I'm sorry for all the people in closing stores, but some locations are genuinely better earners and when they don't have to subsidize losses from other stores anymore, they will do great. It will take some time for the restructuring to be over, but when it is, there might be fewer stores left, but they will thrive.
20 replies (most recent on top)
Rent does not matter I had 8 years left and am being closed.
It's the rent. It's definitely the rent. Fortunately, store 0082 still has seven years left on a twenty year lease. In other words, they are - on paper, of course - paying 2010 rent until 2030. So, though they won't last that long, at least they will be one of the last.
They say they are closing non profitable stores, but that is not 100% accurate. It's about the leases. They are closing stores that were still making, albeit, smaller profit than in the past. Example is Mequon, Wisconsin #499. They were making a profit but they are set to close next month. People need to stop living in this fairytale. There will not be enough stores left to make this profitable. Let alone the closing of DC's. 🙏
I worked for them for 16 years. I ran Regional Fulfillment CDS/SFS for six of those years, in a District store (until a few years ago when the district blew up. The writing was on the wall at the end of Spring last year. Leading into Christmas (September) last year, at over 120 orders a day, my box orders had been unfulfilled for two months. We were using used freight boxes for even the most fragile items.
I had a co-worker that pleaded with me to go and another that knew the signs. It was terrifying to leave, and I held out until the end of October (I was getting married and using my PTO, planned long before). Nothing was getting better. Scared to death, I jumped.
And landed later that week. I was employed before the PTO ran out. It's been a scary new journey, but I have a good team and the comfort of a company that's in good hands.
My point is, I was scared to see what was happening, but it was happening whether I hoped and prayed or not. It's been coming for years. Bless all of you good souls that planned to ride her down. Your loyalty is acknowledge and appreciated by those of us that tried. You are an amazing group of workers caught in a sh---y situation YOU did nothing to deserve. Get out now before they drain you further. You deserve better than this.
Love, good luck, and godspeed to all of you! There IS life after Bed Bath and Beyond and you WILL survive! ❤
Nope. OP, either you are an outsider/meme stock freak or you are in denial. It is over. Whether Bbby goes under in the next few weeks or months makes no difference. Bbby will not be around next year.
I left at the end of last year and now work at Homegoods. We are starting to carry things that you would find at Bbby that we did not carry. We have more and more Breville & Cuisinart toaster ovens, Nutribullet blenders, Keurig coffee makers, All Clad cookware sets... not to mention Bbby brands. I've had customers tell me point blank how badly Bbby sucks when I suggest they shop there for a certain item. Nobody wants to shop there anymore and I have to say that it honestly hurts when they say it because I know how great the company once was and the pride that I felt working there. Those two things will never be recaptured. It is truly over. Wake up!
A child could see that there is no pulling out of this nose dive. As a surviving store, so far, we've been told we have to really perform in every area. We definitely get out there and try but you know when you are fighting a losing battle. If they could get it together and possibly get freight into the stores it would help but it's probably too little too late.
Michael Burry: “look up what a death spiral convertible is.”
Bankruptcy is absolutely not off the table. All this bond deal did was buy them about three months of time. They will be declaring bankruptcy soon. They are simply delaying the inevitable.
Not sure which fairytale land the OP is living in…..the company is toast!
This is the narrative that Reddit is clinging to. You see comments on r/BBBY that say “ Now that bankruptcy is off the table“ or “ Now that they have moved through the owned brand merchandise“
Little do they know the stores are sitting on mostly owned brand products, as it is not even moving heavily discounted. National brands are not hitting stores and sales comps definitely speak to that.
Store management can’t help but laugh when they read it. They just don’t realize how bad of a situation we are in. When we finally do get name brand freight in, we ship it right back out for online orders.
We can’t afford to stock both the stores and warehouses, so the stores are forced to shoulder the brunt of e-commerce business. We pay to ship it to the stores, pay for an associate to process it, price it, and put it away on the sales floor- then the next day we pay an associate to pull it off the sales floor, box it back up, and ship it back out to a customer, often the day after it arrives... And orders frequently get split up and shipped from multiple stores. THIS IS BY DESIGN.
There is no consistency with shipping standards like you would have in a dedicated warehouse because every store has any available part timer shipping them out- so the rate for items being damaged is astronomical compared to dedicated warehouses.
My store was remodeled last year and the top selling store in my state... and we are closing.
remember when some of the bread and butter stores were the ones in college towns? BTC was basically more important then Christmas time, for the sales, and the amazing service offered to students (which in turn did genuinely build loyal customers, both parents and college kids)
now in my midwest area, i don’t think any of the college stores are still open; i definitely noticed some of the stores on the last closing list. the saddest part is that ‘time’ was only a few years ago…my old store was still sending employees to college stores at move in time 4, 5 years ago
That's a nice little fairytale, however, the stores no longer have what customers want. They destroyed relationships with prime vendors and replaced them with their cheap, poor quality, owned brands. Having more people shop in the same store would in theory make the store more profitable but the problem is, the customers no longer want to shop there. I dont forsee there being a "happily ever after" for bbb.
And so now, they are relying on "Reward Pluses" to compensate for that loss. but you cant tout it if you have nothing in stock or online. And, from what i see, some brands are sold 3rd party excluding Coupons and loyalty discounts cannot be applied to marketplace items, and you cant return it to the stores. Lets really chase the customers away.
BBBY is a BILLION dollars in debt. The stores that are left will not be able to meet that commitment. Remodels were a colossal waste of money that should have been spent on fixing the product piece first. Shiny new fixtures are great, but how many times will you keep going to a store when they don’t have what you need and you know you’ll be able to find it elsewhere. What led us here was a lot of missteps, but at the end of the day B&M stores are only successful if the product piece is right. I don’t even contribute it fully to the owned brands, they could have worked just at a slower speed and scaled back volume. Even if they would have kept us in stock of the basics in those categories, it wouldn’t have ended up this bad
BBBY has pushed this red herring about "non productive stores" so hard that other board sites actually buy into it and hang on to the Hail Mary aspect of it. "Oh, we got rid of the chaff",etc.
Don't believe it. And yes, we've flogged this horse before on here. Too many times.
Some still believe BBB will have life after Fall of this year? Wow.
Remodeled stores in Chicago area like Orland and Schaumburg are long gone. Remodeling is not a metric in this equation. Rent is.
I agree with the first commenter. There is no rhyme or reason other than lease payments.
It has nothing to do with better earners or if the store can or cannot prouduce. It IMO has to do with if a landlord is willing to work with them or give them the right rate.
They just annouced to closure in michigan of fully remodeled stores. Wouldnt the remodel stores be the "best earners"? Wouldn't those stores show the bbb vision in the best light? All the money invested into the new front end system, adding harmon and the full graphics package?
Its all about what landlord will or wont put up with whatever game bbb wants to play. Or if other companies are trying to see what spots are available to rent.