Peloton slashing 780 jobs, closing stores and hiking prices in push to turn

Peloton told employees Friday that it is slashing roughly 780 jobs, closing a significant number of its retail stores and hiking prices on some equipment in a bid to cut costs and become profitable. 

The company did not specify how many of its 86 retail locations it plans to shutter, but said an “aggressive” reduction will begin in 2023. The pace of closures will depend on how quickly Peloton can negotiate getting out of leases.

Peloton said it will exit last-mile logistics by closing its remaining warehouses and shift delivery work to third-party providers, resulting in a portion of the job cuts. It is also cutting a number of positions in its in-house support team, which are mainly located in Tempe, Arizona, and Plano, Texas, and instead will rely on third parties. 

The sweeping changes are part of recently installed Chief Executive Officer Barry McCarthy’s plan to steer the connected fitness equipment maker in a new direction. Peloton’s business boomed to unthinkable highs after the onset of the Covid pandemic, sending shares surging alongside other so-called stay-at-home stocks like Zoom. But under then-CEO and Peloton founder John Foley, demand began to slow almost as quickly as it shot up, as people started going out again.

McCarthy’s biggest tasks now include getting rid of fixed costs and finding more ways to cash in on its loyal base of customers.

“The shift of our final mile delivery to 3PLs will reduce our per-product delivery costs by up to 50% and will enable us to meet our delivery commitments in the most cost-efficient way possible,” McCarthy wrote in a memo to employees seen by CNBC.

“These expanded partnerships mean we can ensure we have the ability to scale up and down as volume fluctuates,” he added. 

Peloton, which had just lowered the prices for its products earlier this year, is raising the price of its Bike+ by $500 to $2,495 in the United States. The price of its Tread machine is going up by $800 to $3,495. The price of Peloton’s original Bike and its strength-training product known as Guide will remain unchanged.

McCarthy acknowledged the about-face on pricing, saying that the equipment price reductions made sense for the company back in April, as Peloton tried to get rid of inventory quickly.

Investors sent Peloton shares up 13.6% on Friday.

The stock has tumbled more than 60% so far this year, with the company’s share price hitting an all-time low of $8.22 in mid-July. Shares had traded as high as $120.62 apiece roughly a year ago.

Under McCarthy, who took the reins from Foley in February, the business has focused on ways to grow subscription revenue over hardware sales. Earlier this year, for example, Peloton raised the price of its all-access subscription plan in the United States to $44 per month from $39.

In July, Peloton had also announced it would stop all its in-house manufacturing and instead expand its relationship with Taiwanese manufacturer Rexon Industrial. That resulted in about 570 job cuts. The company also…