World Market

[storewanderer]

World Market went to 90% off Christmas on Thursday/Friday and all 3 stores in my area had a ton of product left. 4-5 of those short little World Market aisles. I've never seen so much left. They brought in a lot of new food items this year but a lot of the ornaments look identical to last year.

I also couldn't help but notice at all 3 stores they do not seem well staffed (2-3 employees on duty at any given time) and the attitude of the employees at all 3 locations ranges from indifferent to terrible. I am not sure what is going on. I was noticing when I went into these stores last year they seemed quite understaffed.

The Reno and Carson City Stores look well stocked and well merchandised. The Sparks Store is rather empty of merchandise and does not look healthy but no issue with the merchandising, just a lot of open space.

I am not sure how this chain is doing. My experiences send mixed signals. But it is certainly better they are at least open...

I do wonder how much being next to vacant BBB Stores has hurt them. My guess is it has hurt them a lot.

[Romr123]

just noticed visiting the Palm Springs store when we returned---they had several-month expired food on the reduced rack (usually it's short-dated but still in-date----indication that they're not culling appropriately).

They had a good bit of remaining Christmas, but it looked just on the reasonable side (seasonality here is a little strange, with people returning back to vacation properties in January but looking to load up for next year...in other words holiday merchandise seems to not sell as rapidly post-holiday as the norm).

[storewanderer]

just noticed visiting the Palm Springs store when we returned---they had several-month expired food on the reduced rack (usually it's short-dated but still in-date----indication that they're not culling appropriately).

They had a good bit of remaining Christmas, but it looked just on the reasonable side (seasonality here is a little strange, with people returning back to vacation properties in January but looking to load up for next year...in other words holiday merchandise seems to not sell as rapidly post-holiday as the norm).

Yeah, I was looking and notice I bought some expired food items from those back endcaps also... December expirations... two different locations...

I am worried about this chain.

[ClownLoach]

World Market went to 90% off Christmas on Thursday/Friday and all 3 stores in my area had a ton of product left. 4-5 of those short little World Market aisles. I've never seen so much left. They brought in a lot of new food items this year but a lot of the ornaments look identical to last year.

I also couldn't help but notice at all 3 stores they do not seem well staffed (2-3 employees on duty at any given time) and the attitude of the employees at all 3 locations ranges from indifferent to terrible. I am not sure what is going on. I was noticing when I went into these stores last year they seemed quite understaffed.

The Reno and Carson City Stores look well stocked and well merchandised. The Sparks Store is rather empty of merchandise and does not look healthy but no issue with the merchandising, just a lot of open space.

I am not sure how this chain is doing. My experiences send mixed signals. But it is certainly better they are at least open...

I do wonder how much being next to vacant BBB Stores has hurt them. My guess is it has hurt them a lot.

If you think that's bad go look at a Michaels right now... All the stores I have visited have lots of expired food (in the baking dept). Stores have one employee running them and all self checkout with no cashier to do returns or take cash except during peak hours. They still have Christmas stuff 60% and 70% clearance. Same problem, lots of locations next to a dead BB&B and/or BuyBuyBaby

[storewanderer]

World Market went to 90% off Christmas on Thursday/Friday and all 3 stores in my area had a ton of product left. 4-5 of those short little World Market aisles. I've never seen so much left. They brought in a lot of new food items this year but a lot of the ornaments look identical to last year.

I also couldn't help but notice at all 3 stores they do not seem well staffed (2-3 employees on duty at any given time) and the attitude of the employees at all 3 locations ranges from indifferent to terrible. I am not sure what is going on. I was noticing when I went into these stores last year they seemed quite understaffed.

The Reno and Carson City Stores look well stocked and well merchandised. The Sparks Store is rather empty of merchandise and does not look healthy but no issue with the merchandising, just a lot of open space.

I am not sure how this chain is doing. My experiences send mixed signals. But it is certainly better they are at least open...

I do wonder how much being next to vacant BBB Stores has hurt them. My guess is it has hurt them a lot.

If you think that's bad go look at a Michaels right now... All the stores I have visited have lots of expired food (in the baking dept). Stores have one employee running them and all self checkout with no cashier to do returns or take cash except during peak hours. They still have Christmas stuff 60% and 70% clearance. Same problem, lots of locations next to a dead BB&B and/or BuyBuyBaby

I should do that, I will do that soon. I went into 3 Ross tonight. That about made me want to give up going to stores. The first two were actually fairly well stocked and very busy, extremely messy. 10-15 customers waiting to check out at each with 3-4 cashiers. The third one with a panhandler practically in the entry door standing within 5 feet of the "LOSS PREVENTION" employee who stands inside the door and about 30% of the racks in the store just flat empty (not sure what happened there) and the great Ross signs all over such as "please do not open packages" and "WE CHECK ALL BILLS" and the fort-style locked up fitting rooms/restrooms were enough for me to not proceed to any further locations. Supposedly they had some very good clearance sales today like .49 items, not sure if these stores didn't have stuff left or didn't do the markdown but I didn't find anything.

I'm not sure all of the Michaels in my area have converted to this self checkout model yet. They are still pulling traffic from what I see in their shopping centers. Sparks one doesn't seem to have as much traffic as the others despite heavy growth in the area, but that shopping center is just having problems in general for some reason.

[Bluelightspecial]

World Market went to 90% off Christmas on Thursday/Friday and all 3 stores in my area had a ton of product left. 4-5 of those short little World Market aisles. I've never seen so much left. They brought in a lot of new food items this year but a lot of the ornaments look identical to last year.

I also couldn't help but notice at all 3 stores they do not seem well staffed (2-3 employees on duty at any given time) and the attitude of the employees at all 3 locations ranges from indifferent to terrible. I am not sure what is going on. I was noticing when I went into these stores last year they seemed quite understaffed.

The Reno and Carson City Stores look well stocked and well merchandised. The Sparks Store is rather empty of merchandise and does not look healthy but no issue with the merchandising, just a lot of open space.

I am not sure how this chain is doing. My experiences send mixed signals. But it is certainly better they are at least open...

I do wonder how much being next to vacant BBB Stores has hurt them. My guess is it has hurt them a lot.

If you think that's bad go look at a Michaels right now... All the stores I have visited have lots of expired food (in the baking dept). Stores have one employee running them and all self checkout with no cashier to do returns or take cash except during peak hours. They still have Christmas stuff 60% and 70% clearance. Same problem, lots of locations next to a dead BB&B and/or BuyBuyBaby

I should do that, I will do that soon. I went into 3 Ross tonight. That about made me want to give up going to stores. The first two were actually fairly well stocked and very busy, extremely messy. 10-15 customers waiting to check out at each with 3-4 cashiers. The third one with a panhandler practically in the entry door standing within 5 feet of the "LOSS PREVENTION" employee who stands inside the door and about 30% of the racks in the store just flat empty (not sure what happened there) and the great Ross signs all over such as "please do not open packages" and "WE CHECK ALL BILLS" and the fort-style locked up fitting rooms/restrooms were enough for me to not proceed to any further locations. Supposedly they had some very good clearance sales today like .49 items, not sure if these stores didn't have stuff left or didn't do the markdown but I didn't find anything.

I'm not sure all of the Michaels in my area have converted to this self checkout model yet. They are still pulling traffic from what I see in their shopping centers. Sparks one doesn't seem to have as much traffic as the others despite heavy growth in the area, but that shopping center is just having problems in general for some reason.

There may be exceptions, but I think the writing is on the wall for most World Markets. Most around my area have thinned out inventory a lot. When they launched their wine departments they were mostly successful, but I was in the closest one to my house last week, and the wine department is about a quarter of what it used to be. The food section is similar. The aisles are more spread out, and there is only one or two employees seen. The furniture (which has always been overpriced for what you get) has become more limited. On the exterior, when they removed the "COST PLUS" verbiage they didn't even attempt to patch, repair and paint where they removed the words. This appears to be more similar to what happened at BBB before they went out of business.

[storewanderer]

There may be exceptions, but I think the writing is on the wall for most World Markets. Most around my area have thinned out inventory a lot. When they launched their wine departments they were mostly successful, but I was in the closest one to my house last week, and the wine department is about a quarter of what it used to be. The food section is similar. The aisles are more spread out, and there is only one or two employees seen. The furniture (which has always been overpriced for what you get) has become more limited. On the exterior, when they removed the "COST PLUS" verbiage they didn't even attempt to patch, repair and paint where they removed the words. This appears to be more similar to what happened at BBB before they went out of business.

I think so too. The Save Mart group who owns it now seemed to do some good things to mix and really restocked the stores initially, but 2023 something happened and whatever they did that caused the terrible employee attitude in the store, was a very bad thing. Even under BBB I never saw this kind of disengaged/miserable employee attitude at World Market.

I am suspicious after all of BBB closed and foot traffic around World Markets declined significantly in Summer 2023, the chain fell into a bad situation and the solution of course was to cut down on staff, which left the remaining staff unhappy.

However two of my three stores are VERY well stocked. But you are right about the wine department; back in the late 90's and early 00's, World Market sold quite a bit of wine. Under BBB they seemed to sell less and less wine and now they seem to sell even less still. I think the expansion of concepts like Total Wine as well as expanded wine departments at various grocers over the years hurt the World Market wine department. I also never see any sort of engagement occurring in the World Market wine department such as tastings etc. Even Grocery Outlet can throw together some wine tastings once a month or sometimes more. Why can't they? No budget I guess.

[ClownLoach]

There may be exceptions, but I think the writing is on the wall for most World Markets. Most around my area have thinned out inventory a lot. When they launched their wine departments they were mostly successful, but I was in the closest one to my house last week, and the wine department is about a quarter of what it used to be. The food section is similar. The aisles are more spread out, and there is only one or two employees seen. The furniture (which has always been overpriced for what you get) has become more limited. On the exterior, when they removed the "COST PLUS" verbiage they didn't even attempt to patch, repair and paint where they removed the words. This appears to be more similar to what happened at BBB before they went out of business.

I think so too. The Save Mart group who owns it now seemed to do some good things to mix and really restocked the stores initially, but 2023 something happened and whatever they did that caused the terrible employee attitude in the store, was a very bad thing. Even under BBB I never saw this kind of disengaged/miserable employee attitude at World Market.

I am suspicious after all of BBB closed and foot traffic around World Markets declined significantly in Summer 2023, the chain fell into a bad situation and the solution of course was to cut down on staff, which left the remaining staff unhappy.

However two of my three stores are VERY well stocked. But you are right about the wine department; back in the late 90's and early 00's, World Market sold quite a bit of wine. Under BBB they seemed to sell less and less wine and now they seem to sell even less still. I think the expansion of concepts like Total Wine as well as expanded wine departments at various grocers over the years hurt the World Market wine department. I also never see any sort of engagement occurring in the World Market wine department such as tastings etc. Even Grocery Outlet can throw together some wine tastings once a month or sometimes more. Why can't they? No budget I guess.

I do think the Save Mart folks have done good work on these stores but now are encountering new stumbling blocks. The stores had too much merchandise before and were cluttered, crowded and confusing. A lot of that excess product that nobody goes there for was removed (like the jewelry department). Then they ordered way too much food stock hoping the department reset would drive more sales. So now they're overstocked with foods that are going bad. But getting rid of non-core businesses should be good for this chain, and that includes clearing and removing some of the excessive racking, carts and other fixtures that make the store feel claustrophobic in some areas.

Wine seems to be struggling there and also at Trader Joe's. It's clear TJs does not move nearly as much as they did previously. Bevmo looks like they're ready to close up shop any day, the aisles of stale food brought in by GoPuff are the only full areas. The wines and liquor coming in are all lower end product which is indicative of their business problems, lots of $10 no name junk liquor. Meanwhile Total Wine and Costco have never sold more from what I can tell. Costco is getting the highest end specialty allocated liquors and usually has an employee working the inventory to keep bins full every hour. Sam's Club has greatly expanded their liquor department as well.

From what I can tell, private equity retailers are slashing payrolls to the bone universally. They like to play money games as we all know and in times of higher interest rates their borrowing expenses go up. Payrolls at World Market, Michaels, AtHome, PetSmart, Staples and a few other of these box stores owned by PE firms are running skeleton crews.

[storewanderer]

Don't forget 99 Only as another PE? owned retailer that seems to be in very bad shape- no CLUE what is going on there.

I am hoping World Market can pull through this. They do not have the traffic to handle the increase in food, a lot of these imports don't have terribly long shelf lives either (fewer preservatives, cleaner ingredient lists, etc.) which is probably also a problem. There doesn't seem to be much marketing for the chain. Their systems are ancient. BBB really did not ever spend money on anything with World Market, just sort of ran it as an also ran type of thing. That may be good because that made World Market very easy to separate from BBB. As the BBB spaces re-tenant it should help them.

I still see plenty of wine being moved at Trader Joe's but it is mostly cheaper stuff.

[ClownLoach]

I went into World Market a couple nights ago and made some observations and talked to some employees to find out what's going on.

First off, the front end of the store is jam packed with new seasonal merchandise and looks great, but I think they're doing too much at once. They have large areas of Lunar New Year, Valentines Day, Easter, and generic Spring decor. All of these sets were fresh and full and looked very solid.

Going around the store, saw a mix of solid and problems. They are moving a lot of decor and furniture around right now, and there is a lot on clearance. They are trying to set a new category of home office in the back right area, but I don't think they've sold off enough other products to make room for it. Foods are being reset, and they have all new signage up thru the department. Problems are that the new items aren't in stock yet (creating empty spaces with "new" tags), and all the back end caps are being used for a lot of clearance.

Wine has definitely been cut way back, and they've switched to a fixture with shelves that aren't heavy-duty enough to hold the heavy bottles. I'm concerned about lots of breakage in an earthquake.

Kitchenware is quite a problem with a seemingly random assortment of pots and pans, and a growing assortment of exotic looking serving plates etc.

They were working on multiple aisles setting planograms at 6pm (!!!). I asked what's up with the inconsistent presentation and the person in charge of the merchandising team said that World Market resets all of the store in January and February each year and thousands of new items have arrived or are arriving over the next few weeks. They said that they are expanding the seasonal areas, especially seasonal foods, adding home office decor, and cutting back on the other furniture and especially the expensive kitchen items like pots pans and knives. They said that most of the pots and pans and such was sourced by BB&B and are not replaced as they're sold off. (I believe the margins are low in those categories so it makes sense not to just do a clearance sale).

So my thoughts:

First, they need floor planners at the corporate office to tell the stores how to merchandise. They need to make a racetrack around the store, right now it's too hard to get around. And they put too many tall fixtures in the front of the store in this new seasonal area and block sight to the back and sides where things are low. I'm surprised they can't figure this common sense aspect out, which is something BB&B had figured out before.

Second, they can't spend two months resetting the store after Christmas, and shouldn't be tearing up the store as late as 6pm. They need to address whatever operational issue is causing this, get a early morning team, whatever. And they need to plan shipments so they don't have empty new sets and goods that take up to two months to arrive after Christmas.

Third, clearance is really hit and miss which is probably why they have too much of it. There was a line of black steel pans that I have one of at home and really like, but it's somewhat high maintenance like cast iron so I understand that it might not have sold well/high returns etc. It belongs in a Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table type place where they can educate the customer. Anyway three price points, $39.99 was clearance at $34.97, $49.99 was $44.97, and finally $79.99 was $54.97. Obviously no consistency there in the price points, I would have bought one of the smaller ones but based on original price and the larger ones I would have been a buyer if it was between $20-$25.

I was happy to hear that they have lots of product on the way (or arrived already) and that relieves some concerns, but it also sounds like they've taken steps back operationally and haven't fully recovered from separation from BB&B which is concerning considering how long they've had now.