In issuing its latest annual earnings this week, the company known as Bed Bath & Beyond—previously just “Beyond” and before that, Overstock—has shown one remarkable trait: No matter the name or the strategy, it continues to lose both money and market share. And while the company’s latest results showed smaller losses and a plan, that top line once again tumbled big time.
Annual revenues were $1 billion, a 25.1 percent drop from the previous year—and a far cry from the $2.76 billion it chalked up in 2021, nearly two years before the management team at Overstock purchased the intellectual assets of the bankrupt Bed Bath & Beyond brand and began its reinvention.
That reinvention remains very much a work in progress under its current CEO, reality TV star Marcus Lemonis, who comes to retailing through his years running his family’s business, RV retail giant Camping World. In announcing these new financial numbers, he continues to roll out a master plan that focuses on the Bed Bath & Beyond flagship as only one part of a larger strategy, which includes a host of home-related services, including repairs, real estate, and a cryptocurrency project that seems to embody all of the buzzwords of the modern business age.
But it’s the core retail business that remains at the heart of the company, and if it is not working, it may be difficult to get everything else to fall into place. Therein lies the problem. After adding the Bed Bath and BuyBuy Baby e-commerce businesses, and then buying what had been the Kirkland’s home decor retail chain and initiating a process to convert as many as 300 of its locations to a “Bed Bath & Beyond light” format (an initiative that is being scaled back as Business of Home recently reported), the parent company is doing barely a third of its high-water-mark, stand-alone, and online-only Overstock revenues.
Wall Street has not been pleased, as the company’s share price has dropped a staggering 80 percent since the euphoria that surrounded Overstock’s original BBB asset purchase.
Lemonis, in comments released with these new financial results, continues to tout his “Everything Home Ecosystem. He also tantalized investors with news that the company has agreed in principle to an “additional omnichannel transaction,” a tactic he has used before, which has sometimes led to substantial deals, and sometimes not. This one will cover “all the retail-centric brands and categories,” he added, without giving any further details.
Traditional retailers expanding beyond their core business is not a new concept in the home world. In its heyday, Sears, Roebuck offered repair services, financing through its Discover credit card and insurance through Allstate—and even sold kit homes through its mail-order catalog. Ultimately, the plan didn’t work, and Sears ended up selling off all of those adjacent businesses before it went under. So it’s unclear if the concept is a good one or not.
But for Lemonis, it seems like a way to deflect attention from the continuing fall—of top line revenue but also the hopes for the company’s future.
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Warren Shoulberg is the former editor in chief for several leading B2B publications. He has been a guest lecturer at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business; received honors from the International Furnishings and Design Association and the Fashion Institute of Technology; and been cited by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and other media as a leading industry expert. His Retail Watch columns offer deep industry insights on major markets and product categories.
