Bed Bath & Beyond's CEO is out as sales tumble

Welcome back to cheddar news. Everyone going above and beyond big bucks, home retailer, Bed Bath and beyond doubling down on efforts to compete with online retailers. The chain expanding in store pickup hours and shortening, wait times for same day delivery. Well, joining me now is rafi Massoud, executive vice president and chief digital officer at Bed Bath and beyond rafi. Thank you so much for taking the time this afternoon. I know your company in year one of a three year transformation. How's it going? It's going great, thank you for having me. Our digital first approach has power, consistent growth for many quarters in a row. Our customers are responding and PSS all time high and we continue to reinvent ourselves as an authority in home space. Um, and uh, and this week we announced our launch of buy online pick up in store 1-hour promise where customers are able to place an order on bed bath and beyond dot com. Bye bye baby dot com and come into our store within an hour and pick up their order. And we're also expanding our curb site services by allowing our customers to uh, come an hour ahead of store opening and pick up the curbside order. Just continuing to reinvent on ease and convenience for our customers. And I see investors like it. The stock of 50% year to date over the past 12 months, up close to 200%. So it seems like investors are embracing this transformation that's underway roughly what else is in. The pipeline for your company as it looks to innovate. Yeah, we continue to focus on elevating our customer experience. We're taking a data led approach uh listening to our customers over last year, and a half we have implemented over 200 changes on our digital platforms to make it more convenient and easy for our customers to shop from improving the speed of our mobile sites by 75% to making it more convenient and faster to shop from reducing the number of steps is used to take to check out from 7 to 3. Um The 2nd, 2nd part of our strategy is to unlock Omni always, which was the move from moving from a multi channel retailer to Omni channel retailer would launch of services like buy online pick up in store curbside and and same day delivery and adopting and embracing a digital first way of ways of working which is uh embracing agile and embracing data and moving with the speed of customer changes. What's the data that you can share as to how demand is changing with these innovations? Well, I'll share the digital results for our first quarter. Um digital contributed to 38% of our total revenue are net sales um and it's powered by our store network. So 30 30 plus percent of digital sales were fulfilled by our store channels. Um And we attracted over 11 million customers to our digital properties last year. New customers uh and our NPS is all time high. Our mobile app is resonating with our customers and we're making it more convenient and easy. Next week we are reopening our flagship store in Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan where you will see a lot more digital innovations come to life, uh, layering on top of the in store experience. Mm hmm. Back to school season, Not too far out. And I know that historically that has been a positive time for your retailer students packing up buying things before they move into their college dorm or you know, in any sort of capacity there. What is the expectation or from bed bath when it comes to back to school season this year? So, we're uh, we're ready for back to back to college, back to school. We are making it easier for our customers who are heading back to college, easier to shop. Uh much more curated and stronger experience online with the new pack and hold or elevated pack and hold experience where our college customers can go online and go through a curated assortment back to college uh, products and merchandise and be able to place the order and pick it up days before they return back to college. Now, in terms of the expectation digital sales here, How quickly rafi our digital sales expanding. Just give us an indication as to that in store traffic and how that compares as a share of the pie to the digital component. Yeah, well, this past year and a half has taught all of us that predicting the future can be very dangerous. So how many channels will continue to be an essential difference uh, in our strategy to provide customers with that ease and experience. And we are moving from a omni channel retailer to an Omni Always retailer, uh, and continuing to elevate the experience and continue to double down on our Omni channel capabilities. Alright, Raffi Massoud. I know a lot of people they like those 20% off coupons. We got a lot of traveling and moving in coming in ahead of us. We'll leave it there. Raffy is the executive vice president, chief digital officer at bed bath and beyond. Thank you again.

Bed Bath and Beyond CEO Mark Tritton is out after only three years at the helm of the rapidly sinking retailer.The beleaguered company announced multiple changes to its leadership Wednesday, including replacing Tritton. In the interim, Bed Bath and Beyond has tapped Sue Grove, an independent director on the company's board, as its CEO until it finds someone permanent for the position."We must deliver improved results," Grove said in a statement. "Top-tier execution, careful management of costs, greater supply chain reliability, prudent capital spending, a stronger balance sheet, and robust digital capabilities will all be important to our success."Bed Bath and Beyond poached Tritton from Target in 2019. He was previously in charge of expanding Target's private label brands, which he tried to replicate at Bed Bath and Beyond. But those items haven't caught on with customers the same way they did at competitors -- nor did the company's redesigned stores.Tritton's efforts did little to mask the company's deep-seated problems. On Wednesday, the chain reported significantly lower-than-expected earnings for the past quarter, and the brand's sales declined 27% from the same period a year ago.That sent the company's stock falling as much as 13%. It's now down more than 60% for the year.Tritton's departure was "inevitable" and that the earnings report "does very little to inspire confidence in the company's trajectory," said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, in an analyst note."In our blunt view, this was a cosmetic reinvention — copied from Target — with very little substance behind it," Saunders said. "It is little wonder that it has quickly fallen apart."He added that the company has "been run into the ground and a change of management is the only way of restoring some credibility with investors."On Tuesday, a new report from Bank of America painted a bleak picture of the retailer, claiming that the company has cut air conditioning to quickly lower expenses to make up for a slump in sales. Bed Bath and Beyond told CNN Business that any changes in store temperature guidelines did not come from corporate."We've been contacted about this report, and to be clear, no Bed Bath & Beyond stores were directed to adjust their air conditioning and there have been no corporate policy changes in regard to utilities usage," said a representative.Still, analysts at Bank of America who have conducted store visits report mounting concerns, including labor hours that have been meaningfully cut, scaled back utilities, reduced store operating hours and canceled remodeling projects. Rewards programs have also been scaled back and replaced. The analysts expect Bed Bath and Beyond's management will soon announce more store closures and halt openings of its Buy Buy Baby stores.Other troubling factors for the company include the resignation of two key financial executives in recent months, chief accounting officer John Barresi resigned in May and Heather Plutino, senior vice president of financial planning and analysis and commercial finance also left the company.CNN Business' Nicole Goodkind contributed to this report.

Bed Bath and Beyond CEO Mark Tritton is out after only three years at the helm of the rapidly sinking retailer.

The beleaguered company announced multiple changes to its leadership Wednesday, including replacing Tritton. In the interim, Bed Bath and Beyond has tapped Sue Grove, an independent director on the company's board, as its CEO until it finds someone permanent for the position.

"We must deliver improved results," Grove said in a statement. "Top-tier execution, careful management of costs, greater supply chain reliability, prudent capital spending, a stronger balance sheet, and robust digital capabilities will all be important to our success."

Bed Bath and Beyond poached Tritton from Target in 2019. He was previously in charge of expanding Target's private label brands, which he tried to replicate at Bed Bath and Beyond. But those items haven't caught on with customers the same way they did at competitors -- nor did the company's redesigned stores.

Tritton's efforts did little to mask the company's deep-seated problems. On Wednesday, the chain reported significantly lower-than-expected earnings for the past quarter, and the brand's sales declined 27% from the same period a year ago.

That sent the company's stock falling as much as 13%. It's now down more than 60% for the year.

Tritton's departure was "inevitable" and that the earnings report "does very little to inspire confidence in the company's trajectory," said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, in an analyst note.

"In our blunt view, this was a cosmetic reinvention — copied from Target — with very little substance behind it," Saunders said. "It is little wonder that it has quickly fallen apart."

He added that the company has "been run into the ground and a change of management is the only way of restoring some credibility with investors."

On Tuesday, a new report from Bank of America painted a bleak picture of the retailer, claiming that the company has cut air conditioning to quickly lower expenses to make up for a slump in sales. Bed Bath and Beyond told CNN Business that any changes in store temperature guidelines did not come from corporate.

"We've been contacted about this report, and to be clear, no Bed Bath & Beyond stores were directed to adjust their air conditioning and there have been no corporate policy changes in regard to utilities usage," said a representative.

Still, analysts at Bank of America who have conducted store visits report mounting concerns, including labor hours that have been meaningfully cut, scaled back utilities, reduced store operating hours and canceled remodeling projects. Rewards programs have also been scaled back and replaced. The analysts expect Bed Bath and Beyond's management will soon announce more store closures and halt openings of its Buy Buy Baby stores.

Other troubling factors for the company include the resignation of two key financial executives in recent months, chief accounting officer John Barresi resigned in May and Heather Plutino, senior vice president of financial planning and analysis and commercial finance also left the company.

CNN Business' Nicole Goodkind contributed to this report.

Bed Bath & Beyond's CEO is out as sales tumble

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