THE WHAT? Bed, Bath & Beyond has reported its results for the final quarter of 2021. The US retailer saw comparable sales drop 12 percent, impacted by ongoing supply chain and inventory availability challenges.
THE DETAILS Inventory availability challenges has an estimated impact of US$175 million, or high-single digit impact to net sales in the quarter, driven by the Bed Bath & Beyond banner with ‘abnormally high’ levels of product not available for sale, due to being held at port or in transit.
THE WHY? Mark Tritton, Bed Bath & Beyond’s President and CEO explains, “We are disappointed that our sales and gross margin performance does not reflect our team’s hard work and execution against both strategic and transformation efforts in 2021. Macroeconomic factors, such as the disruption of the global supply chain, the Omicron variant, as well as the geopolitical turbulence weighing on consumer confidence, have uncovered more vulnerabilities than we could have foreseen at this stage of our transformation, as we completely rebuild the foundation of our business.”
