Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

bryceleinan
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by bryceleinan »

storewanderer wrote: September 15th, 2022, 1:18 am I notice Kroger has been promoting BBB and BBBaby too with some kind of tie up where you can order BBB/BBBaby products through Kroger. Of course Kroger has a competing home/bed/bath/baby program in the Fred Meyer and abbreviated version of that in the Marketplace Stores. At this point Kroger has significantly more branded product than BBB has. I wonder if they could potentially try to tie up with Fred Meyer and get Fred Meyer to help them fulfill some customer orders of branded products? That doesn't seem like a long term solution but may at least give them some stuff to appear to "sell" in the short term.

I agree it looks like this whole chain will go. Supposedly another closure round comes in January. I question if they can even make it that long. What happened to Back to College, that was supposed to be a big time for them? Must have been a total disaster. Can we expect the Holidays to be anything different for them?

And it isn't just them; with the inflation the retail environment is going to be extremely tough for anyone other than retailers of essential goods at fair prices like Costco, Wal Mart, and such.
That Kroger partnership seems peculiar to me… outside of Freddy’s, there’s not much synergy between the chains.

Also, I can almost guarantee Carson City is in the next round… that store opened late 2002/early 2003 IIRC. I think it opened just after Best Buy (and I worked at store 850 around that timeframe.)
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by storewanderer »

bryceleinan wrote: September 15th, 2022, 10:38 pm

That Kroger partnership seems peculiar to me… outside of Freddy’s, there’s not much synergy between the chains.

Also, I can almost guarantee Carson City is in the next round… that store opened late 2002/early 2003 IIRC. I think it opened just after Best Buy (and I worked at store 850 around that timeframe.)
Kroger isn't selling BBB items in store, only online. I don't see the benefit to Kroger (maybe some commission or something). Maybe the same logic for why Kroger sells Target gift cards. May as well sell Wal Mart gift cards too (wait, nobody but Wal Mart sells those).

That Sparks shopping area seems like it is following the path it followed in the last recession. Circuit City, Old Navy, and Office Max all closed stores out in that Sparks shopping area before any other closures in the area. Bed Bath and Beyond is a goner, we will see what is next. No use making rumors but I don't think one has to look too far from Bed Bath and Beyond to see what look like a couple additional closure candidates.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by storewanderer »

Went to one of the closing stores. They are self liquidating. Very strange liquidation sales. It appears they do not have money for a standard liquidation sale. No security guard. Store looked basically fully stocked. Everything in the store has reverted back to full price.

The store has signs up that just say "storewide sale." No reference to "store closing." It was 15-30% off but I'm not sure what was 30% off. If you ask the employees they are supposed to not tell you the store is closing but instead dodge the question and ask if you need help finding anything and if they do not have what you are looking for they are to refer you to the website. They also still accept coupons.

There are no "all sales final" signs. This is because all sales are not final. The receipt is still advertising a survey, their standard refund policy, and a same day delivery program. They are still wanting a phone number before you can use the pinpad and they had a tally sheet at the customer service area that functions as the one open register, where they were keeping track of how many people they signed up for their loyalty program today and how many people they sold reusable bags to. This was a piece of paper with today's date written on it and boxes for them to run each tally. Being in a closing store what in the heck are they screwing with this for at this point?
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote: September 18th, 2022, 10:39 pm Went to one of the closing stores. They are self liquidating. Very strange liquidation sales. It appears they do not have money for a standard liquidation sale. No security guard. Store looked basically fully stocked. Everything in the store has reverted back to full price.

The store has signs up that just say "storewide sale." No reference to "store closing." It was 15-30% off but I'm not sure what was 30% off. If you ask the employees they are supposed to not tell you the store is closing but instead dodge the question and ask if you need help finding anything and if they do not have what you are looking for they are to refer you to the website. They also still accept coupons.

There are no "all sales final" signs. This is because all sales are not final. The receipt is still advertising a survey, their standard refund policy, and a same day delivery program. They are still wanting a phone number before you can use the pinpad and they had a tally sheet at the customer service area that functions as the one open register, where they were keeping track of how many people they signed up for their loyalty program today and how many people they sold reusable bags to. This was a piece of paper with today's date written on it and boxes for them to run each tally. Being in a closing store what in the heck are they screwing with this for at this point?
The loyalty part makes sense - if they have information for you, they can try to get you to shop via their website and/or give you more info. as to where other stores are once the one you are in closes up.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by storewanderer »

The closing store is now 20-40% off and has replaced the storewide sale signs with "store closing sale" signs. The store was very busy with two cashiers running steady. Customers were taking carts upon entry and not really buying much but everyone seemed to at least have a few items. Seems "store closing sale" attracts a lot more traffic than "storewide sale."

They also had signs posted that said NEW MERCHANDISE ARRIVING.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by Alpha8472 »

Even when Circuit City was holding closing sales, the prices were terrible. It was more expensive than a full priced Best Buy. People still bought stuff because they thought they were getting a good deal.

Maybe people at Bed, Bath, and Beyond are a little more price conscious.

Whenever, people see a store closing sign it makes then want to buy something even if it is not a good deal.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: October 1st, 2022, 9:33 pm Even when Circuit City was holding closing sales, the prices were terrible. It was more expensive than a full priced Best Buy. People still bought stuff because they thought they were getting a good deal.

Maybe people at Bed, Bath, and Beyond are a little more price conscious.

Whenever, people see a store closing sign it makes then want to buy something even if it is not a good deal.
Despite it being the first of the month I think people are suddenly very price conscious around Reno when gas is crossing over $6 so suddenly. I was surprised Bed Bath and Beyond had as much traffic as it did even closing. World Market was dead, Michaels and Ulta were slow, Ross was slow, Five Below had traffic but little buying happening, Petsmart was very busy, Wal Mart was very busy, Kohls was slow. Pretty clear people are going after consumables and essentials.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »



Round two is claiming its first Sacramento casualty (natomas), Town and country remains safe for now but who knows how long it will last.

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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by storewanderer »

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.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by ClownLoach »

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.
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