Home furnishings retailer Bath & Beyond slashed its third-quarter profit forecast, the latest retailer to do so in a sluggish U.S. retail market.
The company’s shares fell 6.3% in late evening trading on Tuesday.
Bed Bath & Beyond now expects third quarter earnings of about $1.07 to $1.10 per share, down from its prior expectation of $1.14 to $1.21 per share.
The company also said it expects sales in the quarter to grow by 0.3 percent to about $3.0 billion. It had earlier expected sales to increase by about 1.8 to 4.0%.
The company, like Macy’s (M) and Nordstrom (JWN) , is facing intense competition from online retailers such as Amazon.com (AMZN) .
“…We experienced softer in-store transaction counts, and on the other hand sales from our customer-facing digital channels demonstrated strong growth, in excess of 25 percent”, Bed Bath & Beyond Chief Executive, Steven Temares said.
Amazon.com has revolutionized shopping habits, conditioning shoppers to expect deeper discounts than brick-and-mortar stores can afford. Analysts call this the “Amazon effect.”
Analysts on an average expected the company to earn $1.17 per share on revenue of $3.02 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
