Bed Bath & Beyond Selling Cost Plus World Market

Alpha8472
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Bed Bath & Beyond Selling Cost Plus World Market

Post by Alpha8472 »

Bed Bath & Beyond is selling Cost Plus World Market to private equity firm Kingswood Capital Management.

The company completed the sale of Christmas Tree Shops, Linen Holdings, and a distribution center in Florence, New Jersey in November. They appear to be streamlining the company.

Will Cost Plus World Market survive on its own or will it just die like Pier 1 Imports?

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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond Selling Cost Plus World Market

Post by storewanderer »

I like Cost Plus but I think it was a step from liquidation when Bed Bath and Beyond bought it out... It seems to have more foot traffic and better merchandising (neither of those are saying much) than Bed Bath and Beyond which is a completely anemic and dying retailer with stores so poorly stocked it looks like it is going under.

I don't really consider Cost Plus to be like Pier 1 at all. Cost Plus has significant food, some liquor, more seasonal items (for instance now they have a number of nice Christmas ornaments), more small value home decor items, actual kitchen items like coffee presses, etc., sometimes has some clothing, etc. Pier 1 didn't have any food/liquor, the seasonal items they had were quite overpriced, didn't really have kitchen items beyond plates... yes Pier 1 had more high value furniture type items, but people don't shop for those very often.

They probably should have kept Cost Plus and done more combination stores. Maybe it would have gotten more people to take an interest in what Bed Bath and Beyond has to offer if they were there for the consumables or low value seasonal goods Cost Plus has to offer. I do always go into Bed Bath and Beyond when I go into Cost Plus (since they seem to almost always be right next to each other); I always buy something at Cost Plus; at Bed Bath and Beyond I buy perhaps 15% of the time I go in (and that is usually something from their drugstore department, which as of late is a poorly stocked forgotten mess, much like the poorly stocked but orderly rest of their store).
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond Selling Cost Plus World Market

Post by buckguy »

The freestanding and BBB in-store Cost Plus' around here have little if any foot traffic. BBBs do much better.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond Selling Cost Plus World Market

Post by storewanderer »

buckguy wrote: December 18th, 2020, 12:42 pm The freestanding and BBB in-store Cost Plus' around here have little if any foot traffic. BBBs do much better.
Must be a regional issue with Cost Plus there. The foot traffic is significantly higher in those stores than BBB in the areas I go to.

BBB probably still dos higher dollars in sales, even with less foot traffic. From what I see, Cost Plus gets a lot of pretty small transaction/low value sales. Both stores have significantly less traffic than they had 15 years ago... not even sure if they have 50% of the traffic they once had. BBB in particular the past couple years has been completely run into the ground. Cost Plus seems stagnant.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond Selling Cost Plus World Market

Post by rwsandiego »

storewanderer wrote: December 18th, 2020, 12:03 am I like Cost Plus but I think it was a step from liquidation when Bed Bath and Beyond bought it out...
Actually, Cost Plus was profitable. In this LA Times article about the acquisition , their profit for the fourth quarter of 2011 was $36.5 million on sales of $364.3 million.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond Selling Cost Plus World Market

Post by storewanderer »

rwsandiego wrote: December 19th, 2020, 10:18 am
storewanderer wrote: December 18th, 2020, 12:03 am I like Cost Plus but I think it was a step from liquidation when Bed Bath and Beyond bought it out...
Actually, Cost Plus was profitable. In this LA Times article about the acquisition , their profit for the fourth quarter of 2011 was $36.5 million on sales of $364.3 million.
I thought Cost Plus was bankrupt when BBB bought it- my memory of that chain's situation is way off it seems.

In any case it is interesting it was profitable. I wonder if is still profitable or if BBB has run it into the ground too. BBB sure hasn't spent any money on Cost Plus. They never even moved it onto BBB's systems.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond Selling Cost Plus World Market

Post by pseudo3d »

Not sure about World Market's death since it closed around the same time of the local Pier 1 (which was located just a few doors again). I always get nervous when private equity gets involved, though, as 90% of the time that leads to death of the chain. Even Albertsons, which is one of the few "successes", was left with heavy debt and hundreds of closures.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond Selling Cost Plus World Market

Post by storewanderer »

BBB has put up new departmental signage in the busier local store and masked off the high shelves. The signs look fine, good even, but this is just a distraction from much bigger problems. The two slower stores have not gotten this "upgrade." I thought they were actually going to do remerchandising, take down the high shelves so there was a more clear line of sight in the stores, etc., but it appears they went the cheap route here. And the place is still stocked poorly.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond Selling Cost Plus World Market

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

Interesting that Citrus Heights birdcage remains open while both natomas and elk Grove have closed within the past five years, birdcage is not nearly as well merchandised as the longer established Howe location though both do decent business.

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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond Selling Cost Plus World Market

Post by storewanderer »

Cost Plus has a couple levels of stores, the stores that do little volume and the stores that do better volume.

In my area the Reno Cost Plus does better volume and it is merchandised very fully and quite nicely. For a while last year it was pretty empty too but since the ownership change especially the past couple months the store has gotten a ton of new merchandise and feels rather energetic again.

The other two Cost Plus, one in Sparks and one in Carson City, are very low volume, still have very low inventory, and have looked like store closure is coming for years now. But they remain open.
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