提起CVS藥店和科爾士,人們會想到超長收據和Kohl’s Cash代金券,而提起3B家居(Bed Bath & Beyond),則會想到優惠券。
然而,3B家居已經開始控制自身對優惠券的依賴,以及由此形成的消費者打折成癮問題,這也是首席執行官馬克?特里頓上任第一年,為使這家長久以來深受人們喜愛,但陷入困境的家居巨頭重獲昔日榮光,所實施的核心舉措。但這并非是說3B家居打算完全拋棄優惠券策略。只是,特里頓已經厭倦了給消費者提供這種無法提升銷售額的折扣——發放的優惠券幾乎有一半都未被使用,或許消費者并非真的想要打折。
特里頓告訴《財富》雜志:“我們向市場投放了太多的優惠券。”問題是,優惠券的過度使用已經讓人們對公司提供商品的成本和價值產生了迷惑。他補充道,“想弄清商品價值幾何,還得要個數學學位,消費者肯定不愿意。”
自一年前擔任3B家居的首席執行官以來,特里頓采取了一系列激進措施,上個月財報分析日宣布的這項優惠券縮減舉措只是其中之一。目前,整體工作進展順利:上季度,這家有著49年歷史的零售商公布了其可比銷售額的驚人增長,這是自2016年以來的首次增長。雖然公司現在的股價僅有2013年歷史高點的約四分之一,但相比今年3月的歷史低點,股價已經上漲了6倍。
特里頓出生于澳大利亞,在擔任3B家居首席執行官的第一年里,他的工作異常繁忙和艱辛:去年,他閃電辭退了自己的高級管理人員,并出售了一些年收入20億美元但損害公司整體利益的業務,此舉大幅降低了公司沉重的債務負擔。此外,他還對3B家居過時的電商模式進行了全面改革,并宣布將關閉200家門店(約占這家年收入70億美元的連鎖巨頭現有門店的四分之一),以及對另外450家門店進行翻新。(該公司還擁有價值10億美元的Buy Buy Baby chain連鎖店以及Harmon Face Values。)
特里頓的下一步計劃是:在2021年創建10個全新的自有品牌,并大幅擴展3B家居廉價商品的品類。
特里頓首次擔任首席執行官便行事果斷的背后,是他深知猶豫不決的代價——競爭對手Pier 1 Imports已經倒閉,自家公司也可能會步其后塵。3B家居的銷售額已經連續三年出現了下滑,并在最近兩年出現了凈虧損。與此同時,在沿街購物中心與之相鄰的TJX家居用品連鎖店,以及他的老東家塔吉特百貨(Target)已經贏得了很大的市場份額。正如特爾西咨詢集團(Telsey Advisory Group)的分析師克里斯蒂娜?費爾南德斯上周在一份研究報告中指出的那樣:“家居零售市場的競爭仍然十分激烈,3B家居的發展不會是線性的。”
對沖基金ValueWorks的創始人查爾斯?萊蒙尼德斯說:“他們可能已經別無選擇”。ValueWorks自2017年以來一直持有該公司股票。
盡管多年來商品分類不達標、商店維護不善、電子商務網站發展緩慢,但3B家居在許多消費者的心中占據著特殊的位置:無數美國人的婚禮禮品都來自這里,或者這里的床上用品和椅子曾經裝扮了他們的第一個家。
特里頓說:“我們只是辜負了消費者的熱愛和忠誠。”
清除朽木
到3B家居之前,作為折扣巨頭塔吉特百貨的首席商務官,特里頓的表現一直堪稱出色。他拋棄了塔吉特許多大而陳舊的品牌,并于30個月內在家居用品和服裝等領域推出了30個新的自有品牌,其中一些在第一年就成長為價值數十億美元的業務。在此之前,他管理諾德斯特龍(Nordstrom)的自有品牌業務時也取得了巨大成功。
但對這位新手首席執行官來說,整頓新公司、解決其諸多問題只憑借自身的核心優勢還不夠。萊蒙尼德斯表示:“梳理業務與籌辦好的產品對管理技能的要求完全不同。”
因此特里頓急需改善管理體系。2019年圣誕節的前幾天,擔任首席執行官僅幾周的特里頓讓他的六名高管打包走人,此舉震驚了許多零售業專家。特里頓則表示:“拿著高昂的薪水,表現又很平庸,所以做這個決定一點都不難。”
隨后,他與獵頭合作,從他的老東家塔吉特百貨和諾德斯特龍以及Gap、迪克體育用品(Dick’s Sporting Goods)、沃爾瑪(Walmart)以及亞馬遜(Amazon)等零售商那里招攬人才,開始組建自己的團隊。特里頓說:“我告訴招聘人員,‘我要建立零售業的復仇者聯盟’,而且我也做到了。”
任職第一年,特里頓著手對公司進行痛苦的精簡工作:通過重組削減了數千個工作崗位,出售了Christmas Tree Shops連鎖店和其他小業務。他希望,公司規模變小能夠增強盈利能力。
但是,任何轉變初期的目標都比較容易實現。最困難的部分是平衡業務以恢復增長,而不是管理緩慢的衰退。此時,特里頓又一次挖掘了他在塔吉特百貨工作的寶貴經驗。
他計劃未來三年在3B家居推出10個自有品牌,來年春季將推出第一個。特里頓希望幾年內將自有品牌在銷售額中的占比由現在的10%上升至30%。其中很大程度上將依賴低成本商品的銷售,以便更快地招徠顧客并在其各個人生階段更好地留住他們。萊蒙尼德斯說:“消費者過去常在遇到人生大事時才進店購物,而且,大約35%的購物只包括一種商品或一個類別的商品,所以如果3B家居可以把握好這一點,收獲將會很大。
與此同時,3B家居也收到了客戶和分析師的批評,原因是該公司試圖為所有購買家居用品的人提供無所不包的商品。“你需要幾個土豆削皮機?”特里頓打趣道。為避免所謂的“選擇的暴政”,他也正在削減30%的單品數量。而且,分類越少,庫存管理就越方便,也有助于零售商解決一個長期存在的問題:缺貨。
20世紀80年代和90年代,充斥著商品和選擇的店鋪是零售商彰顯財力和領導地位的方式,“如果你有大量商品,你就是權威。”特里頓說,3B家居從未徹底改變這種思維模式。而在當今社會,如果消費者想要無盡的選擇,他們可以登錄亞馬遜或Wayfair等電商網站。11月10日,Wayfair宣布其第三季度銷售額增長了67%,這也提醒人們,這一領域存在著多么強大的競爭對手。
這并不是說考慮線上業務是特里頓事后的想法。事實上,3B家居的電子商務今年翻了約一番,并有望達到30億美元,這要歸功于疫情期間為滿足強勁的市場需求而迅速建立的路邊提貨業務,以及對落后的店內在線訂單服務的改善。3B家居還改進了網站,使其加載速度更快,搜索更方便。
在當前的零售格局中,權威來自于擁有清晰的觀點、敏銳的判斷,以及為消費者提供“策展”的能力。特里頓說,“當你以權威、清晰和可負擔的形象出現在消費者面前時,就會獲得他們的信任。”
這比沒完沒了的優惠券要有用得多。(財富中文網)
譯者:馮豐
審校:夏林
提起CVS藥店和科爾士,人們會想到超長收據和Kohl’s Cash代金券,而提起3B家居(Bed Bath & Beyond),則會想到優惠券。
然而,3B家居已經開始控制自身對優惠券的依賴,以及由此形成的消費者打折成癮問題,這也是首席執行官馬克?特里頓上任第一年,為使這家長久以來深受人們喜愛,但陷入困境的家居巨頭重獲昔日榮光,所實施的核心舉措。但這并非是說3B家居打算完全拋棄優惠券策略。只是,特里頓已經厭倦了給消費者提供這種無法提升銷售額的折扣——發放的優惠券幾乎有一半都未被使用,或許消費者并非真的想要打折。
特里頓告訴《財富》雜志:“我們向市場投放了太多的優惠券。”問題是,優惠券的過度使用已經讓人們對公司提供商品的成本和價值產生了迷惑。他補充道,“想弄清商品價值幾何,還得要個數學學位,消費者肯定不愿意。”
自一年前擔任3B家居的首席執行官以來,特里頓采取了一系列激進措施,上個月財報分析日宣布的這項優惠券縮減舉措只是其中之一。目前,整體工作進展順利:上季度,這家有著49年歷史的零售商公布了其可比銷售額的驚人增長,這是自2016年以來的首次增長。雖然公司現在的股價僅有2013年歷史高點的約四分之一,但相比今年3月的歷史低點,股價已經上漲了6倍。
特里頓出生于澳大利亞,在擔任3B家居首席執行官的第一年里,他的工作異常繁忙和艱辛:去年,他閃電辭退了自己的高級管理人員,并出售了一些年收入20億美元但損害公司整體利益的業務,此舉大幅降低了公司沉重的債務負擔。此外,他還對3B家居過時的電商模式進行了全面改革,并宣布將關閉200家門店(約占這家年收入70億美元的連鎖巨頭現有門店的四分之一),以及對另外450家門店進行翻新。(該公司還擁有價值10億美元的Buy Buy Baby chain連鎖店以及Harmon Face Values。)
特里頓的下一步計劃是:在2021年創建10個全新的自有品牌,并大幅擴展3B家居廉價商品的品類。
特里頓首次擔任首席執行官便行事果斷的背后,是他深知猶豫不決的代價——競爭對手Pier 1 Imports已經倒閉,自家公司也可能會步其后塵。3B家居的銷售額已經連續三年出現了下滑,并在最近兩年出現了凈虧損。與此同時,在沿街購物中心與之相鄰的TJX家居用品連鎖店,以及他的老東家塔吉特百貨(Target)已經贏得了很大的市場份額。正如特爾西咨詢集團(Telsey Advisory Group)的分析師克里斯蒂娜?費爾南德斯上周在一份研究報告中指出的那樣:“家居零售市場的競爭仍然十分激烈,3B家居的發展不會是線性的。”
對沖基金ValueWorks的創始人查爾斯?萊蒙尼德斯說:“他們可能已經別無選擇”。ValueWorks自2017年以來一直持有該公司股票。
盡管多年來商品分類不達標、商店維護不善、電子商務網站發展緩慢,但3B家居在許多消費者的心中占據著特殊的位置:無數美國人的婚禮禮品都來自這里,或者這里的床上用品和椅子曾經裝扮了他們的第一個家。
特里頓說:“我們只是辜負了消費者的熱愛和忠誠。”
清除朽木
到3B家居之前,作為折扣巨頭塔吉特百貨的首席商務官,特里頓的表現一直堪稱出色。他拋棄了塔吉特許多大而陳舊的品牌,并于30個月內在家居用品和服裝等領域推出了30個新的自有品牌,其中一些在第一年就成長為價值數十億美元的業務。在此之前,他管理諾德斯特龍(Nordstrom)的自有品牌業務時也取得了巨大成功。
但對這位新手首席執行官來說,整頓新公司、解決其諸多問題只憑借自身的核心優勢還不夠。萊蒙尼德斯表示:“梳理業務與籌辦好的產品對管理技能的要求完全不同。”
因此特里頓急需改善管理體系。2019年圣誕節的前幾天,擔任首席執行官僅幾周的特里頓讓他的六名高管打包走人,此舉震驚了許多零售業專家。特里頓則表示:“拿著高昂的薪水,表現又很平庸,所以做這個決定一點都不難。”
隨后,他與獵頭合作,從他的老東家塔吉特百貨和諾德斯特龍以及Gap、迪克體育用品(Dick’s Sporting Goods)、沃爾瑪(Walmart)以及亞馬遜(Amazon)等零售商那里招攬人才,開始組建自己的團隊。特里頓說:“我告訴招聘人員,‘我要建立零售業的復仇者聯盟’,而且我也做到了。”
任職第一年,特里頓著手對公司進行痛苦的精簡工作:通過重組削減了數千個工作崗位,出售了Christmas Tree Shops連鎖店和其他小業務。他希望,公司規模變小能夠增強盈利能力。
但是,任何轉變初期的目標都比較容易實現。最困難的部分是平衡業務以恢復增長,而不是管理緩慢的衰退。此時,特里頓又一次挖掘了他在塔吉特百貨工作的寶貴經驗。
他計劃未來三年在3B家居推出10個自有品牌,來年春季將推出第一個。特里頓希望幾年內將自有品牌在銷售額中的占比由現在的10%上升至30%。其中很大程度上將依賴低成本商品的銷售,以便更快地招徠顧客并在其各個人生階段更好地留住他們。萊蒙尼德斯說:“消費者過去常在遇到人生大事時才進店購物,而且,大約35%的購物只包括一種商品或一個類別的商品,所以如果3B家居可以把握好這一點,收獲將會很大。
與此同時,3B家居也收到了客戶和分析師的批評,原因是該公司試圖為所有購買家居用品的人提供無所不包的商品。“你需要幾個土豆削皮機?”特里頓打趣道。為避免所謂的“選擇的暴政”,他也正在削減30%的單品數量。而且,分類越少,庫存管理就越方便,也有助于零售商解決一個長期存在的問題:缺貨。
20世紀80年代和90年代,充斥著商品和選擇的店鋪是零售商彰顯財力和領導地位的方式,“如果你有大量商品,你就是權威。”特里頓說,3B家居從未徹底改變這種思維模式。而在當今社會,如果消費者想要無盡的選擇,他們可以登錄亞馬遜或Wayfair等電商網站。11月10日,Wayfair宣布其第三季度銷售額增長了67%,這也提醒人們,這一領域存在著多么強大的競爭對手。
這并不是說考慮線上業務是特里頓事后的想法。事實上,3B家居的電子商務今年翻了約一番,并有望達到30億美元,這要歸功于疫情期間為滿足強勁的市場需求而迅速建立的路邊提貨業務,以及對落后的店內在線訂單服務的改善。3B家居還改進了網站,使其加載速度更快,搜索更方便。
在當前的零售格局中,權威來自于擁有清晰的觀點、敏銳的判斷,以及為消費者提供“策展”的能力。特里頓說,“當你以權威、清晰和可負擔的形象出現在消費者面前時,就會獲得他們的信任。”
這比沒完沒了的優惠券要有用得多。(財富中文網)
譯者:馮豐
審校:夏林
Coupons are as synonymous with Bed Bath & Beyond as foot-long receipts are with CVS pharmacy and Kohl’s Cash with that retailer.
But Bed Bath & Beyond has begun to rein in its addiction to giving shoppers coupons—and their addiction to getting them—as a centerpiece of CEO Mark Tritton’s efforts in his first year at the helm to restore the long beloved but troubled home goods retailer to glory. That’s not to say Bed Bath & Beyond is done with coupons. But Tritton is done with giving shoppers discounts that fail to gin up sales—perhaps because customers don’t really want them: Nearly half of all coupons go unused.
“We overflooded the market with coupons,” Tritton tells Fortune. What’s more, their overuse has muddled people’s sense of what Bed Bath & Beyond’s goods cost and are worth. He adds, “Customers don’t want to need a math degree to work out what value looks like.”
The move, announced at Bed Bath & Beyond’s analyst day last month, is just one of a number of radical steps taken by the CEO since he took the reins a year ago Wednesday. So far so good: In its most recent quarter, the 49-year-old retailer reported a surprise increase in comparable sales, its first since 2016. The stock, while worth only about a quarter of its all-time high in 2013, has risen sixfold since plumbing all-time lows back in March.
Tritton, an Australian native, has wasted no time in his first year as CEO: He quickly purged his C-suite last year and sold off a bunch of businesses that brought about $2 billion a year in sales but hurt the overall bottom line, reducing the company’s heavy debt load significantly in the process. What’s more, he has overhauled Bed Bath & Beyond’s antiquated e-commerce and announced he would close 200 stores, or about a quarter of the $7-billion-a-year chain’s fleet, and renovate 450 others. (The company also owns the billion-dollar Buy Buy Baby chain as well as Harmon Face Values.)
Next up for 2021: The Target alum plans to start 10 new store brands from scratch and vastly expand Bed Bath & Beyond’s assortment of inexpensive products.
If Tritton, a first-time CEO, is acting decisively, it’s because he has seen what dillydallying has done to rivals, like the defunct Pier 1 Imports, and was starting to do to Bed Bath & Beyond. The retailer had reported three years in a row of declining sales and net losses in the last two. Meanwhile, its strip center neighbors TJX’s HomeGoods chain and his alma mater, Target, have won a ton of market share. As Telsey Advisory Group analyst Cristina Fernández put it in a research note last week: “Competition in home remains intense, and Bed Bath & Beyond’s progress won’t be linear.”
“They likely would have been roadkill,” says Charles Lemonides, founder of ValueWorks, a hedge fund that has held the stock since 2017.
Despite years of substandard merchandise assortments, poorly maintained stores, and a slow, subpar e-commerce site, Bed Bath & Beyond held a special place in many shoppers’ hearts: Countless Americans have set up a wedding registry there or decorated their first home with its bedding and chairs.
“There was great customer love, there was loyalty; we were just squandering it,” Tritton says.
Clearing the deadwood
Before leaving for Bed Bath & Beyond, Tritton had been enjoying a stellar run at Target as the discount giant’s chief merchant. He had junked many of Target’s big but stale brands and launched 30 new store brands in 30 months in areas like home goods and apparel, some of which became billion-dollar businesses in their first year. Before that, he had overseen Nordstrom’s store-brand business to great success.
But fixing his new company and its manifold problems would force the rookie CEO to go beyond his core strengths. “Clearing away that clutter was a completely different skill set than curating good product,” says Lemonides.
So Tritton had to bolster management. In a move that stunned many retail experts, just days before Christmas 2019 and just weeks into the job, Tritton sent six members of his C-suite packing. “They were expensive, and they were ineffective, so it wasn’t a hard decision,” he says.
Working with headhunters, he set about building his own team, poaching people from his alma maters Target and Nordstrom, as well as from retailers such as Gap, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart, and Amazon. “I told recruiters, ‘I want the Avengers of retail,’ and I got them.”
In his first year, he proceeded to do the painful work of slimming down the company with reorganizations that eliminated thousands of jobs. He sold off the Christmas Tree Shops chain and other smaller businesses. The result will be a smaller, and he hopes, more profitable company.
But any turnaround offers low-hanging fruit in its initial stages. The tough part is poising a business to return to growth, rather than managing a slow decline. (Hello, department stores.) And here, Tritton again tapped into his own experience at Target.
He is planning to launch 10 new Bed Bath & Beyond store brands in the next three years, with the first one coming in the spring. Tritton wants store brands to hit 30% of sales in a few years, up from 10% now. And much of that will focus on lower-cost items, the better to recruit shoppers earlier and keep them as they graduate from life stage to life stage. “Customers used to go for big life events and then nothing until the next big life event,” says Lemonides. Some 35% of purchases at the retailer include only one item or items in one category, so the upside is enormous if Bed Bed & Beyond does this well.
At the same time, Bed Bath & Beyond has been faulted by customers and analysts alike for trying to be all things to all people buying home goods. So Tritton is trimming the number of individual items by 30% to avoid the so-called tyranny of choice. “How many potato peelers do you need?” he quips. What’s more, a smaller assortment makes inventory management less unwieldy and will help the retailer tame a persistent problem: out-of-stocks.
Stores overflowing with merchandise and selection were the way retailers conveyed opulence and leadership in the 1980s and 1990s, and Tritton says Bed Bath & Beyond never quite moved on from that mindset. “If you had masses of product, you were the authority.” Today, if shoppers want endless selection, they can go online to Amazon or Wayfair, which said on November 10 its third-quarter sales rose 67%, a reminder of the formidable competition in the space.
That’s not to say online is an afterthought for Tritton. Bed Bath & Beyond’s e-commerce has roughly doubled this year and is on pace to hit $3 billion, thanks to quickly setting up curbside pickup and improving what had been a primitive in-store service for online orders to capitalize on strong pandemic-driven demand. And the company has also improved its site with faster load times and easier search.
In the current retail landscape, authority comes from having a clear point of view and sensibility and offering customers “curation.” Says Tritton, “When you show that to customers with authority, clarity, and affordability, they trust you.”
And that goes a much longer way than endless coupons ever could.