An engaged couple is having trouble navigating Bed Bath & Beyond’s shaky wedding registration system. Suppliers are eager to open up new business partnerships. Landlords are rushing to finalize rentals for large stores that were suddenly evicted. TikTok is helping viewers embrace the way shoppers visit Manhattan stores every day.
After Bed, Bath & Beyond recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the home goods giant’s 52-year rundown has led to frustration, grief, and a race to capitalize on its demise. .
C.C. Manstrom is one of those people who feels stuck. Since setting up her marriage registry at the retailer in January, she has seen the majority of the 30 items on her list gradually become unavailable. When her great-aunt visited a store in Fargo, North Dakota this month, she was told that the retailer had lost track of what was purchased from her registry. Ms. Manstrom is now worried that she may receive multiple George Foreman grilling and baking sets.
The retailer also stopped accepting credit, leaving Manstrom with $60 in his account for gifts he bought but didn’t get. She was unable to call her customer service representative, and even when she went to the local store, no employee was available.
“It’s frustrating,” said Manström, 25. “This is a new task that must be addressed on the wedding checklist.”
As a backup, Ms. Manstrom and her fiancée are planning to get married on July 23rd, and decided to create another registry on Amazon.
Bed Bath & Beyond spokesperson Julie Strider said the company is looking for third-party partners to transfer customer data so shoppers can complete registration. She added that customers will still be able to view and download her data from existing registries.
Meanwhile, other companies are rushing in to fill the gaps in newly hired talent. Etsy announced her marriage registry on May 10, saying thousands of couples had registered. Zola, an online registry business, has received “hundreds of emails” from couples asking them to transfer their Bed, Bath & Beyond registry, said company spokeswoman Emily Forrest.
Competitors of Bye Bye Baby, also owned by Bed Bath & Beyond and liquidated, are also benefiting. Babylist, an online registry business, said the number of registries created on its platform in the past few weeks had increased 35% from a year ago since Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy. . More than 1,200 registry accounts have been migrated to the company’s site, according to the company’s CEO Natalie Gordon.
Bed Bath & Beyond and Buy Buy Baby suppliers have reviewed their strategies in recent months. Many companies put inventory on hold and put less resources into it as retailers tried to execute turnaround plans. Still, Bed Bath & Beyond’s known ability to carry a vast range of products continued to attract small businesses looking to raise their profile.
“Some of the It will be a missed opportunity for the brand.” last year.
Christina Carbonell and Garin Bernard, founders of gender-neutral clothing brand Primary, are rethinking their in-store merchandising strategy as Buy Bye Baby shuts down. Shortly after their apparel hit store shelves last April, they felt the effects of the retailer’s financial troubles. When Bed Bath & Beyond announced its turnaround plan in August, Bye Bye Baby, like several other suppliers, cut orders with primaries. When I looked in the store, I found that the product was low in stock.
The experience encouraged the founders to focus on making a profit rather than relying on sales from the Bye-Bye-Baby partnership, which accounted for about 10% of the business.
“If we’re working on our next wholesale partnership, we want to start small and learn and build on that learning, rather than going big right away,” Carbonell said.
Overstock.com, an online retailer known for selling large pieces of furniture such as sofas and beds, is using the opportunity to court a former Bed Bath & Beyond supplier. In the second half of 2022, Overstock steadily expanded its line of Keurig and Mr. Coffee pots, pans and coffee makers.
“Currently, Bed, Bath & Beyond’s suppliers continue to explore alternative distribution channels and are expanding the scope of their business with us,” Overstock Chief Executive Jonathan Johnson said in an interview. “More and more people are willing to sell us products because we need distribution while others are struggling.”
Other retailers are using Bed Bath & Beyond’s unique tools to reach leftover shoppers. container store, big lot And local department store Boscoffs said it would honor the big blue coupons even after Bed Bath & Beyond stopped accepting coupons. Once ubiquitous, these calling cards may remain in circulation for some time.
Kelly Goldsmith, a professor of marketing at Vanderbilt University, said the strategy of accepting coupons handed out by failed competitors was interesting but likely to generate more buzz than sales.
“Will it necessarily generate revenue directly? Probably not,” Goldsmith said. “But it’s a good way to remind people that you’re there, and if they need an alternative to Bed Bath & Beyond, you’re there.”
For now, many Bed, Bath & Beyond stores remain open, and shoppers keep an eye out for liquidation sales. Since the bankruptcy announcement, Ellie Maeda has been making her way to Bed, Bath & Beyond’s last Manhattan store as soon as the doors open each day to check out the latest discounts and share them with her 5,400 TikTok followers. has become a habit.
In her post she gives me updates What we still have in stock (coffee pods and dining sets) and what stacks of new products we have (refining systems and Breville blenders). She laments items (KitchenAid mixers and bed sheets) that are not yet discounted enough to buy.
“I’m just a gyaru with a 40 percent dream,” Maeda, 27, said. “I want everyone to get what they really want.
Amazon, Walmart, Target and Kohl’s are expected to be the biggest beneficiaries of Bed, Bath & Beyond’s full closure. Some analysts warn that while a boost in sales may be on the horizon, not all of the bankrupt retailer’s sales will be absorbed by competitors. Household goods market could shrink.
“People who really, really shopped wouldn’t shop anywhere else,” said Dave Marcotte, senior vice president of Kantar Consulting. “A lot of money disappears along the way.”
The same was true when Circuit City filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
One notable difference between the Bed, Bath & Beyond bankruptcy and the 2008 recession-era retailer bankruptcy is that there probably won’t be many empty stores left afterward.
In the weeks since Bed, Bath & Beyond announced it would be closing 480 stores by the end of June, Brandon Svek, a retail analytics researcher at real estate firm Koster, said how potential tenants are feeling. We’ve seen retailers rush to rent out their stores. It has come out. Demand is so great that some locations are never put on the open market because landlords and tenants negotiate directly, he said.
Tenants that have moved in since Bed, Bath & Beyond’s eviction include grocery stores like Natural Grocers, off-price retailers like Burlington, TJ Maxx and Five Below, and retailers like Crunch Fitness and Urban Air. Like a gym and so on.canadian tires paid $1.6 million The company plans to acquire 10 former Bed Bath & Beyond stores this month.
In some cases, places where Americans’ obsession with brick-and-mortar retail was fading are creating room for their new favorite pastimes.landlord is moving pickleball gym Head to the old Bed Bath & Beyond store.
“There’s a lot of good real estate,” Svek said. “Some stores will take a little longer to sell.
