In this segment of "Industry Focus" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on Dec. 7, Fool contributor Emily Flippen and senior analyst Asit Sharma explore a few financial areas to keep an eye on with Brilliant Earth (BRLT 3.44%).
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Emily Flippen: There's two other notes I will say about their financial performance. One is obviously having a 30-plus percent CAGR over the past five years in terms of sales, really impressive.
They do have a bit of long-term debt. Just over $40 million in long-term debt, led to some pretty lofty interest expense that's maybe worth keeping your eye on. Not always a bad thing, but just something to be aware of as that interest rate environment changes. Something to keep your eye on.
Then the other thing that really, in terms of their financial performance, that stood out to me, was a glaring omission, was any light on their value of their customers over the course of their life or the customer acquisition cost.
To the best of my knowledge, the only thing I saw in that S-1, was this statement which I will read out loud. "We have historically had attractive customer acquisition economics, including substantial first order profitability."
Now, that would say to me that immediately when they acquire that customer coming in, the thing that stands out is, hey, we were immediately profitable to the moment that first customer makes that first purchase, again, probably because of the very high order value. That's a high level of profitability off the bat.
But why didn't they break that out? I'm chomping at the bit to get more information about that first order. After you buy that engagement ring, do you go back for the anniversary ring? Do you go back for a nice necklace or is that a one-time purchase? They just never provided any of that color.
Asit Sharma: Many times when you have a great experience in a company, which has spent time infusing the tech on their website with really fun things, you'll go back for an ancillary purchase.
It might not be a $500 ring, but in this case, and I didn't see much in the way of accessories on the site, there is something that they could do, in my opinion, in some type of fun accessories, necklaces, small earrings, etc.
Expand out those types of offerings, potentially, they could have better measurements or better data to give those metrics because I do agree it's a cliff after you buy that big engagement ring, what are you going to do for the next few [laughs] years? Probably nothing. Maybe they are just not bothering to track that.
