Warby Parker Reports Q2 2026 Results: Full Earnings Call Transcript

Warby Parker (NYSE: WRBY ) released second-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Thursday. Read the complete transcript below. APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit to learn more.

View the webcast at Summary Warby Parker Inc. reported Q2 2026 revenue of $236 million, a 10% year-over-year increase, with a focus on eye exams, insurance, and e-commerce. The company is preparing to launch its Intelligent Eyewear collection this fall, an initiative that has been years in the making, and expects it to drive significant customer interest and market growth. 8 million tariff refund, which was used to offset strategic investments.

Warby Parker opened 15 new stores in Q2, aiming to open 50 total in 2026, and expanded its product offerings, including a new Sport collection. The company reaffirmed its full-year 2026 revenue guidance of $959 to $976 million and adjusted EBITDA guidance of $117 to $119 million, excluding any revenue from the Intelligent Eyewear launch. 6% year-over-year. E-commerce performance was flat due to the sunsetting of the Home Try-On program, but underlying glasses and contacts sales grew in low double digits.

The company plans significant marketing investments in the second half of 2026, in partnership with its Intelligent Eyewear launch partners, to drive customer growth and brand visibility. Full Transcript OPERATOR Hello everyone and thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Warby Parker Inc. second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session.

If you would like to ask a question, please press star one. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Jacqueline Bradbury, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Jacqueline Bradbury, Head of Investor Relations Thank you, and good morning everyone. Here with me today are Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa, our co-founders and co-CEOs, alongside Adrian Mitchell, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, we have a couple of reminders. com.

During this call and in our presentation, we will be making comments of a forward-looking nature. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied as a result of various risks and uncertainties. For more information about some of these risks, please review the Company's SEC filings, including the section titled Risk Factors in the Company's latest Annual Report on Form 10-K. These forward-looking statements are based on information as of August 6, 2026, and, except as required by law, we assume no obligation to publicly update or revise our forward-looking statements.

Additionally, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. S. GAAP. S.

GAAP measures can be found in this morning's press release and our slide deck available on our IR website. And with that, I'll pass it over to Neil to kick us off. Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founder & Co-CEO Thank you, Jacqueline, and good morning. In Q2 we generated $236 million in revenue, representing approximately 10% year-over-year growth, while continuing to make progress against our core business initiatives, particularly in eye exams, insurance, and e-commerce.

We also accelerated investment and the pace of activity across the business as we prepare to launch our Intelligent Eyewear collection this fall. 8 million benefit from tariff refunds, which was partially used to offset strategic investments in the business. As we prepare to launch Intelligent Eyewear today, we'll walk through the drivers of our second quarter results, highlight the progress we're making against our strategic priorities, and share more about our upcoming Intelligent Eyewear launch. It's pretty incredible to think that after years of work, we're finally entering the home stretch.

In just a few weeks, we'll unveil all of the designs within our first Intelligent Eyewear collection, with customer deliveries on track for the holiday season. Sixteen years ago, Dave, Andy, Jeff, and I set out to build a brand people love, to reimagine the glasses shopping experience, and to design eyewear that enables people to feel like the best versions of themselves. That mission has taken us from one store to more than 350, helped us serve millions of customers, and enabled us to distribute more than 25 million pairs of glasses to people in need.

We've scaled by building differentiated capabilities across the business, from our own state-of-the-art optical labs and proprietary point-of-sale system to the first true-to-scale virtual try-on. Now we're bringing that same combination of design, technological innovation, and customer-centric execution to Intelligent Eyewear. Our Intelligent Eyewear will unlock new possibilities within the glasses millions of people wear every day, opening up new ways to explore, discover, remember, navigate, and connect—all while keeping your eyes on the world around you. Launching a new category like this is the result of years of ideation and hard work by our incredible team.

One thing we've learned throughout this journey is that when you bring together brilliant, committed people around a shared mission, they're capable of doing great things over and over again. Since our last call, we've been wearing these glasses every day, and I've been amazed by how they help me stay present in experiences instead of pulling me out of them. A few months ago, I was at a Knicks game with my son and one of my best friends from high school. As it became clear the Knicks were about to seal the victory on their path to their first championship in over 50 years, everyone jumped to their feet.

Instead of reaching for my phone, I was able to stay present and use my glasses to capture those precious moments of us celebrating. It's become one of my favorite videos, and every time I watch it, it brings me back to the immense joy we felt that night. Whether it's capturing an unforgettable moment like a Knicks win, learning a new recipe in the kitchen, navigating a new city more confidently, troubleshooting a complicated project at home, or documenting your child's first steps—which one of our team members was able to do—we've found ourselves feeling more present, more curious, and more connected to the world around us.

We believe we're only beginning to expand what's possible with glasses and the role they can play in our lives, and remain excited about the opportunity to shape the future of eyewear for years to come. Turning to the balance of the year. We remain focused on executing against our strategic priorities for the core business while preparing for the launch of Intelligent Eyewear. With the introduction now just weeks away, we're increasing investment in several areas that are critical to delivering a great customer experience from day one and scaling over time.

Over the past several months, we've identified and chosen to lean into incremental strategic growth opportunities supported by approximately $14 million of tariff refunds this year. We have greater flexibility to invest across the business as we prepare for launch, strengthening operational capabilities while driving brand and media investments that we believe will build awareness and excitement this year and position us to scale the business in 2027 and beyond. The second quarter tariff benefit offset those additional investments, with the remaining benefit expected to offset similar investments throughout the balance of the year.

We continue to take a disciplined and prudent approach to our outlook, which excludes any expected revenue benefit from AI glasses or any benefit from the increased awareness and marketing surrounding the launch. We are reaffirming our full-year revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance, which now includes the tariff refund benefit and the additional investments we're making ahead of launch. We remain confident in the strategic initiatives underway and our outlook for the second half, which Adrian will discuss in more detail.

With that, Dave and I will walk through the drivers of our Q2 performance, starting first with our plan to further invest in scaling our industry-leading omnichannel model and delivering exceptional customer experiences. We focused this in three primary ways this quarter. In Q2 we opened 15 net new stores, including our 350th store at Doral Marketplace outside Miami, as well as suburban markets like Tigard, Oregon, and key Tri-State suburbs of Westport, Connecticut, Scarsdale, and Port Chester, New York.

With 29 net new stores open through the first half of the year versus 22 at this point last year, we're already more than halfway toward our goal of opening 50 stores in 2026, putting us in a strong position as we prepare to launch Intelligent Eyewear. Our growing retail presence has always been a competitive advantage, and it's one that becomes even more important for demonstrating the power and utility of AI glasses. S. S.

population lives within 30 minutes of a Warby Parker store. Our stores will play a critical role in helping customers discover Intelligent Eyewear, experience it firsthand, get an updated prescription and personalized eye care from our network of over 500 doctors, and receive ongoing support from our advisors and opticians. Next, we drove growth within our existing fleet, particularly through eye care and higher-value products. One of our biggest priorities this year has been growing our eye exam business.

Today, exams represent 7% of our business, but based on industry penetration we believe they have the potential to become as high as 15% to 20% over time. We now offer eye exams in approximately 90% of our stores, positioning us to drive growth through greater awareness and utilization. Our recent surveys show that awareness remains quite low even among our existing customers. Today, roughly 50% of customers who have shopped with Warby Parker still don't know we offer eye exams.

Given that industry-wide approximately 75% of customers purchase glasses where they get their eye exam, we believe increasing awareness represents one of the clearest long-term growth opportunities. In Q2 we launched a dedicated eye exam marketing campaign, generating nearly 200 million impressions across linear TV, YouTube, Reddit, social media, and other channels. We're encouraged by the early response and intend to continue leaning in here for the balance of the year to drive more intentional, high-converting traffic into our stores. Eye exams grew over 30% year over year and reached approximately 7% of revenue, up from 6% a year ago.

4%, up 30 basis points from last year, reflecting the benefit of opening more stores with doctors. Behind the scenes, we also built and implemented our own homegrown electronic health record system. Our technology team leveraged AI to build it far faster than would have been possible just a few years ago. The result is a system that's purpose-built for our doctors, improves our patients' experiences, and gives us a stronger foundation as we grow our exam business.

We also expanded our product assortment with five new collections during the quarter, including the launch of Warby Parker Sport, our first foray into performance eyewear. Sport represents a new technical capability for us. The collection is handcrafted in Italy from lightweight, flexible nylon and features 6- and 8-base wrapped frames along with performance polarized lenses designed to reduce glare and enhance visual clarity. These are technologies and construction techniques we haven't offered before, allowing us to serve customers in entirely new ways.

From the beginning, we designed the collection with prescription wearers in mind. Given our strong prescription sun business, we saw an opportunity to bring high-quality performance eyewear to prescription customers at a more accessible price point. It's still early, but we're encouraged by what we're seeing and have already started working on our second collection. Customers continue to remark about how lightweight and comfortable they are, allowing them to take Warby Parker on a run around their local park or on the tennis court.

We're attracting a higher mix of new customers than our sun business, which caters to a returning customer, while also seeing strong adoption of progressive lenses. Overall, we're pleased to see strong conversion in our stores and higher average order values driven by offerings like exams, insurance, and new product innovations, including Sport. At the same time, traffic remains softer than we'd like. Increasing awareness and bringing more customers to Warby Parker remains one of our biggest opportunities, and we're excited about the role Intelligent Eyewear can play in introducing the brand to millions of new customers.

I'll now turn it over to Dave to walk through the remaining drivers and provide an update on our Intelligent Eyewear launch. Dave Gilboa, Co-Founder & Co-CEO Thanks, Neil. I'll speak to the dynamics we're seeing in E-commerce and the investments we're making to support a successful launch of Intelligent Eyewear and drive customer growth in the back half of this year. Starting with E-commerce, we're encouraged by the underlying performance in the channel as our recent investments continue to pay off.

While E-commerce revenue was flat year over year, this reflects the expected and transitory headwind from the sunsetting of our Home Try-On program. As a reminder, we completed the sunset of Home Try-On at the end of last year. Customers are now served faster and better through our stores and AI-powered virtual Try-On experiences, and the cost savings are flowing into higher-returning investments that support customer growth and margin expansion.

Excluding Home Try-On impact, E-commerce glasses and contacts sales order volume grew low double digits year over year, giving us confidence that our recent investments are resonating with customers and that the E-commerce channel is set up for higher growth. In the first half, we shifted marketing spend away from contacts acquisition and toward glasses and eye exams, driving strong online glasses performance. As a result, contacts across the whole business grew in the high single digits year over year, driven primarily by our retail channel, and penetration remains steady at approximately 11% of revenue.

We're also seeing a rebound in organic web traffic following the investments we began making late last year, supported by additional content and new personalization features that are driving word of mouth while also improving conversion and helping customers find the right products more easily. We are pleased with the underlying trends in the channel and expect the Home Try-On headwind to become less meaningful in the second half of the year and fully abate by 2027, where we see a path to higher channel growth overall. I'll now spend a few minutes talking about our plan to launch Intelligent Eyewear this fall.

In a few weeks, we'll unveil the full collection and share pricing, technical specifications, and the experiences we've built. Alongside our partners, we'll also begin welcoming analysts, media partners, and other guests for early access, giving them a firsthand look at the collection and everything it can do. We can't wait to share it with you. What's especially encouraging is the early interest we're seeing from customers.

When Neil and I visit our stores, usually the first question we hear is, when can I get the AI glasses? We hear it on nearly every visit. That excitement gives us confidence that people are ready for eyewear that combines the fit, style, and comfort they expect from Warby Parker with entirely new everyday capabilities and utility. Defining this new category starts with the product itself.

People won't wear intelligent eyewear unless they love how the glasses look and feel, and they won't make them part of their everyday routine unless they deliver real utility. That's why we've obsessed over every detail, balancing style, comfort, and fit with battery life and exceptional technical capability. At Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked last month, we shared that the glasses deliver approximately nine hours of battery life based on typical usage, a critical milestone for all-day wearability. By pairing timeless design with the power of Gemini, we are empowering people to get things done, answer questions, learn new things, and stay more present throughout their day.

For more than 15 years, our customers have trusted us to make buying eyewear easier and more approachable. That trust becomes even more important as eyewear becomes intelligent. Together with Samsung and Google, we're combining leading AI capabilities with a customer experience centered on privacy and trustworthiness for both the wearer and those around them. As a company that's entrusted with our customers' vision and eye health, we take this responsibility incredibly seriously.

And finally, we believe our omnichannel model will be a key competitive differentiator.