Where we're highlighting small cap, and today, for the first time, private companies. So we have a live audience that will be coming in throughout the morning, and we have an audience online who's tuning in. We've got a great lineup of companies today, starting with Brilliant Earth. It'll be coming up here at 9:00 A.M. During the break, we're actually going to do a little bit of a focus group and talk about some of the initiatives we've got going around private companies and engagement there. And where you know SHARE today is Fireside Chats. Starting in July, we're going to be offering small group meetings to both institutional and non-13F shareholders directly through our platform. And so we'll talk more about that and get some feedback coming up. If you have any questions throughout the day, feel free to ask myself, Shannon, or Lisa in the back there.
There's restrooms out front and to the right, so feel free to step out if you have to take a call. If you need a private room, let me know as well. So with that, we'll get started, and I'll bring up Brilliant Earth and Ashley.
Right here? Great. Hey, Dan, one question. Is there the background slide? Is that just we just. The slide that has the quick facts about Brilliant Earth? Is that just a few ahead, or is? Great. All right. Thanks, everybody, for joining. It's great to be here as part of the SHARE Series. I'm Jeff Kuo. I'm the CFO of Brilliant Earth.
I'm Ashley Owens, and I cover softlines and internet retail at KeyBanc.
Great. And then just to give a little bit of background about Brilliant Earth, I can talk about the founding story. So we were founded in 2005, really, with a mission to create a more transparent, sustainable, and compassionate jewelry industry. And we are disrupting and transforming the industry with a combination of a few different things. One is our authentic, mission-driven brand. We also have a collection of trend-leading proprietary products across engagement, wedding, and fine jewelry. We offer a seamless omnichannel experience that really caters to customers where and when they want to shop. So we have 37 showrooms across the country. We also offer a really rich digital experience, and it's a true omnichannel purchase. Customers really engage with us maybe through multiple channels. They may come find us online, come to one of our showrooms, engage with us through one of our other channels.
And so we're differentiated in offering a seamless experience there. And then we also offer an asset-light and data-driven business model that's really differentiated from the rest of the industry in terms of the agility, which we're able to move and adapt to different consumer trends. And this is all translated into an ability to grow, gain share, and be profitable in a very large $300 billion global jewelry industry. So that's just a really brief overview of Brilliant Earth. And then maybe we can just go into a few questions that Ashley and I have prepared and walked through. And then at the end, we can also open it up to questions from the group.
Yeah, that sounds great. So I guess just to kick things off, perhaps we can start just on a conversation with current trends and kind of what's happening within the broader consumer environment. How would you characterize the health of your consumer today, and are you seeing any new trends that you're willing to speak on? And then just additionally, how do you think about promotions and markdowns, especially given that the fourth quarter is pretty important for you guys?
Sure. So the industry that we're in, jewelry and then bridal, is an enduring industry with a long tradition. So that's, I think, one thing that gives the space a lot of resilience. And so that's an overall characteristic of the business. Our consumer does face, like many other consumers right now, pressures like inflation in the macro environment. But the overall underlying context is that jewelry is an enduring and resilient space overall. We've talked a little bit about an expectation of a few-year path towards normalization of engagements after we had a higher peak in 2021, part of 2022, and then a bit of a lower rate in 2023. And we do have an expectation of a few-year path to normalization in engagements. And then I think one other thing that's helpful to talk about in terms of the consumer context is that we are a premium brand.
And so we're a premium position. We don't participate in a heavy-discounted environment. That's one thing that we really are thoughtful about cultivating a premium brand. And you can see this in some of our results. Like, for example, in Q1, we had a year-over-year growth in ASP for engagement rings, for wedding bands, and for fine jewelry. And I think that's one aspect of just really cultivating that premium brand. It also allows us to have the strong gross margin that we've had.
Yeah, that makes sense. So you touched on engagement and weddings and kind of what you're seeing there, but want to focus a little bit too on kind of the fine jewelry aspect of it. I believe the last metric that you provided was in December, so part of 4Q, 21% of your sales did come from that fine jewelry aspect of your business. Just curious on your thoughts as to where this number will go anytime in the future, and then just any drivers that you're willing to highlight to help you kind of grow this share mix over time.
Sure. Yeah, so we did talk about for December, it was at 21% of our bookings coming from fine jewelry. December and Q4 are, as you pointed out, bigger fine jewelry parts of the year seasonally. We think that overall fine jewelry is an enormous opportunity for us. We're majority bridal. That's where our heritage has been. But the industry overall is majority fine jewelry. So there's really a lot of opportunity for us to grow into fine jewelry over time. We haven't communicated specific targets there, but there's a lot of opportunity, and I think we're really tackling that in a variety of different ways. I think we have a curated selection that's very compelling to consumers, including timeless classics like tennis bracelets, but also trend-leading designs like our tube collection. And so really offering a compelling assortment of fine jewelry for our customers.
I think also, as we grow our showroom footprint, that allows just more opportunities for customers to experience our brand, to see our fine jewelry collection in person. It's a nice complement to our appointment-driven model where people are able to come in and see the collection. If they're coming to purchase something else, you can see more different things like bracelets, pendants, and earrings. And we're really excited about the opportunity ahead and what that can do to drive additional repeat purchase behavior, capture additional customer lifetime value.
Yeah. So, I mean, just staying on the showrooms too, just really quickly, you're up to 37 now. You have two more opening this or three more opening too in Boston, and then you have one that's going to be in New York City. Just how has this strategy evolved over the past couple of years? And even just elaborate more on the opportunity that you see there within the customer base and kind of what it does within the selective geographies that you've selected.
Sure. So we are really excited about the showroom opportunity, given that when we've opened showrooms, we've been able to drive uplift across metros. So we look at the incrementality that we're able to drive with new showroom openings. Most recently, we've talked about when we've clustered in showrooms. So opening more than one showroom in a given metro, we've continued to see positive incremental uplift. And I think there's opportunity for us in a variety of different ways with things like clustering. We've also recently done things like opened up in malls, ground floors, outdoor centers in addition to some of our upper floor locations. And so I think we've seen that the Brilliant Earth showroom format works in a variety of different locations, different formats. We're excited about that opportunity to continue to be an important part of our growth.
Gotcha. So shifting to the pricing model really quickly, you have a lot of agility within your price optimization engine, and it's been a factor in gross margin expansion and driving top-line growth as well. Maybe just talk about the dynamic pricing strategy in depth a little bit and how it works in real time and how much of an advantage this is given Brilliant relative to the rest of your competition?
Yeah, it's something that's an important part of how we operate. So for those of you that don't know, our price optimization engine is an approach that really allows us to dynamically think about what's that right mix of what's the right pricing to drive that right mix of top-line growth and gross margin percentage, with the ultimate goal to drive as many gross profit dollars as we can. And so what this is, is it allows us to take in a variety of different inputs, including things like market conditions, input costs, consumer demand, seasonality, and allows our team to, at a granular level, make those types of decisions to drive that optimum amount of gross profit dollars. And I think this really differentiates us from the rest of the industry. I think it also complements really well our asset-light model.
So I think we're also differentiated in that we're asset-light and very working capital efficient. If you look at the industry overall, inventory turns are in the 1-2 times range. And our most recent reported inventory turns are a little bit under five. And so this really differentiates us in that it reduces our exposure to things like commodity prices and having the wrong inventory at the wrong time at the wrong price. It allows us to move more quickly in reaction to changes in the market and changes in consumer demand. And I think ultimately it couples really well with the data-driven approach like the price optimization engine, having a light and efficient inventory and being able to price that dynamically as we see changes occurring. I think those two really pair well together and in combination complement each other.
Should we? Do you want to take it? Does anyone have any questions as of right now, or I can keep going? No? Easy. Okay, cool. So just in the aggregate consumer space, newness and innovation have been two really important topics of conversation. That's what's driving share gains and top-line growth. I guess just how are you injecting newness into your inventory, and how important is this to the longer-term health of your business?
Yeah, so we regularly introduce newness into our collection. Some examples could be like the tube collection that I talked about last year. We also released a Sol Collection in Q3, Q4. And these collections really kind of continue to showcase our design leadership, they're proprietary designs to us. And it's an important part of our strategy. I think it's also important to point out that we also take a curated approach. So it's not just breadth for breadth's sake. We have a curated approach to how we develop the collection. So it's a part of how we look at making the customer experience compelling as well as the operational aspects efficient. And so it's important. I think we're definitely viewed as design leaders in the space. We've won a number of different awards for our designs. And so it's an important aspect of why people come to Brilliant Earth.
Then I guess talking about people coming to Brilliant Earth too, and just I'm curious to know about the evolution of your marketing strategy. You touched on the Sol Collection and some other collections that you've done as of recent showrooms as part of that as well. Then you're also partnering with some celebrities and influencers to kind of help grow that brand awareness. So I would just be curious to hear kind of how your strategy has evolved there over time.
Yeah, our strategy has been to be diversified and dynamic in terms of our marketing approach. So there's a number of different ways that people come to learn about Brilliant Earth. And this includes things like word of mouth. As people have great experiences with Brilliant Earth and they come to us, other organic approaches of coming to know us, social media. I think we have a very strong social media following. And then also a diversified mix of how we allocate our marketing spend to drive efficiencies. And really keeping that diversified and dynamic, that's been a hallmark of how we operate. I know that you and I have talked about, and if you followed Brilliant Earth, you'll hear us talk about balance a lot. And really balancing the right mix of investments to drive short and long-term growth, as well as to drive efficiencies and capture ROI.
I think that's how we operate in marketing as well as a lot of different areas. I think some of the results that we've seen would be, for example, our strong brand awareness. We've also had our strongest social media engagement quarter recently in Q1. Then we've just continued to really capture and engage with our Millennial and Gen Z audience. I think our marketing strategy, our brand are an important part of that.
Gotcha. Let's shift over to the medium-term targets that you have recently set out. Maybe elaborate on those for anyone who's not familiar. And then I'll have some other questions kind of revolving around that.
Sure. So we talked about recently our medium-term targets to give people some illustration of how we're thinking about managing through the next few years. Medium-term, we're talking about through 2027. So for the medium-term targets, we've talked about a few different things. One is getting to a low-teens growth rate in 2027 on the top line. So that's one aspect. We expect to get there from a variety of different things. One is the gradual normalization within engagements and the bridal space. Also expect that to be supported by things like the growth and accretion from our showrooms, and then outsized performance in fine jewelry, as well as just growth in awareness of our brand. So I think that's one aspect.
Then in terms of gross margin, we do expect to continue to be able to drive strong gross margins with a high 50s gross margin percent through 2027. We also expect to be able to drive leverage in our marketing spend as a percentage of sales. And we've talked about having that decrease as a percentage of sales beginning in 2025. And then this all translates into on an Adjusted EBITDA margin level, getting to a double-digit Adjusted EBITDA margin in 2027. And so I think these things really together show how we're managing the business over the next few years. And I think it's underpinned by some of the growth drivers that I talked about for the top line, as well as being disciplined and balanced in how we're managing our operating expenses to both capture opportunities, look at long-term and short-term growth while driving efficiencies.
Gotcha. So just focusing a little bit more on that SG&A part of it. What factors are you able to control in order to get to this target, would you say?
Talk about a couple of things. Maybe first I'll touch on marketing and how we think we can drive efficiencies there. So, on the marketing side, I think there's a number of different factors. I think one is, as we continue to grow awareness of the brand, I think that will have benefits in terms of how we're able to capture marketing efficiencies. I think as we grow the showroom footprint and continue to capture additional benefits there, that's key to our customer acquisition economics. Fine jewelry presents a compelling opportunity in that as we have more fine jewelry and we can engage with customers through different points in their life cycle, whether it's additional life events, self-purchase, that's also one of the levers that we think we can help to drive marketing efficiencies. And so that's a little bit of color about the marketing side.
Then overall, we are also continuing to be disciplined in other parts of OpEx. One nice example might be how we think about employee expenses in our showrooms. If you look at a traditional jeweler, you might have a model where you have people standing in a showroom waiting for customers to come in, and then some idle time when there's not a customer there. Because we have this integrated omnichannel experience, our staff are able to serve customers in other ways, whether they're communicating with them on email or other modes of communication. They're able to really be efficient in the use of their time and to be able to engage with our customers throughout their purchase cycle. That's another way about how we're able to be efficient with our operating expenses.
Gotcha. I guess maybe let's just back out a little bit and kind of look at the broader engagement industry. You guys offer both lab-grown and mined diamonds. I guess just kind of what are you seeing in terms of consumer purchasing decisions and where do you think the future of engagement is going to look maybe three years down the road?
Yeah, so I'd say there's a few different things. Probably one first go back to one of the earlier comments that I made about this being an enduring tradition. I think that weddings and engagements and people buying wedding and engagement rings, it's an enduring tradition with a lot of resilience. I think it's also an area where people tend to shop with a budget in mind. And that's something that is a behavior that we've seen. And so people shop with a budget, and we offer them a variety of different ways to meet that budget, whether it is with natural or lab or among the 4 Cs or some other aspect of our jewelry designs. And we have been in the space selling both natural and lab diamonds for more than a decade now. So we've been a pioneer in that space.
We offer that curated assortment for people. I think people really come to us for our brand, and then they engage with us and are delighted by the product assortment that we're able to offer. I think that some of the real proof points come with things like our order growth. So we had 14% order growth in Q1, our brand awareness, and the fact that we're able to drive increases in ASP year-over-year. I think those things all speak to how our brand connects with our customers.
Gotcha. I guess just lastly for me, kind of as we finish up our Q&A session here, Jeff, what excites you the most about the future of Brilliant Earth?
I think that we continue to be a disruptor and a transformer in the space. And I'm very excited about that opportunity. And I think it comes back to maybe some of the opening comments about our combination of the brand that really resonates with Millennial and Gen Z consumers, our omnichannel experience that's really seamless and integrated across the digital and the in-person and other modes of communication, our compelling, trend-leading proprietary product designs, and then our business model, which is asset-light and data-driven. I think those all combine. And I think that just how we've been able to use that to profitably grow and gain share. I think I'm excited about this because we're still in the early stages of capturing the opportunity in a really big industry. And I think that we've had a lot of success in pulling each of those levers.
I'm excited about the opportunity that remains ahead.
Great. Sounds great. Well, thank you. I guess now we can open it up for any Q&A if anyone has any questions.
So we've got a mic around the back that I can sit around for questions. I actually have a question that I'll ask first. It's around brand awareness. You talked about it a little bit. But are you guys seeing anything with different awareness levels and different demographics? And then same thing on the purchasing side.
Yeah, so I don't think we've made any comments about brand awareness trends by demographics. But I would say that overall, in the past, we've talked about things like growth in both our aided and unaided brand awareness. And I think that reflects the success of the efforts that we have in marketing and engaging with consumers. And I think this is one; it's an industry, and especially with Millennial and Gen Z consumers, where people are really looking to connect with their brands. And I think our authentic values, which have been with us since the time of our founding, are just something that people want to connect with. People are shopping together as couples for engagement rings and really connecting with both the proposer, the proposee. I think that's something that we're able to do very well.
Hi, good morning. I just have a question. I'm not as familiar with Brilliant Earth, but I did read that you're a digitally native platform. As you transition to these showrooms, I'm curious where you see your free cash flow margins going over time.
Sure. So I would say that our approach to working capital management continues to be very, very efficient. So even as we've grown, so we do expect that there's going to be some evolution in our inventory model as we grow our showroom footprint and expand into fine jewelry. But I think that we've continued to be very efficient in the inventory model. One example is our overall inventory turns that are a little bit under five versus the 1-2 for the industry overall. If you look at our Q1 results, we had just a small increase. I think it was a few percent increase in our inventory levels year-over-year, even though during that time, our showroom footprint increased by around 30%. I think it was a little bit above 30% year-over-year over that same time frame.
We grew our fine jewelry assortment or grew in fine jewelry overall. And so I think that's one illustration of how we're able to manage working capital very efficiently. We also, I think one thing I don't think I commented on was our negative working capital model. And so that's really an advantage for us in that working capital can be a source of cash.
As an illustration of that, if you were to purchase an engagement ring with us, so if you're ordering an engagement ring, then we'll get the order, the payment, and then we know we have an order from our customers, some type of deposit, and then we can initiate production of the ring, bring in the diamond from one of our suppliers, because the vast majority of our inventory is virtual, but we have the technology back end, the relationship with our suppliers to bring that in. Then we produce the ring, set the stone in it, and then the inventory may just sit on our balance sheet transiently for a short period of time while we're waiting to ship it or for the customer to pick it up. And then on the back end of that, we have payment terms with our suppliers.
That's really an efficient working capital cycle. I think hopefully those give you a little bit of some context about how we can use working capital really efficiently, how we have and how we think we can continue to do so.
Just one question, and I think you touched upon this with respect to the consumer habits and purchasing. I was curious about your sales patterns based on the economy, because it is a discretionary spend more or less. So how do you, I guess, manage your business differently, I think, in kind of downflows of the cycle, meaning are people purchasing less, so therefore you have to change your business model, or there is some sort of consistency even when kind of the economy ebbs and flows?
Yeah, I'd say a couple of things. One is that there is a resilience to the jewelry business overall. And so that's, I think, one aspect that's helpful for us. I think in terms of how we manage through different cycles, because we've seen cycles throughout our nearly 20-year history, I think the asset-light and data-driven approach really are advantages for us in this area, given that if you look at a traditional jeweler, you may be taking bigger bets on inventory at a certain time and then have that in your store or your showroom hoping to get a certain level of sell-through. But if you took the wrong bets and bought too much inventory at the wrong time at the wrong price point, then you're kind of in a situation where, how do I move that inventory efficiently?
Whereas our model of having that negative working capital, a design-your-own model, allows us to be much closer to the pulse of the consumer, the status of the industry, and be able to align what we're doing and what we're offering closer to what we're seeing as demand in the industry and have less exposure also as we're doing so. So I think it just allows us, like you probably can hear a theme of adaptability and agility. And I think that just really serves us well in good and bad economic cycles.
I had a quick question. Actually, I have two questions. The first, and I apologize if I missed this, but how many showrooms do you think that you can have overall in the long term? What do you think the right mix is between the showroom and online sales? I guess that's my first question.
We think that we can achieve a lot of coverage of showrooms in our customer base with an efficient showroom footprint. So this isn't a thousands of showrooms type of approach. Our showrooms tend to be destinations in that people know about Brilliant Earth and they want to come in to purchase something, although we're also complementing that with things like ground floor and malls and outdoor centers where people can discover us on a walk-in basis. And so we think we can do so efficiently. And I think a mix of the different formats, we're really tailoring it to how each of these markets work, how each of these metros work, and what we think the customers are shopping. So it's a really individualized decision as we open up each of these locations to align with shopping patterns in those locations.
Okay. Last question, and I think we're out of time, but just what are your biggest challenges? What keeps you up at night? What could make you not reach those double-digit EBITDA targets in the next three years?
I'd say that one of the things that has differentiated us through our lifecycle is operational excellence. And so I think that our data-driven approach really requires us to keep close tabs on many aspects of the market and how our business operates. And it requires us to continue to excel in how we analyze data, how we act on it, and how we deliver based on those insights. And I think continuing that operational excellence is important in terms of just how we build the team, our processes, our systems. And so that's something that continually spend a lot of time as well as the rest of the management team, think about how we can continue that cadence of operational excellence as we grow into the future.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for having us.