Wall Street has not been kind to Williams-Sonoma. A year ago, shares in the kitchenware and home furnishings retailer traded above $75. Today the stock price hovers below $47.
That decline, no doubt, is part of what’s driving the retailer’s move into new and unexpected businesses.
With the company’s next earnings report expected in mid-November, the owner of Pottery Barn, West Elm and the eponymous seller of high-end cooking gear, has taken to announcing initiatives that have generated a fair amount of press.
First, came news that West Elm would enter the hotel business.
And now Williams-Sonoma has announced its entry into the meal-kit business dominated by start-ups such as Blue Apron.
Certainly there are reasons to think Williams-Sonoma will do well in meal kits. Foremost among these is that the brand name is synonymous with a level of sophisticated cooking.
Yet there are reasons for doubt as well...chiefly that the meal-kit business is having problems of its own.
Data from Checkout TrackingSM shows that more than half of consumers who sign up for a meal-kit delivery system from the three biggest players in the space wind up cancelling.
Source: The NPD Group/ Checkout Tracking SM Online
Period: 12ME September 2016
| Subscription Service | Share of Buyers* that Cancelled Subscription |
| Blue Apron | 57.2% |
| Hello Fresh | 55.4% |
| Plated | 55.1% |
* Buyers who initiated the subscription within the year
For more about Williams-Sonoma, take a look at this earlier blog post.