In cases like this, the title almost writes itself. Recent reporting has stated that Bed, Bath & Beyond could be looking for a buyer for the whole company or some of its sub-brands. While we dug into the mothership in August, the rumors provided a great opportunity to analyze some of Bed, Bath & Beyond’s other assets.
Saying buybuy to Some Potential Assets
Again, gratitude for the Bed, Bath & Beyond brand for making acquisitions that allow for seamless transitions. We analyzed four such brands - Christmas Tree Shops (blue), CostPlus World Market (red), buybuy Baby (green) and Harmon (yellow) - and found that overall, all seem to fairly strong assets. Looking at nationwide visits comparing each brand to their respective baseline for the period shows only CostPlus seeing declining overall visits.
Analyzing August visits Year-over-Year, only buybuy Baby saw a dip, though overall traffic is trending upwards and this brand is the least oriented towards August spikes. Essentially, from looking only at traffic, any of these brands could be a welcome asset.
What Would A Buyer Be Getting?
Starting with Household Income, the major outlier is Harmon, who sees a far larger percentage of traffic from more affluent visitors. In fact, over 50% of their visitors earn more than $100,000 per year.
Visit duration is fairly even among most of the brands, though buybuy Baby does stand out with an average visit of over 50 minutes. This indicates both the high intent of visitors, but also the success that the chain has in catering to this very specific audience.
The final set of attributes we analyzed were the brands that had similar audiences in related categories. For Christmas Tree Shops and Cost Plus World Market we looked at the Home Improvement and Home Goods sector. And the results were quite similar. Visitors to both had an 80% likelihood that they would also visit The Home Depot and nearly 75% likelihood of visiting a Lowe’s. These were followed in both cases by Bed, Bath & Beyond and Home Goods.
For buybuy Baby, we analyzed other apparel retailers and saw over 65% of visitors would also visit a Kohls or Macy’s. For Harmon, Macy’s had the highest level of overlap with nearly 77% with Kohls, Marshall’s and TJ Maxx also seeing more than a 60% overlap.
Clearly, this does not mean that these brands are the likeliest to make an acquisition attempt, but for any potential acquirer, understanding the audience and the potential fits will be critical in maximizing their ultimate potential.
What’s Next for the Bed, Bath & Beyond Brands?
The honest answer is we have no idea. The more important element of this process is going to be understanding the fit, should one or more of these acquisitions take place. Each brand possesses unique strengths, but also some potential weaknesses in how it can and should be used. Understanding these attributes will go a long way in determining whether these companies reach their full potential - no matter who ultimately leads them.
