Great. Good morning, everyone. Thanks so much for coming. My name is Nathan Feather. I'm Morgan Stanley's Small and Mid-cap Internet Analyst. I am pleased to be joined by Jesse Timmermans, Revolve CFO. Thanks so much for joining us.
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Absolutely.
Great to be here.
So before we begin, a few quick housekeeping items for important disclosures. Please see the Morgan Stanley Research Disclosure website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. If you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales representative. And with that, let's kick it off. I want to start a little bit higher level. For those in the audience who may be newer to the Revolve story, can you provide some background on Revolve's business model, the strategy, and competitive differentiation?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We were started over 20 years ago by Mike and Michael, our Co-Founders, who are still our Co-CEOs today, and still own about 44% of the business. So I think that leads into one of the key differentiators, is founder-led and founder-owned. They definitely have an owner mindset and really focusing on the long term for the business and making the right decisions for the long term and growing the business over the long term. So I think that's one, is the founder-led business. We are a, we call ourselves the fashion destination for this next-generation consumer. Very differentiated merchandise. Really want to be where the customer is at, whether that's on Instagram, TikTok, social media, AI, which I'm sure we'll talk about. Very data-driven. Mike and Michael were not fashion guys when they started the business.
I would say Mike probably still is not a fashion guy. So they really had to rely on data from day one and data to make their decisions on merchandising. And that led to really building essentially everything within the business, from inventory management to the marketing reporting to essentially our ERP. Everything is one ERP, our customer service, our inventory, which again, being data-driven from day one, great inventory management. And then that leads into taking advantages of opportunities like AI and being at the forefront of that. So I think maybe to round out the differentiators is just the consistent profitable growth over the past 20 years. So kind of all those things, founder-led, data-driven, focused on this next-generation consumer, and then a great financial profile.
OK, great. Well, I also want to touch on how the consumer landscape looks right now. I guess can you elaborate on the latest you're seeing in consumer health and any differences by income bracket, which certainly we've seen at some other places? I'm interested to hear how this has evolved both through the year and kind of into the early holiday season.
Yeah, yeah, I'd say surprisingly the consumer has been, I think, what we'd call resilient, given all of the challenges out there. I think we are seeing some disparity, not significantly, but some disparity between the lower-end and the higher-end consumer. The higher-end consumer has been strong relative to that low-end consumer. Also seeing some pockets of weakness, especially within the third quarter around the surrounding DC areas, where we saw some softness likely related to the government shutdown. But again, all at the margins, I would say overall the consumer is resilient. I think we're encouraged by the Q4 progress thus far, supported by that October that we talked about in the Q3 earnings call, where October is up mid-single digits, which on the surface doesn't sound great.
But if you look at the two-year stack there, depending on which mid-single digit number you pick, we're in the 16%-18% two-year, which is getting close to where we think we should be and want to be in the near term is getting back into consistent double-digit top-line growth.
OK, great. Well, touching on that, I guess you have seen a little bit of revenue deceleration in the back half, partially on those tougher comps. And so can you detail what are the building blocks necessary to get back to that double-digit growth goal?
Yeah, yeah, maybe I'll start with Q3 and breaking that down a little bit. Number one, we have the comps, which we talked about. So 4% one-year growth. If you look at the two-year, we're at 15%, which was our highest in two years. So kind of that's the comp dynamic. Number two, we did make decisions on our promo cadence and cut back on promos that we had done in the prior year, which drove significant gross margin expansion, almost 350 basis points of margin expansion, and an 11% gross profit dollar increase. So that's kind of what we're keying in on for the quarter is that double-digit gross profit dollars and our view of the true health of the business. And then number three in the quarter was being about six months out from Liberation Day, feeling the impact of kind of a pullback in production.
We saw more canceled orders, late orders, short shipments, things like that from brands, so mostly due to the fact that people were cutting back on production just following that 145% tariff coming out of China. So I think those are kind of some of the Q3 dynamics. Now, what do we need to do to get to that consistent double-digit top-line growth? I think, one, work through these comp dynamics, work through the promo comps. And then we have a number of things in the works, a lot of investments that we've been making over the course of the past year that will start to pay dividends as we enter 2026. If you start with the launch of the Sofia Richie Grainge brand SRG that we launched a couple of months ago, our best own brand launch to date.
Followed that with the launch of Halo, kind of with our partner Dion Lee. We have the Lakers partnership. We just launched our new brand logo. So a lot of good things happening, a lot of investments that we've been making that will start paying dividends over the next year.
OK, great. And I want to touch on a lot of those exciting new things. But first, we just got past the critical Black Friday, Cyber Monday season. I guess any early reads into how that's shaped up?
Yeah, no, nothing significant. I would say, again, we're encouraged by the health of the consumer thus far in Q4. I would say promos just more broadly have seemed rational. We're not heavily promotional during the Q4 holiday period. We're mostly a self-purchase platform, so holiday isn't as significant for us as it is for others. So I would say, I think from a kind of broad macro perspective, it's been kind of as expected or nothing significantly abnormal and encouraged by the health of the consumer so far.
OK, great. Well, you mentioned SRG and Dion Lee. Owned brands, I guess just generally, if we look backwards, it's been pretty consistently about the 20% of revenue range over the past few years. Been really excited about the owned brand performance year to date. What were the key unlocks that have enabled that improved performance with owned brand penetration increasing year over year? And as we look into 2026, how should we think about the potential uplift, both on revenue and on gross margin?
Yeah, yeah, we are very encouraged about the owned brand performance. To your point, it was significantly higher back in prior years. If you look back to 2019, it was 36%. We closed 2024 at 18%. It's been ticking up year over year in each quarter this year, so encouraged by that. What's driving that? I think number one, a focus on quality, and that's not just product quality, but quality of assortment and making sure we're assorted appropriately. I think number two is having the size and the scale to support those product production minimums, and with the quality, we're seeing really great full-price sell-through on the owned brand product, which supports overall inventory health, markdown cadence, et cetera. Really good reception from the customer, especially on these new brand launches, so really encouraged by that.
So we see a lot of opportunity for owned brands going forward and continuing to increase that mix. So I think it comes from both, to your point, top line, because these brands are unique to us. So it gives us unique marketing leverage. They're resonating very well with the consumer. And then followed by gross margin. Our owned brands carry significantly greater margin than a third-party product. So as that mix increases, it adds to our overall margin profile. One more on the owned brand side, too, which ties into international, is that we, for the first time, did an exclusive owned brand kind of geography-specific launch in Mainland China. So this product was developed in China for the China customer, supported by livestream, and was one of our best launches to date, even compared to the domestic U.S. launches. And that product was designed, again, for that customer.
We saw a really low return rate because it was designed specifically for that customer, so encouraged by that and more to come on that front.
OK, great. Now, I do want to spend a minute on China. That has been a really strong geo for you with net sales growth north of 50% year-on-year, at least for the Revolve segment. Can you talk to the differences in your go-to-market strategy for China versus maybe the U.S.? And what investments are required in order to scale that market?
Yeah, yeah, we have been investing pretty meaningfully in the China market over the past couple of years. We have a team dedicated to the China market, which is different than other markets, where we're leveraging a more centralized team that focuses on all other markets. Maybe another difference is the partnerships that we enter into in the China market, so partners like Tmall, Douyin, Red. The marketing tactics are a little bit different, more focused on Livestream, which I talked about with this owned brand launch, and then just a little bit more kind of curated product assortment, so I think a lot of opportunity there, and to your point, the Revolve business in Mainland China increased 50% year-on-year, which is really encouraging, given that that product is more kind of more unique and more curated than maybe a comparable forward brand.
OK, great. Now, looking into 2026, the new owned brand launch we certainly hear about the most from investors is the upcoming Cardi B joint venture. And so what's the latest on timeline there? And how are you thinking about the opportunity and idiosyncrasies that come with this launch?
Yeah, yeah, really excited about that. As far as timing, probably in the first half of 2026 and likely led with beauty, followed by apparel in the back half of 2026. So making good progress, really excited about that and the partnership and how that can expand, both our customer base and our product assortment, again, with an initial focus on beauty.
OK, great. Now, I'd be remiss as a tech analyst not to ask about AI. And so you've been certainly at the forefront of integrating tech and fashion together. I guess can you talk about the work you've done doing in Gen AI features? What are the biggest opportunities you see from this technology, whether it be more on the revenue side or on the cost side?
Yeah, yeah, great question and really excited about this, and I think it goes back to our initial discussion on the differentiators of Revolve and being data-driven from day one. We've been leveraging data, which led to machine learning, which led to AI. We have a phenomenal BI and data science team that is focused on this, so we do see tremendous opportunity and have made a lot of great progress on AI thus far, and it's across the business. It's from the website and revenue-generating initiatives to all the way to the back end to, for example, AP and invoice processing, so maybe to start with the front end and website, more personalization on the site, product curation. We are testing kind of a virtual styling feature on the site that gives the customer the opportunity to style products differently with different products.
And again, with such a vast assortment, this is really critical and a really key kind of opportunity for us is to get more curated and personalized for her shopping desires. We developed our own internal search algorithm. This is about a year ago that we launched this. Historically, that was hosted by a third-party kind of a leader in search technology. We brought that in-house. So not only do we save on paying a third party, but then we own that technology. We can continue to modify, and it outperforms the third party. And this is kind of a consistent theme across the board. We are kind of agnostic to whether we develop the technology or we leverage a third party to partner with on the technology. But a lot of times, our product outperforms the third party. So continue to both partner and develop on our own.
Maybe on the kind of getting more to the back office functions, leveraging AI on the owned brand design, where we can speed up the design process by doing kind of faster iterations on products in different color permutations, pattern permutations, et cetera. Using AI to route customer service calls intelligently, converting voice to text so we can better mine the data on customer service calls. Using AI to intelligently place inventory across the world in our different fulfillment centers so we can speed the delivery time to the customer and better manage inventory. Leveraging AI into the markdown algorithm that drove the significant margin gains in this past quarter. And then I mentioned using AI to read invoices and automatically process the kind of the payment within the system. So it's across the board. We're doing a lot.
Most excited probably about the revenue-generating customer experience initiatives on the website and beyond.
Okay, great. Certainly a lot there. I think within Gen AI more broadly, we're starting to see a lot more noise on agentic commerce. A lot of feature launches, a lot of development just even over the past few months. Interested to hear how you think Revolve is positioned for this evolution.
Yeah, I think we are positioned very well. We tend to thrive in times of disruption, whether that's from day one of founding to adoption of mobile to adoption of social commerce to leveraging TikTok shop or Instagram shop. So having the data-driven mindset, the culture of innovation, and kind of the technical capability to do these things, we think we are very well positioned. We're working on our own kind of agentic features on the website now. Very early, still testing, but excited about that. We're also seeing agentic AI referrals to the Revolve site increase almost 2,000% year over year, now on a very small base, but on a really good trajectory. And even if you look at kind of more recent months, just good sequential month-over-month increases in that agentic flow. So we think it's a huge opportunity.
I think TBD on how much is incremental versus cannibalistic. We think there's a huge incremental opportunity here. And at the end of the day, it's good for the customer. And if it's good for the customer, it's good for us. And we're going to be where she is at. And that at the end of the day is the key. And you did a great report on all of this. So I stole some of that from you. But good job. And I think a lot of that is very relevant and key to us. I probably would have given us a better score on a couple of your eyes on the five eyes, but I'm biased.
We had you as one of the best positions. I certainly agree.
Thank you.
OK, great. Well, shifting into another growth area here, your first permanent store now open for a little over a year in Aspen, Grove in L.A. coming hopefully soon. How are you thinking about the broader opportunity in physical retail? You've been measured with just two locations to date. So what would you need to see to really accelerate the physical expansion?
Yeah, yeah, we are super excited about physical. Still, over 60% of the dollars are flowing out there globally or flowing through physical doors. So that presents a massive opportunity for us. Kind of why now we get that question a lot. We think we're at the size and scale, and we have the brand power that it makes sense to pursue this now. We're also seeing this younger consumer really interested in getting out there and touching and feeling the product and experiencing the brand. We think it's a great new customer acquisition tool. And owned brands are outperforming in-store relative to online for us. So we think there's a massive opportunity for our own brands and margin accretion in the stores. So we have one store now, Aspen. Aspen has been performing really well.
And that's part of what led us down this path to pursue physical retail. We did see things like outsized new customer additions, owned brands outperforming, very low return rate. So a lot of good metrics that led us down this path. Now, that said, we also acknowledge that Aspen is a unique market. It's a destination, lower traffic, higher conversion, very affluent customer. Nobody's from Aspen. So you can't really get a good feel for the halo effect and what that would do to e-com. So we did a pop-up at The Grove in LA for about four, maybe five months last year to test the LA market. And we saw a small halo effect in the LA market, which is in our backyard. So that gave us increased confidence. We also continue to see new customers outpace in that Grove store.
We executed the lease on The Grove store that should be opening here in a few weeks, just kind of down to the final strokes of permitting and occupancy permits, things like that. Excited about that. Having those two data points will really give us a good read on the opportunity. After we get kind of a few months under our belt at The Grove, then we can better kind of determine at the pace at which we'll expand physical retail. Really excited about having those two data points. Again, Aspen, low conversion, or sorry, low traffic, high conversion. You have The Grove, very high traffic, lower conversion, more square footage. We'll have, again, a couple of really good data points to read to tell us how fast we'll go on the physical retail expansion. We're already looking at new markets.
We have our stack rank list of markets we want to be in. We're very specific about location, starting to build relationships with landlords and getting the name out there. The other piece of this is building the physical retail muscle we've been doing online, and we think we're really good at it. We've been doing that for 20 years. We don't have the physical retail muscle yet, so really building the team and the infrastructure behind that to support the potential future store rollout.
OK, great. Well, a lot of exciting things on the top line. Let's flip to bottom line. So if you look at Revolve's EBITDA margin, it's averaged about 10% over the past five years or from 2018 to 2022. Certainly some post-COVID pressure there. You've seen a lot of recovery through EBITDA margin, the highest in three years. I guess long term, what EBITDA margin do you believe the business can return to? And how should we think about the path there?
Yeah, yeah. So we think we should be, can be, and are targeting to be a double-digit EBITDA margin business. And we think that's very achievable. How do we get there? I think a couple of key drivers. Number one is gross margin. If you use 53.5% as the baseline, which is our guidance for this fiscal year, our goal is to be at 55%. How do we get there? I think we've got a good foundation right now with healthy inventory, good full price mix, a good owned brand base. Expanding that owned brand mix is the key driver to get from 53.5% to 55%. And we think that's very achievable. There's also some benefits from the tariff mitigation strategies that we've put into place that give us a longer-term margin impact or margin benefit.
So I think we're in a good position there to get margin up to 55%. So that adds a point and a half and goes straight to the bottom line. The other piece, the big driver, is G&A leverage. We've been investing a lot in G&A over the past year to 18 months, from physical stores to AI to owned brands. A lot of this design and development takes place six months to a year in advance of launch. So things like the SRG and Halo launches and a couple of things we have coming up, those investments are taking place now. And the revenue is yet to come. So getting leverage on G&A is the other kind of building block to getting to that double-digit EBITDA margin. And then, of course, top line.
Our goal, and again, we think we should be, can be, will be a double-digit consistent top line grower. So that gives us more leverage on some of those other line items as well. Not factoring in any significant leverage on marketing. We have some really big investments coming up in 2026 that we've been kind of hinting at for the past couple of quarters. So that's definitely not a line item that we intend to get leverage on. We still have very small penetration in the domestic market, let alone the international market. So want to keep the pedal down there and continue to acquire customers.
OK, great. Well, talking a little bit more about gross margin, 350 basis points of expansion in 3Q, big surprise from last quarter. The new markdown algorithm has been a key part of that. Can you help us understand what changed on the tech side, how that impacts the breadth versus depth of markdowns, and opportunities to further refine that promotional strategy from here?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, really pleased, obviously, with that gross margin expansion this quarter. And it came from what you mentioned, the markdown algorithm optimizing markdowns. And I'll get more in detail on that in a second. Also saw an increase in full price mix, also saw an increase in owned brand mix. And then we also did pull back on our promotional strategy, some of the promotions that we'd done in prior years, which did cost us some on the top line, but gave us some meaningful margin expansion in the quarter. On the markdown algorithm, this has always been data-driven based on inventory levels, demand levels, and a variety of other factors. But with AI and greater kind of more data, more technology, more kind of refined algorithms there gave us the opportunity to just more refine that markdown algorithm.
And it applies both to breadth and depth. I'd say probably the biggest impact on the algorithm comes from that depth component and how deep we're marking things down and balancing turns, inventory levels, and the flow through revenue. On the breadth side, I would say the benefit there has come from just healthier inventory this year as we worked through some over-inventory from last year. Again, that's very data-driven as well, but not necessarily specific to the markdown algorithm itself.
OK, great. And just on gross margin more generally, I guess how should we think about the forward-looking puts and takes as you work towards that 55% goal?
Yeah, yeah, I think the opportunity again is in the owned brand mix. And we feel really good about where we are at in terms of owned brand assortment, how the underlying metrics are performing within that owned brand product, the full price mix, the full price sell-through, and even the markdown margin within owned brand. So in a really good kind of place there and sets a foundation for expansion. Forward, if you break it down by segment, forward has increased significantly over the past year and kind of at or near the target for forward in that kind of low-to-mid 40% zone. So feel good about that. Inventory on both segments is in a good place. Net sales growth has been outpacing inventory growth for the past several quarters. So we feel like we're in a good place there.
So I think set up very well for continued margin expansion. And then the tariff mitigation strategies that I mentioned gave us kind of longer-term opportunities on margin. So those are all the positives. We feel great about it. I think on the flip side, the biggest risk out there is just what happens with macro, and if we see some compression in demand that puts pressure on inventory, that will lead to more markdowns. But that's more unknown and more out of our control. And we can manage through that.
OK, great. Well, you mentioned tariffs a little bit here. We've gone through most of the conversation without touching on them. So remind us the unmitigated impact from tariffs on the business to date. How much do you have conviction in your ability to mitigate those, certainly some success so far? And then as we head into 4Q in 2026, how would you expect the tariff impact to change on the balance of both rates and mitigation tactics?
Yeah, yeah, no specific numbers on the unmitigated impact other than to say that we mitigated a significant majority of the tariff impact. And really proud of the team, the cross-functional team for their effort there and being able to manage through even when it was at 145% there for a period of time in Q2. So feel much better about where we're at in kind of overall tariffs recently. There's still very uncertain. We don't know what's going to happen with the actual tariff rates, but controlling it very well and mitigating, again, the vast majority of that tariff impact. Some of that does come from price increases. We have seen prices increase in the mid-single digits in Q3 and then approaching double digits into Q4.
Then some of the strategies, as I mentioned, will give us, depending on where tariff rates shake out, but if they're at kind of where we're at now, give us benefit to margin over the long term.
OK, great. Well, also want to touch on marketing. Seen a lot of changes in the digital ad space over the past year as the funnel just continues to evolve. I guess first, how are you navigating that evolving funnel? And then you touched on some of the differences between 2026 and 2025 on the marketing side. Can you dig a little bit more in there?
Yeah, yeah. I think continuing to manage, maybe first breaking it out between digital performance and the brand marketing, which blended over the course of a year, about 75% of our marketing dollars go towards that digital performance marketing and about 25% go to the brand marketing. We have been efficient on both sides this past year. Brand marketing has been very efficient. If you look at festival, Revolve Festival, which takes place in Q2, which is our biggest event of the year typically, we reduced the budget. We got more press impressions, more social media impressions, and that was on an already reduced budget and efficiency from the prior year, so continue to make great gains. It's not just cutting back on marketing. It's getting more efficient in the marketing. So the team's been doing a really great job on the brand marketing front.
On the performance marketing front, continuing to manage. This is more day-to-day, real ads managed, but also experimenting in new channels like Snap, Pinterest, YouTube, podcasts. So continuing to push on other channels and ways to acquire customers there. How that evolves into 2026, again, expect more kind of absolute dollar investment into the brand marketing side with the initiatives that we have coming. Part of that is the launch of the store, a couple of owned brand launches coming up, and kind of just more support for some of the other kind of more exciting initiatives that we have planned for 2026.
OK, great. Reduced return rate was a key driver of net revenue growth and operating efficiency in 2024. Started to increase again last quarter a little bit. I guess what were the key drivers of that increase? And do you see opportunities to improve the return rate further from here?
Yeah, yeah, we had guided flat for the back half of the year in our Q2 earnings call. It did come up 50-60 basis points in Q3. That's within our expectations given that full price mix increased and we cut back on the promotional cadence. So that was the driver of the year-over-year increase there relative to our expectations. But again, kind of at the margins and within expectations. That said, we do have more opportunity to reduce return rate. We have a couple of big initiatives in play that will probably start to have an impact in mid-2026 if everything works. And that's just on the core business. And then if you look at potential benefits due to structural shifts in the business over time, as we expand physical stores, the return rate in store, of course, is much lower than online.
If you compare our kind of mid-50% return rate online versus a store that we've been experiencing in the low- to mid-single digits, then also category mix shift, both in store and online, as we expand into categories like beauty, men's, home, and then even within that female apparel subset with more kind of foundational items, athletic, athleisure, lounge. All of these categories have a lower return rate than that dress category that represents about 30% of our business today.
OK, great. Now, pricing has certainly been volatile year to date. I guess, one, how have prices changed over the course of the year? And where do you see that going into 2026 as the tariff impact is more broadly felt through the supply chain? And then where you have raised prices to date, what has been the demand elasticity?
Yeah, so in Q3, we saw price increases on the new product. So it didn't have kind of an impact on the overall inventory or overall pricing. But on the new product, we saw mid-single digits and then pushed into double digits in Q4. So it is increasing. And the amount of inventory that we're carrying that does have that price increase is a greater percentage as we went from Q3 to Q4 and then further into Q1 2026. So I think we will continue to see overall prices increase into 2026 and probably caps out. Again, depending on what happens with tariffs, it's uncertain. But at current state, probably caps out in the Q1 to Q2 2026 zone. So far, we have not seen significant pullback from our customer as a result of the price increases. I think it's still early.
We'll see what happens when more of those price increases roll through and they're more broad and it impacts more of her wallet versus that specific purchase. That said, I think we're unique in that we have that unique assortment. She's coming to us for the unique product. She's buying at full price. So by nature, she's more inelastic or our purchases are more inelastic than maybe that other more commoditized comparable product at other retailers. So I think TBD, but so far, so far haven't seen anything significant to the downside.
OK, great. I have one more pricing here, and then we'll open up to the audience. But AOV has returned to slight year-on-year growth. I guess what's driving this improvement? How should we think about the underlying unit versus price mix?
Yeah, yeah, it's mostly on the ASP. The units per order have stayed pretty consistent. On the ASP, primarily driven by, again, increase in full price mix. That's been very healthy. Also, the optimization of the markdown algorithm and the promos that we cut back on have an impact there with shallower markdowns and then less promotions this year. So those are all the kind of drivers of the increase in AOV. On the flip side, there is some offset with the product and category diversification. Beauty, kind of men's, home, all of these other categories that we're expanding into have a slightly lower AOV than that of that core event-based apparel category. Similar contribution margin because those categories, again, have lower return rate. But some puts and takes on the AOV.
As we look ahead, probably a slight increase in AOV over time with price increases as a result of tariffs, plus solid full price, balancing the promos, the markdown algorithm, all those things I mentioned offset by the product category diversification.
OK, great. Do we have any questions from the audience? We will keep on rolling. So capital allocation, you've been consistently profitable, more than $300 million of cash on the balance sheet, no debt. I guess how are you thinking about the capital allocation framework? And share buybacks have been relatively muted over the past year. I guess what would you lead you to increase that cadence?
Yeah, yeah, I feel really great about the balance sheet. And I think on capital allocation, number one, having the fortress balance sheet gives us the confidence to invest in times like this when others are pulling back and seeing, especially on the luxury side of the business, more challenges there with several kind of reorganizations taking place, kind of brands or kind of retailers not paying bills, losing supply, et cetera. So the ability to pay vendors on time, invest in the business, invest in AI, invest in people, all of these things leading to taking market share during these more challenging times. So that's number one is invest back into the core of the business, make these investments to acquire customers and really kind of build in some of these initiatives. Number two, we do think there's an opportunity for M&A. We look at a lot of things.
We haven't pulled the trigger on anything significant, but we do see opportunity there to supplement kind of tuck-ins to our own brand and kind of accelerate that category diversification, and then third is buybacks. We do have a buyback in place. We have a plan in place. We're very, call it opportunistic there and kind of looking for significant value, but not super aggressive, so I think the good thing is that we can do all three of these things at once and maintain a really strong balance sheet.
OK. Now, Jesse, most of the conversation, I don't know that we've actually said forward actively yet. So we'd love to touch on kind of the state of the forward segment. And then obviously, there's been a lot of easing competitive pressures within the luxury industry kind of year to date. So how are you thinking about capitalizing on maybe a slightly easier competitive environment from here?
Yeah, yeah, really excited about where Forward sits in the competitive landscape. As you mentioned, we've seen an increasing number of reorganizations or bankruptcies taking place, late payments, short payments, et cetera from others, which all accrues to us and the remaining strong players. So getting good product, good brands, not just new brands where we've recently added Dries Van Noten, Phoebe Philo, Victoria Beckham Beauty. So some of these brands that we've been chasing for a long time, starting to add to the Forward roster. But also great allocations from existing brands because, again, we're great partners. We have this great engaged customer base like paying our bills on time, and when there's good product, the customer comes.
So related to that, investing in this kind of high net worth preferred customer clientele, a lot more than we have in the past, that's been a meaningful investment and a big driver in the growth on the forward side. So really excited about, again, where forward is positioned both competitively in the landscape, the brand assortment, the product assortment. I think having that curated product, the great editorial, that young luxury that is really hard to find anywhere else.
Okay, great. Now, just have a few minutes left. So one more question to wrap up. What are the one or two things you think investors most underappreciate about the Revolve story?
Yeah, yeah, this is always a great one. I think number one, the element of being founder-led and Mike and Michael still owning a significant portion of the business. So thinking like owners, like investors, being in the office every day grinding and making decisions for the long term and balancing top line with profitability, which I think maybe not underappreciated, but definitely a differentiator is just that combination of growth and profitability consistently over time, and that founder-led element kind of plays into the culture and that culture of being data-driven and leveraging new technologies and taking advantage of disruption, whether it's Agentic AI shopping or just kind of AI in general or being data-driven. It's very unique to have that culture, and we have people that leave and come back because it's so different, so yeah, I think those are probably the key kind of underappreciated items.
And then there's other things, just having great product, unique assortment, data-driven merchandising, all the things that we talk about when it comes to differentiators.
OK, well, thanks so much for being here, Jesse. It was great chatting.
Yeah, thanks, Nathan.