Aterian, Inc.

PART I

Item 1. Business.

See the sections contained within this Annual Report entitled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Risk Factors” for further information.

About Aterian

Aterian, Inc. (the "Company") is a technology-enabled consumer products company that predominantly operates through online retail channels such as Amazon, Walmart, and Target and its own direct to consumer websites. The Company operates its owned brands, which were either incubated or purchased, selling products in multiple categories, including home and kitchen appliances, kitchenware, air quality appliances, health and beauty products and essential oils.

Our primary brands include Squatty Potty, HomeLabs, Mueller Living, PurSteam, Healing Solutions, and Photo Paper Direct ("PPD"). We generate revenue primarily through the online sales of our various consumer products with substantially all of our sales being made through the Amazon U.S. marketplace.

Headquartered in New Jersey, the Company also maintains offices in China, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom.

Business Segments

We operate as one operating segment. Our revenues are derived from the sale of consumer goods. See Note 18,Segment Information, in the accompanying notes to our consolidated financial statements for further detail.

Products

The Company sells a wide-range of products across multiple categories, including home and kitchen appliances, kitchenware, air quality appliances, health and beauty products, and essential oils. These products are sold under the Company’s owned brands, which were either incubated or acquired.

While we pursue growth from our existing product portfolio, new product launches and omni-channel expansion, we also intend to opportunistically pursue growth through strategic acquisitions of brands that we believe will integrate well with our business.

Intellectual Property and Technology

We rely primarily on a combination of trade secrets, trademarks, employee and third-party nondisclosure agreements and licensing arrangements (including open-source software) to protect our intellectual property. We generally do not pursue patent applications as a means of protecting our intellectual property. We have applied to register or have registered certain of our trademarks in the U.S. and other jurisdictions, and we will pursue additional trademark registrations to the extent we believe they would be beneficial and cost-effective.

We believe that the use of technology allows us to automate and ingest data to create efficiencies within our sales and marketing and our supply chain. This ability to leverage technology is important for our business considering that predominately all our net revenue is generated via e-commerce marketplaces. Historically, we developed the majority of our technology internally. However, in February 2024, we announced that we have shifted our technology platform away from a fully internally developed model to an integrated third-party, best-of-breed model.

Customers

Our customers are mainly individual online consumers who purchase our products primarily on Amazon US, and to a lesser extent on our owned and operated websites and other marketplaces, such as Walmart. In 2023 and 2024, approximately 88% and 92% of our revenue was through the Amazon sales platform, respectively.

Seasonality

Our individual product categories are typically affected by seasonal sales trends primarily resulting from the timing of the summer season for certain of our environmental appliance products and the fall and holiday season for our small kitchen appliances and accessories. With our current mix of environmental appliances, the sales of those products tend to be significantly higher in the summer season. Further, our essential oils, small kitchen appliances and accessories tend to have higher sales during the fourth quarter, which includes Thanksgiving and the December holiday season. As a result, our operational results, cash flows, cash and inventory positions may fluctuate materially in any quarterly period depending on, among other things, adverse weather conditions, shifts in the timing of certain holidays and changes in our product mix.

Sales and Marketing

Our sales and marketing strategy and approach is focused on online channels and e-commerce platforms. Currently our primary focus on advertising spend is online across Amazon and Google, as well as through marketing affiliates.

Third-Party Manufacturing & Logistics

During 2024, we purchased the substantial majority of our finished products from suppliers in China. We do not maintain long-term purchase contracts with suppliers and operate mainly on a purchase order basis. We negotiate purchases from our foreign suppliers in U.S. dollars. We purchased our inventory from approximately 39 suppliers, four of which represented more than 10% of purchases during the year ended December 31, 2024. While we believe the loss of any one supplier would not have a long-term material adverse effect on our business due to the availability of other suppliers, the loss of a supplier could, in the short term, materially and adversely impact our business.

The principal raw materials used by our third-party suppliers to manufacture our products are plastic, glass, steel, copper, aluminum and packaging materials. We believe adequate quantities of raw materials are available from various suppliers.

We use a combination of Amazon warehouses, other third-party warehouses and logistics partners to fulfill direct-to-consumer orders, through agreements or terms of services. In addition to fulfillment by Amazon warehouses, we use geographically distributed third-party warehouses in the U.S. to deliver orders within one to two days through ground shipment to most customers.

Competition

The consumer goods and e-commerce markets are highly competitive and dynamic. We compete primarily against numerous third-party brands and sellers on marketplaces for each of our products. Competition is based on price, product features and quality, strong ratings and reviews, effective marketing, visibility and location on the online shelf and supply chain excellence, which is mostly the ability to deliver products to customers in one to two days. In certain instances, we compete directly with our third-party suppliers who sell their own brands directly to customers, including with respect to certain of our material products.

Government Regulation

We are subject to a variety of U.S. federal, state and local laws and international laws, including but not limited to those governing the processing of payments, consumer protection, the privacy of consumer information and other laws regarding unfair and deceptive trade practices. We are also subject to various environmental laws, rules and regulations, such as California’s Proposition 65.

The products sold by us are also subject to regulation by U.S. governmental agencies, including the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, United States Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and similar state and international regulatory authorities, such as the California Energy Commission. We do not estimate any significant capital expenditures for environmental control matters either in the current fiscal year or in the near future.

We are also subject to regulations relating to our supply chain. For example, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act requires retail sellers that do business in California to disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking in their supply chains. As part of our vendor qualification process, we review suppliers’ operations for compliance with applicable labor and workplace standards and other applicable laws, including laws prohibiting child labor, forced labor and unsafe working conditions.

A significant portion of our products are currently manufactured in China. The enactment of new legislation, executive actions, or changes in current laws related to international trade affecting trade agreements, changes in tariffs, trade barriers, price and exchange controls and other regulatory requirements or changes in sourcing patterns could adversely affect the Company’s operations and result in additional expenses. Additional information is discussed in Item 1A of Part I, “Risk Factors,”

Although we have not suffered any material restrictions from doing business in the past due to government regulations, significant impediments may arise in the future as we expand product offerings.

From time to time, we dispose of or donate obsolete inventory in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

People

The human capital objectives we focus on in managing our business include attracting, developing, and retaining key personnel. We believe our management team has the experience necessary to effectively implement our growth strategy and continue to drive stockholder value. We provide competitive compensation, which includes a focus on stock-based compensation, and benefits to attract and retain key personnel, while also providing a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace. As of December 31, 2024, we had 97 full-time employees, and 28 independent contractors. As of December 31, 2024, our employees and contractors are based in offices, shared workspaces and remote work locations in the U.S., China, the U.K., the Philippines, Costa Rica, Serbia, Pakistan, and Poland.

Emerging Growth Company Status

As of December 31, 2024, we no longer qualify as an Emerging Growth Company ("EGC") due to the expiration of the five-year eligibility period under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 (the "JOBS Act"). Although the Company is no longer an EGC, we are still eligible for certain scaled disclosure accommodations, including reduced executive compensation disclosures and exemptions from some of the enhanced financial reporting requirements applicable to larger registrants.

Available Information

We may use our website as a distribution channel of material information about the Company including through press releases, investor presentations, and notices of upcoming events. We intend to utilize the investor relations section of our website at https://ir.aterian.io as a channel of distribution to reach public investors and as a means of disclosing material non-public information for complying with disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. We also intend to use certain social media channels, including, but not limited to, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn, as a means of communicating with the public, our customers and investors about our Company, our products, and other matters. While not all the information that the Company posts to its website and brand related social media channels may be deemed to be of a material nature, some information may be and we therefore encourage investors, the media, and others interested in our Company to review the information we make public in these locations.

All periodic and current reports, registration statements and other filings that we have filed or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act, are available free of charge from the SEC’s website (www.sec.gov) and on our website at https://investors.solobrands.com. Such documents are available as soon as reasonably practicable after electronic filing of the material with the SEC. Any reference to our website or social media channels does not constitute incorporation by reference of the information contained on or available through our website, and you should not consider such information to be a part of the periodic and current reports, registration statements or other filings that we file or furnish with the SEC from time to time.