It looks like Bed Bath & Bust this holiday season.
Struggling home goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) is having an ugly go of it during the all-important holiday season, according to new research from Jefferies analyst Jonathan Matuszewski.
U.S. web traffic for Bed Bath & Beyond dropped a startling 19% in November, based on the analyst’s findings. The declines worsened from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday with a crash of about 25% versus the prior year.
Matuszewski slashed his estimates for Bed Bath & Beyond across the board.
“For the fiscal third quarter, we are lowering our comparable sales estimate to [-23%] from [-15%] prior,” Matuszewski warned. “Management indicated that the quarter-to-date trend through September had not changed materially from the fiscal second quarter, though we now believe it has weakened as the quarter progressed with sustained pressure in November.”
“Additionally, we are taking a more conservative approach with gross margin, believing softer demand trends likely led to greater proportionality,” he added. “Specifically, we are now modeling near 550 basis points of contraction from 200 basis points prior. Based on what appear to be recently-worsening trends and a weaker macro backdrop ahead, we also lower our estimates for next year. For fiscal year 2024, we lower our comparable sales estimate to [-3.5%] from +2% prior.”
Bed Bath & Beyond stock has plunged more than 9% in the past month as investors grew worried about the retailer’s ability to survive deep into 2023. Shares are down 75% year to date.
The retailer has battled all year long with tanking sales, weak store traffic, low cash levels, and merchandise not aligned with customer tastes. Earlier this year, the board ousted Bed Bath & Beyond’s turnaround CEO Mark Tritton, and other execs have fled as cash-saving, cost-cutting efforts are underway.
But the company — which has been heavily discounting products this holiday season in an effort to raise badly needed cash — has shown next to no signs of life under new CEO Sue Gove.
Comparable store sales crashed 26% from a year ago in the fiscal second quarter as the economic slowdown and poor inventory quality weighed on store traffic. The challenged top line and increased discounting led to the company posting an operating loss of $168 million in the quarter.
“Although we think Bed Bath & Beyond sounded more constructive with regards to the opportunity in bringing back more national brands gradually, we continue to believe Bed Bath & Beyond will have a hard time driving customers to its store, especially in the second half given the amount of competition we expect in the home goods industry,” Goldman Sachs analyst Kate McShane said.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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