Welcome to Oxford Industries' Second Quarter 2020 Fiscal Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A 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. I would now like to turn this conference over to your host, Ms. Anne Shoemaker, Treasurer of Oxford Industries. Thank you. You may begin.
Thank you and good afternoon. Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that certain statements made on today's call and in the Q&A session may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results of operations or our financial condition to differ are discussed in our press release issued earlier today and in documents filed by us with the SEC, including the risk factors contained in our Form 10-K and first quarter 10-Q. We undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statements. During this call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures.
You can find a reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures in our press release issued earlier today, which is posted under the investor relations tab of our website at oxfordinc.com. Now I'd like to introduce today's call participants. With me today are Tom Chubb, Chairman and CEO, and Scott Grassmyer, CFO. Thank you for your attention. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Tom Chubb.
Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. Before I start, I would like to wish you and your families my personal best for your health and safety during these difficult times. I'd also like to pause just for a moment to thank our incredible people for all they are doing to delight our customers under such difficult circumstances. Our strategy at Oxford is a simple one: to own brands that make people happy, to delight our customers with memorable experiences and products they love. During 2020, we have faced a myriad of new challenges. Nonetheless, every day, we are finding ways to successfully execute this strategy. In order to do this in the current environment, we've leaned heavily into our advanced digital capabilities. The investments we made in our e-commerce channel over the past several years allowed us to capitalize on the accelerated shift to online spending.
Each of our brands, Tommy Bahama, Lilly Pulitzer, and Southern Tide, positively contributed to the 52% year-over-year increase in e-commerce sales in the second quarter. Lilly Pulitzer was the standout, up an extraordinary 142%. The Lilly product collection this summer was very strong and in many ways offered exactly what the customer was looking for: fun, happy, easy-to-wear apparel. The collection was highlighted by very effective digital marketing, to which we shifted more resources in the quarter. A non-comp flash sale in June also added to the success of Lilly's second quarter results. Historically, the Lilly website offers sale items only five days a year. To ensure excellent inventory control, an additional two-day flash sale was held in the second quarter, which generated $15 million of sales at a solid 40% margin. Even absent the flash sale, Lilly Pulitzer's e-commerce business grew 74% over last year.
We continue to invest in our digital platforms and evolve our digital capabilities, including upgrades and redesigns of websites, enhanced search engine optimization, and enterprise order management systems. We believe the accelerated shift to online shopping brought on by the coronavirus health crisis is likely to continue. While bricks and mortar will continue to be a key part of our distribution strategy, we believe our e-commerce channel will be stronger, bigger, and a more critical component to our overall strategy coming out of this crisis. In contrast to our e-commerce business, consumer traffic at bricks and mortar locations was understandably very challenged in the quarter, driving meaningful revenue decreases in our stores and restaurants. In addition to operating under restricted hours and limited capacity, important markets which rely heavily on fly-in tourists such as Hawaii, Las Vegas, and New York City were pressured even further.
Despite the temporary headwinds we are currently experiencing, we believe our modest physical footprint holds true competitive advantages for us. Across all of our brands, we have only 187 full-price stores and restaurants, with most located in premium off-mall locations such as lifestyle centers, iconic resorts and resort towns, and prestigious street fronts. Our beautiful stores and restaurants engage our customers and immerse them in our brands and function as an important guest acquisition tool for us. While we look forward to the time when store traffic improves, we are taking advantage of this opportunity to judiciously prune underperforming and non-brand-enhancing locations. By the end of 2020, we will have closed approximately 10 locations, including five which closed in the first half. At the same time, we are also making some exciting additions to the lineup this year.
We have already opened a Marlin Bar at Dania Pointe near Fort Lauderdale and converted two existing Tommy Bahama locations on Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale and St. Johns Town Center in Jacksonville into Marlin Bars. In the back half of the year, we plan to open Marlin Bars at Fashion Valley in San Diego and Lahaina on Maui. During the pandemic, our Marlin Bars, with their casual bar and dining concept and outdoor seating, have been a bright spot. Every day, we are serving existing customers and attracting new customers to the brand. We strongly believe in the Marlin Bar strategy and are optimistic about the role the concept will play in our future growth strategies. Southern Tide, which has just begun its foray into owned retail, now has two stores, both in Florida, with another opening in the Destin area this fall.
While it is difficult to fully assess performance under current conditions, the results that we have seen so far are encouraging. Lilly Pulitzer has done an outstanding job leveraging their bricks-and-mortar locations by adding a concierge level of service for their customers with private appointments and curbside pickup. Their talented store associates are also assisting with customer service calls, further blurring the line between our online and store channels. Our wholesale channel, which we had been strategically pruning prior to the pandemic and represented approximately 30% of our revenue in 2019, has been significantly impacted by current conditions in the consumer marketplace and the weakness of many retailers going into the COVID crisis. Our wholesale sales in the second quarter were less than half of what they were a year ago.
As part of our plan to focus on only the strongest partners in this channel of distribution, we meaningfully reduced our exposure to department stores, which made up only 11% of our total revenue last year. We are expecting sales reductions in this channel to continue through the back half of the year and are addressing this trend by very carefully managing our inventory levels. Across all channels, our sourcing, planning, and merchandising teams have done an extraordinary job, and our inventory levels are in very good shape, as is the rest of our balance sheet. Cash flow was quite strong in the second quarter as we made significant expense reductions related to employment across the enterprise and reductions in occupancy costs. We ended the quarter with a strong liquidity position with over $30 million in net cash and over $250 million of availability under our credit facility.
In March, I had outlined our priorities for this year as, one, the safety of our people and our customers, two, protecting the integrity of our brands, and three, preserving liquidity. These have been the right things to focus on during this crisis, but it is also important to remember that while dealing with the issues at hand, we haven't lost sight of our future. What a future we have at Oxford. With the strength of our brands, the resilience of our people, an enviable balance sheet, and the competitive advantages mentioned earlier, we look forward to returning the company to growth and resuming our long-term track record of generating increased value for our shareholders in 2021 and beyond. I'll now turn the call over to Scott with more details on the second quarter and our plans for the back half of 2020. Scott?
Thank you, Tom. As Tom discussed, our sales in the second quarter were significantly lower year-over-year. The 36% decrease was driven by lower sales in our retail, restaurant, and wholesale channels, partially offset by an increase in e-commerce. Our gross margin was 55% in the quarter, down from 60% in the second quarter last year. We were modestly more promotional across our brands, including the addition of the successful Lilly Pulitzer flash sale. We took inventory markdowns across all operating groups. We're pleased with the cost reduction efforts taken across Oxford, as SG&A decreased 19%, or $28 million. It's important to note that in the second quarter, we incurred $10 million on an adjusted basis related to credit losses, including the Tailored Brands bankruptcy, inventory markdowns, and fixed asset and operating lease impairments.
Our adjusted loss for the quarter, which included these charges, was $0.38 per share. Managing inventory is a critical component of ensuring the health of our brands, we have inventory levels that are appropriate for our plans for the second half of the year. We ended the quarter with inventory 3% lower than last year, despite the significant sales decline. As Tom mentioned, preserving a high level of liquidity is essential during these uncertain times. We have ample liquidity to meet our ongoing cash requirements, reflecting the strength of our balance sheet entering the pandemic, as well as the recent actions we have taken to mitigate the COVID-19 impact. During March 2020, as a proactive measure to bolster cash, our cash position, we drew down on our $325 million asset-based revolving credit facility.
With strong cash flow, we ended the second quarter with $65 million of borrowings, $97 million of cash, and unused availability of $257 million. As we move into the back half of the year, we'll continue to face the challenges and uncertainties created by the pandemic. In our third quarter, which is typically our smallest quarter of the year, we're expecting the year-over-year decline in bricks and mortar traffic to be slightly less pronounced than it was in the second quarter. In addition, our Lilly Pulitzer flash sale, which has been a bright spot in the third quarter, is expected to be significantly smaller as some of the inventory that would have been available for the September event was pulled forward into the non-comp event in June.
As a result of the reduced traffic, a smaller flash sale, and continued softness at wholesale, we expect year-over-year revenue to decline in the third quarter at a rate similar to that of the second quarter. For the month of August, e-commerce continued with strong positive comps. We continued to see year-over-year decreases in brick and mortar and wholesale, with modest sequential improvement. For the fourth quarter, while we don't anticipate a significant rebound in bricks and mortar traffic and wholesale, we believe we will move closer to break even and expect to return to profitability in fiscal 2021. Our dividend is an important component of our commitment to our shareholders. Our board has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share. Thank you for your time today and we'll now turn it over for questions. Laura?
We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary for you to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citi Research. You may proceed with your question.
Hi, this is Kelly on for Paul. Thanks for taking our question. I just want to dig into inventory a little bit more, you know, it was down 3%, but that's much less than what you're expecting your sales to be down the back half of the year. I was just wondering if you could talk about the health of the inventory, you know, how much of that might carry a markdown risk, how you plan on ending inventory at the end of the third quarter, and any color by brand. Then just secondly, if you could talk about the order books for the back half of the year this fall and then how that's shaping up for spring. Thank you.
Okay. On the inventory, Tommy Bahama's inventory is slightly up year-over-year, and t hey did not conduct their typical end of season clearance event, which has actually moved to this weekend. It's kind of shifted out. I think that'll help Tommy's inventory, you know, g et back below last year's levels. Lanier Clothes inventory is a little bit higher than we'd like. We've taken appropriate markdowns. That's mostly replenishment type inventory. The pipelines cut off or levels are a little bit high. They will work down. It's inventory with long life. It is replenishing as our accounts, our wholesale accounts move the goods. We feel good about our inventory. We have taken appropriate markdowns. Inventory levels, yeah, may be a little bit higher than ideal, but p roperly marked down. Lilly will have another September flash, which they always have.
It will be a bit smaller than last year because we did the June flash, but that will again move inventory down some. With the sales decrease, I think our actions on minimizing the input of inventory have allowed us to stay a little bit lower than last year versus significantly above last year. While we have taken some markdowns, I think they've been relatively modest compared to some others in the industry. I think we're in good shape there.
Just on the order book?
The order book going forward, I think the comments that we made about the sales expectations for the third and fourth quarter reflect what we're seeing there. Beyond that, as you get into 2021, I think it's a little early to say yet where that's going to shake out. We'll certainly have more about that in December.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Rick Patel with Needham & Company. You may proceed with your question.
Thank you. Good afternoon and hope everyone is well.
Thank you, Rick.
Question on e-commerce. Do you believe the acceleration in the e-commerce segment represents a permanent change in the way your customers are shopping? If that is the case, how are you thinking about your store footprint going forward? I know you're moving forward with the Marlin Bar strategy, but curious if we should expect even more closures for your other locations beyond this year?
Well, Rick, we feel very, very good about e-commerce. As you know, we've been on that bandwagon for a long time. We've had great growth in e-commerce, even pre-COVID-19, and it's profitable growth for us. As you know, our e-commerce channel is very profitable, so we like seeing growth there. I do think the shift is likely to be long-term. I don't like to use the word permanent because nothing seems to be permanent these days. I definitely think that's the direction that things are going. As we go into 2021, I would expect e-com to be a significantly larger portion of the business than it was in 2019, and t hat's a good thing for us. We do think that bricks and mortar are still a very important part of the future in our brand. We'll be very selective about locations.
What we're really doing now is as we're coming up on renewals or other opportunities to exit leases. We 're looking very hard at them, and there will be, I think over the next couple of years, we'll continue to probably trim some here and there. We will also add stores as we're doing even now in the right circumstances and in the right locations. As you called out and pointed out, I think particularly, Marlin Bars are something that we're interested either in new locations or, in many cases, as we've done a couple of this year, it could be a conversion of an existing store location into a Marlin Bar.
A question on the outlook for 2021, so I appreciate that it's next to impossible to forecast anything with high conviction right now, but just curious about how you're approaching the year. Do you see it as a normal year, like 2019, but perhaps with a bit of conservatism, or do you see the potential for a hockey stick-like recovery, where the business will reach a new high? I'm just curious about what the assumptions are behind expectations for profitability next year.
I think the way that we're going to plan it and buy into it, Rick, is we're going to buy into it fairly conservatively, and that potentially gives us some upside if there is a real sort of hockey stick rebound in the consumer market. I think it's the smarter way to play it rather, protect against the downside as we've really played this year, and particularly the back half of this year that we were able to influence. I would expect us, while it's way too early to say a whole lot about 2021, I think it's reasonable to assume that it'll be smaller than 2019, and that we'll believe we'll be on a growth trajectory again. We'll start from a, you know, take a step back in the starting point, but be on a growth trajectory.
Thank you very much, and all the best this fall.
Okay. Thanks a lot, Rick.
Our next question comes from the line of Edward Yruma with KeyBanc Capital Markets. You may proceed with your question.
Hey, good evening, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I guess first on kind of Lanier and the longer-term view there. I know you took the charge-off at Tailored Brands, and maybe there are some even kind of acceleration of longer-term secular trends away from suiting. You've managed that for cash flow historically. How do we think about the business in the medium term? As a follow-up, with Tommy Bahama, clearly very destination-focused, are there ways you can pivot the assortment to be maybe more appropriate for the current environment? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you very much, Ed. Thanks for being on. With respect to Lanier, the first thing I would say is, look, we've got a terrific team there. They've worked very, very hard, and they continue to work very hard, and they're the best in their sector at what they do. With that said, it is a very, very challenged segment of the apparel market, both in the customer base that they serve, which is largely department store and big box oriented. They had, you know, a couple of customers, actually three in the last couple of weeks, in Tailored Brands, Stein Mart, and Lord & Taylor, that all filed for bankruptcy.
They've got that challenge, and then they've got their key product category being tailored clothing, basically men's suits t hat certainly has big challenges during the coronavirus. Even prior to that, had some sort of secular challenges with just the ongoing casualization of the country. Their challenges are quite big at this time, and we're working very, very hard with them on what the path forward is for that business. Again, I'm glad you remembered it and called it out. What we've been doing for a number of years now is managing that business for cash flow, and that will be the priority, going forward with Lanier, is really maximizing cash flow from that business. I expect in December we'll be able to tell you some more about that, but we will continue with that focus on really cash flow.
Then on Tommy?
On Tommy, yeah. I think Tommy has a lot of products that work really great in the current environment and that are working really well. They're performance products that have really come on in the last couple of years. Ed, I know that you are personally familiar with them. As an example, the Chip Shot Short, which is a hybrid short made out of a quick-drying performance wicking material that you can wear in the ocean and then walk out on the beach, and by the time you get up to the poolside bar or restaurant, it'll be dry and look appropriate to wear into that restaurant. Even though people may not be in resorts as much right now, that type of product is really fitting to what they want right now.
Another great example is the Palm Coast Polo, which I believe we introduced about a year, a little more than a year ago. It quickly vaulted to being one of our best-selling products and has stayed there ever since, and t hat's just an absolute winner. We've got some performance wovens coming in both short sleeve and long sleeve that are getting a great reaction from the wholesale markets that have seen those. Those are coming next year. We recently introduced a really terrific bottom that's similar to some others that you might see in the marketplace from some big athleisure providers, but it's called the Island Zone Pant. That's sort of, again, a performance fabric. When you read performance, what you can translate that to is easy to wear and easy care.
Those are things that are really, really popular right now, and I think will continue to be. I don't think we'll go backwards on that. Really across all of our brands, we're really leaning into those trends hard. Tommy Bahama has always been about easy to wear. It hasn't necessarily always been as much about easy care, but that has come on really strong in the last couple of years, and we're going to continue to push in that direction. In women's for holiday this year, we've got a whole capsule of women's performance, athleisure-type product that I think is going to be a big winner for us. I don't think Tommy has any trouble at all translating into that environment. We're leaning into it really hard right now and it's working. Where we've got those products, and we've got a lot of them now, they're really checking out.
Great. Thanks so much, guys.
Yeah. Thanks, Ed.
Our next question comes from the line of Susan Anderson with B. Riley. You may proceed with your question.
Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you could talk about the performance across the geographies, I guess Florida, Hawaii, California, and I think you mentioned Hawaii, New York, and Vegas were pressured, so m aybe if you could just give us some color on kind of just the variety of differences in performances across those geographies.
Yeah. I'll give you some general things, and r eally, there's stuff that's kind of all over the place, and it's a little bit hard to summarize. I would say if you look at Hawaii, that market's fundamentally shut down right now due to travel restrictions. Tourists can't come in. There are restrictions on people that are there. That market is and has been fundamentally shut down. That's obviously a challenge in Tommy Bahama in particular, where Hawaii's a big state for them. That's an extra bit of weight that they're carrying right now. Overall, we believe it's a competitive advantage to have the strength that we have in Hawaii. At the moment, it's an additional burden.
You look at California, and they've currently got a ban on indoor malls being open, and I think we've got eight of those, roughly, stores that fall into that category. Those can't be open at the moment, and then, o f course, New York City is just a very tough situation all the way around, and we remain closed in New York City. On the flip side, you look at some of the drive-to markets, and a great example for us in the Southeast is the Destin market, which is down on the Florida Panhandle, the so-called Third Coast down there. That's a popular drive-to beach destination that's driven primarily by rental houses, not so much by hotels, and b oy, that's what people want right now.
They want to be able to load up a family in the Suburban and go down to a nice house somewhere and just camp out for the week there. That market's just been terrific for us. Another one that's been really interesting is Palm Springs, where we have a Marlin Bar. People drive over from L.A. and other parts of Southern California, and n ormally, this time of year, they would quit doing that until October or so. This year, they got nothing better to do. They're not flying anywhere. We're seeing really good results there. Jupiter, Florida, that's another one that's been a really strong market, and I think that's a lot of snowbirds from the Northeast that just never went home.
We got a new Marlin Bar that opened in Jacksonville, Florida, at the St. Johns Town Center, which is where you'd go if you were staying at Ponte Vedra, and you wanted to get out shopping for the day, and t hat Marlin Bar opened maybe two or three months ago now.
This June, yeah.
Yeah, June. They're knocking the cover off the ball there. It's been fun to watch that one. It's really those drive-to kind of vacation destinations and places where people who are fleeing from some of the, you know, other parts of the country have sort of set up shop, where we're really thriving right now.
Great, t hat's really helpful. Then, I guess maybe I wanted to get your thoughts how you're thinking about fourth quarter, and I think typically you would have the resort line now, and obviously consumers would be thinking about going on vacation or going someplace warm, especially in the colder northern states, which may not happen this year, or p articularly, consumers may not get on a plane. So I guess, how are you thinking about your product lineup? Are you changing it out all for fourth quarter? Then, I guess, just getting back to more normalized sales, do we need at least domestic tourism to kind of come back, I guess?
Well, I think for fourth quarter, we definitely adjusted the merchandise mix, you know, a good bit, I think, in all the brands and we haven't totally abandoned our normal approach, but we've shifted more heavily to the types of products that people like right now. What's been selling over the last couple of months, as you would expect, are things like shorts, T-shirts, polo shirts, maybe some light sweaters, a lot of the athleisure-type products. Swim has been doing really well during the summertime. Beach chairs, we have not been able to keep in stock in Tommy Bahama, and I think a lot of that's people buying them for the backyard.
There are a lot of things that work, and we've made adjustments to the assortment to accommodate that in the fourth quarter on the assumption that people still will not be traveling quite as much as they were. As things normalize, and you're seeing a lot of it now, again, I can't underscore of how strong it is in some of these markets like Destin, where I think, you know, people that in past summers would've been taking a trip to Italy or something, or Provence, and instead they're staying at home and then just driving to a beach location. It's the same in a lot of the New England beach areas are not dissimilar.
I think there are plenty of avenues for us to, you know, to play into this, and I think we've been doing a good job of it, and again, have adjusted our fourth quarter plans to the sort of assumption that people will not be traveling as much.
Great, t hat's helpful. I guess lastly, it sounds like there's still maybe pockets of inventory that you'll need to pull through in third quarter. How are you thinking about just the promotional environment in third quarter across the brands versus second quarter?
Well, Lilly will have a little bit smaller flash sale than they normally have because they actually did part of it early, and there were a whole variety of reasons that they did that. They pulled a bunch of that inventory early into second quarter, had a very successful flash sale. There will be one at some point during the third quarter. We're not going to call the name out yet or the date out yet, but it'll be a good bit smaller than in past years. Tommy, as Scott, I think, mentioned in his comments, ordinarily does a pretty significant online clearance and in stores in June, July. That's been pushed out into the third quarter. I guess a little less in Lilly and a bit more in Tommy. Overall, we're not really planning to be a lot more promotional.
We're shifting some things around a little bit, doing things a little bit differently but, you know, w e've tried to manage the inventories so that we don't have to be highly promotional.
Great, t hat's helpful. Thanks so much. Good luck.
Okay, thanks, Susan.
Moving through the back half.
Our next question comes from the line of Steve Marotta with C.L. King. You may proceed with your question.
Good afternoon, everybody. Tom, considering that your customers can't come to you in Hawaii and other destinations, I'm assuming you're trying to go to them from a digital marketing standpoint. Can you talk a little bit about how you're engaging the customer and keeping the brand top of mind for them and converting digitally?
Yeah. As you saw, our e-commerce results in the quarter were really, really strong with 52% year-over-year growth. Lilly was the strongest and I think that's because they have, you know, been strong in digital marketing for years. That's been, really, I guess, arguably their primary marketing vehicle has been digital marketing, and they're quite adept at it, leaned into it. A lot of it's social media driven with a lot of paid social this year that we've been doing, and it's worked for them. Tommy historically has depended a lot more heavily, and they're really good at this. They do a great job of using the stores not only to sell merchandise in the stores, but as a big customer acquisition vehicle that ultimately helps fuel e-commerce. Obviously, that's been challenged a bit this year with stores closed for a while, or more than a bit.
That's been challenged this year with stores closed for eight weeks or so, and then a gradual reopening and traffic still way down. Tommy's pivoting towards digital, and I think doing a good job of thriving in that direction. That has not been their primary method in the past in the way that it is in Lilly. In the smaller brands, I think they're, you know, probably somewhere in between and doing a great job as well. Across all the brands, of course, we're sharing all the marketing techniques and all, and helping them to all learn from each other.
That's helpful, and m y follow-up question is, Scott, as far as the expense reductions go in the second quarter, can you talk a little bit about what's permanent? I guess theoretically, what could potentially flex as you recoup some sales, but t hinking about the permanency of some of the expense reductions would be helpful.
Yeah, and a lso in the second quarter, May, the stores were, in essence, shut down, so you had a lot more furloughed employees. We think we'll be at least 10% lower year-over-year in SG&A in Q3 and Q4. I think that's more the permanent piece of it, so a bout 10% down in Q3 and Q4, you know, m aybe a little higher than that, but in that general range.
Thank you. That's helpful.
Our next question comes from the line of Dana Telsey with Telsey Advisory Group. You may proceed with your question.
As you think about the e-commerce business, and I think it was around 23% of sales last year, where do you see that going, and how do you see that even for next year? While you've talked about e-commerce being profitable growth, with shipping costs and what we're hearing now of potentially surcharges for the fourth quarter, how are you thinking of that blend of profitability in e-commerce this year and the impact on earnings? Thank you.
Okay. I'm going to let Scott handle the second part of that question in a minute. I'll take the first part. It's hard for me to quantify exactly how big I think e-commerce is going to be next year. I am very confident in saying it'll be a much bigger piece of the pie in 2021 than it was in 2019. Hopefully, it'll be smaller than it is in 2020 because that's really been the primary channel for a long time. I think you look 2019 to 2021, you see a big step up, and l onger term, in my mind, it's not hard at all. I don't know exactly how many years, but for it to be half our business is done online doesn't strain my imagination at all. We think that's a good thing. We're thrilled about that.
I'll let Scott talk a little bit about some of the profitability profile and the impact of shipping charges.
Yeah. In e-commerce, the gross margins do end up being a little bit lower because you do have the freight cost and the picking, packing cost. It does end up being a little bit lower margins to start with. However, the kind of growth rates we get out of that, which you're going to grow that way in stores, you'd be opening additional retail units. We're getting this growth on a platform. Yeah, you have to continue to invest in the platform, but with our average ticket value and our high gross margins, it's still a very, very profitable business to us, and I think it can continue to be very profitable in the future.
Is there any difference by brand?
On the?
e-commerce, yeah.
Not a huge difference. The average tickets are pretty similar and the gross margins are pretty similar and, you know, f or every box you're sending out, you've got a lot of gross margin dollars there. If shipping costs you another couple of bucks, it's going to dilute your gross margin a little bit, but it doesn't really move it a huge amount. It's very different than somebody that's got an average, you know, $20 ticket in a box and then 50% gross margin, a couple of bucks kills them. If we're at $150 in a high or mid-70s gross margin, you know, you got a lot of dollars to work with there.
Can you remind us how big was the Lilly flash sale for the third quarter last year? How much did it contribute to the top line?
Yeah. It was about $31 million, y eah, so i t was a huge sale. It'd still be a very nice sale, but we did $15 million in the second quarter. We did still a little bit from the third quarter sale. We'll still have a meaningful sale, but just won't be at that $31 million level.
Got it. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of today's question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Tom Chubb for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you, Laura, and thanks to all of you for your interest and your continued support. Stay safe and we look forward to talking to you again in December.
Thank you for joining us today. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.