Company: WRBY
Filing Date: 2025-02-27
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001504776-25-000010
Chunk: 179

Company: Warby Parker Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-27
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 179
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 to spend more than we do for advertising. We may be at a substantial disadvantage to larger competitors with greater economies of scale. If our costs are greater compared to those of our competitors, the pricing of our products and services may not be as attractive, thus depressing sales or the profitability of our products and services. Our competitors may expand into markets in which we currently operate and we remain vulnerable to the marketing power and high level of customer recognition of these larger competitors and to the risk that these competitors or others could attract our customer base. Some of our competitors are vertically integrated and are also engaged in the manufacture and distribution of glasses and contact lenses as well as in managed care, and many of our competitors operate under a variety of brands and price points. These competitors can advantageously leverage this structure to better compete and access the market and certain vertically integrated organizations with significant market power could potentially utilize this power to make it more difficult for us to compete. We purchase some of our product components from suppliers who are affiliates of one or more competitors. In addition, if any of our competitors were to consolidate operations, such consolidation would exacerbate the aforementioned risks. We also expect that new competitors will continue to enter the optical industry. These new competitors may be willing to price their products and services lower than we do to gain market share or implement new technologies more quickly than us, including the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning, virtual and augmented reality, and other e-commerce marketing tools, which could harm our competitive position. 

We may not continue to be able to successfully compete against existing or future competitors. Our inability to respond effectively to competitive pressures, improved performance by our competitors, and changes in the retail markets could result in lost market share and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our profitability and cash flows may be negatively affected if we are not successful in managing our inventory balances and inventory shrinkage.

Efficient inventory management is a key component of our business success and profitability. To be successful, we must maintain sufficient inventory levels to meet our customers’ demands without allowing those levels to increase to such an extent that the costs to our or our third-party optical laboratories, retail stores and other points of distribution that hold the goods unduly impact our financial results. We must balance the need to maintain inventory levels that are sufficient to ensure competitive lead times against the risk of inventory obsolescence because of changing customer requirements, fluctuating commodity prices, changes to our products, product transfers, or the life cycle of our products. If we fail