Q4 2023 ThredUp Inc Earnings Call
Participants
Lauren Frasch; IR; ThredUp, Inc.
James Reinhart; Co-Founder and CEO; ThredUp, Inc.
Sean Sobers; CFO; ThredUp, Inc.
Ike Boruchow; Analyst; Wells Fargo Securities, LLC
Anna Andreeva; Analyst; Needham & Company, Inc.
Tom Nikic; Analyst; Wedbush Securities, Inc.
Edward Yruma; Analyst; Piper Sandler Companies
Alexander Steiger; Analyst; Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Dana Telsey; Analyst; Telsey Advisory Group
Presentation
Operator
My name is Jenny, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the spread of fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to Lauren Frasch, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Lauren Frasch
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss Products' Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 financial results. With me are James Reinhart, CEO and Co-Founder, and Sean Sobers, CFO. We posted our press release and supplemental financial information on our Investor Relations website at ir dot Starbucks.com. This call is being webcast on our IR website and a replay of this call will be available shortly.
Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that we will make forward-looking statements during the course of this call, including but not limited to, statements regarding our earnings guidance for the first fiscal quarter and full year of 2020 for future financial performance including our goal of reaching adjusted EBITDA breakeven on a consolidated annual basis, our expectations for capital expenditures and other developments on our business in the US and Europe market demand growth prospects, business strategies and plans and our ability to cost effectively attract new buyers.
Words such as anticipate, believe, estimate and expect, as well as similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including our ability to effectively deploy new and evolving technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning and our offerings and the effects of inflation, increased interest rates, changing consumer habits, climate change and general global economic uncertainty.
Our actual results could differ materially from any projections of future performance or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. You can find more information about these risks, uncertainties and other factors that could affect our operating results in our SEC filings, earnings press release and supplemental information posted on our IR website. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.
In addition, during the call, we will present certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures should be considered in addition to not as a substitute for or in isolation from GAAP measures. You can find additional disclosures regarding these non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations with comparable GAAP measures in our earnings press release and supplemental information posted on our IR website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to James Reinhart.
James Reinhart
Afternoon, everyone. I'm James Ryan, our CEO and Co-Founder of ThredUp. Thank you for joining ThredUp's fourth quarter 2023 and fiscal year 2023 earnings call. As we head into a new fiscal year, we're pleased to share threat UPS financial results and key business highlights from our fourth quarter. In addition to the financial results, we will also reflect on the progress we made in 2023, as well as provide an update on key strategic initiatives that we expect will drive growth and margin expansion in 2024. I'm particularly excited to share how we're leveraging AI across our business and how we believe we are uniquely positioned to benefit from advancements in this technology.
I will then hand it over to Sean Sobers, our Chief Financial Officer, to talk through our fourth quarter 2023 and fiscal year 2023 financials in more detail, you will also provide our outlook for the first quarter of 2024 and fiscal year 2024. We'll close out today's call with a question and answer session. Let me start with our Q4 results. We closed out 2023 with another quarter of strong financial performance, demonstrating healthy top line growth and bottom line leverage.
Our revenue exceeded the high end of our guidance at $81.4 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 14%. We reached $1.8 million active buyers in Q4, up 9% compared to the same quarter last year. Orders reached a record high of $1.8 million, a 17% year-over-year increase in Q4. Gross margins came in at 62%, the midpoint of our range. But note this includes our decision to do a one-time write off of $1.9 million of aged and unproductive inventory in Europe that we had acquired in early 2023. This action had an 230 basis point impact to our consolidated gross margins. Excluding this one-time impact, our consolidated gross margins exceeded our guidance at 64%, representing gross profit growth of 16%. The onetime write-off in Europe also impacted our adjusted EBITDA in Q4, which totaled negative $2.1 million or minus 2.6%, excluding the one-time inventory write-off.
We're proud to deliver an adjusted EBITDA loss of just 200,000 to 790 basis point improvement over last year represents a significant progress we made toward breakeven in 2023 and indicates our clear line of sight towards full year adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2024, which Sean will talk about more in a bit. I'm particularly proud to report that despite a highly competitive Q4, the US business posted expanded gross margins of 78% while generating positive adjusted EBITDA for the second consecutive quarter.
Stepping back 2023 was a very strong year for our business. Despite a challenging discretionary environment caused by component inflation and elevated interest rates. We delivered consolidated net revenue growth of 12% active buyer growth of 9%, while expanding adjusted EBITDA margin 960 basis points. We're extremely pleased with how well our U.S. business continues to scale and believe that this year has demonstrated the growth and earnings opportunity of a managed resell business model. Our European business demonstrated strong growth and accelerated its transformation to becoming a leading retail marketplace. In Europe.
Finally, we finished the last phases of our distribution network build-out and expect minimal maintenance CapEx until at least 2026, with limited CapEx needs over the next few years, we expect our cash flows from operations to move in line with our adjusted EBITDA balance turn to the year ahead. Let me start with profitability. On a consolidated basis. The good news is that we are already there in the U.S., which makes up 80% of our overall business. We believe we've demonstrated the strength of our unit economics and our bottom-line discipline, having delivered positive adjusted EBITDA in the US in both Q3 and Q4 of 2023.
We expect that the US business will continue to expand gross margins and generate positive adjusted EBITDA this year as we grow continue to automate and leverage our expenses. Our next task is to do this. In Europe. We've nearly doubled revenue in Europe since our acquisition in 2021 and continue to progress towards positive adjusted EBITDA in that market. To give you a sense of how we evaluate our European business, we apply the rule of 40 to the EU's gross profit growth and adjusted EBITDA rate.
We believe gross profit is the best indicator of its growth when normalized for the consignment transition and we expect that business to be well above 40 in the year ahead. I'm confident that we are on the right track, tackling the large opportunity in Europe with a proven playbook from the U.S. We expect to see continued improvement in Europe each quarter, driven by three core initiatives. Some of these may sound familiar if you followed us since our IPO first, we were accelerating the transition to consignment. This process began in mid 23, and we expect Europe to be approximately 20% consignment revenue in 2024.
As I've shared on previous calls, this change presents a short-term headwind to revenue due to the accounting treatment, but we believe that it will yield a business with a superior margin profile and provide us with more levers to flex margins and growth investments. Second, we are migrating our dynamic data-driven pricing system from the US to Europe to improve sell-through rates. The faster items sell the more. We maximize average selling prices and minimize our aged inventory, which yields better margins.
This work is already starting to pay off as we are seeing some of the fastest sell-throughs in history year to date in 2024 and third, for introducing inventory sculpting using the US item acceptance model as a guide. We recently implemented a similar system in the EU to determine which items are listed on our marketplace at any given time by leveraging data science, we are segmenting inventory to better identify what types of items sell quickly which is maximize gross profit. The goal is a marketplace with an overall assortment that's more desirable to buyers and expands Europe's gross margin profile.
To summarize, the U.S. has already posted two consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA. And as we continue to apply U.S. strategies and tactics to Europe to improve our gross margins in that market, we expect to achieve positive consolidated adjusted EBITDA on an annual basis in 2024. Next, I'd like to share an overview of strategic initiatives that are designed to drive business growth in 2024 let me start with the ways we're deploying artificial intelligence to improve the customer experience and reduce costs in our distribution network.
First, we recently debuted in a I powered search experience that makes it easy and intuitive to find any secondary item on product. Our vast selection of inventory is one of our biggest assets, but it also creates challenges for buyers as they shop up to $4 million unique secondhand items at any given time. This new search functionality significantly enhances the secondary shopping experience in our marketplace. By combining visual language with personal style by enabling buyers to curate style inspirations effortlessly, whether it's by searching for a popular item like a satin cocktail dress for descriptive trend or look like Sunday brunch dress were afraid that evokes emotion like Academy Award, chic ThredUp can help shoppers find exactly what they want.
It's not only fun to use, but it also is that center magic to it sometimes you just can't believe how good the technology is at delivering relevant results. Early indicators show an increase in searches per session, a higher add to our conversion of items from search and higher click through for individual product pages. Second, we have begun to leverage the center of AI technology that will soon give customers the ability to create outfits. They love using just a text description. For example, a friend is looking for an outlet to wear it a fancy little out on an upcoming trip to Hawaii using natural language problems or general, but I tool created now to composed of a beautiful floral cropped up a fully white Maxi skirt with assigned to it paired with highly and sandals want to create and outfits from Popular magazines or style influencers or runway trends.
We can now easily do that while delivering shoppable secondhand product up to 70% off what a consumer might take new the list of benefits that can be generated from this tool is endless restricted only by the imagination of our buyers will be leading these style inspiration touch points throughout the product experience over the year ahead and look forward to sharing more soon. I want to emphasize that AI. is an enormous leap forward for us in bringing emotion and storytelling to the millions of unique shopping journeys that regularly happen on dried up, given the breadth of our offering and the limitation of not having on model photography in our core product experience we believe generative AI technology disproportionately benefit to managed marketplace like that up compared to other apparel or peer-to-peer marketplaces.
Now let me turn to AI and operations. We're also implementing AI across more operations in our distribution center network to enhance the customer experience and improve throughput and productivity. Once the government has been photographed, we employ advanced AI technologies to extract a wide range of detailed characteristics of the item from its image. This capability not only enriches our inventory database, but also streamlines the cat organization and processing of items.
This is improved operational efficiency and the accuracy of our product listings, resulting in better search and personalization in our marketplace. We see near term opportunities for general value to improve visual merchandising and add more engaging content in the shopping journey without us having to use expensive on model photography events play. You can imagine a world where AI not only supplement manual photography, but replaces that these AI-driven initiatives have enabled us to set new standards for efficiency and accuracy and are paving the way for continuous innovation and potential margin expansion.
So much of what we believe we can achieve over the next few years through our own software and industrial engineering development has now become readily available and it's cheaper and faster than we imagined beyond AI we're seeing continued improvements across a number of areas. For example, our delivery promise and thrift promise initiatives, which aim to deliver purchase to doorstep shipping in four days or less and do right by the customer with every order continue to make progress. Orders delivered within this timeframe have increased more than 150% year over year in the quarter.
To date, our return rate decreased by 700 basis points in Q4 compared to the same quarter last year. We've also put a renewed focus on our loyalty program as a way to reduce broad-based promotions, and we expect to see continued benefits as we invest in customer retention efforts with more attractive rewards. Early signal show a double digit increase in orders with loyalty rewards and we believe creating a fun and easy rewards loop will encourage all customers shop like our best customers do today.
Our retail as a service business or rash continues to provide brands and retailers with the fastest and easiest way to deliver customizable and scalable retail experiences to their customers across our 50 plus brand customers. We now estimate that we power six of the 10 largest brand retail shops online, how are more than 50% of total branded resale listings that are sold online and you can pick up a co-branded through our clean out kit in more than 800 stores nationwide. As a reminder, by leveraging traps, marketplace infrastructure breadth, amplifies our supply advantage increases our sell through and return on assets, drives brand awareness and expand our long term profitability metrics.
As I often do on these calls, I'd like to take a moment to remind you of trade-ups steadfast commitment to balancing purpose and profit. Our mission of inspiring the world to think second hand first remains the cornerstone of our strategy. Since our founding, we've now processed more than $172 million unique pieces of clothing giving cause in circulation and out of landfills while delivering incredible value to our millions of customers at the center of every decision we make is our business and brand on environmental, social and governance strategy, which guides us and helps fuel our success and threat of purpose and profit are inextricably linked.
We were recently named a winner in good housekeeping 2020 for sustainable innovation awards, which recognize products and services that have embraced our people purpose and Planet approach to sustainability as we head into another year. I'm excited about our path forward and the impact will make globally on our people, our communities and the planet. With that, I will now turn it over to Sean to go through our financial results and guidance in more detail.
Sean Sobers
Thanks, James. I'll begin with an overview of our results and follow up with guidance for the first quarter and the full year, I will discuss non-GAAP results throughout my remarks. Our GAAP financials and a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP are found in our earnings release, supplemental financials and our 10 K filed. We are very proud of our Q4 results. For the fourth quarter of 2023, revenue totaled $81.4 million, an increase of 14% year over year consignment revenue grew 49% year over year, while product revenue shrank by 25%. We are pleased with the growth in consignment revenue driven by the transition of our S. clients and our European business to the consignment model, we would expect to continue to see outsized growth in containment and declines in product revenue throughout 2020.
Yes, while the transition of these businesses to consignment should be a tailwind to gross margins over time, we expect it to meet revenue growth simply due to the accounting treatment. As a reminder, consignment payouts reduced net revenue. We expect consigned revenue will be an increasingly larger part of our business throughout 2020 for bone payouts are in COGS and reduce gross margin. We expect owned revenue to be a smaller part of our business. As a result, we look to gross profit as the most relevant measure to evaluate the underlying growth rate of our business very happy to report that we accelerated our active buyer growth and achieved a record number of active buyers for the second consecutive quarter, reaching $1.8 million, up 9% year over year.
Orders growth also accelerated to 17% year over year to $1.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2023. Reported gross margin was 61.9% as we implement our resale playbook in Europe, we made the strategic decision to take a one-time $1.9 million inventory write-off in Q4, a 230-basis-point impact to gross margin. We expect that clearing this inventory will enable an improved customer experience, allowing shoppers to more easily access fresh inventory while supporting a better margin profile and accelerating our shift to consignment. We believe that this action is setting up our EU business for success in the coming year.
Excluding that impact, our gross margin came in at 64.2%, 110 basis points ahead of last year. Our gross profit grew by 16%. Our consolidated results exceeded our expectations driven by U.S. gross margins of 77.5% and gross profit growth of 19%. This year-over-year expansion was a result of continued improvements in how we optimize our marketplace, including pricing, promotions, returns, payouts and fees. For the fourth quarter of 2023, net loss was $14.6 million compared to a net loss of $19.5 million in the same quarter last year.
Adjusted EBITDA loss was $2.1 million or negative 2.6% of revenue for the fourth quarter of 2023. Excluding the inventory write-off, adjusted EBITDA loss was just $200,000. We reduced our adjusted EBITDA loss in Q4 by more than 0.5 versus last year, representing an approximate 500, 60 basis point improvement as we tightly manage expenses and leverage our investment on higher revenue. To this point, we are proud to report that our hard work drove a 14% year-over-year revenue increase on just a 6% increase in operating expenses, illustrating the powerful leverage of our marketplace model.
Turning to the balance sheet, we began the fourth quarter with $80.2 million in cash and marketable securities and ended the quarter with $69.6 million fees, $10.6 million in cash in Q4 while we continue to spend maintenance levels of CapEx of just $2.2 million step-up in our cash usage was largely due to seasonal timing within our accounts payable as a reminder, in Q4 of last year, we used $19.6 million in cash, illustrating the enormous progress we've made over the last four quarters. In 2024. We expect cash flow usage to significantly decline versus 2023 in 2023.
We are proud to have reduced our consolidated adjusted EBITDA loss and every quarter achieved quarterly positive adjusted EBITDA in our U.S. business and continue to spend only maintenance levels of CapEx. We believe we will reach breakeven on a consolidated annual basis in 2024 as we scale the U.S. and improve Europe's margin profile. As we look to 2024, please keep in mind the following. First, though, our customer continues to feel the pressure of compounded inflation and higher interest rates.
We are implementing a number of tactics to improve the customer experience, as James described, as our strategic initiatives roll out in both the US and Europe. We expect our revenue to improve sequentially throughout the year weighted towards the second half. As a reminder, also consider that we spend more marketing dollars as a percentage of revenue in the first half of the year to drive buyers whose multiple annual purchases tend to yield revenue in the second half. Second, gross margin improvement will be primarily driven by our ongoing work in the US and Europe transition to consignment.
So the consignment transition will mute revenue growth due to the accounting treatment. Consignment revenue will drive gross profit and margin improvement over time. We would expect gross margins to be better in the second half than in the first half as the transition progresses. In 2023, 66% of our consolidated revenues came from consignment, and we expect to see that percentage increase to approximately 80% in 2024. Third, we continue to expect maintenance levels of CapEx of approximately $2 million per quarter until 2026, which provides us a high level of confidence that we can fund the business with our existing cash to reach cash flow positive.
We want to reiterate that we do not anticipate our cash and marketable securities falling below $15 billion before reaching free cash flow positive, nor do we expect to turn to the capital markets or draw down our existing debt before them. With all that in mind, for the first quarter, we expect revenue in the range of $79 million to $81 million. Gross margin in the range of 68.5% to 70.5% of revenue at the midpoint. This represents gross profit dollar growth of 9% year over year and adjusted EBITDA loss of 3% to 1% of revenue and basic weighted average shares outstanding of approximately 110 million shares for the full year 2024 we now expect revenue in the range of approximately $340 million to $380 million, gross margin in the range of approximately 69.5% to 71.5% of revenue at the midpoint.
This represents a gross profit dollar growth of 14% year over year, positive adjusted EBITDA of 0.5% to 1.5% of revenue and basic weighted average shares outstanding of approximately 114 million shares. In closing, we are extremely proud of the progress we have made towards growth and profitability goals in 2023 and look forward to delivering steady growth and continued leverage in 2024 as we achieve positive adjusted EBITDA on a consolidated basis James and I are now ready for your questions. Operator, please open the line.
Question and Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Ike Boruchow, Wells Fargo.
Ike Boruchow
Hey, guys. Good afternoon, um, two from me. Maybe one for Jim. One for Sean. On the active buyer growth of regions. You guys have kind of reflected value basket growth good to see. So maybe just can you give us a little bit more detail of what exactly you guys have done to kind of get you guys back in good shape there? And then just second follow-up for Sean or James, but I'm just on the Omnicare side of mix because it's having a big impact on the margins on the model. Can you just be a little bit more specific of what you expect based on your Q1 and fiscal year guide, what you expect confinement to be as a percentage of revenue that way. We can kind of just build it from Q1 kind of through Q4 as the transition is taking place?
James Reinhart
Sure, hey, yes. On the first one up, I think over the last couple of quarters, we really reoriented the customer acquisition strategy to focus on a slightly more premium customer a customer who we thought would we had the right inventory mix for. And I think you're just starting to see that strategy pay off, and that's driven the active buyer growth, and we expect that to continue into 2024. The sort of refocus on the customer, real focus on retention and loyalty has driven the upside. And so we feel very good about that return to growth and really how that compound as we move through 2024.
Ike Boruchow
It sounds like a little bit about the consignment piece.
James Reinhart
Yes, on On Assignment, but you wanted to give it about mid 70s as a total percentage of revenue, and that will grow throughout the year to be about 80% for the full year Perfect.
Ike Boruchow
Thank you.
Operator
Anna Andreeva, Needham & Company.
Anna Andreeva
Great. Thanks so much. Thanks for taking your questions. Two quick ones from us. So on the product revenue side of things down 25%, was that what you guys expected for the quarter, just given the shift to consignment? And can you also secondly, talk about what you're seeing with the underlying demand in Europe. I remember you had talked about sluggishness as the quarter unfolded. Just curious if the trends got better and if you're seeing anything differently quarter-to-date? Thanks.
Sean Sobers
Yes, from a product revenue perspective, that is what we forecasted and expected. So nothing new or surprising for us on that side. Yes, on the demand side on. I mean, I think inflation in the area that we serve in Europe has been elevated relative to the US. And so that's definitely affected the demand curve but I think we've seen better year to date results.
And certainly some of the work that we're doing on the product mix, consignment mix in Europe is helping. And so we think the selection that we have in Europe is better and I think customers are seeing that. So we feel pretty good about where the demand curve is in Europe and and the guidance for the year reflects that.
Anna Andreeva
Awesome. Thanks so much. Best of luck.
Operator
Tom Nikic, Wedbush.
Tom Nikic
Hey, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask about the write-off of inventory in Europe. I guess obviously that's that's something that you'd like to avoid generally speaking. I guess kind of have you seen I mean, any changes besides the consignment on a mix shift that you're trying to do, but like any kind of changes in the way you on the uptake in your product in Europe, we have to kind of ensure that you kind of are bringing in higher quality, our inventory and higher quality products. So I don't think I see a situation like that.
James Reinhart
Yes. Hey, Tom. Yes, I mean, I think all through last year, we have been making improvements to what that mix looks like laying the foundations for consignment but a lot of the product that we wrote down our stuff where we were in negotiations to buy that product well over a year ago, right in the market has changed our approach to the business has changed.
And so ultimately, it was about what's the best way to serve the customer on a go-forward basis. And we found it that product over a year old. This was crowding out, frankly, some of the best, the best stuff and the browsing experience. And so and for us, it was, hey, we're full speed ahead on the consignment transition. We feel very good about the strategy in place to get that done.
And let's not have any of that sort of legacy product holding us back, whether that's in our facility in the browsing and search experience or even just kind of like having to move it around. And so it's definitely not something we should be doing again. But we thought it's the best thing for the customer as we move forward.
Tom Nikic
Understood. And if I could ask one more on sort of ask about marketing. So yes, marketing obviously was kind of down in Q4, it was at its lowest level really since 2020. And I guess how do we kind of think about on Yelp reinvestment and marketing going forward? And helping to drive the top line drive that performance in Europe at all?
James Reinhart
Yes.I mean, I think on the marketing is always lower in Q4. And so that's typically our playbook. I think this Q4, even in particular, we expected it to be a competitive holiday season. We expect the consumers to feel squeezed around how to spend their discretionary dollars and so I think we thought it was even smarter to push some of that spend in Q4 into Q1 where we thought it would be more productive.
And I think that that's what we're seeing. And so I think it fits our seasonal pattern. And but our expectation is to continue to drive top line through marketing spend. But at the same time, moving slowly towards our long-term targets that we set at the IPO. And we're sort of on that glide path as we think about 2020 for Procrit.
Tom Nikic
Thanks very much for taking my questions and before it was here.
James Reinhart
Thanks, Nikic.
Operator
Edward Yruma, Piper Sandler.
Edward Yruma
Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question two for me. I guess, first and some very constructive comments around G&A. I curious kind of what the cost structure for that looks like and kind of what the uptake has been thus far.
And then second, I know you guys have complained a little bit about the inventory situation in first price. Obviously, results got better in the fourth quarter. Are you starting to see some of that industry inventory normalize? And do you think it's kind of allowing some of your price gaps to better show?
James Reinhart
Thank you. Yes, hey, let me just hit the second first. Yes. I mean, we're definitely seeing the inventory levels across sort of our competitive set normalize. And so I think that that actually really sets up our value proposition to perform well as we get into 2024.
I would say the only counterpoint to that is you have I've seen mentioned talking about right. There is still a squeeze on the discretionary dollar. And so I think that maybe eases throughout the year combined with leaner inventories, I think in a threat of is positioned very well for that, but we certainly see a better competitive environment for our products.
On the G&A JNI stuff, similar to my prepared remarks, I remain very bullish on its ability to improve our business really disproportionately compared to others, given the long tail of products, the constantly changing nature of our product, we really rely on sort of the dynamic nature of the technology to do a lot of work that that that would otherwise be done by inferior algorithm. So I'm very bullish on its ability to delight the customer on the front end.
And I think we're working on a number of things that will start to materialize this year that I think will really change how consumers shop retail. And so I'm very excited about that and then the last part would be on the operations side is we've been employing a eye in a number of ways in our DCs for years. But I think just in the last 12 months, you've seen a step function change and what the technology can do.
And I think it has real implications for how productive our operations can be and what the margin profiles and ultimately look like. So you can really tell from my voice, I'm quite bullish on it. And um, and I think we're uniquely positioned to benefit from it.
Edward Yruma
Thank you.
Operator
Alexander Steiger, Goldman Sachs.
Alexander Steiger
Great. Thank you so much. And so we had a number of e-commerce consumer companies in, oh, I'm calling out a very weak January this year. So I'm just wondering maybe what are you seeing among your customer base that would give you confidence in your Q1 guidance, you can comment a little bit on like the month-over-month dynamics you're seeing in your business?
And then one follow-up question just on the business initiatives that leverage AI can you maybe talk about the contribution or the growth contribution you expect for this year versus your assumption around a potential recovery in the broader consumer spending environment? Thank you.
James Reinhart
Yes, hey, our vendor on. Yes, I don't think we are expecting a eye to drive anything sort of in an outsized way in the results, nor do we expect expect some big inflection later in the year in the consumer environment. And I think our guidance reflects our best estimates of how the business is going to perform this year. I will say that AI. As you know, we finally rolled up out the new search and some of the work just in the lab a week or two. And so we're only starting to see the benefits of the entire customer experience using it. And so I think as we get better information, we'll sort of update those numbers as for Q1.
And what other companies have said, I don't think Q1 was noticeably weaker and then we expected. And then I think our business tends to see the hangover from Q4, you know, Christmas, New Year's holiday period gift-giving as we see some of that normally in January. And I think, you know, I don't think it's been an exceptional consumer environment, but I I wouldn't characterize it as sort of darker draconian. So but I think we expect that consumer to be challenged this year. And so I think that's where we feel good about our active buyer growth and our gross profit growth in an environment like this one, what will drive to positive EBITDA.
Alexander Steiger
Thank you.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Dana Telsey, Telsey Group.
James Reinhart
Hello, Dana. Your line is now open.
Dana Telsey
Hi, everyone. As you would in the fourth quarter and as you're thinking about 2024, how are you thinking about spending behavior by buyer cohort or bio d.e.m.o. buyer demographics and what you're seeing there? And then also, as you're thinking about the promotional environment, has the promotional environment or the competitive environment changed lately?
James Reinhart
Thank you, Adena, on your on the buyer spend, I mean, we continue to see very strong revenue per buyer metrics. I mean, they were they were all-time highs known in 23, and we expect them to continue to be strong. So I think our ability to drive share of wallet revenue for by revenue per buyer growth, I think continues to be we feel very good about I think as far as like the sort of nuance in the consumer environment. I don't think there's any sector in the consumer world that's immune as to the sort of the effects of compound and inflation and interest rates, whether you're a wealthier consumer who's dealing with higher borrowing costs or a more budget consumer that's dealing with food inflation. And I think it's kind of hitting everyone.
And again, I think part of why we feel good about where we're headed in 2014. Despite that environment still being able to grow and the underlying growth rate to be in the 10s, you know, as well as you know, 600 bps of margin expansion. It feels like a really a great place for our business to live in 24 given the environment. And as on the promotional side, as I said earlier with it, I mean, I do think that the environment has gotten better, but I still think you you may have a positive tailwind from the promotional environment with a bit of a headwind in the consumer discretionary work. And so I think net of it is probably cancel each other out.
Dana Telsey
Got it. And then in Europe, is the shift to consignment in Europe. Any differences that you're noticing or insights taking away that would make it be accelerate? Are these faster or slower than what you may have originally expected.
James Reinhart
I mean, I think that the the consumer, the seller in the countries that we operate in Europe, I think, has been looking for a scaled, convenient solution like this for some time. And so I think I think the customer reception has been positive, but it is a transformation of the of the business and how shoppers are browsing and the number of items that they're buying and their orders. But so far, as we said, sell-through rates have been have been strong. And I think consumers are really liking that fresh product differentiated product sales to the owned business that we'd had more of earlier in the year.
Dana Telsey
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to James Reinhart for closing remarks.
James Reinhart
Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us for our earnings call and guidance for the year. Very excited about the year ahead. I'm incredibly proud of the work in 2023 that we did to drive growth and expand margins. And we expect more of the same as we head into 2024 so we'll see. Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all disconnect. Everyone else has left the call.
