Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: December 25th, 2022, 8:33 am

Upland, CA says "Come Check Out our Totally Redesigned Store!". Upland isn't exactly the regional retail destination I'd be looking for remodeling. These guys have no idea what they're doing.
You need to look more closely at Upland. There is a Target right in the parking lot. Remember, BBB was going to show Target how it was done, they were going to completely capture all of the home customers from Target with their Target-copycat brands (which are in the process of being discontinued) and put the heat on Target.

The remodel looks like a joke anyway. It appears they painted some walls blue and didn't do much else. I don't think they even did the self checkout there, though that may be a good thing.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by cjd »

The one here started closing this month. I went the Friday after but there was really not much of interest. They were at 25% the following week but the stuff there is too overpriced to make it worthwhile.

I noticed that a lot of high end small appliances were not in stock… I don’t know if they never were or people thought any discount at all on them was a great deal.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: December 25th, 2022, 10:21 pm
ClownLoach wrote: December 25th, 2022, 8:33 am

Upland, CA says "Come Check Out our Totally Redesigned Store!". Upland isn't exactly the regional retail destination I'd be looking for remodeling. These guys have no idea what they're doing.
You need to look more closely at Upland. There is a Target right in the parking lot. Remember, BBB was going to show Target how it was done, they were going to completely capture all of the home customers from Target with their Target-copycat brands (which are in the process of being discontinued) and put the heat on Target.

The remodel looks like a joke anyway. It appears they painted some walls blue and didn't do much else. I don't think they even did the self checkout there, though that may be a good thing.
My point is that if they wanted to make these remodels more impactful for the brand image they should have started with the highest volume "A" stores in the best centers in urban areas where they get the most bang for their buck. Of course they're closing stores in impactful highly visible urban areas like Burbank, and closing stores like Irvine 6 weeks after a "Grand Reopening". Nothing against Upland but my experience has been that it is a solid suburban market with stores at or slightly below chain average run rates in the companies I've worked for ("C" or "D" volume).

Their remodels are the classic example of just not getting it anyway; stores like Murrieta replaced every fixture and did a relay of every gondola location yet they still have the #1 most problematic detail BB&B is criticized for and that's the fact you can't see all 4 corners of the store because of the stupid wall gondola up the middle. Yes they remove a lot of the dividing walls elsewhere since they basically used to be a format of 2, 3, or 4 aisle valleys divided by floor to ceiling walls and a center store stockroom. There were probably a dozen or more smaller walls ruining sight lines before, but why leave any? So since they do all the rest of the work in the remodel (replacement of fixtures, resetting all planograms, floor repairs, building new stock rooms in the back corners) why in God's name do they put a front to back wall up the middle again when they're done wasting months of time and money they obviously don't have? This remodel program is even more of a waste than the program in which Rite Aid puts new signs on stores that close the next month.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by ClownLoach »

cjd wrote: December 26th, 2022, 6:25 am The one here started closing this month. I went the Friday after but there was really not much of interest. They were at 25% the following week but the stuff there is too overpriced to make it worthwhile.

I noticed that a lot of high end small appliances were not in stock… I don’t know if they never were or people thought any discount at all on them was a great deal.
From what I have seen Kitchen Electrics has been their worst stocked department when it used to carry the entire company top line sales. High volume but low margin. They can't afford to lay out the cash to order them when vendors are likely demanding cash up front, nor do they really make a profit when they are sold. I think a few brands are now consignment inventory as well (possibly Breville and Nespresso). They used to have stacks of Keurig machines and Mixers and Air Fryers and Toasters that would go out slightly cheaper than the competition if you used that postcard 20% off coupon, but with online shopping they lose all of the add-on sales and impulse buys that made up for the low margins. So they really haven't ordered in those massive volumes since the "big change" led by the ex Target execs and the loss of that business to Amazon, Costco, Sam's, Target and Walmart has definitely put a lot of hurt on BB&B top line sales. Unfortunately top line sales loss results in double digit negative comps, which makes investors mad, banks tighten terms etc.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: December 26th, 2022, 11:37 am

My point is that if they wanted to make these remodels more impactful for the brand image they should have started with the highest volume "A" stores in the best centers in urban areas where they get the most bang for their buck. Of course they're closing stores in impactful highly visible urban areas like Burbank, and closing stores like Irvine 6 weeks after a "Grand Reopening". Nothing against Upland but my experience has been that it is a solid suburban market with stores at or slightly below chain average run rates in the companies I've worked for ("C" or "D" volume).

Their remodels are the classic example of just not getting it anyway; stores like Murrieta replaced every fixture and did a relay of every gondola location yet they still have the #1 most problematic detail BB&B is criticized for and that's the fact you can't see all 4 corners of the store because of the stupid wall gondola up the middle. Yes they remove a lot of the dividing walls elsewhere since they basically used to be a format of 2, 3, or 4 aisle valleys divided by floor to ceiling walls and a center store stockroom. There were probably a dozen or more smaller walls ruining sight lines before, but why leave any? So since they do all the rest of the work in the remodel (replacement of fixtures, resetting all planograms, floor repairs, building new stock rooms in the back corners) why in God's name do they put a front to back wall up the middle again when they're done wasting months of time and money they obviously don't have? This remodel program is even more of a waste than the program in which Rite Aid puts new signs on stores that close the next month.
You have to wonder if they were so clueless about what they were trying to become that they thought they should remodel in C/D markets to try and capture more customers in those markets with their lower end/private label items or something. There is no telling what they were thinking but downgrading is usually not a viable strategy and usually you don't spend money to downgrade. I don't understand why they remodeled Murrieta or Upland. My view is they did not really remodel any well positioned locations, they just remodeled random marginal locations for some reason. I don't think they remodeled the store in Roseville either which is (or was) a VERY high volume store for them, very large, and well positioned.

What is funny is up here, the only store with a center store stockroom was Sparks. Reno and Carson City both had the stockroom at the back. But they still had the tall gondolas in the middle, so there may as well have been a center store stockroom.

Speaking of Sparks, it is closing at the end of the week. They pulled the closing date forward and started to ship merchandise out of there this week (merchandise they just received a couple weeks ago). Still a lot of fixtures left, the landlord will have fun clearing this out, or maybe whatever furniture store they fill the space with will just keep the fixtures up since this landlord seems to like to fill dead spaces with furniture stores as evidenced by the dead Office Max and dead Shoe Pavilion. They got lucky to fill the dead Old Navy with a Five Below after it was empty for a decade. To buy their ceiling high gondolas, you have to give them proof of insurance.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

https://www.barrons.com/articles/bed-ba ... 1672414268

Under a paywall,but it makes you wonder whether accounting irregularities may be at play...

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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by ClownLoach »

ClownLoach wrote: December 7th, 2022, 9:44 pm Is it mean spirited to take bets on what day the bankruptcy filing happens?

I bet a dollar on Monday, January 9th, 2023. A safe distance from the holiday break.

Gives them enough time to get the bankruptcy court approval for handing a huge wave of stores to the liquidators as part of the filing, and by doing it Monday afternoon the liquidators will have enough time to get the signs printed, banners ordered, and boots on the ground to start the closing sales by Friday going into the 3 day MLK weekend.

Of course it will be a futile exercise and the whole thing will wind up converting to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy auction in which the vultures of the world (Hilco, Great American, Gordon Bros etc) will make the stalking horse bid and take them to their grave a couple months later.

Sad but I've seen this show before and I know how it ends.
Looks like I wasn't that far off. The potential bankruptcy warning just hit. Earnings are due on the 10th. They can get out of reporting that by filing bankruptcy before then...

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail ... 023-01-05/
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by storewanderer »

Their Reno store (only one in the area not closing) looks so terrible, and do so terrible during December, I have no clue what they are doing if this is a go forward store. The home area with 50% of the shelves empty for the past 3 months at the Reno Target was far better assorted than their store is.

Has a company gone out of business that is distressed in this manner without filing bankruptcy? Bankruptcy is the only way to break the leases. Is there potentially a benefit to trying to complete as much of the shut down process as possible before filing bankruptcy?
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by buckguy »

The one closest to me advertised "Warehouse Clearance, up to 75% off" and used a monitored fire door as the entrance during the holidays. It was obvious that they were filling space they couldn't otherwise fill with normal merchandise with clearance stuff and that suppliers probably had cut them off. Instead, it was a mix of early holiday markdowns and some fairly random stuff. Some areas like small housewares seemed to be merchandised as usual. The linens seemed to be either their really cheap merchandise or high end branded items---neither seemed to be moving. The store had more traffic than usual but no one was buying large quantities of anything.
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Re: Bed Bath & Beyond: Dying?

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: January 5th, 2023, 9:55 pm Their Reno store (only one in the area not closing) looks so terrible, and do so terrible during December, I have no clue what they are doing if this is a go forward store. The home area with 50% of the shelves empty for the past 3 months at the Reno Target was far better assorted than their store is.

Has a company gone out of business that is distressed in this manner without filing bankruptcy? Bankruptcy is the only way to break the leases. Is there potentially a benefit to trying to complete as much of the shut down process as possible before filing bankruptcy?
Well as soon as it goes Chapter 11 the stock is going to become worthless. I wonder how much of the stock that the company bought back is being resold to the speculators on the market just to get a tiny bit of cash to spend? And how much are the executives selling? Not to mention the salaries for the big executives that have put this company into a death spiral and as such require lavish financial rewards. I'm sure that as soon as there's no more money left to pay the executives then it will be time to shut the rest down with Chapter 11.
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