Beyond, Inc. Reports Financial Results for First Quarter 2024

May 6, 2024  by HFBusiness Staff in Business Strategy, Industry   

“2024 has begun with a strong strategic focus on building a portfolio of profitable brands designed to drive high customer affinity and lifetime value,” said Marcus Lemonis, Executive Chairman of the Board.

“We are now 120 days into this new era for the company, building a foundation that will cause the next ten years to look materially different from the last ten, while deepening my conviction in our vision: to become the ‘AAA of Home’ – offering solutions for everything within the four walls of your home and extending to the four corners of your property.”

“That foundation consists of three powerful brands: Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and now Zulily, and we believe each of them has the potential to become a billion-dollar-plus revenue brand in its own right. That foundation requires us to have the right team, the proper brand positioning, and the most efficient process to profitably grow.”

“During the first quarter we delivered 2.2 million transactions through Bed Bath & Beyond alone, crossing the 6 million active customer level for the first time in a non-COVID environment, successfully soft launched Overstock six months ahead of schedule, and brought on Salesforce to launch a world-class CRM platform and manage our customer journeys and records.”

“We also acquired Zulily, a great strategic fit for our portfolio, and plan to relaunch the site later this year. Importantly, we’ve now clearly defined the brand identity and consumer value proposition for each brand, leaning into the white space of their historical core competencies and natural strengths,” Lemonis continued.

“We assembled a world-class team and believe we now have the right players on the field, having hired talent and expertise in the areas of the business where needed, including legacy Bed Bath and Zulily talent. As importantly, we aligned management incentives around our financial objectives, something that historically has not been in place and gives me great confidence in our ability to achieve long-term, sustainable success. The entire team is committed to our path forward and I believe we now have all the pieces in place to win,” Lemonis concluded.

“We’re pleased with the growth in active customers and transactions during the quarter,” said Adrianne Lee, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer. “However, in analyzing the profitability of that growth, we are making the strategic decision to focus on investments to launch these brands and acquire customers with a higher probability of repeat behavior.”

“We will be investing prudently to build our brands for sustainable growth, not transient, transactional growth, and have stood up internal processes to enable our teams to evaluate decisions through the lens of investment return. We believe this will help drive our long-term success and improve shareholder returns.”

“To that end, we are halfway through the plan outlined last quarter to reduce expenses by $45 million on an annualized basis and will aim to continue to eliminate unnecessary fixed costs and create a more variable cost structure. We believe these actions, in combination with soft launching Overstock and soon Zulily, will yield sequential improvements in our margin profile. As we move through the balance of the year we will continue investing in our foundation and refining the processes that we believe will enable profitable growth for the long term,” Lee concluded.

First Quarter 2024 Results*
Orders delivered of 2.2 million, an increase of 27% year-over-year
Active customers of 6.0 million, an increase of 26% year-over-year
Total net revenue of $382 million, an increase of 0.3% year-over-year
Gross profit of $74 million, or 19.5% of total net revenue
Operating loss of $58 million
Net loss of $72 million
Diluted net loss per share of $1.62; Adjusted diluted net loss per share (non-GAAP) of $1.22
Adjusted EBITDA (non-GAAP) of ($48) million, which represents (12.5)% of net revenue
Cash and cash equivalents totaled $256 million at the end of the first quarter

Change in Presentation in the Income Statement

In the first quarter of fiscal 2024, Beyond changed the presentation for merchant fees associated with customer payments made by credit cards and other payment methods and customer service costs. Under the new presentation, Beyond includes such expenses in a separate line in operating expenses labeled, "Customer service and merchant fees", whereas previously, these expenses were included in Cost of goods sold.

Beyond concluded that such a change in presentation is preferable in the circumstances because the treatment of these costs as operating expenses is aligned with the changes in business and strategy. The change will also provide greater transparency in Beyond's external disclosures and related communications with the market.

This change in accounting policy has been applied retrospectively, and the unaudited consolidated statements of operations reflect the effect of this accounting principle change for all periods presented. This change in presentation had no impact on Loss before income taxes, Net loss, or net loss per share of common stock basic or diluted. The consolidated balance sheets, consolidated statements of comprehensive loss, consolidated statements of changes in stockholders' equity, and consolidated statements of cash flows were not impacted by this accounting policy change.

Earnings Webcast and Replay Information

Beyond will hold a conference call and webcast to discuss its first quarter 2024 financial results on Tuesday, May 7 at 8:30 a.m. A replay of the conference call will be available at https://investors.beyond.com shortly after the live call has ended.