But even when the company had funds to invest in turning around their fortunes, they didn't show an ability to do so," said David Silverman, who tracks retail at Fitch Ratings. Its stock price drifted below $1, then below 50 cents.īed Bath & Beyond "is at a point where they can't really invest in anything to turn around their fortunes. Some landlords were reported to be readying new tenants. For months, it exhausted numerous financial lifelines from banks and investors. The company announced dozens more store closures and sought breaks on rent. In January, the chain defaulted on some of its loans shortly after warning it may go bankrupt. Executive Sue Gove took the helm with a "back-to-basics" plan to replenish the big-name brands, but the brand suppliers were now anxious about ever getting paid. "That was kind of a really sad day."īed Bath & Beyond strained to turn around the failed turnaround. " I know the stores like the back of my hand, and I couldn't find anything that I needed to style one bedroom for a photo shoot," she said. Instead of Ralph Lauren towels and Calphalon pans came new store brands like Everhome and Nestwell.īusiness How Barnes & Noble turned a page, expanding for the first time in years The chain rushed to "declutter" stores and close 200 underperforming ones. The new CEO, Mark Tritton, arrived from Target with a big idea that had worked there: Bed Bath & Beyond would replace big-name brands with its own, more profitable private labels. That year, in 2019, a push by activist investors forced out the longtime chief executive and the company's founders who had remained on the board. Bed Bath & Beyond enters bankruptcy distraught and turbulent, after several misfired turnarounds, abrupt leadership shakeups, a rise and crash as a meme stock, store closures, job cuts and. "There were a lot of things that we were trying to be that we weren't." Turnarounds fail to turn things around "We really were going through a kind of an crisis of trying to compete with our ever-growing competitors," said Grossfeld, who left Bed Bath & Beyond in 2019. One of its founders later acknowledged to The Wall Street Journal that the chain " missed the boat on the internet." It whipped up a dizzying website, but as recently as 2019, ran ads promoting " offline shopping" as its heart remained in stores, with their stacks of cookware, walls of trash cans and piles of pillows. "The next thing you know, we were carrying diamond jewelry like Costco does."īed Bath & Beyond seemed equally indecisive about its online presence. We need to be the destination with everything,'" she recalled. "The next conversation would be 'we need to be more competitive with Amazon. the destination for home, more upscale, home decor, more furniture,' " Amy Laskin, a former Bed Bath & Beyond content marketing executive, told NPR. "I would go into one meeting and it would be 'we need to be. A sign advertises jewelry, furniture and appliances at Bed Bath & Beyond in Los Angeles in 2013.
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