Bed Bath & Beyond advances digital-first strategy

Bed Bath & Beyond and buybyBaby customers can now pick up purchases curbside at any of the retailer's stores before the store is open for the day and as early at 8 a.m.

The capability reflects the retailer's continued strategy to be a digital-first, omni-always retailer, according to a press release.

In addition, all BOPIS and curbside orders placed during store operating hours will be ready in one hour from order placement, which cuts one hour off the prior "ready for pickup" window that had been in place.

Bed Bath & Beyond has also nearly doubled the number of zip codes eligible for same day delivery, due to a U.S. partnership with crowdsourced delivery platform Roadie.

"We are excited to further reinvent digital services like same day delivery and buy-online-pickup-curbside or in-store to get orders in the hands of our customers even sooner," Rafeh Masood, EVP and chief digital officer of Bed Bath & Beyond, said in the release. "The country is getting 'back to normal' and we want to give consumers expanded flexibility on how to get online orders within hours. Whether that means placing a last-minute same day delivery order to better entertain this summer or picking up an online order on the way to work, we are finding new innovative ways to meet the evolving needs of today's digital customers."

As reported in its recent Q1 2021 results, digital sales in the quarter were 38% of net sales. There were more than 500,000 downloads of the Bed Bath & Beyond mobile app in the quarter, bringing the total amount of app downloads across all banners to more than more than three million over the past year.

Approximately 31% of digital sales in the quarter were fulfilled by stores through initiatives such as same day delivery, BOPIS or curbside, or orders shipped from stores to customers. More than 50% of all Bed Bath & Beyond customers shop both in-store and digitally, according to the release.