MIDVALE, Utah – Over the course of the first quarter, Beyond Inc.’s strategy for furniture has solidified for the Bed Bath & Beyond and Overstock.com businesses.

The Bed Bath & Beyond e-commerce site will concentrate on product categories that were the traditional strength of the legacy retail chain: bedding, bath, kitchen and outdoor living. Each will be enhanced with room-specific furniture “being sold as an understandable adjacency,” Executive Chairman Marcus Lemonis told investors during this morning’s first quarter review call.

By bucket, Bed Bath’s assortment will include:

• Bedroom: Bedding, pillows, mattresses, bedroom furniture, rugs, lighting, closet organization and décor.
• Kitchen: Small appliances, tabletop, kitchen furniture, lighting and kitchen accessories.
• Patio: Outdoor furniture, grills, smokers, heaters, games, lighting, other backyard toys and accessories.
• Bathroom: Towels, rugs, curtains, vanities, mirrors, lighting, accessories and beauty and wellness.

Overstock.com, which began its relaunch on March 28, will be anchored by core furniture categories for rooms throughout the house and supplemented with rugs, patio, apparel, footwear, jewelry and a variety of vendor-supplied special buys.

“We intend to further leverage the Overstock brand as the leader in excess, factory direct liquidations and reverse-logistics businesses,” said Lemonis.

To build on that positioning, Beyond Inc. is now finalizing terms for a partnership with one of the largest liquidators in America.

Lemonis acknowledged that shifting the bulk of the furniture business back to the resurrected Overstock.com platform will bite into Bed Bath & Beyond’s top line, making the latter even more heavily reliant on smaller-ticket products. But the a more robust big-ticket business at Overstock is expected to counter-balance that.

“We will still see bedroom furniture at Bed Bath & Beyond, but we will have pulled away all those non-obvious items,” he said.

One of the biggest challenges over the past last 60 days has been “threading the needle” at Bed Bath & Beyond as the company slowly shifts furniture to Overstock in a way that would be seamless to the customers.

“We have taken it in the teeth for a few weeks,” Lemonis said.

See also:

• Beyond Inc. nudges Q1 revenue into positive territory, loss widens significantly
• New chief merchants for Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock
• Overstock.com is back with ‘crazy good deals’

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