Beyond Inc. chairman: “I see something totally different”

In Beyond Inc.’s evolving business model, retail will become a component of a larger company that will focus on monetizing IP and data.

Midvale, Utah – In Beyond Inc.’s evolving business model, retail will become a component of a larger company that will focus on monetizing IP and data.

During the Piper Sandler Growth Frontiers Conference early this week, company chairman Marcus Lemonis laid out his vision for the company’s future. In that scenario, Beyond Inc. acts as a holding company that sits atop a variety of businesses, each of which feeds data and revenues up to the parent company.

Lemonis indicated that he sees the traditional model for home goods retailing as outmoded because retailers sell goods and services that last only as long as the customer wants them, he explained.

“And I look at the goods and services that are sold across not only this business but other businesses outside the home space, and I see something totally different,” he added. “I see a holding company that becomes more of a data and a fintech company using a much lower cost of acquisition to monetize that consumer in a different way after you build an affinity with them.”

Current and future initiatives include:

Global licensing: Last week, Beyond Inc. licensed Pem America to create a full line of Bed Bath & Beyond brand home textiles for the wholesale market. The company is now moving to strike global licenses in other product categories – not only for the Bed Bath brand but also its Overstock, Zulily and other online retail brands.

Physical retail stores: The company has forged a licensing agreement for Bed Bath & Beyond brand in Mexico. In addition, Beyond Inc. will soon announce financial deals with two U.S. retailers to convert some of their stores (and perhaps all) to the Bed Bath & Beyond nameplate. It is working on a similar deal to bring the Overstock brand into bricks retailing.

Home-related businesses: Lemonis mentioned home warranties and shipping insurance (both of which the company recently began to provide via a 3^rd party partnership), along with mortgages, key locks, credit cards and a global loyalty program as services the company could ultimately provide.

“The purpose of all of that is to accumulate consumer data,” he said.

He wants Beyond Inc. to become the repository not only of names, addresses and phone numbers, but also information about the size of a customer’s property, the size of the home, when the home was purchased, the home owner’s mortgage balance, the identity of the mortgage lender, the home owner’s credit score “and everything in between,” he told investors.

Ultimately, Beyond would serve as the holding company “up top.” It owns all the data, all the customer files and all the intellectual property. The businesses “down below” would rent that data and the IP from Beyond. Each retail brand’s job is to generate positive contribution margin transactions and generate a positive EBIDTA within its silo.

“We don’t currently break them out [in financial reporting], but our goal is in future years to show people what exists inside” of each discrete retail operation, he said.