In April, as much of the world’s population retreated to their respective homes — and makeshift kitchen table workspaces — home goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond had to get a digital strategy fast.
As reported then by The Motley Fool, the biggest question by the end of April — once digital demand and sales had increased — is whether the retailer could keep up the momentum that was thrust upon them by COVID.
The before
A late-2019 leadership change was prompted by the chain’s lack of digital strategy, explained Motley Fool reporter Jennifer Saibil. New CEO Mark Tritton had his sights set on moving to a better omnichannel strategy. The 2019 holiday season was marred by inventory management problems, non-competitive pricing, and a lackluster use of should-be-standard-by-now features like online purchasing and in-store pick-up.
In May, with many locations still closed, the chain expanded fulfillment services, initiated contactless pickup, and expanded in-store pick-up to half of its locations. By the end of the month, they reported an 82% increase in online sales.
“Digital growth was also favorably impacted by the way we pivoted our merchandising and marketing plans and how we engage with our customers, including more frequent updates through our website to stay current and relevant. A key highlight for us was the strong growth we saw in new customer acquisition through our digital channels. Nearly 40% of our online orders were placed by customers who are new to ordering online with us, and over 10% of them were also completely new to Bed Bath & Beyond.”
What’s next?
The chain announced on September 17 that they are expanding their relationship with Google Cloud — which began in 2017 — committing to a five-year agreement in an effort to realign with digital-first priorities to better serve customers. As described in the retailer’s press release, solutions deployed will help “to further personalize the shopping experience for customers, enhance fulfillment capacity, and optimize merchandise planning and demand forecasting.”
Google Cloud technologies they’ll leverage under this expanded partnership include BigQuery, Spanner, Google Compute Engine, and Google Kubernetes Engine, with Deloitte serving as a strategic transformation services partner.
“Retailers are sitting on an incredible amount of data today, but this data is often siloed and lacks real-time processing. And high-traffic events like Cyber Monday or the COVID-19 pandemic only put more stress on systems,” explains VP of Retail & Consumer at Google Cloud Carrie Tharp. “By migrating to Google Cloud, Bed Bath & Beyond expects to be able to reduce cost and drive business value through real-time analytics across marketing, merchandising, supply chain, and more.”
