퍼스트딥스(DIBS) 2026년 3분기 실적 발표: GMV 성장, 수익성 및 CEO 교체

핵심 요약

• 퍼스트딥스(NASDAQ: DIBS)는 2026년 3분기 총거래액(GMV)이 전년 동기 대비 4% 증가한 9,260만 달러를 기록했으며, 매출은 5% 늘어난 2,310만 달러를 기록했다고 발표했다.
• 주문 건수는 전년 동기 대비 1% 증가해 2024년 4분기 이후 처음으로 증가세를 기록했다. 전환율은 12개 분기 연속 개선되었으며, 활성 구매자 수는 전 분기 대비 1% 증가했다.
• 조정 EBITDA는 100만 달러를 기록했으며, 마진은 전년 동기 대비 560bp 확대된 4.5%를 나타냈다. 이로써 퍼스트딥스는 4개 분기 연속 조정 EBITDA 흑자를 달성했다.
• 경영진은 마켓플레이스 실적 개선 요인으로 탐색, 신뢰, 배송, 서비스 전반에 걸친 제품 개선을 꼽았다. 스폰서 등록 매출은 35% 이상 성장했다.
• 2026년 4분기 가이던스로 경영진은 총거래액(GMV) 8,900만~9,500만 달러, 매출 2,220만~2,340만 달러, 조정 EBITDA 마진 1%~4%를 제시했다.
• 브래드퍼드 셸해머가 2027년 1월 1일부로 데이비드 로젠블랫의 뒤를 이어 최고경영자(CEO)로 취임한다. 로젠블랫은 이사회 집행의장을 맡아 전략 및 자본 배분에 계속 관여할 예정이다.

주요 재무 데이터

이사회는 500만 달러 규모의 자사주 매입 프로그램을 추가 승인했다. 퍼스트딥스는 2023년 이후 자사주 매입을 통해 5,500만 달러 이상을 주주에게 환원했다.

사업 및 운영 실적

트래픽 감소세는 2분기 대비 완화되었으며, 세션 수는 전 분기 대비 증가했다. 트래픽의 약 75%는 자연 유입(오가닉)을 통해 발생했다. 일반 소비자 및 트레이드(Trade) 부문 총거래액(GMV)은 비슷한 속도로 성장한 가운데, 빈티지 및 앤티크 가구가 카테고리별 성장을 주도했다.

탐색(Discovery)은 핵심 투자 영역으로 유지되었다. 3분기 홈페이지 추천 클릭률(CTR)은 40% 이상 증가했으며, 홈페이지를 통한 찜하기(favoriting)는 전년 대비 3.5배 이상 늘어났다. 브라우징 필터 개편으로 세션당 상품 클릭 수가 5% 이상 증가했다. 아울러 회사는 시맨틱 하이브리드 검색 및 가격 질의 이해 기능을 테스트하고 있다.

경영진은 AI 지원 개발을 통해 생성된 신규 코드 비중이 전 분기의 70% 이상에서 85% 이상으로 확대되었다고 밝혔다. 또한 회사는 자사 제품 카탈로그 피드를 ChatGPT에 제출했다.

신뢰도 강화 조치에는 제품 페이지와 구매자-판매자 간 메시지에 판매자 이름, 위치, 스토리를 다시 표시하는 작업이 포함되었다. 앱 내 테스트에서는 판매자 브랜딩 적용 시 결제 완료율이 8% 증가했다.

배송 부문에서 퍼스트딥스는 'Ship-to-Earn'의 1단계를 시작했다. 현재 판매자 직접 배송 물량의 약 35%는 배송 추적이나 배송 상태 확인이 불가능한 상태다. 경영진은 2027년 초 배송 추적이나 배송 증명을 대금 정산 요건으로 의무화할 계획이다.

AI 기반 고객 서비스 챗봇은 채팅 문의의 약 25%를 자체적으로 처리해 지난 7월의 약 15%에서 비중이 상승했다. 판매자의 상품 등록 절차 개선으로 업로드 시간은 거의 20% 단축되었다.

스폰서 등록 매출은 35% 이상 성장했다. 또한 회사는 10월 대표적인 주요 주얼리 및 시계 브랜드 일부와 핸드백 전 품목의 수수료를 인하했다. 이들 카테고리는 총거래액(GMV)의 약 7%를 차지한다. 경영진은 수수료 인하와 카테고리별 마케팅, 제품 개선을 통해 장기적으로 추가 공급을 유치할 수 있을 것으로 기대하고 있다.

경영진 가이던스

경영진은 4분기 주문 건수 증가율이 3분기 대비 가속화될 것으로 예상하지만, 평균 주문 금액(AOV)은 소폭 감소할 것으로 전제했다. 4분기 들어 현재까지 평균 주문 금액은 한 자릿수 초반대의 감소세를 보였다.

총거래액(GMV) 성장률과 매출 성장률 간의 예상 격차는 주로 카테고리 가속화 전략에 따른 수수료율 인하를 반영한 결과다. 아울러 4분기 조정 EBITDA 가이던스에는 목표 범위인 72%~74%의 하단에 근접한 매출총이익률과 마케팅 지출의 계절적 증가가 반영됐다.

2026년 연간 기준으로 경영진은 총거래액(GMV) 및 매출 성장, 약 24%~25%의 매출 테이크레이트, 72%~74%의 매출총이익률 및 조정 EBITDA 흑자 기조를 지속적으로 예상하고 있다. 이러한 전망 틀은 거시경제 여건, 특히 주택 시장과 소비자 임의소비 지출이 안정적인 상태를 유지한다는 점을 전제로 한다.

리스크 및 주요 점검 사항

경영진은 추적된 신용카드 데이터를 바탕으로 3분기 고급 가구 지출이 한 자릿수 중반대의 감소세를 보인 것으로 추정했다. 주택 시장과 임의소비 지출 동향은 연간 전망을 뒷받침하는 핵심 가정으로 남아 있다.

2025년 말 의도적으로 영업 및 마케팅 지출을 줄인 여파로 활성 구매자 수는 전년 동기 대비 8% 감소했다. 총 등록 상품 수는 증가했음에도 개별 판매자 수는 3% 줄어든 약 5,600명을 기록했다.

소수의 고액 거래가 해당 지표에 실질적인 영향을 미칠 수 있으므로 평균 주문 금액은 변동성이 나타날 수 있다. 또한 카테고리 수수료 인하는 그로 인한 공급 및 총거래액(GMV) 증대 효과가 나타나기 전까지 단기적으로 테이크레이트와 매출 성장에 부담으로 작용할 것으로 예상된다.

애널리스트 질의응답(Q&A) 주요 내용

경영진은 홈 및 예술품 부문을 포함해 카테고리별 수수료 변경에 대한 추가 기회를 검토 중이라고 밝혔다. 다만 단기적으로 이 전략이 두 자릿수 GMV 비중으로 빠르게 확대될 것으로 보지는 않는다고 설명했다. 향후 결정은 초기 카테고리의 성과 데이터에 따라 좌우될 예정이다.

2027년에 대해 셸해머 차기 CEO는 퍼스트딥스가 탐색, 신뢰, 배송, 서비스 부문에 계속 집중할 것으로 전망했다. 개인화 기능은 홈페이지에서 이메일, 푸시 알림, 제품 페이지, 검색 결과로 확장될 수 있다.

경영진은 주문 건수 성장을 마켓플레이스 건전성을 나타내는 가장 중요한 지표로 꼽았다. 경영진은 4분기 주문 성장이 재차 개선될 것으로 예상하는 한편, 평균 주문 금액(AOV)은 직접적인 관리가 어렵고 소수의 고액 구매에 영향을 받을 수 있음을 강조했다.

'테이스트메이커(Tastemakers)' 프로그램 역시 자연 유입 소셜 미디어 중심에서 유료 마케팅 및 플랫폼 내 큐레이션 쇼핑 경험으로 확장되고 있다. 경영진은 해당 콘텐츠가 마케팅 효율성을 높이고 기존 등록 상품 기반 마케팅 접근법을 넘어서는 잠재 고객층에 도달하고 있다고 전했다.

실적 발표 콘퍼런스콜 전문

전체 실적 발표 컨퍼런스 콜 녹취록

경영진 발표

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the 1stDibs Quarter 3 Earnings Call 2026. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Kevin LaBuz, Head of Investor Relationships and Corporate Development. Please go ahead.

Kevin LaBuz

Good morning, and welcome to 1stDibs earnings call for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. I'm Kevin LaBuz, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Joining me today are Chief Executive Officer, David Rosenblatt; Chief Financial Officer, Tom Etergino; and Chief Product Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, Bradford Shellhammer, who will become Chief Executive Officer effective January 1, 2027. In addition to our quarterly results, we have some exciting news to review regarding our leadership transition. 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?

David Rosenblatt

Thanks, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. I would like to begin with some news. Effective January 1, 2027, Bradford Shellhammer will succeed me as CEO, and I will become Executive Chair. I have had the honor of leading 1stDibs since 2011. I'm proud of what our team has accomplished in my tenure. We changed our business model from a listings website to a transactional marketplace, built the leading technology platform in the industry from scratch, navigated the pandemic e-commerce boom and the correction that followed and took the company public. More recently, we reengineered our cost structure, reached adjusted EBITDA profitability and returned GMV to growth.

That progress continued in the third quarter. Orders grew again on a year-over-year basis for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2024. Conversion grew for the 12th consecutive quarter and active buyers grew sequentially. GMV grew 4%, our second consecutive quarter of GMV growth, against continued mid-single-digit declines for the high-end furniture market. Lastly, we delivered our fourth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA with a margin of 4.5% that exceeded the high end of our guidance. The work of the last several years built a strong foundation, and that is exactly why it is time for the next chapter.

Bradford is ready to lead and has a rare combination of attributes that make him the ideal leader of 1stDibs. Professionally, he has spent his career building and scaling online marketplaces, and he knows what makes them work. Personally, he is a collector with a deep understanding of our market and a strong connection to our sellers. Since joining us in August 2025, he has been instrumental in designing and implementing our product road map, which is now driving order growth. Over this time, Bradford's role has expanded to leading most of our day-to-day operations. And as a result, there will be no disruption to the operations of the business.

Bradford has earned my full support, along with the support of our leadership team and our Board. As Executive Chair, I will work with Bradford on strategy and capital allocation and anywhere else I can be helpful.

Thank you to everyone at 1stDibs and to our buyers, sellers and shareholders. Now let me turn it over to Bradford to review our third quarter results.

Bradford Shellhammer

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. I am deeply honored by the opportunity to serve as the next CEO of 1stDibs. Joining the team in August 2025 represented an exciting homecoming for me, bringing together the core chapters of my career. My trajectory in e-commerce began 17 years ago as a co-founder of a design marketplace.

Following that, I stepped into senior leadership positions at eBay and Etsy, where I honed the mechanics of building and expanding global platforms for enthusiast buyers. Leading 1stDibs allows me to combine a lifelong passion for design, luxury, furniture, vintage and collecting, with my background scaling the world's leading digital marketplaces.

Over 2 decades, I have repeatedly observed the following simple truth. Enthusiast buyers demand trust through vetted authenticity, frictionless service and personalized discovery. Concurrently, our dealer community relies on a partner to expand their reach against e-commerce giants and manufacturers. As AI reshapes e-commerce, we believe the intrinsic human desire for exceptional design only intensifies. 1stDibs remains uniquely positioned to capture this expanding global opportunity as the market evolves.

I am grateful to our Board for their confidence and to David for his leadership and mentorship over the years. Building the company through its business model transformation and IPO is no small achievement, and I have learned a great deal from him. David and I will continue to work closely together through the transition. And as Executive Chair, he will serve as a sounding board for me and our executive team.

I will now walk through our third quarter progress and the road map ahead. Our results show that the road map is doing what we designed it to do: deliver a better experience for buyers and sellers. GMV grew 4% to $92.6 million, above the midpoint of our guidance against our toughest comps of 2026. Revenue rose 5% to $23.1 million, above the high end of guidance, and adjusted EBITDA margin reached 4.5%, up 560 basis points from a year ago, also above the high end of guidance. Our results compare favorably to those of our end market.

Based on the credit card data we track, high-end furniture spending declined mid-single digits in the third quarter, while our GMV grew 4%. We believe that outperformance reflects market share gains driven by the product improvements we are making. That work starts with the problems buyers and sellers tell us matter most: finding the right item, trusting that every purchase is fair, authentic and backed by us, ensuring seamless and cost-effective shipping and delivering the service expected at our price point. While we are pleased with our progress, we are still very early in the opportunity. We have a great deal of room to improve in each of these areas, and we're excited about what we will build next.

With that context, let me walk you through the drivers of the quarter's performance. Order volume tells the clearest story. After declines of 12% in the first quarter and 4% in the second, orders grew 1% in the third, our first year-over-year growth since the fourth quarter of 2024. The drivers behind that result are encouraging. Traffic declines moderated relative to the second quarter and in absolute terms, traffic grew sequentially. Conversion grew for the 12th consecutive quarter, which is how we are turning a smaller base of traffic into more orders. In addition, average order value and median order value both increased, so buyers are spending more on each transaction as well. All 3 trends reflect the road map taking hold.

The road map is organized around 4 pillars: discovery, trust, shipping and service. Each one solves a problem for buyers and sellers that exist regardless of macro conditions. The first half of 2026 was about building the technical and operational foundation. In the second half, we are integrating those capabilities into more of the buyer and seller experience. AI is helping us move faster here. AI-assisted development now accounts for over 85% of our new code, up from over 70% last quarter, which lets our teams get improvements to buyers and sellers sooner.

Discovery is the first step in every purchase. Buyers cannot purchase what they cannot find, so improving discovery is a direct driver of growth. With over 1.9 million one-of-a-kind items, that work is harder for us than most marketplaces. Personalization is a key lever for unlocking discovery, and we are early in building it. Our long-term goal is one-to-one personalization at every buyer touch point. Historically, our recommendations relied largely on manual curation and older technology that surfaced items similar to what a buyer had already viewed. Today, we are using machine learning to build a deeper understanding of each buyer, our catalog and how the 2 connect.

Our homepage is becoming a destination for our users. During the quarter, we launched a fully redesigned, personalized homepage for logged-in users. Homepage revisits grew nearly 5% in the third quarter, and engagement is rising alongside visits. In addition, homepage recommendation click-through rate has grown steadily all year, up more than 40% in the third quarter. Our personalization models learn from those explicit buyer signals. In the third quarter, favorite rates, an important signal of intent, reached a record high. Additionally, favoriting from the homepage increased more than 3.5x compared with last year. That suggests personalized content resonates with buyers and is drawing them into more active shopping. Looking forward, we look to introduce personalization to more product and marketing experiences.

Search is where many high-intent journeys begin, and buyers who search convert at nearly 4x the rate of those who do not. Our search still relies heavily on exact keyword matching, which asks buyers to know industry terms. A buyer who admires a Scarpa Africa chair should be able to find similar pieces without knowing that designer's name or the chair's name. Throughout the quarter, we continued to build towards semantic and natural language search, which lets buyers describe what they want in their own words.

We are currently testing 2 capabilities: query understanding for price and semantic hybrid search, which combines keyword matching with AI that understands the meaning behind a query, both built on work we started earlier this year, including AI-generated catalog metadata. During the quarter, we also redesigned how buyers filter and browse. This resulted in an increase in item clicks per session over 5%, meaning buyers are engaging with more of the catalog on each visit. We are also putting our inventory where buyers explore design, having submitted our product catalog feed to ChatGPT.

Lastly, our Tastemakers ambassador program continued to scale with more designers and creators taking partner campaigns. Instagram engagement remains strong, and time viewed on our videos increased 30% sequentially following a strong second quarter. Additionally, we have begun using this content in performance marketing, increasing reach and creating efficiency gains via diversified content.

Next is trust. Last quarter, we expanded our pricing work into a broader trust initiative that covers a full range of signals buyers rely on when they decide to transact on 1stDibs. Trust means that buyers can be confident that the price is fair, the item is authentic and that 1stDibs stands behind every purchase. Our goal is to make trust a product priority and to build the systems that protect buyers and sellers as the marketplace grows. This quarter, we put that focus into practice by restoring seller branding across product pages and buyer-seller messaging. Buyers can once again see a seller's name, location and story, which helps them understand who they are buying from.

Early testing showed that seller branding increased checkout activity. For example, in our app, adding seller branding lifted checkout completion by 8%. The trust that drives the purchase has to carry through to delivery, and that is where our shipping work comes in. When a buyer purchases a $5,000 chair, they want to know exactly where it is and when it will arrive. Today, that experience is inconsistent. Our shipping strategy aims to address this by delivering better pricing, better tracking and better tools to our sellers compared to our experience today.

In the third quarter, we launched the initial phase of our Ship-to-Earn program. Today, approximately 35% of seller-fulfilled shipments lack shipping or delivery tracking statuses. This visibility gap frustrates buyers and makes it difficult for us to promise on-time delivery. Ship-to-Earn solves this. Sellers either use carriers that provide tracking or they upload proof of delivery manually. In early 2027, we plan to enforce this requirement for payout, which will reduce this friction and improve buyer confidence.

Service is the final pillar and is where we turn an order into a lasting relationship. We launched an AI-powered customer service chatbot in the second quarter, and third quarter results have been encouraging. The chatbot now handles nearly 25% of chat support inquiries independently, up from roughly 15% in July. Additionally, we have upgraded our offshore partner to a new vendor capable of handling more complex work, which allows us to redeploy our in-house support team to focus on what matters most, delivering exceptional service to our top buyers.

We are beginning to redeploy our in-house team toward high-value buyers. We recently expanded dedicated support for interior designers with post-sale service leads now working directly with our presale teams to create a seamless experience for our leading design firms. Service is a meaningful part of the value we offer these customers, and this is where our team's expertise has the greatest impact.

On the seller side, we started by removing friction from the listing process. We modernized the seller listing experience by making it easier to upload photos and videos, streamlining the upload form and adding smarter defaults, which contributed to an almost 20% reduction in upload time. We also shipped 2 of our most highly requested features. Sellers can now block lowball offers and set time away, giving them more control over their negotiation flow and availability. In addition, we launched a pilot of our first seller inventory management API, allowing select sellers to update inventory availability status directly, marking items sold, unlisting them or changing hold status without manual data entry. Together, these improvements address friction in common seller workflows, listing, managing offers and managing inventory.

Our product investments are also creating new monetization opportunities. Sponsored listings gives us a valuable way to connect our high-intent audience with sellers. In the second quarter, we migrated to a new partner that we believed would deliver better relevance and performance. In the third quarter, sponsored listings revenue grew over 35%. We are still optimizing the partnership, but the trajectory is positive. As we extend monetization to more surfaces and improve relevance, we see meaningful room to grow revenue while keeping the buyer experience strong.

In the third quarter, we formally launched a category acceleration strategy. We think about categories in this context as subsets of our broader verticals. For example, handbags are a subset of our broader fashion vertical. Historically, we have welcomed any inventory that met our high standards. We now recognize that not all inventory is the same. So we have identified a handful of areas where we have a clear right to win, access to supply and see a strong opportunity for growth. In these categories, our playbook pairs lower commissions with business development, category marketing, structured data and merchandising, supported by product experiences designed around each category. Together, these efforts aim to grow listings and ultimately, GMV.

Reevaluating commissions on a category-by-category basis is the first step. Previously, we applied one commission structure across the marketplace. However, each category carries its own competitive dynamic and seller margin structure. The economics of a branded luxury watch seller, for example, differ significantly from those of an antique furniture dealer. In the second quarter, we began testing lower commissions with a select group of iconic jewelry brands, and the test showed that lower commissions spurred incremental supply. Based on those results, in October, we reduced commissions for select iconic jewelry and watch brands and all handbags, which together represent approximately 7% of our GMV. We will complement this new commission structure with targeted marketing and product enhancements.

Over time, we see a substantial opportunity in these verticals. The global luxury secondhand market is worth tens of billions of dollars, and we believe a more competitive commission structure paired with category-specific product and marketing experiences will attract more supply, which will attract more buyers. Overall, the data on our leading indicators of GMV growth show that we are moving in the right direction. Buyer engagement, as measured by favoriting and other buyer experience metrics, is up substantially. Our growth rate of listings, especially in the acceleration categories, accelerated, and seller satisfaction improved.

Those green shoots impacted orders, which returned to growth for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2024. Our category acceleration strategy is a major opportunity. As these efforts compound, we expect that GMV growth will follow.

I'd like to turn it over to Tom, who will summarize our financial performance and Q4 guidance.

Thomas Etergino

Thanks, Bradford. Good morning, everyone. Since joining 1stDibs, I've had the privilege of working closely with David, and I want to thank him for his leadership in building 1stDibs into the company it is today and for setting us up for what comes next. And I can speak on behalf of the full executive team when I say that we are excited for this next chapter with Bradford as CEO.

With that, let me turn to our results. The third quarter was a solid quarter for 1stDibs. GMV grew 4% to $92.6 million, above the midpoint of our guidance range. Revenue grew 5% to $23.1 million, above the high end of our range. And adjusted EBITDA margin was 4.5%, also above the high end. This marks our fourth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, reflecting our reengineered cost structure and continued cost discipline.

Let me walk you through the numbers. Orders returned to growth, the first year-over-year increase since the fourth quarter of 2024. Orders grew 1%, and all 3 dimensions of our funnel moved in the right direction. Traffic declines once again moderated, and in absolute terms, sessions grew sequentially. Approximately 75% of traffic came from organic sources, reflecting the enduring strength of the 1stDibs brand. Average order value reached approximately $2,700, up 2%. Median order value, which excludes the impact of outlier transactions, grew 7% to approximately $1,400. That growth reflects the trust buyers continue to place in our platform. Conversion grew for the 12th consecutive quarter, which is how we are turning a smaller base of traffic into more orders.

We believe much of that progress reflects our road map, including a more personalized homepage, a redesigned filter experience that is driving higher engagement and faster checkout in our app. Each change removes friction at the point where a buyer decides whether to purchase. Consumer and trade GMV both grew at similar rates. Growth in both channels reinforces that our marketplace meets the needs of buyers across the market even in a challenging environment. On a vertical basis, GMV growth was driven by acceleration in vintage and antique furniture. We ended the quarter with more than 58,200 active buyers, down 8% year-over-year, but up 1% sequentially. Our active buyer count continues to reflect the deliberate reduction in sales and marketing spend enacted in late 2025.

Turning to supply. Unique sellers were approximately 5,600, down 3% and modestly lower than last quarter. Listings grew 3% to over 1.9 million, accelerating from 1% growth last quarter. The catalog continues to expand even as the seller count declines, which means our sellers are listing more inventory on average.

Turning to the income statement. Net revenue reached $23.1 million, up 5%, exceeding the high end of our guidance range. Transaction revenue, which is tied directly to GMV, represented 74% of total revenue. Take rate rose approximately 30 basis points year-over-year, reflecting fewer high-value orders, which carry a lower blended commission rate as well as growth in sponsored listings. Gross profit was $16.9 million, up 3%. Gross margin was 73.2%, within our target range of 72% to 74% and down approximately 110 basis points. The year ago period included a nonrecurring shipping insurance recovery, which contributed about 1 percentage point to that quarter's margin. Excluding that item, gross margin was essentially flat.

Total operating expenses were $19.2 million, down 9%, even as we increased investment in product and engineering. We are spending less overall, but more on work that drives our road map. Sales and marketing expenses were $5.3 million, down 33%. This reflects the strategic realignment implemented in late 2025, which reset our marketing organization and rationalized performance marketing spend as well as lower headcount-related expenses following our recent restructurings. Sales and marketing as a percentage of revenue was 23%, down from 36% a year ago.

Technology development expenses were $6.4 million, up 8%. This increase reflects continued investment in product and engineering in support of our 2026 road map and consistent with our September 2025 strategic realignment. Technology development as a percentage of revenue was 28%, up from 27% a year ago. General and administrative expenses were $6.5 million, up 2%, reflecting the impact of higher headcount-related costs due to our annual merit cycle in March. General and administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue was approximately 28%, down 1% from a year ago. Lastly, provision for transaction losses were approximately $950,000 or 4% of revenue, in line with our historic range of 2% to 4%.

Adjusted EBITDA was $1 million, a margin of 4.5%, above the high end of our guidance range. This is our fourth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, and it reflects continued expense discipline alongside revenue growth. In the third quarter of 2025, adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $240,000 or negative 1.1%. So margins improved by approximately 560 basis points. The cost structure we reset starting in 2022 is allowing revenue growth to flow through to the bottom line. We are expanding margins while continuing to invest in product and engineering.

Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $69 million, up $1.3 million sequentially, driven by positive operating results. Since 2023, we've returned more than $55 million to shareholders through share repurchases. Our Board has now authorized an additional $5 million share repurchase program, which reflects confidence in our ability to generate cash, supported by 4 consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA and a strong balance sheet. We will continue to balance returns to shareholders with investment in our road map.

Turning to the outlook. Our guidance reflects quarter-to-date results and our forecast for the remainder of the period. We forecast fourth quarter GMV between $89 million and $95 million or down 1% to up 5%. Net revenue of $22.2 million to $23.4 million or down 3% to up 2% and adjusted EBITDA margin between positive 1% and positive 4%. Our GMV guidance reflects 3 factors: first, product-driven growth. Our road map continues to improve the buyer experience across discovery, trust, shipping and service, and we expect that progress to keep supporting our funnel.

Second, faster order growth than in the third quarter. Order growth is the metric we manage most directly. Third, a modest decline in average order value. AOV grew 2% in the third quarter, but quarter-to-date AOV is down low single digits. That moves AOV from a tailwind to a headwind on GMV growth, and our guidance assumes it persists throughout the rest of the quarter. We do not manage to AOV directly, and it can be impacted by a small number of high-value orders.

Turning to revenue guidance. The gap between our GMV and revenue growth outlook is primarily driven by lower take rates related to our category acceleration strategy where we have reduced commissions to attract more supply. Those commissions are the first step in our broader playbook that includes business development, marketing, structured data and product experiences to accelerate listings and GMV in these categories. This is partially offset by our second sponsored event, which takes place in December. Our adjusted EBITDA margin guidance reflects 3 factors: the aforementioned revenue headwind reducing commissions as part of our category acceleration strategy, gross margins toward the lower end of our 72% to 74% range and a sequential seasonal increase in marketing.

Turning to our 2026 financial framework. We continue to expect full year GMV and revenue growth, revenue take rates of approximately 24% to 25%, gross margins of 72% to 74% and positive adjusted EBITDA. Underpinning this plan is the assumption that macroeconomic conditions, particularly those impacting the housing market and consumer discretionary spending, remain stable.

The third quarter results reflect the discipline we have maintained across the business. Total operating expenses declined 9%, and we delivered on our fourth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA. At the same time, we increased our investment in product and engineering, and our road map is making progress for buyers and sellers, including a return to order growth. We generated positive free cash flow of $2.9 million in the quarter, and our Board has authorized an additional $5 million share repurchase authorization. We will maintain our discipline around our cost structure while we execute on the road map.

We appreciate your continued support and look forward to updating you on our progress in the coming quarters. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to the operator to take your questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Bobby Brooks with Northland Capital Markets.

질의응답

Robert Brooks

I want to say congrats, David, on the successful tenure as CEO, and congrats to Bradford on the move up to CEO. Exciting times. I know that you guys -- Bradford, you gave a lot of color on just the kind of beginnings of commission tweaks, specifically in like jewelry. And it sounds like that's went from pilot stage to expanding it across those categories broadly. But I was curious to hear, obviously, I think you sized it at like 7% of GMV. What about the other 93% of GMV? Is that a focus of starting to kind of revamp commissions across different categories? Just how should we be thinking about that, if that's on the tape going forward?

Bradford Shellhammer

Bobby, thanks for the kind words for both David and I, and I'm super excited to continue our partnership and relationship with you. On this question, we are currently doing a discovery sprint of research to understand what other opportunities we have to potentially adapt a category acceleration strategy in other places. We want to give the categories that we've gone into first the space that they need to get it right. There is a decent amount of sequencing work that's required to stand this up. I've been part of teams who have done this at scale before. It starts with really activating the inventory base and the seller community, then it leads into a lot of product and catalog opportunities to enrich those listings and make them more easily found. And then it leads into kind of the marketing piece and really the GMV growth that we anticipate on top of it.

So right now, I'd say we do have appetite to expand, but we are not thinking this is something that races to double-digit GMV coverage like in the near term, but we will, based on how this playbook in these categories start to perform and the research that we're currently doing, make informed decisions and come back, and make those calls quarter-by-quarter as it makes sense.

Robert Brooks

Okay. That does make sense. Any insight of like kind of what categories you might be researching for next? Just would be kind of curious there, still keeping the cards close to the chest.

Bradford Shellhammer

We've actually done a decent amount of research with our seller base to understand untapped inventory that they currently are sitting on that the commissions just don't work for us. The opportunities are across all of our categories, frankly. Some are bigger than others. But we are looking really at like the L3 level categories, like things like bedroom furniture, for example, and it might be like at that granular level of a focus. But obviously, the home categories and the art categories are ones we're really looking at right now. But again, no decisions have been made. We really want to inform this with data and research.

Robert Brooks

Fair enough. And then turning to 2027, this product road map has really driven great results so far year-to-date in '26. As we look in the year ahead, is there an evolution in those focuses or maybe an exciting evolution on certain pieces or release of something? Or is it just kind of more of the same?

Bradford Shellhammer

I would say it's more of the same, but I think the surfaces expand, the experiences potentially evolve and change. But I do think like at least in the near term, the immediate future, we are committed to the 4 pillars, of discovery, trust, shipping and service. We're piloting some awesome things in some of those places. We are shipping really great products.

I'll give you a great example, like personalization is off to the races. We're seeing really awesome engagement in upper funnel metrics. We're seeing explicit signals given to us by our audience at an all-time high. We've essentially taken that strategy and only put it in one place, our homepage. There are a myriad of places we can paint our experience, from like transactional and marketing e-mails to push notifications to PDP and search results. So these pillars are meant to be somewhat long-lasting, and there's a lot to do under them.

So I think the features we've talked about, the strategies we've talked about may evolve, but those pillars, I think, are probably here to stay for quite a bit of time. I think the one like new exciting opportunity is this accelerated category strategy, which is one that complements, I think, all 4 of those pillars. But that's kind of like the new thing that we're kind of making space for in our current thinking, but I think we're going to be committed to these for a little bit of time.

Robert Brooks

That's great to hear. And then maybe just last one to circle back on the influencer campaigning partnerships. I think you gave some comments in the opening remarks, but is that -- so that seems like something you're going to lean into a little bit more. Just I kind of missed some of it. So I just wanted to hear a little bit more there and catch something if I missed it.

Bradford Shellhammer

Yes. So this is one of my favorite things that we're doing, and it's super exciting how much it has scaled. We are at a really high number of people in this program. As a reminder, this program is low cost for us and high reward. We get tremendous, awesome, diverse video content that is from people who actually use our product, our sellers and our best buyers, interior designers. And what they do is they create video content that essentially shows off the beauty of our supply and unlocks like how to like find the awesome stuff and treasure in our catalog.

This is off to the races. Like our Instagram engagement rate has increased 30% quarter-over-quarter. We're now taking this content -- because we can use this content anywhere. We have the rights to do that. We're taking this content -- that's originally designed for organic social. We're now putting it into our paid marketing. We are seeing awesome efficiency gains from that. We're reaching new audiences that we weren't doing with more of a listings-based performance marketing strategy of the -- time before. And we're now actually starting to -- this holiday season, starting to bring this on to the platform in product. So we have -- these Tastemakers have curated items for sale.

We're building -- we are about to launch, we might have already launched it, but we're about to launch it if we haven't, a landing experience where they're going to drive traffic from the organic socials to it. And this is our first foray into leveraging this content that we've been using in organic social and paid marketing in our own ecosystem, too, and we actually think it's going to be highly converting, and we're really excited about it. So we're definitely still into this. Just this week, one of the videos made in this program was -- became the most engaged and highest engaged with video of the year. So we're definitely bullish on it still.

Robert Brooks

That's exciting developments. Appreciate the color. And again, congrats on the move for David as well as you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ralph Schackart with William Blair.

Ralph Schackart

Also, David, I just want to say congrats on your next chapter, and Bradford, congrats on your new role. You previously anticipated a return to GMV growth by Q4, and it looks like we're seeing that play out. And the macro has obviously been really tough. And just assuming that remains muted. Maybe just at a high level, can you provide a framework for the durability of the growth that you expect beyond the fourth quarter? Maybe if you could sort of double-click on the largest contributors to growth in terms of traffic, conversion, AOV mix or any other factors there? I'm sure it's a combination of them all, but just would love to sort of understand how this growth continues.

Bradford Shellhammer

Thank you for the kind words again. And on behalf of David, thank you as well. He said thank you when he was on mute. So he did acknowledge it. The thing that we're excited about when thinking about GMV growth is just the move and our trajectory around orders. We returned to order growth in Q3, and we have improved those order growth rates over the last 2 quarters, and Q4 guidance assumes that we will improve them again for a third quarter. So we are really excited about that because that is what the team is optimizing for. This is what a lot of our work is geared to -- focus on is to bring more people into our experience and convert them and bring more people back to buy more and buy again. And we believe this is being driven by this product road map that we've talked about, the 4 pillars.

And we believe that order growth really is the most important barometer of our health as a marketplace. And over the long run, we are convinced that GMV will follow that. And so we're really excited about that. AOV can be noisy. It's affected by a small number of orders. So we don't manage to it directly. And our road map is designed to keep compounding across the 4 pillars. And again, I think where we are really excited about the opportunity for GMV growth in the future is really about this order growth that we're starting to see pop.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.