Bed Bath and Beyond closing stores just remodeled

[arizonaguy]

The issue is that shoppers under the age of 50 (unless they are really into cooking) simply aren't purchasing high end kitchenware. The previous product mix might have appealed to the previous generation of shoppers (those in their 50s now were in their 20s - 30s in the late 1990s / early 2000s when Bed Bath and Beyond (and a lot of other big box retailers) had their massive nationwide expansions.

Shoppers under 50 are perfectly fine with Target / IKEA quality kitchenware even if it means that they have to replace it more than once.

[rwsandiego]

The issue is that shoppers under the age of 50 (unless they are really into cooking) simply aren't purchasing high end kitchenware. The previous product mix might have appealed to the previous generation of shoppers (those in their 50s now were in their 20s - 30s in the late 1990s / early 2000s when Bed Bath and Beyond (and a lot of other big box retailers) had their massive nationwide expansions.

Shoppers under 50 are perfectly fine with Target / IKEA quality kitchenware even if it means that they have to replace it more than once.

Not to mention the rise of Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table. (Well, the rise, fall, and mini-recovery in SLT's case). I've found Williams-Sonoma to beat Bed Bath and Beyond's price on Breville electrics and Calphalon cookware.

[storewanderer]

The issue is that shoppers under the age of 50 (unless they are really into cooking) simply aren't purchasing high end kitchenware. The previous product mix might have appealed to the previous generation of shoppers (those in their 50s now were in their 20s - 30s in the late 1990s / early 2000s when Bed Bath and Beyond (and a lot of other big box retailers) had their massive nationwide expansions.

Shoppers under 50 are perfectly fine with Target / IKEA quality kitchenware even if it means that they have to replace it more than once.

Not to mention the rise of Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table. (Well, the rise, fall, and mini-recovery in SLT's case). I've found Williams-Sonoma to beat Bed Bath and Beyond's price on Breville electrics and Calphalon cookware.

I think this is another issue. The customers who used to go to BBB for "brands" have moved on and just go to WIlliams-Sonoma for kitchen. When you go in there, you don't see junk. You see a bunch of functional product that you would like to buy and that looks to be of good quality.

Not sure where they are going for the bed and bath part..

[arizonaguy]

The list is out: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bed-bath ... 19898.html

Alabama-
Oxford: 1000 Oxford Exchange Blvd.

Arizona-
Casa Grande: 1004 North Promenade Parkway
Yuma: 1212 South Castle Dome Ave.

California-
Campbell: Almarida Place, 515 East Hamilton Avenue
Laguna Niguel: 32391 Golden Lantern
Milpitas: 147 Great Mall Drive
Rancho Santa Margarita: 22235 El Paseo
Tustin: Tustin Market Place II, 13692 Jamboree Road

Florida-
Orange City: 963 Harley Strickland Blvd.

Georgia-
Atlanta: 130 Perimeter Center West
Marietta: 4475 Roswell Road

Idaho-
Pocatello: 1732 Hurley Drive

Michigan-
Jackson: 1132 Jackson Crossing

Minnesota-
Duluth: 1303 Miller Trunk Highway
Eagan: 1295 Promenade Place

Missouri-
St. Joseph: 5201 North Belt Highway

Mississippi-
Meridian: 131 S. Frontage Road

New Jersey-
Edgewater: Edgewater Commons, 489 River Road

New York-
Auburn: Auburn Plaza, 217 Grant Ave.
Canandaigua: 328 Eastern Blvd.
Glenmont: 388 Feura Bush Road
Niagara Falls: 1520 Military Road
Plainview: 401 S. Oyster Bay Road
Port Chester: 25 Waterfront Place
Spring Valley: 14 B Spring Valley Marketplace

Ohio-
Mansfield: Ontario Towne Center, 2259 Walker Lake Road

Pennsylvania-
Pittsburgh: 7507 McKnight Road
York: 2845 Concord Road

Texas-
Brownsville: Sunrise Palms Shopping Center, 3000 Pablo Kisel Blvd.
San Angelo: 4169 Sunset Drive

Virginia-
Vienna: 2051 Chain Bridge Road

Washington-
East Wenatchee: 511 Valley Mall Parkway
Longview: 200 Triangle Center
Seattle: 2600 SW Barton St.
Union Gap: 1740 East Washington St.

Wisconsin-
Sheboygan: Memorial Mall, 3347 Kohler Memorial Drive

West Virginia-
Triadelphia: 555 Cabela Drive

[MSSportsGuy]

The Perimeter Center West BBB in Dunwoody/Atlanta is in a great location and a large store. That closure surprises me a little but I suspect the rent is high and the space could be too large for what the future of BBB could be.

[SamSpade]

Poor Pocatello / Chubbuck, can't catch a retail break to save its life. Many shopping $$$ moving 50 miles up I-15 to Idaho Falls / Ammon at this point.

[ClownLoach]

So the article in the OC Register documenting the closings says the "remodel" will hit 450 total stores and the initiative costs $250 million. Works out to about $555K per store. This is really a lot of money when it amounts to resetting every department to actual planograms, tearing down about half the tall dividing walls, installing a queue line checkout without even replacing the checkout stands, and hanging new purple signage. So I suspect most of this half million plus per store remodel is really the massive markdown expenses of getting rid of all the junky stuff as well as the high end brands that apparently aren't moving forward and instead are going low end private label. Wonder how many inventory dollars were tied up in premium high $$$ Crystal, China and cutlery along with fine Le Creuset type pots and pans since that all seems to go away in the remodel. It is true that pretty much everything Williams-Sonoma carries gets marked down and removed in the "new" BB&B remodel.

And this work was all done in the Tustin store that had its grand reopening only 90 days ago. Now it's being liquidated. You don't spend $500K to close three months later. There is something else to this. I think this is the beginning of the end and another wave of closures will follow this one, then another and so on.

[ClownLoach]

The issue is that shoppers under the age of 50 (unless they are really into cooking) simply aren't purchasing high end kitchenware. The previous product mix might have appealed to the previous generation of shoppers (those in their 50s now were in their 20s - 30s in the late 1990s / early 2000s when Bed Bath and Beyond (and a lot of other big box retailers) had their massive nationwide expansions.

Shoppers under 50 are perfectly fine with Target / IKEA quality kitchenware even if it means that they have to replace it more than once.

Not to mention the rise of Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table. (Well, the rise, fall, and mini-recovery in SLT's case). I've found Williams-Sonoma to beat Bed Bath and Beyond's price on Breville electrics and Calphalon cookware.

The real problem is that BB&B addicted their customers in the pre-internet age to 20% off coupons. Now that pricing is transparent as a Google search they're always overpriced as they marked up their products to account for the coupon. So the younger generation never walked through the doors because they could see online that BB&B was way overpriced, and the core coupon shopper one by one realizes they've been had for years so they stop going back.

The coupon centric stores are really struggling to translate to 2022 retail... The only way it works is if 99% of products are store brand. Otherwise you have to get rid of the coupon (bad for traffic), create exclusions to lower prices to market level for brand names (customers hate coupon exclusions and EDLP on traditional high/low price models though), or try to replace the brand names with store labels (and risk alienating the customer if the quality isn't up to snuff). The craft store chains are going through this same problem as they also depended on coupons to drive customers into the store to try to sell them products with inflated prices that the coupon would cancel out.

[ClownLoach]

Yep... The analysts are very concerned about the finances of the company, increasing losses and cash on hand. These liquidations may not represent the actual performance of those stores - it's more likely that they were just near lease renewal so they pulled the trigger to get urgently needed cash from the liquidators to prevent a collapse. This BB&B supposed "turnaround story" is not working out. If they couldn't beat 2020 sales (they ran a negative 7% comp) and couldn't make money in peak season (they lost 25 cents a share) then I don't know how they won't hemorrhage cash all the way through the first 9 months of 2022. Clearly customers are saying no to the new merchandise, not-so-remodeled stores, and pricing gimmicks.

Good analyst quote from CNBC:
"Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem, who also attributed the upside stock move to elevated short interest, called BuyBuy Baby a bright spot in the report.

However, he said the retailer's cash balance is looking "dangerously low" at a time when Bed Bath & Beyond needs to be making substantial investments as part of its turnaround. In a note to clients, Fadem said that Bed Bath & Beyond's fundamentals are "deteriorating" amid "choppy execution" by management."

Maybe they can try to sell BuyBuy Baby to get enough cash to survive?

[ClownLoach]

The Perimeter Center West BBB in Dunwoody/Atlanta is in a great location and a large store. That closure surprises me a little but I suspect the rent is high and the space could be too large for what the future of BBB could be.

Probably was doing just fine but was at lease renewal so it was sold to the liquidators for a quick cash infusion. Burning the furniture to keep from freezing to death.