1stdibs.com, Inc. Q1 2026 earnings call

Good morning. Welcome to the 1stDibs earnings call for the quarter ended March 31st, 2026. I'm Kevin LaBuz, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Joining me today are Chief Executive Officer, David Rosenblatt, and Chief Financial Officer, Tom Etergino. David will provide an update on our business, including our strategy and growth opportunities, and Tom will review our first quarter financial results and second quarter outlook. This call will be available via webcast on our investor relations website at investors.1stdibs.com. Before we begin, please keep in mind that our remarks include forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding guidance and future financial performance, market demand, growth prospects, business plans, strategic initiatives, business and economic trends, and competitive position.

Our actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements as a result of risks and uncertainties, including those described in our SEC filings. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on our beliefs and assumptions as of today, and we disclaim any obligation to update them except to the extent required by law. Additionally, during the call, we will present GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release, which you can find on our investor relations website along with the replay of this call. Lastly, please note that all growth comparisons are made on a year-over-year basis, unless otherwise noted. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, David Rosenblatt. David?

Thanks, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. A quarter ago, we shared our expectations for our performance in 2026: disciplined execution, durable profitability, and steady roadmap progress. The first quarter delivered on all three. Our top-line results reflect the deliberate sales and marketing reductions we enacted late last year, and our bottom-line results reflect the structural cost work we have been executing since 2022. We are on track across revenue, costs, and product development, and our 2026 financial framework remains unchanged. The demand environment remains challenging. The U.S. housing market continues to hover near a 30-year low, weighing on consumer appetite for luxury home goods. While the near-term backdrop is soft, the long-term opportunity is significant. For example, there are approximately 5 million U.S. households worth at least $5 million, and our active buyer base of approximately 58,300 represents a fraction of that addressable market.

Our goal, however, is to generate growth irrespective of the timing of a market recovery. Once conditions normalize, we will be in a strong position to accelerate growth. Turning to the financials, our performance reflects both market conditions and the decisions we made last year to optimize our cost structure. GMV and revenue were $89.7 million and $22.4 million, down 5% and 1% respectively, which is a result not only of market conditions, but also of our decision to reduce performance marketing spending by nearly 50% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA of $600,000 above the midpoint of guidance is proof that our financial model is now capable of generating adjusted EBITDA profitability even in a challenging external environment.

We have fundamentally re-engineered our business, lowering expenses and headcount since late 2022 to ensure future revenue recovery flows disproportionately to the bottom line. With that context, let me walk you through the quarter's performance. Funnel trends remained consistent. Traffic declines, driven primarily by our pullback in performance marketing and substantial sales and marketing headcount reductions, were partially offset by our 10th consecutive quarter of conversion growth and higher average order values. This conversion growth is the direct result of sustained product investment, and it gives us confidence that our roadmap is working. Underpinning these results is a deliberate shift in how we are allocating resources. While total operating expenses declined 11%, technology development spending grew 10%, a reflection of our conviction that product and engineering is our highest ROI investment. The returns are compounding.

AI-assisted development now accounts for over 50% of our new code, up from approximately 30% last quarter, enabling our team to ship faster than ever. Our 2026 roadmap is where those resources are being deployed. Organized around four pillars, discovery, pricing, shipping, and service, it is designed to remove friction, modernize the platform, and drive our anticipated return to GMV growth by the fourth quarter. Before walking through our roadmap progress, it is worth stepping back to explain how we think about product development. Our roadmap is not organized around market conditions or macro assumptions. It is organized around solving specific customer problems. The barriers that prevent a design enthusiast from finding the perfect item, trusting its price, receiving it seamlessly, and getting help when they need it exist regardless of where the housing market is or what consumer sentiment looks like.

Solving them makes 1stDibs a better marketplace in any environment. At the heart of our roadmap is a transformation in how buyers find and engage with our marketplace. Our goal is to make 1stDibs a daily destination for design enthusiasts by meeting the buyer where she is and by removing the barriers to discovery. Today, finding the right item still requires too much expertise, the right terminology, the right category knowledge, and the right search keyword string. Our discovery roadmap is designed to change that, and the first quarter was a period of foundational progress in that regard. We begin by investing in content and community. In February, we launched 1stDibs Tastemakers, our brand ambassador program built around authentic voices from within and around our community. Early results are promising, with measurable increases in reach and engagement on Instagram.

We also debuted Objects of Desire, a podcast hosted by our editorial director, Anthony Barzilay Freund, and interior designer, Noz Nozawa, which explores the emotional and cultural stories behind the objects people love. These initiatives are designed to build the daily engagement and brand affinity that drives organic traffic and buyer acquisition over time. Once buyers arrive in our environment, we are making it easier for them to navigate our catalog. Using AI, we significantly enrich the metadata underpinning our inventory, giving our search engine more signal to work with. The results were immediate. Our search success rate improved by nearly 4%, and the number of null results decreased by over 25%, meaning more buyers are finding items to engage with on every visit. We also redesigned our search bar experience, resulting in higher search activity. These improvements are the foundation for what comes next.

Over the course of 2026, we are building toward AI-powered semantic and natural language search, the ability for a buyer to describe what they want in plain language and receive tailored results in return. A buyer shouldn't need to know the difference between a Chesterfield and a Knoll sofa to find the perfect piece. They should be able to tell us what they want in the manner they naturally think about it and trust that 1stDibs will understand. We are building that capability progressively throughout the year, and in the second quarter, we plan to launch visual search, allowing buyers to upload an image and find similar items in our catalog. On personalization, the first quarter marks an important shift. We moved our homepage from an editorial-first to a recommendation-first experience.

For recognized users, the platform now surfaces personalized items based on their behavior and preferences from the moment they arrive, a step toward making 1stDibs a daily habit. We also deepened our work on favorites, driving an increase in the percentage of users who favorited an item sequentially, building the behavioral data that will help power personalization over time. Our progress in discovery highlights our belief that AI is a catalyst for our marketplace. While our moat remains firmly built on high-trust relationships and a physical catalog of one-of-a-kind items, AI is the tool that makes those items discoverable to a broader audience. Discovery brings buyers to the listing. Pricing gives them the confidence to buy it. Buyer trust is the foundation of every transaction on 1stDibs. Our pricing roadmap is designed to reinforce that trust by ensuring that every listing is priced transparently, competitively, and consistently.

Thanks, David. Good morning, everyone. First quarter results were in line with our expectations across the board. For the second consecutive quarter, we generated positive adjusted EBITDA, validating the structural changes we made to our cost base and confirming that our 2026 plan is developing as anticipated. Let me walk you through the numbers. GMV was $89.7 million, down 5% above the midpoint of guidance. The underlying dynamics played out largely as we expected. Traffic declined across paid and organic channels, a direct and expected consequence of the sales and marketing reductions we enacted in late 2025, as well as the soft demand environment. Order volume declined 12% as a result. However, our product investments continued to partially offset these headwinds, with conversion growing for the 10th consecutive quarter.

Average order value reached approximately $2,750, up 7%, and median order value reached approximately $1,400, up 12%, both reflecting a continued mix shift towards higher value transactions, especially from trade. Together, these factors led to GMV down 5%, consistent with the fourth quarter. We entered the quarter with approximately 75% of traffic from organic sources, a continued reflection of the enduring strength of the 1stDibs brand. Trade was a bright spot, growing year-over-year, driven by meaningful AOV expansion while consumer GMV declined. On a vertical basis, vintage and antique furniture grew year-over-year while all other categories declined. We ended the quarter with approximately 58,300 active buyers, down 10%, reflecting the deliberate reduction in sales and marketing spend enacted in late 2025.

Unique sell account grew modestly on a sequential basis. We expect to return to growth for the full year as the impact of our 2024 and 2025 pricing actions continues to normalize. Listings grew 2% to nearly 1.9 million. Health of our supply base is further supported by our annual seller sentiment survey, which confirmed for the second consecutive year that 1stDibs is the primary sales channel for our sellers, underscoring the platform's growing importance to their businesses. Turning to the income statement, net revenue was $22.4 million, down 1%. Transaction revenue, which is tied directly to GMV, was approximately 74% of total revenue, with subscriptions making up most of the remainder.

Take rates increased approximately 120 basis points, reflecting our 2025 pricing actions, Sponsored Listings growth, and a favorable prior year comparison due to high-value transactions. Gross profit was $16.7 million, up 2%. Gross profit margins were approximately 74%, up 2 percentage points year-over-year and at the high end of our target range, driven by a decrease in hosting and software costs as a percentage of revenue. Turning to operating expenses, total OpEx declined 11%, the direct continuation of the multi-year cost reset we began in 2022. Within that, the story is one of deliberate reallocation. Sales and marketing expenses were $6.3 million, down 31%. This reduction was a result of the strategic realignment implemented in 2025, which fundamentally reset our marketing organization and rationalized our performance marketing spend.

We made a decision to prioritize unit economics over volume, and these numbers reflect that decision. Sales and marketing as a percentage of revenue was 28%, down from 40% a year ago. Technology development expenses were $6.2 million, up 10%, reflecting the impact of our annual merit cycle in March and higher headcount-related costs as we rebalanced our talent towards high-impact product and engineering roles. As a percentage of revenue, technology development was 28%, up from 25% a year ago. We are systematically reallocating resources away from sales and marketing and towards product and engineering. Within our flat headcount framework, we are onboarding the final planned roles in support of our 2026 roadmap and expect this talent rebalancing to conclude by the end of the second quarter, leaving us with a leaner team with more concentrated on platform innovation.

General administrative expenses were $6.8 million, down 2%. As a percentage of revenue, general administrative expenses were 30% versus 31% a year ago. Lastly, provision for transaction losses were approximately $700,000, 3% of revenue, down from 4% a year ago and at the midpoint of our historical range of 2%-4%. As I mentioned previously, total operating expenses were $20 million, down 11%. Total operating expenses also reflect approximately $500,000 in severance charges, predominantly in sales and marketing, as we refined our organizational structure to most effectively support our 2026 priorities. Our commitment to expense discipline remains unchanged. Adjusted EBITDA was approximately $600,000, representing a margin of approximately 2.5%. The last two quarters have been adjusted EBITDA positive, both delivering against a challenging demand backdrop.

This is the direct result of this cost structure we rebuilt starting in 2022. It underpins our confidence in positive full-year adjusted EBITDA. The first quarter was an encouraging start against our full-year free cash flow commitment. We generate $800,000, a positive early indicator that our 2026 target is within reach. We also generate $1.1 million of cash flow from operations. Cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments ended the quarter at $85.3 million, down $9.8 million sequentially, primarily reflecting $9.1 million in share repurchases. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 1.7 million shares, leaving approximately $1 million of remaining authorization at quarter end. Since inception, we have repurchased approximately 9 million shares for approximately $44.4 million. Turning to the outlook.

Our guidance reflects quarter-to-date results and our forecast for the remainder of the period. We forecast second quarter GMV between $86 million and $91 million, or down 4% to up 1%. Net revenue of $21.6 million to $22.6 million, or down 2% to up 2%, and adjusted EBITDA margin between -2% and +2%. Our GMV guidance reflects a deliberate strategic trade-off, the intentional impact of our sales and marketing reductions as we prioritize a structurally higher margin profile over short-term volume. Quality-driven performance. While traffic remains a headwind, we expect continued growth in conversion and AOV and sequential improvement in our year-over-year growth rate helped by progress on our product roadmap.

Good morning to you. Thank you for taking my question. First, I wanted to ask, last quarter, you know, we discussed a handful of kind of internal levers you could pull to really reignite growth, and I think it would be helpful for investors to hear that discussion as well. Can you talk about those levers and maybe those levers are being pulled today? If not, maybe the timeline of them being pulled.

Sure. Of course, and good morning. I think you're referring to our product roadmap. Our roadmap is organized around four of the highest potential areas that we believe we have in the business, and those are discovery, pricing, shipping, and service, covering the full purchase funnel. In Q1 we made progress in each of them. Just calling out a couple of the big ones, I would say the highest impact wins in the quarter were around discovery, shipping, and service. Maybe just a couple of quick examples. In search, we implemented AI-driven metadata improvements, which drove a 4% higher search success rate and importantly reduced null search results by more than 25%. Reducing null search results is especially important in the long tail marketplace like ours.

We're gonna keep on charging on search because we do view it as potentially one of our highest leverage areas. We've got a visual search release lined up for Q2, and then after that, our first natural language search release targeted for Q3. Another example would be shipping, which obviously is a big source of friction, particularly in, you know, given that furniture is the majority of our GMV. In the quarter, we integrated USPS into our shipping infrastructure, which had the impact of reducing parcel rates on packages under 20 lbs by 30%-50%. We feel like in each of the four tracks, and we're in a good place and we're making progress, but we also feel like it's early in that regard and that there's a lot more opportunity ahead of us than there is behind us.

As with all product roadmaps, we also expect the impact of these improvements to compound over time.

That's super helpful. Thank you very much. Maybe shifting gears to more sticking with the AI search, I think that's interesting of the well, maybe just explain, like what is a 4% search success rate like improvement? Like, what does that look like when someone is using the website? Like the 25% null search rate down, does that just simply mean if someone's searching something like there's 25% less of the time someone searches for something, nothing comes back? Could you just help clarify?

I mean, you know, you can imagine starting with a null search success rate. I mean, you can imagine the impact on a buyer of searching for something and getting 0 results, right? That manifests itself in, you know, at worst, a bounce, right? You leave the experience, and at best, you know, a much more, a much higher friction discovery process. Then, you know, the opposite is true as well, right? I mean, when you find what you're looking for, you're that much more likely to proceed to the next step in the funnel. Again, you know, we've got 1.9 million items. Almost all of them are one of a kind, which means that, you know, we drive a disproportionate amount of activity around search.

That's why I say it's a super high leverage kind of entry point and part of the discovery experience. I think probably a little more so in our business than in a less long tail oriented marketplace or retail experience.

That's super helpful. Thank you.

Good morning, thanks for taking the question. First question. Just on GMV growth that you noted, that should return by the fourth quarter. Can you just remind us, do you need a change in the macro conditions, or can you deliver that growth in the current market environment? David, you've listed a lot of, you know, great product improvements and some new innovations, and mentioned obviously that they build on each other. Any way you could isolate, you know, maybe a couple that you think are having the biggest near-term impact and then maybe on a longer-term basis, some of those products that you are really excited about that could, you know, drive, longer and more sustained growth? Thank you.

Sure. Hey, Ralph. In terms of GMV growth, we do remain confident in a return to growth by Q4, and we do not think that is dependent on a market recovery. Two reasons, really. One is, in Q4, we'll begin lapping a full quarter's worth of the over 40% reduction in sales and marketing spend that we initiated in late 2025. Until then, obviously that remains a headwind on GMV growth. Although that said, we're already seeing a trajectory shift, I think. Second is, you know, we do have strong conviction in our product roadmap. Product roadmaps for us, as is the case with, you know, almost all consumer internet companies, compound over time.

You know, as I mentioned in my answer to Bobby's question, we're seeing early success there, and we do expect that to compound over time. Just to come back to the point I just made, I think it is worth pointing out that at the midpoint of Q2 guidance, we do expect GMV growth rates to improve sequentially from the -5% in Q1 to -2% again at the midpoint in Q2. From there, we do see a clear and straightforward path to a return to year-over-year growth by Q4 this year. In terms of the product roadmap, I mean, we do, you know, we think pretty hard about where we allocate our capital and our scarce human resources.

Those four areas that I highlighted, discovery, price, service, and shipping, we do think are the highest impact areas. You know, all of them are important. I mean, again, I think, you know, as we look at the experience of other marketplaces, certainly, in the case of one-of-a-kind marketplaces, search is extraordinarily important. If you don't find what you're looking to buy, then, you know, there's no reason to come back. You're certainly, you know, less likely for a visit to consummate in an order. Logistics, you know, again, I don't think we're reinventing the wheel here. Logistics is extraordinarily important on the other side of the funnel, and we were super pleased that we were able to reduce costs by as much as we were for parcel.

You know, we've got a lot ahead of us in terms of logistics. Tracking is something where, you know, we're not at table stakes yet in terms of meeting baseline consumer expectations, I think, for e-commerce experiences. We will be there. You know, we're gonna use ML quite heavily to increase our pre-quote coverage on freight. There are lots of levers within shipping, lots of levers within search. I mentioned semantic search and natural language search, which is on the come. Pricing is an area we've talked about in the past. In Q1, we were able to expand our price parity coverage by 44%, and we have some other improvements planned for the consumer experience there.

Lastly, service, we feel like there's an opportunity to substantially increase both our service levels and the efficiency with which we deliver those. Again, you know, I would just close by saying we're super happy with our progress in Q1, but we have an ambitious slate in front of us and much more to come than we've already achieved, which is part of the reason why I'm very optimistic about Q4.

Okay. Thank you, David.