American Outdoor Brands Corp (NASDAQ:AOUT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call dated Mar. 09, 2023.
Corporate Participants:
Liz Sharp — Vice President of Investor Relations
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Andy Fulmer — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Ryan Meyers — Lake Street — Analyst
Eric Wold — B Riley Securities — Analyst
Matt Koranda — ROTH MKM — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Good day everyone and welcome to American Outdoor Brands Inc. Third Quarter Fiscal 2023 financial results conference call. This call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Liz Sharp, Vice President of Investor Relations for some information about today’s call. Please go ahead.
Liz Sharp — Vice President of Investor Relations
Thank you and good afternoon. Our comments today may contain predictions, estimates and other forward-looking statements. Our use of words like anticipate, project, estimate, expect, intend, should, indicate, suggest, believe and other similar expressions is intended to identify those forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements also include statements regarding our product development, focus, objectives, strategies and vision, our strategic evolution, our market share and market demand for our products, market and inventory conditions related to our products and in our industry in general and growth opportunities and trends.
Our forward-looking statements represent our current judgment about the future and they are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Risk factors and other considerations that could cause our actual results to be materially different are described in our securities filings. You can find those documents as well as a replay of this call on our website at aob.com. Today’s call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of this time and we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Our actual results could differ materially from our statements today.
I have a few important items to note about our comments on today’s call. First, we reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Our non-GAAP results exclude amortization of acquired intangible assets, stock compensation, shareholder cooperation agreement costs, technology implementation, acquisition costs, other costs and income tax adjustments. The reconciliations of GAAP financial measures to non-GAAP financial measures whether they are discussed on today’s call can be found in our filings as well as today’s earnings press release, which are posted on our website. Also when we reference EPS, we are always referencing fully-diluted EPS.
Joining us on today’s call is Brian Murphy, President and CEO and Andy Fulmer, CFO. And with that. I will turn the call over to Brian.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Thanks, Liz, and thanks everyone for joining us. In the third quarter, we addressed the ongoing uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment while remaining focused on the future, investing in our long-term growth, managing the elements within our control and delivering several important operational and financial achievements. For our company and many others in our space, we continue to encounter choppy waters, created by the shifting dynamics of retail supply and consumer demand in a post pandemic environment. POS data we receive from our retailers indicate that sales of our products declined in the third quarter in the high-single digits. We believe this is a reasonable result given the current environment.
The POS data also indicates that consumers continue to choose our brands, which is great news. In fact, several of our major retailers have told us, we are outperforming other brands in our categories. At the same time, however, many retailers continue to focus on de-stocking initiatives, legacy from supply chain issues and inventory builds that emerged during the pandemic. This process takes time to work out and as a result, we believe, a return to normalized replenishment orders from retailers is unlikely to occur until later in 2023.
While we can’t control the choppy waters around us, we can and we have continued to invest in our business and manage the elements within our control. I believe our third quarter performance reflects solid execution on that front. We demonstrated the strength of our new product pipeline with several innovative new products that excited our retailers and consumers. We expanded our domestic and international sales teams. We amended our facility lease agreement to optimize recent consolidations and add capacity for future growth. We strengthened our balance sheet and we returned capital to our shareholders. As a result, I believe we are well-positioned for the time when retailers pivot from managing supply chain issues and inventory destocking initiatives to focusing on replenishing their inventories and preparing to deliver the innovative products, consumers truly want.
With that, let me share some details from the third quarter. While net sales in our third quarter declined year-over-year, it grew 17.4% above pre-pandemic levels. Our direct-to-consumer business, which largely consists of our outdoor lifestyle brands delivered year-over-year growth of over 37%, which includes our acquisition of Grilla Grills. We consider our direct-to-consumer sales to be one gauge of how well our brands are resonating with consumers. Since those sales are not typically impacted by retailers inventory levels or limited open-to-buy dollars. Our direct-to-consumer sales also includes sales of Meat! Your Maker, meat processing equipment and Grilla outdoor cooking products, which are sold exclusively direct-to-consumer. Together these brands generated over 40% of our total net sales.
Our outdoor lifestyle category made up 55.6% of our business and delivered growth of more than 39% over the pre-pandemic third quarter of fiscal 2020. Growth in our outdoor lifestyle category, including international growth remains an exciting opportunity for us. During the quarter, we expanded our sales resources adding a dedicated manager for fishing sales in the Southeastern United States. We also named a sales rep firm that is well known in the fishing industry to cover the Northeastern US territory. And more recently, we named a firm in Europe to represent our many cutlery brands as well as our Crimson Trace optics brand.
Innovation is our core strength and therefore the key element in our long-term growth strategy. Our innovation machine is robust and new products launched within the past two years generated nearly 24% of our third quarter net sales. Our Dock & Unlock continues to fuel that innovation and during the quarter, we unveiled a host of new products, most of which incorporate proprietary features and that taken together advance our strategy to enter new product categories and expand our product lines and distribution channels. Let me share more information on some of those now.
First. We’ve recently refreshed our Frankford Arsenal brand. Enhancing its appeal to the younger demographic now entering the ammunition reloading space while maintaining the brand’s strong reputation among the established, mature demographic that historically participates in reloading. In Q3, we launched new products that appeal to both demographics. First, we introduced a full-line of entry-level kits that make reloading easy and less intimidating for first timers. We also launched the X-10 progressive press, which is now shipping. The X-10 is getting rave reviews from Abbott reloading consumers who typically have a greater appetite for higher performing, higher ASP reloading equipment. The X-10 is a state-of-the-art press that incorporates smart technology developed by the same internal electrical engineering team that designed the SMART technology in our Lockdown Puck, our Bubba Smart Fish scale and our Caldwell graphs [Phonetic]. In fact based upon its internal technology the X-10 will serve as a platform for additional reloading products that are now in our pipeline.
Next, our Crimson Trace or CT brand built its reputation as the market leader in laser solutions and optics for firearms. But our Dock & unlock process indicated CT has permission to play in the broader, more stable outdoor market. So we went to work, exploring ways to combine CT’s capabilities into advanced laser range finding optics. The result is our newly-launched Horizonline Pro laser range finding binos, which incorporate our laser and instinctive activation technology allowing the user to rapidly determine the distance of any object to 2,000 yards. Suitable for a variety of applications and very competitively priced, the Horizonline range finding binos will ship this summer.
Our Wheeler brand is the line of precision tools that is highly regarded by gunsmiths and consumers and professionals who demand performance. We discovered that over-time, the brand had naturally migrated into new markets, including automotive and industrial applications. So we refreshed the brand with new esthetics and packaging and recently launched new screwdriver sets designed for these markets, which represent new distribution opportunities for the Wheeler brand. For years, consumers have relied on our lockdown brand to protect, store and organize their firearms and accessories. Recently our Dock & Unlock process led us to think beyond the gun vault. The result is our new lockdown SecureWall, a proprietary panel system that works with our hangers, shelves and baskets as well as standard peg hugs to create a custom storage space for everything from firearms to tools to just about anything. This versatility makes it appealing not only to consumers but to retailers as well. This spring, we’ll launch the SecureWall Builder, our proprietary drag and drop software app that let’s buyers easily plan and visualize their unique solution. The new lockdown SecureWall products expand the brand’s reach beyond the legacy firearm owner into the broader consumer DIY and retail markets, all new markets for lockdown.
Lastly, over the past year, we have energized our large and loyal Schrade consumer base with the rebranding and a variety of new cutlery products. And we’ve been caught the attention of hunters who represent a new market for Schrade. Now, we have partnered with Rage, a brand renowned among hunters for its award-winning hunting broad head blade technology. Our teams collaborated to create the Schrade and Rage series a trio of razor sharp replacable blade knives that allow the consumer to never have to sharpen their knife. The Schrade and Rage series also creates a recurring revenue stream for us by introducing consumables. These features make it a great option for not only hunters in the field but also for everyday carry consumers, most of whom are unfamiliar with the replacable blade option. This collaboration, which is unique in our industry gives each of our companies the opportunity to market our brands to a completely new user audience. The Enrage series will be available at select retailers beginning this month.
These and many other products in the pipeline reflect our dedication to leveraging our culture of innovation to deliver solutions for consumers in the moments that matter. Based on feedback from our retailers, we believe they are excited as we are about bringing these products to their consumers when their shelves are ready. While we address the dynamics of the current environment, we continue to invest in our long-term strategy, which includes leveraging our business model. During the third quarter we expanded the lease agreement at our Missouri headquarters and distribution center, providing us full use of the building, creating opportunities to optimize past business consolidations and providing us with additional capacity, a benefit that aligns with our long-term plan to grow organically and through strategic acquisitions.
In addition, we have also successfully completed our ERP implementation, a platform we expect will yield enhanced capabilities and improved analytics as we grow. Andy will provide more detail on these investments. For now, I want to express my appreciation to our implementation team and our employees across the organization for bringing our new ERP system, successfully across the finish line. Our achievements in Q3 help strengthen our foundation and prepare us for future growth. Long-term outdoor participation trends remain positive, and as a nimble, innovative emerging growth company with a portfolio of strong brands that resonate with our core consumers, we are excited about the growth opportunities these trends present for our brands in the long term. With that, I’ll turn it over to Andy to discuss our financial results.
Andy Fulmer — Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Brian. In the third quarter, we delivered improved gross margins and maintained a disciplined approach to cost control. At the same time, we continue to fortify our balance sheet, demonstrating effective capital deployment, while making important strategic investments to support future growth. It was a quarter with several significant achievements and highlights. So let me walk you through the details.
Net sales in Q3 were $50.9 million, a decrease of 27.4% compared to the prior year and an increase of 17.4% over the pre-pandemic third quarter of fiscal 2020. Net sales in our e-commerce channel were $0.5 million, a decrease of 30.8% from Q3 of last year but a significant increase of almost 50% over the pre-pandemic third quarter of fiscal ’20. The recent Year-over-Year decrease was driven by reduced orders from our online retailers, primarily in our shooting sports category. Our direct-to-consumer net sales increased 37.5% over Q3 of last year, driven by sales of our two DTC only brands, MEAT and Grilla.
Net sales in our traditional channel, which consists of brick-and-mortar retailers decreased 23.9% in the third quarter compared to last year which we believe is due to retailers continued efforts to reduce their overall inventories, combined with lower consumer discretionary spending. Gross margins came in strong for the quarter at 47.1%, a 130 basis-point improvement over Q3 of fiscal 2022. We benefited mainly from reduced tariff and inbound freight costs as we continue to make progress on our initiatives to reduce internal inventory levels. It’s also important to note that when tariffs were first implemented, our strategy was to maintain a steady flow of new products with strong gross margins to help achieve our long-term margin targets. We believe this strategy has helped us offset tariffs and higher inbound freight costs over-time.
GAAP operating expenses for the quarter were $27 million, down roughly $400,000 from Q3 of last year, mainly due to lower variable selling and distribution costs driven by the reduction in net sales. Non-GAAP operating expenses in Q3 were $22 million compared to $22.5 million in Q3 last year. Non-GAAP operating expenses exclude intangible amortization, stock compensation and certain non-recurring expenses, as they occur. As Brian noted, we announced that we have amended our lease agreement and will occupy 100% of the building space in our Columbia Missouri headquarters beginning January 1st, 2024. We estimate that the additional annual lease expense will be roughly $1.3 million and should be completely offset by the savings from the Crimson Trace and Grilla consolidations that were completed in November 2022. We believe this expansion will support our long-term organic and inorganic growth plan. We look forward to providing more details closer to the January 1st effective date.
GAAP EPS for Q3 was a loss of $0.21 as compared with earnings of $0.27 last year and non-GAAP EPS for Q3 was $0.13 compared to $0.52 last year. Our Q3 figures are based on our fully-diluted share count of approximately 13.3 million shares. For the full-year, we expect our fully-diluted share count to be roughly 13.4 million shares. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $3.3 million compared to $10.5 million last year. The reduction was mainly due to the loss contribution that resulted from lower net sales.
Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. In Q3, we strengthened our balance sheet, generated significant cash from operations and continued to return capital to our shareholders through our share repurchase program. We ended the quarter with $21.7 million of cash, an increase of $5.4 million sequentially from the second quarter, a result that included a $10 million paydown on our line-of-credit. Positive operating cash flow for the third quarter was $18.1 million compared to operating cash outflow of almost $1 million last year.
Accounts receivable in Q3 this year decreased sequentially by $7.4 million from Q2 due to the decrease in net sales, combined with a higher concentration of direct-to-consumer sales. Lastly capex in Q3 was $920,000. By the end-of-the quarter, we generated free cash flow of roughly $17.2 million. This is a great result and compares to free cash outflow of $2.8 million in Q3 of fiscal 2022.
Turning now to inventory. Last fiscal year, you’ll recall that we built up our inventory levels to mitigate risks in our supply chain and to keep fill rates high with our customers. However, as consumer demand started to decline in the current fiscal year, we shifted our approach and developed specific inventory initiatives to lower our inventory and improve our working capital metrics. Those efforts have been successful, and we have taken our inventory from $120.6 million at the end of our first quarter to $105.5 million at the end of our third quarter, a reduction of over $15 million. In Q3 alone, we reduced inventory by nearly $6 million. Going forward, we plan to further reduce our inventory and enhance our cash conversion cycle.
Turning to capital expenditures. We expect capex for fiscal ’23 to be $1 million lower than the range we provided last quarter, driven by lower costs related to our ERP project and lower tooling cost. We now expect total capex for fiscal ’23 to be between $6 million and $6.5 million. Within that total we expect product tooling and maintenance capex of between $3.8 million and $4.3 million and ERP project spending of $2.2 million, which came in below budget. As Brian shared and I am equally pleased to report, we are now fully live on our new ERP system, Microsoft D365. As we worked through the implementation, you’ve heard me talk about our two-phased approach to the project. Specifically, we went live with a small portion of our business on October 1st of 2022. We scheduled the second phase of the project to go live in February of 2023. This yielded an excellent result. The first go-live helped us identify system enhancements that would improve our logistics function, so we made those changes and executed the go-live in February without a hitch. Kudos to the entire implementation team whose dedication and commitment, drove the overall success of this project.
In fiscal 2023, we expect to incur a total of $1.7 million in onetime ERP costs as well as $500,000 in duplicative costs to operate both D365 and our previous ERP in parallel. As an aside the duplicative costs are now complete, as we no longer need to run both systems in parallel. Both amounts will be treated as non-recurring implementation costs when calculating non-GAAP operating expense and adjusted EBITDAS. As I mentioned earlier, we paid down $10 million on our line of credit, leaving us with just $10 million outstanding. This places us in a negative net debt position with up to $87 million in available capacity. We remain focused on maintaining a very strong balance sheet so that we are well positioned to address our three capital allocation priorities, which our organic growth, M&A and returning capital to shareholders.
As we seek out M&A opportunities, we will remain disciplined in our approach. In the meantime, we continue to return capital to shareholders through our $10 million repurchase program. During Q3, we repurchased 92,000 shares at an average price of $9.43 a share. And since September, we have repurchased roughly 2% of our outstanding shares under the program.
Turning now to our outlook. In Q3, we continue to see reduced ordering from our retailers and distributors, as they worked down their overall elevated inventory levels, while navigating through uncertain consumer demand patterns. We believe that consumers are spending less on discretionary products in this uncertain macroeconomic environment, driven by elevated inflation and interest rates. We continue to believe our brands are well positioned to capitalize on long-term outdoor participation trends. However, we also believe the current dynamic is affecting us in the short-term and will likely take a couple of fiscal quarters to sort out. As a result, we now believe that net sales for fiscal 2023 could exceed pre-pandemic fiscal 2020 levels by as much as 13%.
In Q4, we expect some gross margin improvement over the prior year due to reduced freight costs, since we have now sold off some of our higher-cost inventory. We’re expecting a promotional environment in Q4 that is similar to the environment we saw in Q4 last year with normal seasonal promotional programs, primarily in the shooting sports category. With regards to opex, we expect Q4 opex spending to decline sequentially from Q3, both from reductions in variable selling and distribution costs, driven by lower sales volume and a reduction in marketing costs from having no major trade shows. We will continue to identify areas for cost-containment where it makes sense in the short-term, while being mindful of long-term investments needed to grow the business and execute on our strategic objectives.
As we move through the fourth and final quarter of our current fiscal year, we are excited about the way we’ve positioned our company for the future. Since our spin-off in 2020, we have completed several major investments that have strengthened our platform for growth. They include setting up our company as a fully independent standalone business, the formation of our brand lane structure, the creation of our differentiating Dock & Unlock process, the establishment of a robust e-commerce platform, the launch of websites for each of our key brands and the successful implementation of our new ERP infrastructure. Those investments have helped us win customers as well as expand into new markets and categories, including our entry into shotgun sports with the Caldwell Claymore, our entry into outdoor cooking with the acquisition of Grilla Grills and the creation launch and growth of our Meat! Your Maker brand. These achievements combined with our demonstrated approach to disciplined capital management represent our ability to look beyond the choppy waters of the current environment that Brian referenced to build a strong platform for growth and remain focused on the long-term opportunities that we see ahead.
With that, operator, let’s open the call for questions from our analysts.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And the first question will be from Ryan Meyers from Lake Street. Please go ahead.
Ryan Meyers — Lake Street — Analyst
Yeah, hi guys thanks for taking my questions. First one for me, I wonder if you can just kind of unpack the inventory level at retail is a little bit better. Have we seen any improvement since last quarter and it sounds like it might be a little bit more kind of back-half ’23 weighted. Just kind of what your level of confidence is that you guys are going to see that here in kind of the second half of the year.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Sure, hey, Ryan, it’s Brian. I’ll take a swing at it and then Andy, feel free to jump in. So as it relates to what we’re seeing inventory-wise at our retailers, we saw a pretty strong showing over this last quarter. So, POS inventory was down over 30% within the channel. And it was actually it was down about 26% sequentially from Q2 to Q3. So we think that’s a great result and very strong POS, we sat down high-single-digits. Within that, there was some mix of outdoor lifestyle performed actually pretty well and then shooting sports was a little bit softer. But based on what we’re seeing, based on continuation the decline in inventory within the channel and what we’re hearing from our retailers, it does look like based on those facts that kind of things will pick back up in the second half of this calendar year.
Ryan Meyers — Lake Street — Analyst
Got it, and then just kind of looking at the new products and you said it represented 24% of the mix, but I’m curious what the growth rate looks like on some of these new products. Are they outperforming the other part of the business.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
This is Brian again. Without the data in front of me, I’ll give you sort of anecdotal directional which is, we haven’t seen as much new product adoption in the last, call it, six or nine months because it was a period of time retailers just wanted as much inventory as possible. And obviously over purchased, and now we see the dynamic playing out in front of us winding down de-stocking that inventory. So like the 20, what do we say 20% or so on a trailing basis. I would actually expect that number to be a little bit higher in a more normalized environment because we’ve held off, as you know, on some of our new product placements. And so. I think overall, the new products are performing incredibly well. And some more recently like the Caldwell Claymore and the Frankford Arsenal X-10 are selling extremely well and everything that’s coming in the door right now is going right out. So we’re seeing some great traction with the new products, but I think overall as a percentage of our total business, because we held back to let some of that other inventory flow through, you’ll begin to see more of that acceleration come through in the next 12 months
Andy Fulmer — Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, and Ryan, this is Andy. I would just add to that, we were last quarter was 30% of total sales. So we’ve been as high as 30 in previous quarters.
Ryan Meyers — Lake Street — Analyst
Got it, that’s helpful. Thanks for taking my questions.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Yes, thanks Ryan.
Operator
And the next question is from Eric Wold from B Riley Securities, please go ahead.
Eric Wold — B Riley Securities — Analyst
Thanks for taking the questions. A couple of question. I guess one just a follow-up on the prior one thing about POS in the channel. The down high-single-digits. In the quarter. That’s just pure year-over-year sale, is that adjusting for any headwinds you may have from a lack of inventory. Am trying to get a sense of how would you think the lack of inventory in the channel, maybe some products is impacting that POS. If you could maybe talk about what you’re seeing in terms of pockets of strength across the weakness that’s based on your data.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Hey Eric, it’s Brian. And Andy, feel free to jump in. I would say that number really is not limited by lack of inventory per se, it’s across the board. And then, like I mentioned outdoor lifestyle better than that high-single-digits and shooting sports was a little bit weaker than that. So we are seeing shooting sports dealers in particular they do have in some cases, have different customer base. Those dealers are really being very cautious based on what’s happened previously in some of the previous cycles and then you’ve got the outdoor lifestyle side, which. I think you’ve got some different dynamics in the environment, versus, say, 18 months ago. That have maintained that demand, but overall, no, there is no new products are not or lack of products are not inhibiting that number.
Eric Wold — B Riley Securities — Analyst
Got it and then on the shooting sports side. I know in the past, the OEM, your OEM partners kind of pre-bought a little bit, trying to get ahead of possible supply-chain issues and that was a a headwind. I guess what are you seeing from that side of the business in terms of the OEMs, in terms of their production plans and their outlook in terms of what’s driving your sales over there.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Yeah, great question. This is Brian again. So, traditionally when firearm sales slows down, they do look for bundling opportunities. And that continues today. So we are seeing opportunities with our OEM partners. One of the benefits of spinning out from our former parent company is we now have the ability to work with more OEMs. So certainly those opportunities are coming through and we’re jumping on those.
Eric Wold — B Riley Securities — Analyst
Got it and then just final question from me. Thinking about your updated sales outlook for this year along with the your continued efforts to kind of mitigate internal inventory, what’s a reasonable assumption for you to get inventory levels down to by the end-of-the fiscal year.
Andy Fulmer — Chief Financial Officer
Hey, Eric, this is Andy. Haven’t been public with a number, but if you kind of look back at fiscal ’21, we ended fiscal ’21 at $74 million of inventory. We said at that time, that was too low, because our backlog was pretty high at that point, but Q1 of ’21, it was definitely too high. So our team has done an excellent job of getting that number down, down $15 million since Q1. And we’re not going to stop the reduction. So I would look forward to Q4 reduction and then into fiscal ’24 as well.
Eric Wold — B Riley Securities — Analyst
Perfect, thank you guys.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Yes, thanks Eric.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Matt Koranda from ROTH MKM. Please go ahead.
Matt Koranda — ROTH MKM — Analyst
Hey guys, good afternoon. Maybe just a follow-up on the traditional channel here. What do you think retailers need to see before they pull the trigger on restock orders. I guess, why are we assuming in the second half of ’23 other than just inventories. Maybe just went down enough. Are there other things that your customers say they need to see before they start to pull the trigger in a more robust way on restocks.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Yeah, it’s a great question and this is Brian. I think the overarching theme we hear from all of our retailers is again this broader reduction, where they have too much of one product and they would like to see overall inventories come down. We are seeing certainly some pockets of more velocity depending on the overall inventory position of certain retailers. But in terms of what they need to see. I think it’s just a stabilization with the end consumer because as they look at this is going to sound a little bit finance, but they’re looking at what the expected is going to be, they’re running their own models and then looking back and saying, how many weeks of inventory do we want on hand. And for certain products that are more seasonal in nature, there is a little bit more cautiousness because that season may not be here just yet, but they still have product from last year. And so. I think it’s just a little one little extra bit of complexity for some of those categories. So we wanted to see going into the holidays and so did our retailers robust consumer activity and certainly there was sustained demand. But it probably wasn’t up as much as people would have liked to see. So that’s just led to little bit higher inventories than expected heading into the first calendar quarter for retail and really just as we get into the new season, we get into fishing, we get into camping, some of those types of things, turkey hunting. Really want to see what the consumer does there so. I think that’s a big part of it.
Matt Koranda — ROTH MKM — Analyst
Okay, that’s helpful. And then just any dis-aggregation of the E-com channel that you guys can provide within the quarter, how much did Grilla contribute. Anything going on in the Amazon channel that we should be thinking about that influenced sales there. Just trying to get a sense for how to unpack that because it did seem to have an organic decline a little bit more than we had expected.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Yeah, hey Matt, it’s Brian again. Within e-commerce for others that might be listening. E-com includes sales to online retailers. You mentioned Amazon. Certainly they’re one of our customers. And then also direct-to-consumer sales. So we mentioned direct-to-consumer was up. I think it was like 37% or so. Obviously, part of that number includes the acquisition of Grilla. And so what I would tell you within our direct-to-consumer number, I don’t want to break it out, but our two direct-to-consumer only brands were up organically over last year. So that’s a very positive trend for us and continues to speak to that direct connection with the consumer and that pullthrough that isn’t subject to some of the retailer ups and downs with supply chain. And you had a question about, you mentioned Amazon. Sorry, Matt, you mentioned Amazon.
Matt Koranda — ROTH MKM — Analyst
Yeah. I just wanted to see if there’s anything unique going on in the channel there just in terms of your inventory availability, anything that kind of constrained sales or was it just kind of softer at the end consumer demand in that channel.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
It’s the continuation really of the theme for all of our online retailers reducing overall inventories.
Matt Koranda — ROTH MKM — Analyst
Got it, yes, the destocking issue, not necessarily just an end demand. Issue in that channel.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Exactly. And just to point that the POS trends, the POS inventory that we’re seeing, we said it was down over 30%.
Matt Koranda — ROTH MKM — Analyst
Any different — is there, should we think about any material difference in POS in the E-com channels that you have versus the traditional channel that you mentioned.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
No.
Matt Koranda — ROTH MKM — Analyst
Or is that same in terms of down high-single digit, okay.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
No difference.
Matt Koranda — ROTH MKM — Analyst
And then just last one. I mean, strong balance sheet, lots of dry powder. Could you just give us an update, Brian, on how you’re thinking about M&A, what you’re seeing in the pipeline that any new opportunities that are shaken lose just given the more difficult environment sort of macro wise.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Yeah. So we have seen far fewer number of deals coming to market. So investment banker led deals has declined and as you’d expect, you’ve got sellers that previously were trying to take advantage of the market, six, nine months ago. And now we’re having to kind of reset expectations and make sure that they can show run-rate improvement. That has not occurred yet. So we’re not seeing a whole lot coming to market. With that said, we have done a ton of work to try to cultivate a proprietary pipeline, which is how Grilla came about. And so we are seeing some of those deals where a maybe a founder, we’d like to exit that business, it’s just not the right time. They need more help, let’s say with supply chain. Or in some cases, as I’ve alluded to in the past, there may be a distressed situation where we could come in and help out. So certainly, there are opportunities, but it’s more on the smaller side and with founders and it depends on the circumstance but overall the activity is down.
Matt Koranda — ROTH MKM — Analyst
Okay, that makes sense. I’ll leave it there guys, thanks.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Thanks, Matt.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brian Murphy for any closing remarks.
Brian Murphy — President & CEO
Great, thank you, operator. Before we close, I want to let everyone know we’ll be participating in the ROTH Conference in California next week. I hope to see some of you there. I want to thank our employees whose loyalty, hard work and dedication continues to move American Outdoor Brands forward on the path toward an exciting future. Thank you for joining us today and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]