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Bed Bath & Beyond revealed mixed fiscal third-quarter earnings on January 7, highlighted by a major burst in e-commerce growth.
CEO Mark Tritton has overseen the company’s ongoing digital transformation since 2019, including a number of key advancements, particularly as it relates to in-store pickup. He told Insider that by selling off subsidiaries like Cost Plus World Market and shuttering hundreds of underperforming Bed Bath & Beyond stores, the company has been able to focus more on taking its e-commerce strategy to the next level within its remaining brand portfolio.
“Retail stores aren’t dead — they’re the lifeblood of the business,” Tritton said. “At the moment, we have a customer who can buy online and pickup in store and we have about a two-hour promise on that. On average, our customer gets that order fulfilled in a pickup within 30 minutes.”
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Tritton said that the company has strived to master the digital “fundamentals” around buy-online-pickup-in-store, curbside pickup, ship-from-store, and direct-to-customer shipping.
“Those were completely new muscles for our team, for our business, and for our customers,” he said.
To compete with e-commerce competitors like Amazon, Tritton said the company has relied on the customer loyalty that Bed Bath & Beyond has built up over the years, combined with new improvements to its e-commerce experience. He added that Rafeh Masood, Bed Bath & Beyond’s chief digital officer hired back in May, and his team have implemented over 100 changes to Bed Bath & Beyond’s digital capabilities, in order to boost speed, enhance conversion rates, improve site navigation and purchasing, and compliment digital storytelling. Bed Bath & Beyond has also forged a closer relationship with Google to “power opportunities” in the digital space.
As a result of doubling down on digital, the Bed Bath & Beyond company — which includes namesake stores, as well as brands like Buy Buy Baby — saw a 77% growth in digital sales. Bed Bath & Beyond itself grew e-commerce sales by 94% in its most recent quarter.
“We truly became an omni-channel retailer, thinking about the 360 environment that our customer shops: searching online, going to stores to look for product, or buying online and picking up in the store,” Tritton said. “We created the ease, convenience, and flexibility for customers so that we could meet them whatever their needs were.”
SEE ALSO: Bed Bath & Beyond is closing 63 stores in 2020 as part of its plan to shutter 200 locations over the next 2 years
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Source:: Business Insider
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