Boozt AB (publ)

Boozt AB (publ)

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Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptAugust 14, 2026

APIChatGPT

Operator

Welcome to the Boozt Q2 2026 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Hermann Haraldsson; and CFO, Michael Bjergby.

Please go ahead.

Hermann Haraldsson

Thank you, and good morning to all, and welcome to our Q2 2026 webcast. So let's just turn to the first slide, the agenda.

So for today's presentation, we'll follow our usual agenda. I'll take you through the highlights and the strategic developments and then Michael will walk you through the numbers in detail.

So please move on to the next slide. When we started 2026, our ambition was clear.

We wanted to get back to double-digit growth. We were quite confident that the initiatives we have put in place in 2025 were the right ones to position us strongly in the market and that they would bring us our growth momentum back.

So this is why I'm very pleased that the results came through even faster than we expected. We grew 13% in the second quarter, and we almost doubled our EBIT margin to 6.5%.

And this was a broad-based performance with every major category and every market contributing. Behind the quarter, there were 3 main drivers.

The first is our new assortment strategy which is broader and more inspirational than before. We offered 55% more styles on Boozt.com than in the same quarter last year and sold almost as many different styles also during the quarter.

So that was very positive. The second is AI.

Our new AI initiatives have clearly improved the customer experience, and we're happy to see that our customers are responding accordingly. And the third thing is a real step change in our commercial organization.

We've built a powerhouse of local country specialists, all sitting together at our new headquarters in Copenhagen. And this is something that we just couldn't have done before we moved the headquarters from Hyllie, Sweden to Copenhagen.

Alongside this very encouraging performance, we also decided during the quarter to sharpen our focus to make sure that we capture the full potential of our core business. So this is why we closed our B2B gift shop initiative and narrowed our focus.

So as we say, we don't need to do everything. We just need to be very good at doing the right things.

We are now ramping up inventory as planned and we'll go into the autumn and winter season with more stock than last year and considerably better stock. And this is the key to keeping our momentum.

On the back of the current performance, we have also decided to expand our share buyback program to SEK 300 million, up from the SEK 200 million we announced after Q1. And finally, with Q3 tracking as expected, the guidance upgrade we announced on 29th of June is firmly confirmed.

We don't take the second half for granted, but we're entering it from a position of real strength. So now please turn to Slide #5.

The women are back. Our clearest acceleration is coming from women's fashion.

After several quarters of decline, the category is now growing strongly again. The numbers of customers shopping women's fashion in Boozt.com was up 20% in the quarter, and this wasn't just a 1-month spike.

The trend was stable and solid all the way through the quarter. And this matters a great deal because the women who shop with us, they don't stay in one category.

They browse and buy across all of them, home, beauty, kids and sports and even in menswear. And that is exactly what lifts basket value and loyalty across the platform and ultimately what creates long-term sustainable growth.

So let's turn to the next slide. One of the key drivers behind this acceleration is our revised assortment strategy.

We've deliberately become more inspirational and less promotional, adding new brands, more breadth and greater variety to our offering on Boozt.com. That also included more premium products, which helped to elevate the shop and ultimately the brand.

We added around 55% more styles to our spring/summer offering, and it really paid off through the second quarter. We got more clicks from our performance marketing channels, and we converted them better.

So more choice for the customer, combined with reaching the right audience worked just as we had hoped. Our focus now is firmly on the second half and our plan for the autumn/winter is at least as ambitious as what we've just done for spring/summer.

We'll again increase the number of styles versus last year, and we'll bring in strong brands such as Gap, Max Mara and Paul Smith, along with other strong brands that support the categories. So with that, we're quite confident that we can carry our momentum into the most important time of the year.

So please move on to the next slide. We've been able to grow revenue significantly in the first half despite running on low inventory.

And that says a lot about the quality of our stock and how well our assortment has performed. Now we tend to be quite careful about carrying too much stock.

Some would say that we're almost allergic to it, but we recognize that going into the spring/summer season, we probably went a little too low. So we're pleased that after those lower levels during the first half, our inventory is now above last year's.

So the buildup is well on track. And as we speak, autumn/winter products are arriving and going live in good volumes, and that leaves us feeling very confident about the season ahead.

So let's move on, look at AI and the customer journey. We covered our main initiatives on the last quarter's call.

So I won't go into all that detail again. But I think there are kind of 2 things worth highlighting this quarter.

The first is imagery. Since we launched AI model images in April, we produced around 10,000 of them, adding roughly 300 new variants a day from just 16 reusable models and with no casting costs at all.

Video is next along with categories like shoes, bags and accessories. The second is our shopping assistant, which now has been live across all markets since June.

It's still very early days, only around 3% of our customers use our AI assistant so far. But those who do, they convert roughly 2.5x our normal rate, and they spend about 8% more per order.

We've only just started and the next step is to make the underlying search even smarter and even more personal. So it is opportunities like these that let us significantly improve the customer experience, our service levels and the overall appeal of our sites and all at relatively low cost.

Let's move on to the next slide. Here is a nice illustration, a colorful one, if you like, of AI at work.

For the World Cup, we wanted to capture the moment. So we used AI to style outfits and create campaign imagery in each team's colors, entirely from stock we already had with no new photo shoot required.

It was relevant, it was fast and it was very local, except perhaps for Norway who became global darlings during the tournament and could be used everywhere. It was quite spontaneous and it's a small example, but it shows how quickly we can move on marketing content basically how we can be relevant at light speed and at low cost.

So please move to the next slide. Our department store model keeps compounding.

54% of our customers now buy from more than one category. Over the last 12 months, every single customer group buying across more than one category grew double digits versus last year.

And our most engaged customers, the ones buying across all 6 categories, were up by 15%. This is exactly the pattern that we're chasing.

The more of a platform a customer touches and the more of our categories she buys into, the more valuable she becomes and the longer she stays with us. But put simply, it creates both value and stickiness.

So with that, I will now hand over to Michael for the financial review.

Michael Bjergby

Thank you, Hermann, and good morning, everyone. Please go to Slide #12.

So we accelerated growth significantly in Q2. And when looking at all metrics, internal and external, the conclusion is that it was very broad-based across categories, countries, customers, et cetera.

So we see strong growth in our new customers. But for the first time in years, we also have good growth in sales to our current existing customers.

The initiatives that we have executed are playing out as planned. Our positioning and the focus on Boozt has led to strong double-digit growth, as you can see on the slide.

And this is really our main site and premium site where we see then slower growth in Booztlet. That implies a higher quality of earnings, better margins and it's also a positive for our long-term brand relationship.

We saw double-digit growth in all months of the quarter and the change into growth trajectory really happened from March. And as such, we believe that our performance has been driven through market share gains rather than being market-driven.

During the summer, we did, however, see small signs of general improvement in consumer spending in our core markets, we believe. Next slide.

So the repositioning and ambition to grow the profitability in a healthy way is really now showing up in the numbers as we have probably advertised a couple of times. But gross margin reached 40.1%, a full percentage point ahead of last year.

This is driven by real product margin. Boozt.com is doing less discounting as it leans further into being the premium destination and the mix has shifted.

So it's relatively more sales that comes from Boozt versus Booztlet. Other revenue grew 6% in the quarter, and we expect that to accelerate quite materially in the second half, which will provide further support for the gross margin for the second half of the year.

Please go to Slide #14 and profits. The profit development is generally showing improvement in the quality of earnings, increasing and healthy gross margin with leverage on the operational cost base.

This is how we want to drive profitability improvements as we move along. In particular, for this quarter, we see improvement in the marketing cost ratio based on less offline spending, but also less marketing spend for Booztlet.

Admin and other cost ratio is up fully as expected and planned and as a result of our relocation to our new headquarters in Copenhagen, but also investments in our commercial team and resources. Adjustments for the quarter amounted to SEK 39 million.

SEK 28 million relates to share-based payments, which is a noncash component, as you know, and correlates with performance and the share price. The remaining SEK 11 million related to initiatives taken to focus on the core business, which Hermann has already mentioned, and it mainly relates to the closing of the B2B shop initiative, leading to some FTE terminations, write-down of fixed assets and an elimination of a vendor software agreement.

This was truly extraordinary, and we expect no further adjustments for the rest of the year, except for the usual share-based payments. Please go to Slide #15.

So we delivered 13% higher revenue with lower inventory levels throughout the first half year. And as such, it should not be a surprise that the performance of our inventory is much better than the performance in the same quarter last year.

We can see that on the chart to the right. We have fewer products, but stronger return on the capital we have employed.

Currently, we now have inventory levels that is higher than last year, and we know that more products create more sales, but typically with a diminishing return on capital. So this is how we will continue to have a strong growth in the second half.

Please move to Slide #16 and our cash development for the year. So we have generated strong cash over the last 12 months of more than SEK 600 million.

And for Q2 alone, we were just above cash breakeven. It's a bit more than SEK 100 million less than last year, despite stronger profit.

And there are 2 reasons for that, as you can see on the bars on the chart. One, we pay exit tax related to our headquarters move.

And two, we are increasing our inventory position compared to the same period last year. Both factors are fully in line with plan and expectations.

Please go to the next slide on how we deploy this cash because on Slide 17, we have outlined that today, the Board has initiated a mandate to increase the current share buyback program by another SEK 100 million. With this expansion, we expect to repurchase shares for an amount of SEK 40 million -- around SEK 400 million this year, and that brings us to around SEK 850 million for the last 2 years, i.e., close to 10% of the share capital.

We continue to have a very strong balance sheet, and we want to maintain that as we move forward while still being disciplined in returning the excess cash that we generate back to shareholders. It is important to understand the dynamics of our cash generation because in periods with very high growth, we'll tie capital in inventory and areas to support the growth, whereas over the cycle, Boozt will fundamentally be highly cash generative.

And that means that over the cycle, we will also be able to distribute significant cash back to shareholders. This concludes my presentation for the Q2 results, and I'll now go to my final slide regarding the 2026 outlook.

So during the year, we have upgraded now our financial outlook 2 times already and based on the accelerating growth momentum. Since our last upgrade on 29th of June, we have seen performance in line with expectations.

And as such, we are today confirming our outlook. Our expectations for CapEx have been adjusted to an interval towards the high end of our previous expectations, and this is mainly related to higher one-off investments in assets and installations at our Copenhagen headquarter.

So with this, I'm now handing it back to Hermann for final remarks.

Hermann Haraldsson

Thank you, Michael. Yes, we came into this year with one main goal, and that was to get back to double-digit growth.

It took the better part of a year to get the business ready. And this quarter is the clearest proof yet that what we're doing is working.

We did a great deal of the groundwork in 2025. We called it a transition year, a year to prepare for our next growth phase.

You could think of it as kind of Boozt 3.0 and now the results are starting to show. We are selling more, discounting less and spending our marketing budget more intelligently.

It's exactly the kind of growth that we want to keep reporting, high quality and getting more profitable as it scales. We are now building inventory ahead of the holiday season, and I believe it will be the strongest autumn/winter lineup we've prepared.

Now, we're not taking anything for granted. The comparison base gets tougher in the second half and a good deal still depends on executing the inventory buildup well and how the consumer holds up.

But with a sharper organization and the momentum we're carrying, we feel well prepared for the most important part of our year. So that concludes our presentation.

And operator, will you please open up for questions?

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Johan Fred from SEB.

Johan Fred

Starting off with the sales growth in Q2. As I read it, it was aided by an improved consumer sentiment in late Q2.

How much of the 13% constant currency growth would you say is reflecting a genuinely sort of improved demand backdrop versus timing/comps? And has the sentiment improvement persisted into Q3?

That's my first question.

Hermann Haraldsson

Thank you. It's actually a difficult question because we see the consumer sentiment numbers in the region and actually during the quarter, they didn't improve.

But as you say, the consumers seem to be more optimistic, and I think that the optimism has continued during the summer. So I would rather lean on the optimistic consumer than the pessimistic one.

I think -- having said that, I think that the growth in the quarter has to do with what we've been doing. I don't think we've been supported by a more general consumer demand and more optimistic consumer.

So it's been the structural changes we've made. And again, somewhat easier comparisons.

But again, we see probably a more optimistic consumer now than we did in the last quarter.

Johan Fred

Got it. A second question on sort of AOV and new customer acquisition.

New customer acquisition was strong in Q2. And you also stated here in the presentation that share of women shoppers grew 20% and also stated that customers buying from more categories also grew in Q2, which, as you say, should imply a higher AOV.

However, in Q2, AOV on Boozt.com declined year-on-year, even though we've also seen a reduction in promotional activity. Could you just help us understand the dynamics here in Q2?

And what's the trajectory for the new cohorts as sort of their spending time or -- yes, as they mature, essentially?

Michael Bjergby

Yes. Thank you very much for the question.

So it is a good pick that the AOV for Boozt.com declined slightly in the quarter, whereas it increased in Booztlet. The reason for the decline is the average number of items in the basket.

So we actually saw a very small increase in average price in Boozt.com, but the average items per basket is down. And that really is because we had a relatively larger share of revenue on Boozt.com coming from new customers.

And the new customers tend to buy only a fewer items per basket when they initially engage with us and then later on, they expand to new categories and then they also expand the number of items in the basket, so in time with higher AOV. And that is why we believe that this is sort of a onetime effect, if you like, when we get very -- a lot of new customers coming in and a relatively high share of revenue coming from new customers.

Then you can see a dip in the AOV, but that will increase again going forward. So we don't expect that to be sustained going forward.

Hermann Haraldsson

If I can add to that, you asked also about the cohorts. It's a bit early to say about the Q2 cohorts, but we see that all the cohorts from all the years are actually increasing our spend with us this quarter.

And we haven't seen that trend for quite a while. So basically, the cohorts are back, and that is also very positive.

Johan Fred

And just a follow-up there. When you say later on, what does that imply timing-wise?

How long does it take on average for a new customer to become a returning sort of buying across category customer?

Hermann Haraldsson

Yes, that's -- eventually it depends. We monitor kind of how many are back after 3 months, 6 months, 12 months.

And we always see a dip in the following year and then they get back again. So -- but in general, what we're following is kind of the cohort behavior, like the '16 cohort, '17, '18, '19 cohort.

And we are seeing now that they are actually increasing their spend with us against above index 100. And we have seen that actually for some years.

So that's positive. And there's no reason to believe that the Q2 cohort will not behave the same way because it's the same quality, et cetera, et cetera.

And as Michael said, the item price increased. So I think it bodes quite well for future behavior.

Johan Fred

If I may ask another question on the gross margin. The gains here was driven by better mix and reduced promotional activity in Boozt.com.

How should we think about the sort of pricing discipline into H2, given sort of the higher volume autumn/winter season and sort of the competitive intensity increasing, especially during Q4?

Michael Bjergby

So this is Michael speaking. And this will always be a tactical decision that we do not decide sort of in a fixed term before we go into the season, but something that -- where we trade accordingly.

And this is the -- I would say, some of the strengths with our inventory model is that we can actually change relatively fast. We have a clear ambition that we want to position our Boozt.com as our premium site.

And we don't expect that there will be any significant change in the price competition, if you look at it from a market perspective. So we expect what we've seen in Q2 to be able to be sustained also in the second half.

Johan Fred

So just to clarify, do you think that the pricing discipline is sustainable and see little risk for competitive intensity pressuring margins back down in H2?

Michael Bjergby

Yes. Based on what we see right now, that's what we expect.

But I'll also say that we will act sort of tactically when we take decisions going into sort of the -- especially the Black Friday trading and so on.

Operator

The next question comes from Erik Sandstedt from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Erik Sandstedt

I want to start off by asking about the full year guidance. You grew sales 13% in Q2, and you talked about a fairly good momentum heading into the second half of the year and inventory ramp-up and so forth.

But why does the 7% to 11% full year guidance imply a slowdown from the Q2 growth rate? Is it just an element of conservatism here?

You mentioned the comps and so forth. Just maybe help us understand that a little bit.

Hermann Haraldsson

Yes. Yes, it's kind of Q4 is the main season and with tougher comps, and I believe that our guidance for the second half is somewhere between 7% and 13% growth full year.

So obviously, the aim is to have a double-digit growth for the full year. So obviously, our target is to be at the upper half of the range, but it's kind of -- it's too early after June to -- and after July and August to start kind of discussing because we don't know how the season will pan out.

But of course, there's no indications that we cannot reach double-digit growth for the full year. So this is what we're targeting, but it's just too early to discuss any changes to the guidance.

Erik Sandstedt

Yes. Fair enough.

Then a question on the competitive environment. Could you say anything about what you're seeing in competitors like Zalando and the Chinese competitors, SHEIN and so forth?

Any changes in the competitive intensity and so forth?

Hermann Haraldsson

I think that we are extremely competitive at the moment, probably more competitive than for a long time. Due to that, we have very, very good control of all that is within our span of control.

Our assortment is kind of considerably better than before. We have more choice, more options, more inspiration.

Our platform is own built, so we can act fast and utilize AI to the utmost. So I think that we are very competitive.

And I don't think that the competition is more intense. Might be even slightly less intrusive because I think a lot of players have challenges, I believe.

So I think that we are -- because of our focus, focusing on what we are extremely good at, which is also why we dismissed the gift shop of B2B. So I think that kind of our focus and our determination and with more inventory and with an extremely strong commercial team, I think we're in a very good shape going into the second half.

Erik Sandstedt

Perfect. And then just finally on capital allocation.

With organic growth now accelerating, you still increase the buyback rather than investing even more in the business. I'm just a bit interested in the balance here between buybacks and reinvesting in growth.

Michael Bjergby

Yes. And that is a good question and something that we have to consider all the time because having an inventory-led business model also implies that when we grow very fast then we also need to increase the inventory and that will take up quite significant capital and even more than the profit that we have delivered.

But we don't want to have any cash -- excess cash on the balance sheet. So we want to be disciplined.

And as you know, we don't actually expect to have much higher inventory when we end the year compared to when we started this year. And at the same time, we have higher growth.

So we have liquidity and sort of a healthy balance sheet to be able to do share buybacks. But we will always prioritize to make sure that we do what is right for the long term of the business.

But we still have plenty of balance sheet to also provide the capital return to shareholders.

Operator

The next question comes from Daniel Schmidt from Danske Bank.

Daniel Schmidt

Hermann and Michael, a couple of questions. Starting with marketing spend as a percentage of sales and also in absolute numbers came down quite a bit.

And you talked about a deliberate shift away from off-line marketing channels in favor of digital marketing. Is that sort of big leap in improving efficiency, is that going to continue in the coming quarters?

When you look at last year, you also had a big improvement in Q3 and onwards. Are we meeting the changes that you already saw last year or what sort of -- what's new here?

What could continue?

Michael Bjergby

Yes. So we actually believe that we are more efficient on marketing now, but that does not mean that we will see this kind of improvement in the marketing cost ratio going into second half.

We have -- we see extremely strong momentum and the customers are responding right now. So I would -- so you should expect that the sort of benefit from improved marketing cost ratio will be smaller in the second half than it was in the first half.

Because it is a good opportunity right now to grow fast, and we want to invest properly behind that.

Daniel Schmidt

Okay. And a similar question on fulfillment efficiency.

You are right about improved distribution agreements across partners. And at the same time you're also, of course, negatively affected by higher inbound of volumes.

Is that also going to be the case as you ramp up inventory during the second half to sell more when you look at Q3 and Q4? Or how are they going to stack up against each other, you think?

Michael Bjergby

Yes, exactly. So within the fulfillment cost, then we will always have ambitions to improve.

It is -- when we have much higher inbound, that means something. And of course, when you sell more, you also have higher returns.

So that has an impact on fulfillment -- and at the same time, on distribution, we have seen with the oil prices that there is a little bit of pressure also on the cost. But regardless of this, we will continue to be very, very strict on our targets for fulfillment and distribution cost ratio.

So with higher volumes, we will continue to target lower ratios and continue to see small improvements both in the fulfillment cost ratio and the distribution cost ratio.

Daniel Schmidt

And you also talked about the temporary effect from the installation of sprinkler systems that you did during the spring. That seems to be done now.

Was that a meaningful impact on efficiency in Q2?

Michael Bjergby

It had some impact. I think we managed it very well.

But -- so I would say it will have a sort of a -- it had a small negative impact. But definitely, it impacted how efficient you can be when you have installations like that going on.

Daniel Schmidt

But that disruption is basically gone as we leave Q2.

Michael Bjergby

Exactly. That is finalized in Q2.

Daniel Schmidt

Yes. And then just a couple of detailed questions.

You closed down the B2B gift shop. How is sort of -- what does that mean in terms of lost sales or EBIT?

And what is the saving on those SEK 11 million?

Michael Bjergby

So there is -- all of the costs that related to that has basically been written off. So it was an initiative that was started off.

You will see limited savings because it was an initiative that was coming up, but we also -- so in essence, it was a change of direction. So I would say you will see the benefit in increased sales and focus on our core business.

So from a sales perspective, there was -- it was actually a very good initiative and it had some potential to also be quite profitable. So it was -- in essence, it worked well, but we just needed to prioritize to focus on what we do best, and that is our B2C core business.

Daniel Schmidt

I understand. I see your point in sort of trying to get more out of the B2C business when you're more focused, of course.

But you did have some B2B sales in Q3 and Q4 last year, I guess, which you don't have this year. Is that a meaningful number?

Hermann Haraldsson

No, we didn't have any sales. So we hadn't even started the gift shop.

So basically, we closed it down. We closed it down before it was operating.

So again, as Michael said, it's a good idea. Yes.

So let's just focus. So we don't lose any revenues, nothing like that.

It's just like we just closed it down before it was affecting the business.

Daniel Schmidt

And then I think, Mike, you also mentioned that other revenues will see a good pickup in H2. What is the visibility on that?

Michael Bjergby

We have quite strong visibility because we discuss with the brands all the time. And there's no doubt that the Q1 in general was actually quite tough for the sort of trading environment in general and that's why some brands hold back.

And really with coming into H2 where we increase our buying budget, that implies directly that they will spend more because that's part of the agreements with them. And at the same time, we see also that the general environment is improving, and that means also that they will also be more willing to do marketing investments with us.

So it's sort of constant dialogues that we have with the brands, and therefore, the visibility is quite strong.

Daniel Schmidt

Mike, would you say that Q3 is already in the bag in terms of agreements that you've signed?

Michael Bjergby

In the bag is -- there's still some work to be done for September, but it is more or less sorted. It's very few percentages that can change now.

Yes.

Daniel Schmidt

And I guess some of it is performance-based as well, so you don't really know the outcome.

Michael Bjergby

Only to a very, very small extent. So we will know the outcome, not now, but very close to.

Operator

The next question comes from Niklas Ekman from DNB Carnegie.

Niklas Ekman

Can I start by asking about the monthly sales trend? And the main reason for asking is because you said that sales in this quarter was fairly even throughout the quarter.

And as I remember, in Q2 of last year, you had a decline in April, May for the first time ever, and then June was back to double digits. So I'm just curious, have you seen growth rates around 13% for all months despite the big variations in comparisons from the year before?

Michael Bjergby

No, that is not -- it's not 13%, but what we did see was double-digit growth. But you are right, May last year was very weak.

So we did have relatively low sales in May. But I would say from a momentum perspective and how it was panned out and then it was fairly evenly distributed among the months, and we had double-digit growth in all months.

Niklas Ekman

Very fair. And also, we talked about the guidance being conservative on sales here.

And kind of the same thing when you look at margins, even the upper end of your margin seems to indicate very limited margin expansion in H2, and the low end actually implies a margin contraction in H2. So is there any reason there or anything you care to elaborate on why you're being conservative?

Hermann Haraldsson

I think it's Q4. It depends on how that pans out.

We have increased our inventory buy, and we are allergic to stock. So it's just to be prudent.

As we always say, we have the low end, meaning that if there's less demand than we expect, we need to discount more. And of course, if demand is good, consumers are optimistic, then we will be towards the high end of the year.

So Q4 is just such a big quarter that it's like it's -- you have to be careful in expecting too much. But of course, we expect much, but just -- we are trying to be a bit prudent.

Michael Bjergby

And if you look at it from a financial and ratios perspective, then I would say we have already communicated that we expect to see an improving gross margin. So that's going to be supportive to margin H2-over-H2.

But we have also communicated that the admin and cost ratio will increase. So these 2 will be offsetting each other.

And then the one that is still variable is, of course, the marketing cost ratio where we have -- where we will not see the same benefits as we have seen in H1 because we will invest more to make sure that we support our growth. So I think that's really sort of the key component of whether it will be in the high end, low end or even above the range.

Niklas Ekman

Fair enough. Very clear.

And this question here on cash flow. We touched upon this a little bit before here.

But in the past, your cash flow has been the strongest when growth has been the lowest. And now that sales growth is back, what kind of needs do you see for increased investments in fulfillment and working capital as your sales are now back to double-digit growth?

Michael Bjergby

We believe we are at a good revenue to inventory level. So that means that we believe that we have to improve -- increase the revenue in line with revenue -- the inventory in line with revenue as we move forward.

So you can sort of model that inventory should increase as much as revenue as we move forward because that is a good level. Then payables will, of course, increase also with higher inventory.

Then we have discussed the [ AS4 ] for some time, a new AutoStore, which is required at some point, but that's a bit too early to discuss that at this call. But we will come back with further when we know more.

Niklas Ekman

Okay. But this is most likely with investment in '27 already, right?

Michael Bjergby

That is what we have communicated previously, yes.

Operator

The next question comes from Benjamin Wahlstedt from ABGSC.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

I will start by sort of nitpicking some words from a previous back and forth with Daniel. You say that we should expect a smaller benefit from marketing in the second half than the first half.

And I was wondering if you could just confirm whether or not we should expect savings from the marketing ratio in H2 at all, please.

Michael Bjergby

I think this is generally what we believe that is possible. And long term, we believe that we can operate at a lower marketing cost ratio.

So that is the general pattern and, again, a general trend that you should expect. But we don't want to guide specifically for H2 on the marketing cost ratio because of the growth momentum that we see right now.

We want to make sure that we have actually room to invest if needed. So we will allow ourselves to make that a little bit open and not be too firm on our guidance on marketing cost ratio exactly for H2.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

All right. But you're not ruling it out either, I take it?

Michael Bjergby

No. And the sort of general long-term direction is that we can be more efficient on marketing.

Yes.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

Perfect. I was wondering if you could expand a bit on Norway as well.

Growth in Norway quite higher than the group average. Previously, you've sort of discussed the opportunity to increase the marketing push to the market since you don't pay import tariffs anymore.

And I was basically wondering, is this what is happening. Or do you see any other concrete reason for the strong Norway performance specifically, please?

Hermann Haraldsson

We are focusing more on Norway. We're not giving away the tariff savings that we made.

So we are more kind of granular marketing. And now also, we are, as of September, strengthening our Norwegian setup.

So I expect that to -- we will actually perform even better in Norway. There's a huge potential in Norway.

And so we are kind of -- yes, perhaps a bit slowly, but we are gaining momentum in Norway and getting stronger there. And I think that Norway will continue to be a strong market for us because it's -- after we have rid of tariffs, it's providing good profitability, and there's no need for us to pass the savings on to the consumer.

So we can keep that. So that's also contributing to our profitability.

So Norway is -- I expect to become even better.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

Perfect. Do you still retain sort of the head start versus competitors related to the import tariffs in your view or are others...

Hermann Haraldsson

No. All our competitors, on the back of our court case, they got the listing.

So we took the battle and they benefited as well. But it is what it is.

So it's even playing ground. So if you fulfill the requirements for the VOEC as it's called, then you don't need to pay tariffs.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

Growth is not that you...

Hermann Haraldsson

No, no, no. Our German friends, they listed shortly after us.

So they owe us one.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

Perfect. I was wondering as well, is it possible at all to discuss the incremental sales gained from the new brands on site?

Like I understand there are obvious difficulties in terms of cannibalization and so on. But could you give us any color at all on the potential growth impact from the new brands, please?

Hermann Haraldsson

It's -- no, it's very difficult. But what I can say is that the broader assortment combined with better targeting, meaning that kind of we get the right audience into the sites and they convert better.

I think that's a very good formula. And the good thing is that, yes, we talked about having 55% more styles, variants live on the sites, but we also sold around 55% more styles in the quarter.

So we can't quantify the benefit, but kind of it trickles down. And I think that the good thing, again, is that we actually had -- the clicks are slightly more expensive.

But as they convert better because it's the right audience and they are getting the right choice, it converts to the high conversion rates, which is a good thing. This is kind of -- that's why it's been quite beautiful, that relation, right?

So -- but I can't give you a number of how much that meant. So -- but it's been very positive.

And this is what we're continuing into the second half with the same increase in assortment [indiscernible] more with more items. So we are going strong into the quarter with inventory.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

Final one for me then. I was wondering if you could discuss the fact that your new customer generation is actually stronger than previously, simultaneously with lower marketing ratios than before.

Is this -- would you say this is like due to the fact that you have new brands that sort of have a different target audience?

Hermann Haraldsson

No, this is actually -- Benjamin, this is exactly what I was talking about is that our commercial team, we have basically built a local country marketing team in our new headquarters, so a power team there that are much more focused on performance in the individual markets using technology to attract and target the right audience. And when they get to the site and have more assortment, then they buy more.

So basically, the customers that haven't bought before and come in, they see a beautiful site with a lot of inspiration, images, good assortment and they buy more. So this is kind of -- that's why we went into this virtuous circle by combining a good assortment, AI-led inspiration, et cetera, with strong targeting.

So that's why we're in this kind of -- we're not hesitating when we are saying that this structurally is stuff that we have done, that is the main reason why we are growing this strongly for Boozt.com, 15% in the quarter. So it's this virtuous circle that we just went into.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

I know you don't really communicate the conversion rate anymore.

Hermann Haraldsson

No.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

I mean, I guess you could sort of backtrack it slightly, but could you say anything, like on the order of magnitude, your conversion rate has improved?

Hermann Haraldsson

No, I'd rather not do that. But it's improved significantly.

And of course, I'm always concerned about costs and when I hear that click costs are increasing, but that just basically means that we are buying more qualified clicks and they convert better. So that is, I think -- and it's a combination of very focused staff focusing locally, and we're also very good at using technology to locate the right audience at the right time with the right message.

So it's actually quite beautiful from that part. And being an old media guy myself, I think it's almost beautiful to watch.

Operator

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Hermann Haraldsson

Okay. Thank you for listening in.

And yes -- and I guess we will see you over the next couple of weeks and I wish all of you a good day and a good weekend ahead. Thank you.