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Dive Brief:
Just months after all BuyBuy Baby locations shuttered, Beyond Inc. plans to reestablish the banner’s brick-and-mortar footprint: one store, likely in Nashville, has been authorized “to be opened and tested,” Executive Chairman and Principal Executive Officer Marcus Lemonis told analysts Tuesday.
Beyond struck an optimistic note despite its report the same day that Q1 net sales plunged nearly 40% year over year to $231.7 million, the result of eliminating underperforming SKUs. Its number of active customers — unique customers making a purchase in the previous 12 months — dropped 21%, but average order value rose over 12%.
The company “believes it is less than 60 days from transitioning out of restructuring and into revenue growth” and pointed to improved Q1 margins and profitability, per its press release. Gross margin expanded 560 basis points to 25.1% and net loss narrowed 46% to $40 million.
Dive Insight:
Beyond is saying “Hello, again” — again — to BuyBuy Baby.
The company, whose portfolio includes Bed Bath & Beyond, announced in February that it would acquire the baby supplies brand for $5 million.
The brands split up two years ago during Bed Bath & Beyond’s bankruptcy, when one of BuyBuy Baby’s vendors acquired it for $15.5 million. Earlier this year, Lemonis stated that the goal was “returning BuyBuy Baby to its original growth partner — Bed Bath & Beyond.”
On Tuesday he called BuyBuy Baby “an asset that I felt needed to be part of this company at all costs.”
The company also plans to open at least four Overstock stores, Lemonis told analysts Tuesday. That decision grew out of a study of Kirkland’s brick-and-mortar operations; the company in February finalized a $25 million investment in Kirkland’s that gave it a 40% stake in the furniture and home company. The strategic partnership includes operating Bed Bath & Beyond stores and shop-in-shops within Kirkland’s stores.
That brand is also getting an extension, dubbed “Bed Bath & Beyond Home,” that Lemonis said “will be launching in a very, very low-capex way.”
He compared the concept to TJX’s Home Goods, and said that Bed Bath & Beyond Home “looks a lot like Kirkland’s,” with merchandise that Bed Bath & Beyond sells online, including “small furniture pieces, a little bit more textiles, a little bit more decor.”
“We believe that the assortment coming from Bed Bath & Beyond, and potentially Overstock, into those Bed Bath Home stores, and in the future some of those Kirkland stores, starts to level the playing field and makes the Kirkland stores and the Bed Bath Home stores real players in the off-price, highly curated, well-merchandised, non-dumpster looking environment that we believe customers are looking for.”
Beyond, formerly Overstock, hasn’t shied away from revisiting past decisions.
After Overstock acquired Bed Bath & Beyond for $21.5 million in 2023, the company rebranded to Beyond and shut down the Overstock site. Months later, the company called closing up Overstock “a fatal mistake.” In another swift turnabout, Beyond earlier this year sold a majority stake in Zulily for $5 million, after acquiring it last year for $4.5 million.