Dive Brief:
- DTC pet company Bark on Tuesday announced it has regained compliance with the New York Stock Exchange’s continued listing requirements.
- Bark in November received notice from the New York Stock Exchange that it no longer met the exchange’s continued listing requirements, specifically that the average closing price of its common stock had fallen below $1 over a consecutive 30-day trading period.
- The company on Tuesday said that at the end of February its closing share price was above $1 and it maintained an average closing price of at least $1 over a consecutive 30-day trading period.
Dive Insight:
Aside from falling out of compliance with the New York Stock Exchange, Bark has faced other financial challenges in recent months.
The company, known for its BarkBox and Super Chewer subscription boxes, in February reported third-quarter revenue fell nearly 7% year over year to $125.1 million. DTC revenue, which represents about 89% of total revenues, fell 7.6% to $110.9 million. Wholesale revenue, about 11% of total revenue, was down 0.6% to $14.2 million. Net loss during the period narrowed to $10.1 million from $21.3 million in the year-ago period.
In its revenue report for Q3, CEO and co-founder Matt Meeker offered some optimism for the brand as it seeks to grow its product and distribution universe. "Our results last quarter highlight the significant strides we've made as a public company,” Meeker said in a statement. “We delivered our strongest customer acquisition quarter in two years, surpassed the high-end of our revenue guidance range, and improved our gross margin by over 200 basis points year-over-year.”
And while wholesale still represents a small fraction of its overall revenue, the company sees potential for it to grow to over 30% of total revenue over the next four to five years as the company makes efforts to deepen its ties in the channel.
Bark on Friday announced its new cereal-inspired treats has launched at Target. The mass merchant is carrying four SKUs at 1,300 of its stores and eight SKUs on its website.
The new treats, which have packaging reminiscent of ’80s and ’90s cereal boxes, consist of a variety of meat and allergy-friendly options and are free of artificial preservatives, corn and soy.
“We’re thrilled to dive deeper into consumables with The Snack Pack launch, which will build on our growing consumables footprint in both retail and direct-to-consumer channels,” Meeker said in a statement.
