storewanderer wrote: ↑December 3rd, 2022, 11:05 pm
The round 1 store that is still closing in Sparks is, well, still closing, All items are 40-80% off. Basically all items are 40% off. Shams and pillow cases are 80% off and I don't think anything else is. In the past week they received a ton of baby strollers and other baby merchandise.
I am surprised they keep the closing sale going this long.
It is very strange that they aren't using liquidation firms to manage these sales. Despite what we all know about their shady practices they manage to get everything sold and the doors shut in a month (on average). I wonder if they are afraid that the liquidators will gain insight into the business - good or bad - which could affect how they bid for the company in the event of a bankruptcy auction? Or is it just another typical bad BB&B decision, where they thought they could get a better return on the inventory by doing the liquidation themselves? It is very possible that they have a "holiday exit window" on their lease which is keeping this Sparks location and others open - I am familiar with such terms where in the event of a lease not being renewed by either side the store can remain open through the end of January/February regardless of the actual lease end date as this is usually mutually beneficial to the retailer and landlord. This is also why so many store closures get announced right around New Year's; the fact is that the closing decision could have been made many months before but it was kept from the store and customers. Many times I have found that the landlord will accidentally reveal upcoming closures by listing a Center name and square footage becoming available on industry sites like LoopNet.
The reason I find it so strange is that they had what I will call "Pre Wave 1 Disappearing Stores" such as Huntington Beach, CA that literally vanished overnight. If they had a closing sale I don't know anyone who saw it. That location was a top volume store for them (nearly all of the stores in that Beach/I-405 hub are in the top 10% of volume for their chains). The assumption is that they sold the lease back to the landlord who will be displacing Burlington soon by replacing their building with a couple hundred luxury apartments. The last retailer I can name that happily sold off their best locations was Sears under "Fast Eddie".
I know the former Manager of one of the stores on this list. They left a couple of months ago because they saw the writing on the wall for the company and were recruited to a more successful chain. Their store was not a bad location - it should not be closing. Assuming that the lease was up for renewal so they either opted out or were non-renewed by their landlord. If they're using unit level profit to make closing decisions, at this point in time there probably isn't a single store in their organization that isn't bleeding red on the P&L with the well documented inventory problems (I saw a report that over 40% of their SKUs have been out of stock as a company for months going into the holiday season). They basically lost the entire wedding registry market by destroying their assortment and replacing it with Walmart quality private labels at Nordstrom prices, and now they're out of stock except for bad private label product for their busiest time of the year. In a company that is so dependent on trendy gifts, and does so much of their business in the holiday season, I can't imagine how much they must be losing every single day. The CEO is claiming that their books are clean now and they have paid their bills, but that still doesn't mean that anyone will give them credit to buy product either. And when the vendors cut off credit lines there really isn't any way to get product as no retailer keeps enough cash lying around to pay on receipt. I just don't see how this isn't already a controlled wind down of the company despite wacky actions like Capex investment in store remodels.