Well, welcome everyone to the Global Consumer and Retail Conference. This is the 33rd edition. It is the first one for me. I have only been at Goldman Sachs for a month and a half. I have been involved in luxury for the better part of the last 30 years, but I do not have coverage yet. Eventually, hopefully, I will be covering European luxury out of London. I am very happy today to welcome Martin Beer, who is the CFO of LuxExperience, formerly known as Mytheresa. The group has expanded a year and a half ago to take over other assets, selling luxury online, and becoming, according to some, the sort of last man standing in that approach. Just to start off, Martin, and thanks a lot for making it here.
I just was wondering if you could give us maybe your vision about where we are at in luxury today, because I think from what I have started picking up, starting to speak to the companies that eventually I will be picking up, I understand that the U.S. continues to compound quite nicely. South Korea is very strong. The rest of the markets seem relatively weak. So that is from, I guess, a regional point of view. If you look at brands, seemingly Chanel is doing very well. Seemingly a lot of the jewelers, global jewelers, the likes of Tiffany, Cartier, et cetera, are doing very well. But the rest of the brands are relatively weak. I am wondering what you are seeing. What is your vision of the current state of luxury and maybe recent changes in consumer behavior? What are you experiencing at LuxExperience?
Thanks, Aaron. Good to be here, to see you, and very big question. Obviously, it is a key question that everybody is looking at. What is the state of the luxury consumer and what are the nuances? Maybe I can answer that from two angles. First angle is more the broader angle, the digital luxury. We all have to bear in mind that the luxury market, EUR 400 billion, the digital part is the part that is growing. If you take the Bain and Altagamma or whoever, the digital part is growing 8%-10% CAGR per year. As a digital player, we operate in a market that has a lot of tailwind from the market, operating in a growing market.
That obviously is also, you have to bear that in mind that digital luxury always has been the best growth opportunity, on a more general level, especially if you look at brands that you also mentioned that rely on physical stores.
Be it in China or Middle East, and obviously have to face certain challenges. The second topic is, the second angle is the top customer. Everybody is trying to grasp the K-shaped situation where brands succeed more, that cater more to the higher end of the top customers and brands that are more lower have less success. This top customer is really very demanding, and it requires innovation. It is about emotions, it is about curation. With that defines fashion and luxury as part of a lifestyle. Therefore is a much more resilient customer.
We see that also in our numbers. The last quarters you have seen that we, at Mytheresa, double-digit growth in the last quarters. Because we have always focused on that top customer, that high-end customer. If you look at more bigger brands, they are to a certain degree, more back-selling companies and therefore have a much higher share of aspirational customers per definition.
With that top customer focus, that enables us to continue to grow and to have a very resilient business model. As you mentioned, the last quarters, number of top customer increased double digit, very strong. Revenue per top customer increased. All the KPIs, AOV, or with that top customer notion, higher full price share. Therefore, that is also kind of the logic or that results in why we have such a good and strong business model on the top customer side. For us, it is a very stable, resilient top customer cohort and for us as a multi-brand player, that top customer is per definition a multi-brand customer because you cannot just buy for two years now only Gucci or something.
You usually do not do this. That caters and that helps us as a multi-brand luxury player, and we are the number one in the world, and can therefore sustain that positioning towards a top customer. Maybe last word, it is also, and we can grow with the successful brands and can defocus, descope more the unsuccessful brands. We are in that ideal situation of being a multi-brand digital luxury player. Also from an investment perspective, and I think that is why you are all here. It is also, I think, a good space if you want to invest in the luxury industry. We are kind of a more actively managed customer, a luxury ETF so to say.
Right
B ecause we can balance the effects. For us to answer your question a bit longer, the customer state is very differentiated.
Right.
We can talk about geographies, but on the top customer side, it is a very high resilience. It has always been. You mentioned U.S. In the last quarters, we grew U.S. +20%, 25%, 30%. That shows you that also, in addition to the top customer focus, we are a bit detached from how does the overall luxury customer develops.
Right. So you have explained well how maybe the underlying trends in luxury are relatively muted, but your part of the business is growing 8%-10% in aggregate. But you have seen quite a bit of change in your environment with, I was mentioning your position as being the sort of last man standing. You have had a lot of changes, not just with the evolution of Saks.com and what is now called the Exemplar Luxury Group, which is actually with us today as well. But can you maybe explain how your ecosystem of multi-brand selling online of luxury has changed, and how you can benefit from recent changes?
The overall story of Mytheresa before LuxExperience was always intact, always double-digit growth and strong profitability with the focus on this top customer. With that, we have two key ingredients that you need to have to be successful, which is a very loyal customer base, top customer that comes back, not just because of discounts or marketing efforts. With that positioning, a very high AOV. We have more than EUR 800 AOV, and that helps you on the unit economics, and that translates into a very profitable business model. On the overall market side, yeah, you mentioned that we are now the undisputed number one global multi-brand digital luxury player, and that helped here, obviously, with Farfetch, MatchesFashion, SSENSE, LUISAVIAROMA, and also the new situation on Saks.
That helped on the competition side as we see the brands really focus on us and want to grow with us as we cater to that multi-brand luxury customer with a lower view on discounts and with really understanding what the customer wants and have a very high-quality experience. We have the highest Net Promoter Score in the industry, over 80%. This top customer, you always have to bear in mind, is very demanding. If you not only look at curation, but also if you look at operational execution and quality.
Okay. You talked about the compounding nature of growth in the U.S. I've always had this idea that the U.S. was a fast-growing market for luxury, but a quite expensive one, and the cost of doing business seems to be pretty high here. I'm wondering if you can compare and contrast the future potential of the U.S. for your business relative to other regions. I think, surprisingly, the Middle East was a highlight from last quarter.
If you project the next few quarters, and I know you're publishing in two days, I'm not asking you about now, but more long-term. Where do you see incremental growth coming from, and are there real differences in terms of economics if you're dealing with maybe some remote parts of Europe, like going into Eastern Europe or into countries where maybe the brands don't have a physical presence and you can help them out, or parts of Asia. If you can compare and contrast the potential, but also the economics of the different regions.
Yeah. To answer that question, the overall economics, if you look at from price levels, gross margin, then operational, like shipping and payment costs and so on, is very comparable.
Okay
If you look different parts of the world. This is our key benefit. We deliver to 133 countries without having the need for a facility for logistics set up in that country. We can always shift and balance. Also ETF, we can balance certain countries where we see, yes, there is great growth. Looking at the geographies for us, you rightly mentioned that U.S. has always been a strong growth market, and I think for the last two years, three years, always double-digit growth. Independent of Ukraine, Iran, Middle East situations, U.S. has always been a top growth market and will stay for us a top growth market. Double digit CAGRs. That is key for us. China remains difficult for us as a mini part, thank God. There are other growth spots in APAC. If you look at Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, you mentioned.
Very strong growth there. Europe has always also been a growth story for us. Europe is not Europe, as you know. There are so many complex countries. Every quarter, if I look at the revenue performance by country, there is high dynamics. Right now, very strong growth in Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania. Also Italy, Spain, Portugal. You rightfully mentioned that a lot of them are like retail deserts.
Therefore, we come into play and can serve at home, being a digital player. For us, there is growth all over the world, especially if you look at the TAM, the market size, and our market share, which is still tiny.
Right.
We are still tiny. Also, in the U.S., we are still tiny. Therefore, it is really good, balanced growth. As you know, the overall wealth in the world is increasing, and luxury enthusiasts also in the world are increasing, which is good.
Right. I was wondering if we can talk a bit about categories. I might be under the influence a bit because I used to work at Cartier when I was young. I have read quite a few articles around Mytheresa signing up a few jewelry brands. I am wondering, where do you go with this? How do you assess the potential of that new category? Then obviously beyond jewelry, do you have any obvious gaps in terms of product categories that you would love to serve your target consumer with eventually?
Of course. It all has to fit to the core Mytheresa, NET-A-PORTER, MR PORTER brand. Fine jewelry obviously is a key growth area for us. We have signed on a couple of high-caliber brands. You mentioned earlier from the Richemont brands, fine jewelry or what. There is a lot of brands that really perform well and that we want to grow with. So you are right. With us, very much focused on the ready-to-wear section, less bags and accessories and shoes. We want to grow that segment significantly, and this is also a key growth driver. On unit economics, it also helps with a high AOV, with a high price, it helps. So definitely more to hear from that, which brands we are getting on board. Fine jewelry is obviously catering exactly to our top customer cohorts that we want to focus on.
We had, at Mytheresa, added menswear, MR PORTER, very strong, very successful kidswear. Obviously on category side, you can think of all the luxury categories that, for example, LVMH has in luxury experiences and so on to add to that. From an end-to-end perspective, it has to work, and it has to have a clear reason why now Mytheresa, NET-A-PORTER is also selling that. That cannot be an artificial add-on, so we really have to think about how to focus and how to go about that. You are right, the overall growth perspective is very strong. The market is growing. We are increasing market share. Every month, we are gaining market share in the core segment that we have, womenswear. Already with fine jewelry, menswear, kidswear, we have growth categories. We can grow geographical.
Exactly. LuxExperience will continue to be a growth stock, definitely.
Right. Okay. Thank you. You talked a lot about AOV, and I was wondering if you could dig a bit further for me to understand. Is AOV progressing because you are seeing consumers trade up within the purchases, or are you seeing more a case of maybe higher units per order? How do you track AOV and how do you think it develops in the future?
Yeah. You rightfully mentioned, in the last quarters, we reported very strong AOV growth, 7%, 12%, 13%, which is great, helps on the unit economics. The key driver of the AOV growth is a shift in the customers.
As you have seen, we focus more and more on top customers. The share of the top customers and the revenue share of top customers increases, and they buy higher priced items. This is the core driver, is not that every customer buys now higher priced items, but it is the mix effect of if you have a higher share of top customers, then obviously your AOV increases. Because with the higher share of top customers, also my full price share increases.
Yeah.
Because the top customers are less discount. Obviously if you have less discount, you have a higher full price. Top customer, higher full price share, more AOV, as we call it. But we also see a bit more items per order.
Yeah. Okay.
Also that. On all fronts. It might come also with the lack of competition and different market environments. Again, we are happy we can grow items per order. We can increase the higher-priced items, more tuned towards the top customers. Yeah.
Okay. I think naturally, as higher-end customers account for a bigger part of your business, you have a lower level of discount. Overall, I think there has been a sort of conscious decision to get rid of discount more than in the past. I am just wondering, how do you balance that? Not necessarily for the very high-end consumers, but more for entry consumers, what is the trade-off between the traffic that you might generate by discounting a bit more and keeping a very tight ship and being very disciplined? That is, I think, a recent evolution in the model that you have consciously decided to be less discount-driven. Is there a lot of sensitivity to that?
Everybody tries. On every PowerPoint slide, you always see, yes, get more top customers and do less discounts. Everybody obviously wants to follow that route. Mytheresa, like I said, always has been on that route for top customers. Obviously, in the post-corona phase, where every brand grew, the whole market grew, everybody grows. Then obviously the number of total customers increased with us as well. Our focus on top customers, you mentioned the IPO earlier, 2021, I think we reported 2.5%, 3% of our customers make 25%, 30% of our business, of our revenues. That has increased significantly-
Right
Throughout the years, the last six, seven years, over 4% make over 40% of the revenue.
Okay.
It has always been a top customer focus. But you are also right that the discount level in the industry has decreased significantly. I think a lot of people still remember the 2023 situation when there was too much inventory in the market. There was some disruption that caused everybody to have bad numbers, and also led to the fallout of a lot of competitors, that could not deal with that. That situation has completely changed. The competitive situation, the market situation, also from the brands themselves, have changed significantly. There's much less inventory in the market, much less need-
Right
for discount or ability to discount.
Right.
Even if some local competitors are really aggressive and do -20%, -30%, they do not have the merchandise to do it. The effect is much less felt. Compared to two, three years ago, the situation of the industry, the situation of the market is much better on the discounting logic. For us, it was never a logic. Should I discount a bit more to attract more customers?
Because you saw also in the last quarters, our active customer base decreased a bit even, because our currency is the top customers.
Right.
The top customer share. This is our KPI, not the overall total customers as it is always a mix. Aspirational customers, standard customers, top customers. There is no change in strategy, no discipline, but 2023 was a special situation.
Right.
From that, we had to really focus on, or continue our focus on being well-disciplined and it is a self-reinforcing wheel because then also the brands look at us and say, This is a great partner.
Right.
Because you understand and you care for protecting our brand equity, and you are a great partner because you also have those customers that we actually would love to talk to. We know it's a multi-brand customer, and we know the customer doesn't go to all the stores, just doesn't have time. Therefore you help us to have the digital visibility towards that customer. Therefore, the collaboration with the brands increased strongly over the last two years, be it events, be it exclusives, be it early deliveries.
They're more willing to-
Yes.
Yeah.
More willing. They see us as a key partner. Obviously, they always also want to focus on their D2C and strengthen their channels. But they know that this will never solve for 100%.
Right.
They also always need a strong wholesale partner. Not that they have now like a 50% interest in wholesale partnership, but more on, it's an addition. Some people have like 60%, 70% of D2C.
Some have 70%, 80% of their own D2C. But it's a great avenue for them to grow and to also speak to that multi-brand customer.
So conceptually, if you project the next three, four years, imagining that the algorithm of growth is, let's say 10%, like low double digit. Within that growth, is it fair to assume that the bulk of that growth will come from you being able to sell more to an existing cohort? Or is there an important part of recruitment within that 10% growth?
It is always new customers. The strong focus is on new customers. Has always been, as we had coming from very small base. It is not the overall number of customer that counts. It could be that the total number of customers goes down.
Yep
But the value of a customer,
The quality,
The high potential customer, top customer that comes with a higher AOV or higher revenue per year, is then the key. Nevertheless, our focus is still to win that customer.
Not to have, look at our total customer base. If I look at the total customer, total U.S. top customers, it is tiny.
Yep.
We have to grow the number, but we are happy, and we report on this KPI that the revenue per top customer also increases. We are not diluting the definition of top customer or how we treat our top customers. But the growth will more come from the number of top customers in my view.
Obviously, revenue per top customer is a key item. We have to grow there. The digital logic is helping because every top luxury customer, they buy everywhere. They buy offline, they buy online. But with an increasing online share, we benefit and therefore obviously also revenue per top customer will increase. You mentioned fine jewelry, therefore also revenue per top customer will increase.
It is both. It is both effects, but it is a nice focus area, but a bit higher on the number on top customers, and it has always been that way.
Okay. Imagining I'm a newbie to the story, which is close to being correct. Just taking a step back, if you look at the different assets, I don't shop luxury much, and I don't shop luxury online virtually at all. How would you describe the difference between your different assets?
Because there's always a fear that maybe you have a lot of overlap. If I look at Mytheresa versus NET-A-PORTER, MR PORTER, how do you ensure that the positioning is quite distinct? And that you don't basically have a client that basically goes from one to the other and that sort of limits the pool of recruitment. Is it a regional difference? Is it a positioning difference? Is it a curation difference? How do you segment your different assets?
Very important question because obviously with the acquisition, we exactly asked ourselves that question.
Right.
Because if you don't see any value in the asset or just want to make a little bit of a Mytheresa out of NET-A-PORTER, MR PORTER, then this is the wrong way. We did a lot of commercial due diligence, looked at the customer cohorts, and what we found was quite interesting, that the customer overlap actually is very low. It's 10%.
You can argue, Well, then not that far apart. From a customer perspective, the brands are different. NET-A-PORTER, MR PORTER, more fashion-oriented, more higher number of brands. At Mytheresa, we have 250. NET-A-PORTER, MR PORTER, 550. Newer brands, higher brand fluctuation, more newness. For Mytheresa, it is more established luxury.
Okay.
Therefore, for multiple aspects, it is different. It was always different. Different, very small customer overlap. We obviously want to protect that. Therefore, we had set up complete different commercial teams. Different to other competitors, how they act. We have different brand leadership and clear separation of marketing and buying. It is not like one big buying group that on Tuesdays buys for Mytheresa and on Fridays buys for NET-A-PORTER. This will not work. They have to compete. They really have to go about differently. Thinking exactly about the question that you asked on what is the brand equity, why does a customer come to a NET-A-PORTER versus a Mytheresa, and when and so on.
This is a key focus for us, to keep it really separate. Obviously in the back end, to have then the synergy, the classic synergies that we need and have to achieve on IT, especially on operations, finance, HR, all the other topics that you can have in the back end. But front end, strong different commercial leadership, different marketing, different buying.
Okay. My understanding is, if you look at the group and the different assets, Mytheresa is sort of a benchmark, I guess, in terms of profitability and the others are lagging. I suspect part of the investment case if you want to buy into the story is the other assets catching up. I am just wondering, how does that happen? When does it happen? What do you need to put in place to show the market that actually the Mytheresa type of margin can be the margin that eventually the group gets to?
Yeah. This is also a core focus area that we had from the beginning. Also, when I think in May last year, 2025, we communicated our roadmap. Our plan, how to increase the value of the overall group. NET-A-PORTER and MR PORTER and YOOX, highly unprofitable.
Mytheresa, increasing profitability. Therefore, the last quarters, we were able to show a sustained increase of profitability at Mytheresa. Because also at Mytheresa, we are not there yet at the 7%-9%.
Yeah.
But the clear guidance of Mytheresa was there for this fiscal year, which ended in June, to be around 6%, so we are almost there.
We need to grow there more, which is fine. NET-A-PORTER, MR PORTER different to YOOX. YOOX, off-price business, different operational setup, different business model. NET-A-PORTER, MR PORTER we always guided that this fiscal year 2026 is kind of a break-even year, and then fiscal year 2027 is also profitable for NET-A-PORTER, MR PORTER. Not at the Mytheresa level. This will then be more achieved in the next years. But if you look at the underlying fundamentals of NET-A-PORTER and MR PORTER on, for example, their top customer share, very comparable to Mytheresa. Their gross profit margin, very healthy. What they are lacking is operations and IT.
Right.
Which is the more difficult part. But the good thing is not the commercial part. Therefore, you know how difficult it is to change the IT setup, and that is why we always guide and report on how far are we with the IT and operations. In the P&L, it is reflected in the SGA cost ratio. Therefore, clearly [unscrutinized guidance] to report always increasing performance or a lower SGA cost ratio to get the profitability up. It is in the back end.
To come up to the profitability level of Mytheresa, and there is no reason why NET-A-PORTER, MR PORTER should not be at the same profitability level at Mytheresa. The same, because all the intrinsics are fully intact. YOOX is a more lower AOV, lower cost margin type of offline business, even more restructuring to be done. That is why we guided YOOX will be profitable in fiscal year 2028. Also complete new setup of warehouses, of operational model, focusing on Europe instead of more costly Asia and U.S. markets. But also there, we have all the ingredients to turn this around because we are the best operator. We have done an IT stack restructuring ourselves at Mytheresa three years ago. So we have the people, and we know what to do, which is always good.
Therefore, it is a great asset situation because if you look at the valuation of Mytheresa stock right now, it is very low.
Right.
Exactly as you say, this is a core question that everybody asks. How far are you? What is the trajectory? How well? We have to report every quarter an improvement in that situation. NET-A-PORTER, MR PORTER, profitability. YOOX, improving the loss situation and then coming to a good trajectory of, this is always our goal, the EUR 4 billion net sales of 7%-9% adjusted EBITDA. If you calculate that and convert it into multiple in the share price, it is a real upside.
Right.
It's a real upside, and that's a high opportunity for value generation. That's why I'm here.
With this idea that valuation might be low, we need to finish off in two minutes, but-
Yeah
If you look at the shareholding structure, you still have Richemont with 35% share. You have the consortium of funds with, I think, close to 40%.
48%
How do you think about the risk or the opportunity of a liquidity event to increase the float eventually?
There should never be a negative sentiment on that. Also the anchor shareholders really see the value in this.
Yeah.
That's why the liquidity event is not on anybody's schedule right now.
Okay. Anything you'd want to conclude with to any message, maybe are some of the investors not getting part of the story that you want to pitch or any sort of recurring misunderstanding that you'd want to address?
No, it's really you have to take a closer look at LuxExperience to really understand the uniqueness, the unique positioning of being a multi-brand global digital luxury leader, and to see how valuable that positioning is and also how defendable it is.
We're operating our position as a high barriers of entry because obviously it all relies on a very strong relationship with the brands.
Right. Yep.
You cannot tomorrow show up and say, Let me help to sell your brand, your bags or whatever. It's a very strong position. We are seeing really good momentum.
Okay. Well, help me thank Martin for the message. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you.