Bed Bath & Beyond CEO says losing $100 million in Q3 sales hurts but signals strong shopper demand

Bed Bath & Beyond CEO Mark Tritton on Thursday expressed disappointment over the retailer’s supply-chain issues in its third quarter, while also suggesting there’s a silver lining to be found.

The company estimates that it left about $100 million in sales on the table in the third-quarter, helping explain why 3Q revenues of $1.88 billion fell short of Wall Street’s $1.95 billion forecast.

“It does show that the brand is alive and well and that we have demand. That we can’t meet it absolutely kills me. It’s a real opportunity for [2022],” Tritton said in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer on “Mad Money.”

A couple different customer scenarios transpired to lead to Bed Bath & Beyond’s $100 million estimation, Tritton explained.

“The customer comes online, they want to buy a great item from us. They see it on our assortment. They want to buy that to pick up at their local store. The inventory is not in the right place to be made available. It’s actually locked in a warehouse,” Tritton said.

He continued: “Or they want to buy it from us online, and it actually hasn’t been replenished because our vendors are also starved for that key inventory, so we actually had the physical data of customers coming to us in store and online and us not being able to meet them.”

Tritton, who took over as CEO in November 2019 to turn around the home-goods retailer, said Bed Bath & Beyond is committed to avoiding missed sales in the future.

“We see that as something we have to double down on, and we’ll get through our inventory woes as we build processes and procedures from here in the mid-term through to our full transformation coming through the end of ’22,” Tritton said.

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