway for potential growth, it also is a much more relevant and diversified model in today's environment, with a lot more opportunity on the digital side, which participation in that digital economy, clearly critical. The business strength and momentum also gives us a lot of confidence in that position.
We also have completed some proprietary research that gives us confidence in the continued investment in a lot of those highlighted objectives that we've outlined. We still do truly believe in Build-A-Bear's unique competitive positioning, and believe that that does provide us an opportunity to continue to build this business and drive the Build-A-Bear brand into new and fresh ways. Glen?
Perfect. Thank you very much for that, Sharon and Voin. Again, to our audience, if you have a question, please use the question text box within the portal to submit your question. We do have quite a few questions in the queue, guys, already. Some of them touch on some of the points that you already covered, but maybe we'll expand on those points, and I'll just get going. The first question is: Has the in-store experience been elevated or improved over time, and can it be made even more engaging and fun in the future?
We have evolved the in-store experience to some degree. Over the last 10 years, we've actually changed it fairly, yeah, I wouldn't call it significantly, but definitely have evolved it. When we launched the new store format some years ago, we actually went through a time and, like, a time and action research to understand where consumers are spending time, how long they spend in these, each of the areas, what can we do to engage them further and drive some of the dollars per transaction results that you saw.
Also on the, from an in-store perspective, that some of that research changed the way we marketed products and showed products, because showing them in an entire story also evolved the units per transaction as a part of the purchase. There's a lot of things that we've done, not only in the experience of directly to the consumer and how our Build-A-Bear builders interact, but how we could improve the DPT, the UPT, as a result of that. We also launched and created a brand new stuffers to get super detailed that allow us to push through the consumers in a little more rapid pace.
We're still in a situation, have been and remain to be, particularly on weekends, where we have lines out the door. I don't know if you guys have been to a Build-A-Bear lately, but improving our throughput, if you will, at the store level, is actually a really important part of how we've been able to drive some of the business as well.
On a really sort of softer side of all of that, I'll add that as we've changed some of our strategy with our licenses and we've launched some of our own intellectual property, we have created some latitude on the heart ceremony, and often we make them very brand specific. They're even that much more memorable and sometimes a little bit different for the consumer based on what character that they're buying, and we get a lot of positive feedback from that.
Super. Thank you for that. Next question. You mentioned that you've sold approximately 225 million furry friends since inception. Could you please share what that number was last year and what the trend has been lately?
We haven't provided specific numbers around how many bears we sell every year, but, you know, people can back into those numbers, you know, $225 million over the last 25 years. Clearly, with, you know, some of our, you know, with the record revenue results, you know, we are selling more of the bears than we had in the past. Like, based on the guidance that we are providing, we are expecting to sell more units than what we had in the previous year. The goal is really to continue to create those great experiences in our stores on a global basis.
We wanted to provide a data point of how many furry friends we've provided to guests around the world since inception.
Thank you. Are franchises about 17% of your total locations, and would you consider ramping up that percentage to increase locations without minimal capacity outlay?
I mean, you know, we believe that we are not oversaturated from the store count perspective, both, domestically or internationally, and we are looking at ways to expand locations. As I mentioned, we are, we guided that we are adding 20 to 30 new locations, combinations of third-party retail locations that are asset-light for us. This is a relationship with our partners that, they buy from us on a wholesale basis. They invest capital, they get a retail revenue. We report wholesale revenue that goes through our commercial segment. We train their associates.
That's the model that we like, and, you know, like in a lot of cases, that makes sense. That's probably the perfect model when you think about Carnival Cruise Line, because we probably would never have Build-A-Bears on a ship 24/7.
You know, those are kind of things that we continue to look at different opportunities. We just signed a month or so ago, a new deal with Kalahari Resorts, and we opened four locations there. Definitely that's a growth opportunity for us. You know, again, we wanna be more locations. We are agnostic if it's gonna be our own or third-party retail locations, but definitely from the capital perspective, it does benefit us if we open more of these asset-light type of locations.
I would also just add that I mentioned this proprietary research that we've recently fielded on testing some hypotheses and some of our current strategy. In fact, one of the top reasons why, of those that want to go Build-A-Bear, reasons why they haven't gone or haven't returned, is because we're more than 30 minutes away. In fact, from some of the data that we've calculated, more than 40% of U.S. households are still greater than 30 minutes away from a Build-A-Bear.
We do feel like based on the raw data as well as the research results, that that does support this, the idea that we still wanna be a special experience and you know, a special location. We won't expect to be on every, you know, every corner but we do have some growth opportunities still in the U.S. Again, not to mention the international expansion. We, for example, do not have a location on continental Europe.
Okay, thank you. I think that in your last series of answers, you may have already answered this question, but I'm gonna ask it in case there's anything else you want to add to it. Aside from opening more outlets and more licenses, what are the best opportunities for growth?
I mean, what we talked about, like, you know, we expect our e-comm business to grow, especially the gifting in the gifting arena. You know, we've been working on some of different initiatives, you know, like what you can find on our website, a HeartB ox, where you can get curated products for different occasions. We are looking at, you know, maybe even expanding some categories.
We've been testing some pajamas and some apparel, like on our website, you know, that just some natural extensions of the brand, really, to engage and drive value and monetize the first-party data that we collect from our guests. Really expand that engagement with them beyond just plush. You know, we believe gifting and e-commerce is a big business for us.
Again, we still said, like, the growth from the retail perspective is important. You know, when we also one of the things that we are making some investments, and we shared that in the past, is from the entertainment perspective and really getting some content that should help us to really elevate the brand and continue to raise more brand awareness, more marketing, and elevate some of those properties that, being a vertical retailer, are sold to our retail locations. You know, that doesn't mean that they could be sold in other retail locations around the country and around the world.
When you think about the size of the gifting category, and it depends on, you know, what source you look at, but often multi-hundred billion dollar type of category, and just a massive category, again, depending on what you're putting in there. Build-A-Bear, again, in this research that we've filled, it was considered to be a really great gift option.
Not just for from adults to kids, not just for kids to kids, but adults to adults, because of that trend in personalization and kidulting, and we believe that we are well positioned to take advantage of even the garnering of a small segment of the gifting category, which is very robust and would be of great benefit for the brand and the business.
Okay, thank you. Next question: Your average dollar per transaction seems key. How much of this is mix driven versus price increases, and how does the team view elasticity of demand?
W hat we have done, you know, driving that from $35 to over $50 over the last decade or so, it's a combination of few things. Some of that's pricing, the other piece of that's unit per transaction. What we have been able to do, as people come to our stores, they are buying more at a higher prices, which is, you know, a win in both ways.
The way we do that is by telling more integrated marketing stories and, you know, like, with some of this intellectual property, like, for example, Honey Girls. Honey Girls, you know, it's we had a movie that's still showing on Netflix that premiered, I think, last year. Still, the dollar per transaction with those products is over $100.
You know, we continue to drive the engagement with our guests when they come and, you know, like, so that we can continue to drive that piece. At the same time, we wanna make sure that, you know, when people come to Build-A-Bear, that it can be affordable. We still have Pay Your Age program through our Count Your Candles Bear, Birthday Bear. It's a one bear that you can buy if the child is celebrating their third birthday for $3. You know, definitely from the mix perspective, as this is, like, one of our biggest acquisition tool of new guests, you know, like, that's hurting that dollar per transaction.
You know, like, from the lifetime value of that guest, you know, we are definitely pleased to get these guests into the brand as early as possible. When you think about price elasticity, you know, on a lower end, you know, we still wanna ensure that we have some right entry-level price point, but we have much more flexibility as we are servicing our affinity and collector guest. When we have some of the products that is sharing point on a The Bear Cave or on some of the affinity products, they go for much higher price points because there is less price sensitivity over there.
Thank you. Couple of questions on technology. First one is, what is your strategy around technology as it relates to developing an app for customers? Also, what have been the most successful initiatives that have helped the brand bring back repeat customers?
I mean, there is a lot in there. You know, the technology is one of the key aspects of our turnaround, and, you know, we've been talking about digital transformation for the last several years. You know, like, I'll start, you know, like, with few things and then, probably Ms. John, maybe Sharon can add a couple more. One of the things that really helped was our partnership with Salesforce and really focusing our engagement through our website. That's, you know, like, we grew from about 4% to nearly 20% of our business that was generated through online channels.
That's been very important for us, especially during COVID years. As we engage with our guests and, you know, really using data to drive our business decisions and product mix and assortment, you know, we invested in a new loyalty platform over the last couple of years, really to drive that engagement, to drive customer journeys, to really service those guests in a way that they wanna be serviced, and really to cater them with the products and incentives that appeal to them in a most lucrative way.
Same thing, you know, like, we continue to make investments in our infrastructure, both from the corporate perspective, investing in back office systems to really drive and help drive some of the margin expansions and things that we have been able to achieve over the last decade.
At the same time, we are just in the midst of updating our POS systems in stores, and because, again, that's critical for us to continue to engage with our guests in stores and to collect as much data, because that first-party data that we are able to collect through our registers and our store teams, it is incredible value for us, and, you know, like, that we are continuing to find ways to monetize. Over time, we made some changes to our warehouse management system and being more efficient from fulfillment, especially as that online business has quadrupled over the last several years. Again, this, technology keeps changing.
We continue to find ways to stay relevant and, you know, like, every so often, I mean, even after you are done with all the upgrades, you know, before you know, you have to upgrade things again, and technology is changing. You know, we tend to stay focused on those things because we believe in those investments. That's definitely reflected in the results that we were able to achieve. You know, we are also very cognizant of our SG&A management and all the software as a service and our capital that we are spending.
Definitely we are trying to find the right balance by staying relevant from the technology perspective, but at the same time making sure that we can maximize opportunities. Anything, Sharon, that you would like to add?
Yeah, it's been a very comprehensive digital roadmap that we literally mapped out eight years ago at this point. Some of the things that needed to change were, you know, fundamental. They were old and needed to be replaced.
Much of what the vision of that initial roadmap was inclusive of eventually being able to link all of the consumer data together, from the loyalty program to the store, to the, from, that they come in through e-commerce or through the store, from that, this last piece to the POS, is that unlocking that if they call in to our call service center, being able to find them, their history, make suggestive selling, and that warehouse management system, although that sounds like, oh, that's so utilitarian.
What that really did for us is it was the, it was the last link, for example, in some inventory, you know, so better management of inventory, that allowed us to flip the switch on buy online, ship from store, that really unlocked the opportunity for us to drive our e-commerce business at a higher level because we were at a point in the warehouse where fulfillment would have been more and more difficult through that one venue.
The ability for us to use our stores as tiny little pool points, little bitty warehouses, scattered all over the country, not only does it truncate the time to consumer, it keeps our inventory out at a saleable place. It was that last piece of information management that really allowed us to do that.
We also utilize our bear builders, which is a fixed cost during downtime, making that fulfillment even that much more efficient. From our PLM system to improved marketing capabilities, to Salesforce and all sorts of Salesforce modules, brand new loyalty program, updated website with Deloitte last year, new POS system, new warehouse management system, and all of these being interlinked for us to drive value. Been a big undertaking. It's been an important endeavor.
Okay, thank you. That was a great overview. I've got one, I guess, follow-up question here on technology. Maybe it's a little bit early, but with all the, I guess, media on things like ChatGPT, is Build-A-Bear looking into artificial intelligence to improve operational efficiency or drive innovation within the company?
We are looking into that at the same rate that everyone else is. Clearly, that is coming at an incredibly rapid rate. We are in the early stages of exploring how that might be of benefit to us, how to manage it, how to use it, utilize it. I'm sure that there will be some efficiency that comes through that process.
Okay, thank you. Next question: Can you talk about your international expansion strategy, and what could that mean for the company in the next 5 to 10 years?
Sure. Definitely when we think about international expansion, it may be, we look at two different ways because we are operating in certain markets, and we still believe, you know, there is opportunity, you know, like for some additional stores that, you know, may be company-owned and operated, that this is U.K., that's Ireland and Canada. We are also, there is a big opportunity, as Sharon mentioned earlier, Continental Europe. We do have franchise relationships throughout the world, and, you know, we are looking at expanding and growing those.
You know, we haven't provided any specific goals over time, but, you know, some things that we have shared in the past is that we expect or, you know, like, probably one of the things to look at the size of that business, there is, probably no reason to believe that we shouldn't have as many stores internationally as we have in U.S. More to come on that stuff, and, you know, finding these relationships around the world is, you know, one of the area of focus for the team.
Last few years, due to COVID challenges, you know, this, these initiatives are a little bit maybe more on the back burner, but, you know, like now that the world's reopening and there is more stuff, definitely, and the strength of our business that we have in North America, and in U.K., definitely positions us well to start having more of those conversations.
Thank you. Next question: Could you talk more about the opportunity you might see over the long term to leverage your unique IP into other entertainment mediums, example, TV, movies, digital, etc , and how sizable of, an opportunity could this be?
We started the process some years ago, the recognition of the value of intellectual property, and clearly, we've been in that business via licensing for quite some time and realizing this combination of content plus product, is very appealing to our consumer base. We started to develop our own IP some years ago from the Promise Pets line to Honey Girls, which Voin mentioned briefly, to our Merry Mission program. For the Honey Girls, we have, you know, created a film. It's on Netflix, live action film.
They also have music videos online, garner millions of views. That particular program, as an example, and this is a great point on how we're able to drive DPT. For example, when you have, like, a comprehensive marketing program, our Honey Girls products, we've shared with you what our current DPT is. They're often selling it up to $100 apiece on average. That's a, like, a transaction that shows high affinity, most likely driven by the value of the creation or relationship with the consumer through the content.
We're now pipelining quite a bit of content, and that interplay between kids and media and storytelling is a, is a critical part of how we believe we will grow. It can also serve us in this environment as the media landscape has changed so dramatically in terms of being able to speak directly to consumers through traditional advertising has practically dissipated to nothing, particularly in the kids' space.
You all have to create your own mechanism to bring your brand, your stories, and your products to life, to kids, and that mechanism is through long-form and short-form content. There's a lot of reasons why a brand like Build-A-Bear would want to be in the content creation business. Those are the fundamentals of what we've done. We went into this strategy with a hurdle of assuring that it would be valuable to us if all it served was for marketing. In each of these situations, it can also generate its own revenue, but that's not our hurdle point in the way we think about building out these entertainment pieces.
As a pipeline right now, we have the documentary, the Build-A-Bear documentary, which isn't based on intellectual property, it has to do with our 25th anniversary. That was something that was brought to us with an award-winning documentary in Taylor Morden, that will be out later this year. We believe that's just a macro brand-building, elevating mechanism and tool that we're excited to share with the world at large.
The next IP-based content is our first animated feature film, which will be based on our Merry Mission program that's been in our line since 2014, and on a cumulative basis, has generated over $100 million of business for Build-A-Bear in the plush sold associated with that brand. Now, realize that that's only eight or so weeks per year, that Glisten and the Reindeer and the key characters associated with this storyline, where people have now accepted Glisten and the Merry Mission and going to Build-A-Bear as a holiday tradition.
That's all a part of how we chose that as the next investment for us. We expect to be able to use this animated feature for a number of years as the platform and linchpin of our entire holiday marketing program. A very valuable asset for us. We are also pipelining, I'm sure you've read, there's a film that's been contracted with Hello Sunshine. Reese Witherspoon's company is a reinvention of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We have another big pipelining film opportunity with a known name.
There's a lot of excitement, and we recently just signed a deal with Macmillan Publishers for books to bring some of these properties to life and some of the ones that we haven't brought to life yet, but we want to enter the marketplace first through publishing versus film. That's in conjunction with our iHeartRadio relationship. We have Build-A-Bear Radio on iHeartRadio, and we also recently launched a Roblox game that now has 9.5 million players.
Okay, super. Thank you for that. Next question. As a mature business, what sort of things are you doing that will allow for guiding 10%-15% pretax income while only growing revenues 5%-7%?
Well, we continue to stay focused, driving the top line revenue and with the healthy margins that we have. You know, some of that higher profit growth than revenue growth is the impact of leverage of our fixed costs, especially in stores. You know, like, as we continue to make these investments in business to grow, you know, like, we are still focused to continue to leverage the existing infrastructure and to drive more dollars to the bottom line.
I think we have done a really good job maintaining our profit margins and EBITDA margins since we've been here, and we continue to stay focused on those things. We feel good about the guidance that we have provided on a full year basis and strong pretax and EBITDA margins that we are expecting to deliver.
Thank you. Next question: What is the right way to think about the unit economics of your retail locations? Could you please share a little more on what maintenance CapEx and refresh CapEx look like, and how new openings are financed in today's interest rate environment?
Okay, a few questions in there. When you look at our store economics, and I mentioned earlier, on average, we have about 20%-25% four-wall contribution. If you are looking four-wall EBITDA contribution, we can add a few more percentage points. If, just for the sake of a conversation, assuming a $1 million average store, $250,000 four-wall contribution, we can do stores for $400,000-$500,000, so like less than two-year payback for the just traditional store, assuming it's a new store.
If we are looking at our concourse locations, they typically do, let's say, half a million dollars, and we can open those just for a little bit north of $100,000, you have just about a year or around a year of payback. We feel really good about the payback that we are getting in our stores. When we are thinking about maintenance CapEx, you know, just like everything else, you know, we do have technology component in our stores. We talked a little bit about POS. Like every, X many years, you have to replace technology and some of the things that we have. In addition to that, we have a big piece of equipment, our stuffer.
You know, like, you know, eventually, you know, those are going to down, they'll be replaced and so forth. You know, there are some of those things from the maintenance CapEx that we look at. You know, we try to be very prudent in selecting which stores we are choosing to expand on a long-term basis.
In those cases, you know, we are, reinvest and update the stores. We have variety of different remodels that we can do, and again, they all vary depending on the size and location of the property. Typically speaking, you know, the paybacks that we are generating are relatively fast. Was there anything else, Glen, that you asked that I didn't answer?
No, I don't think so. If we did, we'll follow up with the investor.
Okay.
I've got a bunch of questions on your dividend and your share buyback program. I'll just sort of, I guess, articulate the general sentiment. Number one is, can you talk a little bit about the rationale of the special dividend versus a regular dividend, and what investors can think about moving forward? Number two, detail on how you choose to either provide dividends or your share buyback, and I guess, how you emphasize one over the other.
Thanks, Glen. I'll start with some generalities and hand it over to Voin. Clearly, we balance a lot of things when we're thinking about how, why, and when to return value to our shareholders, whether it's in, you know, the form of a dividend, special dividend, buyback, or even investment in the future. We counsel with our board on these very subjects on a regular basis to try to find the right and most balanced approach.
Now, we're never gonna please everybody with the choices that we make, but we are very prudent, and I think we've shown a lot of consistency in terms of assuring that we do create value, that do provide opportunities where we are creating value. These last two special dividends were in association with the two most profitable years in the history of the company. One being associated with the 25th anniversary as well. We have had a lot of very loyal investors that have been part of our investment portfolio for many years.
You know, we felt that even for some of our shorter-term investors, I mean, this is just a way for, when we were generating and our free cash flow is what it is, generating that kind of cash, and felt that it was a good opportunity to return that value to them in a very efficient manner. The buybacks are more, it's a balanced part of a portfolio approach, a part of the assumption that, you know, our multiple is probably not representative of the changes that we've made in the company to be so much more diversified.
As long as we believe that there is value to be made and to be had, we will make some of those calculated decisions on buybacks. I'll hand it to Voin for some of the specifics, but that's the general strategy behind it.
Yeah, we are definitely, as Sharon pointed out, like, focused on balancing between all these different ways of uses of capital. You know, like, you know, constant discussions with our board. I think over the last couple of years, you know, the combination of these special dividends and share repurchases, over $80 million combined, we still have about $36 million or so left under our current authorization program. It is important for us to continue to balance this with investments in business.
We are definitely pleased what we have been able to achieve over the last couple of years, and we continue to generate strong free cash flow. You know, as we continue to look forward, you know, like, we are gonna be in discussions with our board to continue to find whatever is the best way to, at that point in time, to return value to our shareholders.
Perfect. Thank you for that. We are past the hour, I'll ask one more question just from all the comments, I think it's a good question for you, Voin and Sharon, to end the call with, and to give your personal sentiment. Obviously, a lot of the audience here is because they see a disconnect between what you have just presented and the value of the business versus what your share price is. The question from this particular investor is: What part of the business or in the business as a whole do you think is being ignored, that has more upside potential than Wall Street is giving you? We'll end the call after that.
Well, you know, we probably would need to have, like, another full hour to discuss all these things because, you know. You know, I think it's a fair question, and, you know, like, at times, it's perplexing to us as well, because, when you look at our fundamentals, when you look at the numbers that we have been able to deliver, when you look at the mix of the business that we have between retail, e-commerce, wholesale business, international business, some of these initiatives that we are able to deliver. Sustained profitable growth over the last few years.
Year- after- year, we are delivering record results, quarter- after- quarter. Healthy, clean balance sheet, no debt, returning money back to shareholders. It is a question, why are we not seeing the higher multiples? You know, we generate significant free cash flow. When you think about the mix of these different revenue streams that we have, we probably get more value based on just our retail fleet, as people may think of us as a specialty retailer, mall-based, but, you know, we are much more than that, and we continue to prove that point.
Here is another piece that sometimes I'll ask the investor: Why do we care if we are in the mall, if we are generating over 25% four-wall contribution? Does it matter where we are operating? At the end of the day, we have solid, profitable business that we continue to execute against our strategy. We are diversifying to wholesale, to entertainment, to franchising, to all these different to consumer groups, so like our e-comm business, getting to different categories.
I think, you know, all these things, eventually, you know, people will be valuing us based on fundamentals, and I think we are doing our piece. You know, that we are having these conversations with investors to share our story and get out there and, you know, explain maybe some of those missing points and share that so that we'll get eventually the right valuation.
Perfect. Thank you for that, Voin. Thank you, Sharon. Thank you to our audience, and this concludes this presentation.
Thank you.
Thank you. This concludes today's presentation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.