Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Winkler explains that Bed Bath and Beyond hasn’t been able to capitalize on the resurgence in retail customers at brick and mortar stores. She writes:
Buoyed by a strong economy, consumers are happily spending money at brick-and-mortar retailers from Walmart to Nordstrom—just about anywhere it seems, except Bed Bath & Beyond .
The stock fell nearly 50% in 2017 and a further 18% thus far in 2018. On Wednesday, after reporting second-quarter earnings that missed estimates, investors sent it down another 15% in after-hours trading.
The company has given little reason to hope it will correct course any time soon.
Same-stores sales fell 0.6%, marking the sixth straight quarter of declines. (Analysts had expected a slight bump in sales of 0.3%.) The company reported earnings of 36 cents per share, or $48.6 million, missing analysts’ expectations of 50 cents a share on sales of $2.96 billion. The results look particularly bleak compared to the same time last year, when the company reported earnings of 67 cents per share on sales of $94.2 million.
This period, ending Sept. 1, traditionally brought lots of back-to-school traffic to Bed Bath & Beyond’s stores, as students stocked up on dorm-room essentials. That the company can’t even pull it together for what should be its best quarter suggests that those days are long over and unlikely to return. Consumers have turned instead to Walmart and Amazon, where advanced e-commerce capabilities make shopping and shipping direct to dorm rooms much easier.
Read more here.
