Hi, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. My name is Ashley Owens, and I cover soft lines and internet retail here at KeyBank. We're thrilled to be joined today by Revolve, a digital fashion retailer founded in 2003 whose specialty is offering a vast assortment of apparel and footwear, as well as beauty for Millennial and Gen Z customers through two different segments: Revolve and Forward, and recently, they've extended their platform into physical pop-up presences as well, with a store in Aspen and soon to open a store at The Grove in Los Angeles, so with us is co-founder and Co-CEO Mike Karanikolas and Jesse Timmermans, Chief Financial Officer. Thanks for being with us today. Before we get started, I do want to point out to listeners that at any time, if you do have a question, we do have a Q&A feature.
Please feel free to use the chat board at the bottom of the Zoom screen to ask a question, and we will make sure that we get to it. With that, kick it off, and welcome to you both again.
Thank you.
So let's start with Q3: strong margins and solid profitability. What were the biggest drivers underneath the results this quarter?
Yeah, so we're really pleased with the Q3 results. I think, particularly given the environment we're operating in, where we had all of these tariff headwinds, right? And so we went from, you know, back in Q2 thinking we were going to have real margin pressure during the year to delivering one of our highest margin quarters ever and tremendous margin growth year over year, you know, call it close to 300 basis points year over year. So really pleased with the results.
In terms of the drivers, I'd say first and foremost, incredible tariff mitigation efforts by the team, both in terms of short-term mitigation efforts, but really importantly, driving what we think can be long-term gains in terms of figuring out better ways to partner with our manufacturers and our vendors in ways that are win-win over the long term, where, you know, some of this tariff pressure, if we get some relief on it, we could have even bigger gains than what we saw in the quarter. So, you know, that was tremendous to see. I would say the second thing is, you know, Revolve, we're digitally native. We're very tech-savvy. You know, we're, my background was really a computer engineer, and we all view tech and AI as a big foundational strength of what we do.
And so we're able to significantly improve our, call it, merchandise assortment algorithms during the period. It really started mid-Q2, but we saw a full quarter benefit in Q3, particularly as it relates to markdowns through some significant improvements we made there. And that was a big driver in the margin increase in the quarter. And for us, what's really exciting to me about it is, you know, these are things we're constantly investing in, trying to get better quarter after quarter, year after year. And, you know, with R&D, it doesn't always come in at a steady state. Sometimes you get these spurts, but it's just additional evidence and data points that these investments that we make, they pay off in big ways. So that was tremendous to see.
I'd say the third thing is, you know, we certainly had a bit healthier inventory position heading into the quarter than we did last year. So there was just some year-over-year benefit from being in that position heading into the quarter.
Maybe just to divulge a little bit on some of the trends you saw within the business in the quarter, I think growth slowed a bit in the top line, but you mentioned that quarter-to-date trends through October, so Q4 started to re-accelerate towards mid-single digits. How are you balancing some of the margin gains you've seen with re-accelerating revenue as we look forward?
Yeah, we were really pleased with the results in Q3 and certainly very encouraged by what we're seeing in Q4. And, you know, even with the headline numbers slowing a bit in Q3, what we were really encouraged by was there was actually an acceleration on a two-year stack in terms of the growth rate. So we're really pleased to see that. And then that's also factoring in that we made a strategic decision in the quarter to invest less in certain promotions that we'd done historically and, you know, take a little bit of a top-line hit in exchange for margin gain, which, you know, was another one of those drivers for the results in the quarter. I think it was net-net great benefit and result for the company.
And we drove double-digit gross profit gains in Q3, which I think is the more important number even than the top line. So we actually feel great about the Q3 trend and results and momentum, you know, kind of with that context built in. And then, yeah, Q4, certainly we were encouraged by what we saw in October, where we saw a further acceleration on a two-year stack in terms of the growth rate. And then, you know, kind of looking into the quarter and the holiday period since we reported, we're generally encouraged by what we see there as well.
Great. And maybe just touching on that really quickly with the holiday shopping period, maybe not as important to you as some other businesses that we've had conversations with, but still healthy. Anything to call out in terms of consumer behavior thus far that you're noticing?
Yeah, I think the consumer is holding up relatively well, given all the risks and uncertainty out there. Certainly, you know, I think it's a mixed bag across companies, but you certainly see some companies that are starting to see some signs of weakness there. You know, generally from what we've seen, our consumer is holding up well. So, you know, that's great to see. You know, promotions, I think we're fairly rational this holiday season, which was also great to see and good for us. You know, we do what we do for the most part, regardless of what everyone else is doing, but it's nice to see when the broader environment is more rational. As you say, it's not the biggest period for us like it is for other retailers.
You know, our consumer is more of a buy now, wear now, you know, largely shopping for herself, you know, versus, you know, kind of a gift-giving business. Also, we're a very full-price business. So, you know, promotions will draw in the consumer, but it's not what we're known for. And so it's a much less important period for us. But nonetheless, it's nice to see when it's going well. And I think we're able to strike a good balance this year of offering up some promotions that were interesting to our consumer while, you know, still meeting the margin goals that we have.
Great. And then I think just to zoom back out on this as well, how would you characterize the overall health of the consumer heading into 2026? Anything you'd be willing to say about change shifts in behavior with frequency, basket, and then event-driven purchasing as well?
Yeah, so I'd say for Revolve as a whole, we're seeing things hold up well. If you strip things apart, we are seeing on the sort of lower-income side of things within the spectrum of Revolve customers, you know, maybe a bit more softness than, call it, at the upper end, but you know, I'd say it's very much at the margins. We're not seeing, you know, any big movements anywhere, so you know, we certainly feel good, but of course, we're always on our toes, and you know, you never know what's going to happen with the economy and other things, so we're, you know, we're always, you know, mindful of positioning ourselves well to be able to thrive in any environment.
Great. I think that's a great segue into just talking about maybe some of the underlying fundamentals for Revolve. So first and foremost, AI is a conversation or a theme that continues to come up within investor conversations in some of the ways that investments can materialize into top line and margin benefits via supply chain efficiencies or even in things in regards to search or fit. What are the most meaningful AI-driven improvements you've seen so far, and what do you think is next on that roadmap for Revolve?
Yeah. So we've seen, you know, huge impacts from AI over the years, including before AI was a buzzword within the past, call it, three to four years. So, you know, and of course, there's a spectrum of, you know, kind of machine learning, you know, through, like, you know, kind of more of the more advanced AI that's been rolling out in the past couple of years. But, you know, call it even four or five plus years ago, you know, more than that, we were using AI to visually parse our images and break them down into different attributes that then we can use for customer kind of sorting and visualization purposes and kind of other purposes.
So it's been an area where we've had a team and investments in for years, and it's been driving gain for years, including, you know, call it that, you know, image attribute recognition technology that we've been using for a number of years, fraud detection algorithms, again, a number of years. Those have been extremely impactful for the business. And if you look at some of the more recent, you know, deployments of AI in terms of that have made bigger impacts on our business, we recently, call it, maybe it was about a year ago at this point, rolled out an internal search algorithm that was AI-based. We had previously been using a third-party platform that was software sold by, call it, the industry leader in search, one of the largest companies in the world who, you know, presumably does search better than anyone else.
We, you know, our team worked on their own AI-based algorithm, and we found it worked better than this third-party product. And not just better, significantly better, double-digit gains better, which, you know, you almost never see gains like that in sort of website feature development where you're seeing double-digit gains over something else. And of course, we're avoiding paying the fees also. So, you know, very big impact in terms of revenue and then also some nice benefits on the cost side. So, you know, big win there. You know, another big win, you know, within, you know, call it roughly the past 12 months on the marketing side, we were able to roll out AI-based features that expanded our marketing reach in more intelligent ways. You know, again, internally developed technology, very low cost to us, very big impact.
More recently, we're working with some third parties on some additional AI technology on the marketing side that we're seeing really nice benefits on, that's driving big gains. But, you know, a number of things in the works and in development, including some things we've talked about recently. So we recently started using AI in our own brand division to help them iterate through designs much faster than the traditional process. So traditionally, you know, if they're working on a design and then they want to see it in a different color or pattern, it would take them quite some time to put that together in terms of visualization. Now with the AI technology, they can do that nearly instantly. And so, you know, faster turnaround time, much lower cost, big benefit. And that's something that we're still rolling out within the organization, but that we've seen big benefits on.
You know, kind of a smaller area in terms of, you know, cost impact and other recent development, invoice processing, using internally developed AI technology to scan invoices and automatically ingest them into our system. And then, you know, we have a number of things in kind of various stages of R&D and testing. We recently partnered with a third party on a styling widget that we're seeing nice gains on. You know, still in testing, but, you know, allows customers to visualize different outputs and mix and match things. I think really nice feature. And we also have an internal development, you know, call it, you know, chatbot/assisted shopping technology. So yeah, you know, I could go on, but yeah, it's quite exciting. And, you know, I think we really have a leg up just with our technology DNA.
The vast majority of our systems are internally developed. That was my background, software developer. You know, we've got a fantastic team and as an organization, we just kind of know technology through and through, and it allows us to move very quickly when there's shifts.
Great. And building off this, I know you just touched a ton on how you're investing heavily in the platform, search navigation, surfacing the right product. I think on the consumer side, we've heard that there's been a substantial difference in just the filtering of products when you do search for something and like the like-for-likes that are coming up once you are searching for a specific product. But from the other side or your side of the train tracks, you know, what improvements are you seeing in conversion or engagement? And then I think further you touched on this a little bit already, but just where you see AI touching the most areas over the next year as we head into 2026.
Yeah. So, yeah, so we use AI certainly in all those like sorting and product presentation, you know, kind of algorithms, you know, product recommendations. And of course, like the search, AI search-based technology that we talked about. And, you know, it runs across the board from, you know, double-digit gains that we saw on the search to where, you know, you might see low single digit on some of these enhancements in terms of recommendation algorithm or kind of product sorting and things of that nature. But importantly, you know, it's iterative, right? And it's like, you know, so you roll out an upgraded algorithm one month and you get maybe a 1% percentage gain. And then, you know, maybe four or five months, you have another upgraded algorithm that you test out that gets even better.
And so, you know, these things stack up to really big numbers across the course of the year. You know, and of course, there's the A/B test result, you know, sort of numbers and, you know, which I always discount a little bit in terms of, okay, overall impact to the business, but, you know, in terms of the scientific measurements that we're making, it's showing extremely significant revenue impacts, you know, from everything that we're working on. And then, you know, over the course of the next year, you know, again, things that we're excited about, like certainly the styling visualization technology that I talked about, some of the assisted shopping technology that I talked about. And I think over a multi-year period, AI, and, you know, I don't want this to be a cop-out answer, but it's really true.
Like every single part of the organization, whether it's front end, back end, every single process, it has the potential to touch and significantly enhance. And that's something that, you know, we're very focused on and doing in a smart way. You know, we are not about buzzwords. We're not about doing things just to do things. I mean, I think there can be a benefit sometimes, you know, certainly to have people experiment with things. So in that sense, that could be called doing something just to do something. But, you know, we're not going to roll something out or call it a win until we have, you know, deeply diligence it and ensured it's actually driving gains to the organization and into the process. And I think our organization has a great mindset where they know that's the ultimate goal.
Like, yes, experiment, but the goal is to drive those gains.
It's an ever-evolving process at this point in time, right?
Yeah.
Maybe to shift gears a little bit to online luxury. You know, obviously when I did the introduction, you do have the Forward platform, which kind of serves customers. Looking at the landscape, we've seen bankruptcies, consolidations, some key players stepping back over the past couple of years, but Forward continues to gain share. What do you think allowed you to cut through all of that noise? And how are you thinking about the competitive environment and the opportunity for Forward in 2026?
Yeah, I think it's all about building a business in the right way, particularly one that deals with product. And I think it's overall very healthy for the industry. And I think, unfortunately, it was something that needed to happen and was a long time coming where you had these players attempting to build businesses dealing with physical product in the way that you might build a software company, right, in terms of, you know, just the lack of focus on margins and trying to gain market share at all costs. And at the end of the day, they weren't building truly sustainable businesses that can drive profit in terms of the right types of customers and, you know, the right types of partner benefits with the brands they partnered with.
And it just wasn't a sustainable model in terms of, you know, really relying way too much on discounting a lot of these players. And so I think it's very healthy. I think it's really positioning the industry to be in a much better place, both the brands that we partner with and then also the remaining players in the space where they're largely doing things in the right way as Forward is. And, you know, I think it just sets us up for long-term success. And I'll say also Forward, Forward was very late to the game. And so Forward was always operating at a disadvantage versus the other partners just in terms of scale and, you know, in reach and assortment. And, you know, I'd say it maybe turned the corner four or five years ago, but, you know, it was still kind of behind.
And, you know, as we gain strength in some of these things, you know, as we continue to grow and take share that were historically disadvantages for us, as we start to gain strength, then it becomes less and less of a disadvantage and more, you know, we're kind of par with everyone else. It really allows us to leverage our strengths in terms of brand building, merchandising, assortment, experience, you know, to gain share. So we feel like Forward is positioned fantastically to gain share going forward. It has a lot of momentum behind it. I think the environment, the environment may look bad right now, but it's actually, it's actually a great environment. The forest fire came through that needed to come through, and it's going to be a very fertile environment going forward.
Great. Maybe just to round out the conversation on Forward, Jesse, this might be for you, but is there a pathway for gross margins to sustain within that mid to high 40s range you're currently seeing? What would it take to achieve that? And further, what would margin expansion and luxury entail for your cost structure? And where would you look to invest opportunistically?
Yeah, yeah, we feel great about this past quarter and being in that mid-40s, and that was the target. We think that's very sustainable as well. The Forward inventory is in a really good place right now. Full price sell-through is in a really good place, so we do feel that's sustainable. Now, Forward is a little bit more volatile, so that will fluctuate quarter to quarter, but we do think that mid-40s is sustainable, and from an overall margin perspective, you know, being at that mid-40s is a really good place for Forward. When you get down to contribution margin and EBITDA contribution, the Forward side has a much lower return rate given the product mix. It's a much higher price point, so you can absorb a lot of those costs, so feel good about where it sits today.
And then maybe just to pivot back to increasing market share, talking about stores. So you're gearing up to launch that first flagship store in Los Angeles really, really soon. After a string of successful pop-ups, you have the store in Aspen. How are you thinking about the shift more towards an omnichannel business model over time? And what opportunities do you think present themselves as you continue to expand that brick-and-mortar fleet?
Yeah, we're really excited about it. And I think it's just tremendously synergistic with what we're already doing and the incredible brand that we built. And, you know, Aspen started as a pop-up store, although it was the first pop-up store that we had the intention of, hey, if this goes well, we may turn it into a physical store. So we put a little bit different focus on it than other ones that were pure marketing activations. And, you know, the numbers blew us away. We saw that it was doing really well. And so we decided to make it a permanent physical store. And then we had to catch up as an organization in terms of bringing in all those organizational pieces that we need to make physical stores a huge success. But from my view, strategically, I think about the landscape.
The majority of apparel sales are still offline. It's a huge part of the market that we haven't been focused on, and not because we never cared about it. We just had plenty to focus on with online. You know, I think as we look at it, offline and online are growing at similar rates now, right? You don't have that huge disparity that you had in the past, and so that makes us very interested in investing online, and also our brand has just gained such scale that we'd be remiss to not start to invest in offline, right? We're doing $1 billion plus online. The offline share could be even bigger. We've built a tremendous brand that our customers know and love, and there's no reason we can't translate that offline, and what's really exciting is the offline should benefit the online a lot.
I think one of the stats we shared in Aspen shortly after we opened it is that a very significant portion, close to half of the customers were new customers to Revolve. And so you can imagine not only do you potentially get all that offline share, but now you've got a whole set of new customers that you can bring to your online. And so I think the benefits are just tremendous. And then huge synergies with our own brand and own label. You know, we're able to sell at a much higher penetration rate our own brand labels in store just due to the smaller assortment, right? You know, that you're dealing with allows you to achieve a much higher brand penetration offline as well. So we're really excited about it and, you know, can't wait to share results with you.
Great. Switch over to marketing. You have a very unique marketing strategy. I think probably the most pronounced that people may recognize listening into this call is the Revolve Festival that you run every year at Coachella. But you've pulled several other marketing levers throughout this year. Could you just talk about how your strategy has evolved over the past two to three years and where you think the efficiency within your marketing dollars is showing up most?
Yeah. When we think at the highest strategic level, our strategy is the same, right? We want to engage people in ways that excite them, grab their attention, are interesting, and associate our brand with all the messages that we're trying to send to our consumer in terms of what our brand stands for, in terms of being premium, in terms of being fun, aspirational, you know, very associated with this social jet-setting lifestyle. And so, you know, the principles stay the same. The tactics behind it can shift. And, you know, if you look at the marketing efficiency this year, I think, you know, there's a few factors. You know, one, team did an incredible job executing Revolve Festival. Really best job to date, you know, both from a cost standpoint, but then also from a results standpoint.
So delivering lower costs and even better results than the previous year. So, you know, that's certainly one of the drivers. You know, on the digital and performance marketing side, we had some nice successes this year and certainly some momentum heading into the year, right? With late last year, we rolled out some AI enhancements that I talked about earlier that helped on the marketing side. We saw some benefits there. And, you know, for us, the exact % that marketing comes in as a % of sales will vary year to year. It depends on the landscape, the opportunities. Depending on the year, you know, if we see some efficiency gains in some years, we may choose to pocket them.
In other years, we may say, you know what, we think it really makes sense to go off to the races and let's reinvest some of these efficiency gains and gain even more market share and strengthen our brand even more. So it's going to vary year to year, but yeah, we had a lot of nice drivers this year that we feel really good about.
We've also leaned into some experiential moments, so Fashion Week, I think you had a Lakers partnership as well. How do those translate to brand heat and customer acquisition?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, I think it's a combination of things. You know, one, you always want to keep things interesting. So, you know, there's things we can do that are tried and true. And, you know, we will certainly keep doing those, but it's important to do new things too, right? And the Lakers partnership, a perfect example of that where, you know, it's not something we've typically done, these sorts of sports partnerships. And it might seem a little left field for us, but, you know, if you think about the Lakers, right? You know, had the nickname the Showtime Lakers associated with the city of LA, which of course, you know, Revolve is from and grown in, associated with glamour, celebrities, all those things.
And of course, winning, you know, so, you know, we felt like it was a great partnership. And I think kind of going back to being interested in doing things differently, you know, just from a pure anecdotal standpoint, I've had more people come up to me and talk to me and ask me about the Lakers partnership, you know, not just analysts, but, you know, just, you know, people around me, right? So people are taking notice.
And I think that's good. And so, you know, you mix those things in and we have some really cool, call it, I don't know, collaborations or kind of activations involving the Lakers, you know, coming up that I think are going to be really interesting and make a lot of sense for the brand.
Yeah, it's just about keeping it interesting and fun and associating yourself with the right elements that make sense for the Revolve brand.
And then just lastly, to close out on marketing, social media performance, could you elaborate on how places like YouTube or TikTok are helping to influence traffic and conversion?
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, they're very big channels for us now, and as far as we saw a lot of the growth and the opportunity this year is some of these, you know, call it more, you know, more nascent channels on the marketing side. Obviously, TikTok has huge share, but they've been continuing to improve their marketing products, and so, you know, you have both the organic aspect, which the team has been doing an even better and better job in terms of achieving share there organically, but then you also have the marketing products where, you know, I'd say channels like TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, were all huge growers for us in terms of our ability to efficiently scale marketing this year.
You know, our own channels in terms of the impressions that we got this year very significantly year-over-year, I think close to double. It's the team, you know, made some great investments there as far as the weighted impressions go.
So yeah, you know, we're all in on, you know, all of these additional channels outside of, you know, call it the Instagram core from many years ago. That's still an important channel for us, but really investing in these other channels.
Great. And then I want to switch over to international really quickly just because it does remain a bright spot for you. What are you leaning into most and what's driving strength in markets like Europe, Middle East, and China? And then regionally, just anything. Are there areas of the country or just international markets that might be behaving differently than your typical domestic cohort would?
Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, I'll start just, you know, strategically internationally, you know, it's very kind of untapped ground for us. Call it around 20% of the business is international, but of course, there's the potential to be much, much more. And so, you know, I think there's a couple of things working. You know, one is just sort of that it's more fertile ground and more untapped area for us to tap into. Strategically, continue to focus on upgrading the experience worldwide, continue to figure out smart ways to activate our brand in some of these regions and gain more exposure. And then I think really exciting for us is the China market where we saw growth of, you know, on Revolve in China Mainland of, call it around 50% year over year in Q3. So, you know, really big momentum there.
It's one of our largest countries internationally already. Obviously, the market's absolutely huge and we just have a very small percentage of it. You know, call it about a year and a half ago, we started making bigger investments in the team on the ground there. I think we're starting to see that pay off in a bigger way. Also really exciting in the quarter is we launched a new marketing effort that was tremendously successful in China that potentially really has legs to scale. We did a live stream in Q3. You know, a single live stream, of course, only going to impact the overall results so much. What was exciting for me is the core economics that have worked really well in terms of the profitability delivered versus the market exposure.
And then now knowing this is something we can potentially scale in a much bigger way. So, you know, big investments come in, really big momentum, and yeah, tremendously excited about the opportunity there.
Great. Then just quickly on inventory, I know we touched on it briefly prior, but you're taking quick actions there. How you're feeling about inventory levels and your ability to chase demand? Further, how's the mix evolving as you lean back into own brands, but also aim to become that one-stop shop for customers? How do you balance accelerating own brand penetration while maintaining that strong third-party brand partnerships?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. So we feel great about our inventory levels. Very healthy. So, you know, not sort of too much to say there other than that they're healthy and good. In terms of third-party own brand proportion, third-party is always going to be an incredibly important part of Revolve and what we offer because, you know, more than anything, you know, we are the one-stop shop for, you know, that customer that wants premium fashion and loves that aspirational lifestyle and everything associated with it. And so that's always going to include third parties in a very significant way. You know, for us with own brand, you know, our internal, you know, kind of, you know, North Star in alignment is own brand has to earn its own keep. And so it's all about whatever the best product is, you know, wins.
But I think we've set up own brand really well to be positioned for success. We have a tremendous team that's delivering fantastic product and of course, really exciting partnerships. You know, the latest one with Sofia Richie Grainge, SRG launch, and it's going phenomenally well. And so for us, you know, we want to grow it at a sustainable, consistent pace. And, you know, it's always got to own its own keep. But, you know, third party is here to stay. But if we can continue to be successful with own brand, we'll see a continued higher proportion over the years.
Great. And then building off that beauty, men's home, those are all newer categories on the platform, but they do continue to grow within that double-digit range. What's the next leg of expansion for some of these newer categories?
Yeah, I think they have a ton of room to grow. I think beauty, you've seen really nice growth for a number of years there. And we're still very under-penetrated there compared to the, you know, call it market share of what you look at, like say department stores do, right? So, you know, continue to invest in product assortment, continue to enhance the experience. I think we do have a lot of opportunities on the beauty side to enhance the experience. And, you know, things we're continuing to invest in. And of course, we already have really showcased moments on the beauty side, like our Advent Calendar, which, you know, I'd say arguably, of course, I'm biased, but, you know, if you look at social media, they agree with me. It's the best Advent Calendar out there.
It's just a superstar hit product for us that continues to drive gains year over year. I think we had more than 100% growth in that product this year. It's a tremendous customer acquisition tool. You know, we're continuing to work on moments like that on the beauty side. On men's, we have a ton of momentum, really nice growth rates there. I think we're very early on in the men's journey. You know, even more work to do than on the beauty side, but I think even more upside from, you know, certainly from a growth rate perspective. Really pleased with the momentum we have there and going to continue to invest.
You know, I think as these areas gain more share within our assortment, not only can they continue to drive similar, if not better % growth rates, but we'll start to make a bigger impact on the overall growth rate of the company as their share within it grows.
Then maybe, Jesse, on pricing, AOV increased in the quarter. Anything you can comment on to how much of this was driven by higher full price realization versus pass-through of pricing increases from third-party brands due to tariffs? How are you thinking about product mix and price elasticity moving forward? Just maybe some color kind of on your sourcing exposure as it stands today as well. Thanks.
Yeah, yeah, we did see an uptick in AOV. Much of that was driven from that higher full price mix. And there were some price increases as well. In Q3, we saw for that new product coming in about a mid-single digit price increase moving up into the high single digits. And then if you look forward to Q4, approaching double-digit price increases on that new product. And then, of course, blended with kind of premium product. We are still heavily indexed to China sourcing. That said to some of the earlier comments we've done, and the team's done a phenomenal job in mitigating the tariffs in kind of win-win or win-neutral kind of ways with us, the brands, the customer. Some of that is price increase, but we've also optimized other things that could give us a long-term benefit to gross margin if tariffs remain or subside.
we feel really good about our tariff mitigation. We do have exposure. We're working on diversification, but not in a dramatic way. There's a lot of other puts and takes to take into consideration when you're thinking about global sourcing. So we feel really good about where we're positioned there. I think as you look ahead for AOV, there will be some price increases, of course. We feel good about our full price mix and expect that to continue with our healthy inventory levels. And then on the offset to that, to your earlier point on category expansion, we are growing those other categories in the double-digit zone and they're outpacing the overall business. So, for example, beauty, which carries a lower average order value, ASP, men, some of the other fashion apparel, less than that, you know, that dress that has been the core of the business historically.
Some puts and takes there, but feel good about the overall positioning.
Great. So I think we're about almost at time. So maybe just to wrap up to zoom back out, you've delivered strong growth and operational efficiencies. We've also covered a lot today. Would just be curious to hear from your perspective what the key priorities are for 2026 and also how you're prioritizing capital deployment within that?
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I think there's a number of things we're excited about for 2026. Certainly physical stores being an absolute key priority for us. As I talked about earlier, we think it's a huge market share opportunity for us over the mid to long term. And so that's going to be a big focus in the upcoming year. Make sure we execute those stores we're rolling out well, continue to build and put the right pieces in place on the team to build us the successful path for the long term. So that's a huge focus for us. Another huge focus is continuing to innovate and expand on the marketing side. And a big part of that is these own brand launches and partnerships. And so, you know, we had the SRG launch recently, which is a phenomenal brand, best revenue launch that we've had to date.
And of course, just an incredible partnership with a celebrity and personality like Sophia. And so we think that's going to pay big dividends. We had another exciting own brand launch with the brand Halo and the designer Dion Lee that, you know, has a very big fan base and included among celebrities. And so celebrities like Lisa have already organically worn that product because they love it. You know, things like that are going to pay dividends. And we have a number of exciting partnerships coming up in the upcoming year, including, of course, the Cardi B partnership, which is a little more separate from Revolve, but again, has, you know, possibility for tremendous growth and success. So we're quite excited about that. And then I'd say last, you know, just continued investments into technology and AI.
You know, we saw a lot of gains this year from investments that we made there. And it's a core part of our DNA and our competitive advantage. And we're going to continue to invest and drive gains going forward.
Great. I think that puts us at about time for today. But Mike, Jesse, thank you both. And best of luck into 2026.
Great. Thank you.