The chain also had perfected a secret power play: Unlike most retailers, Bed Bath let local managers choose what to sell in their stores, catering to the particular tastes of shoppers in their area. (Bed Bath & Beyond will stop accepting coupons on April 26.) TV show Broad City built a whole subplot around it. Its Big Blue coupon for 20% off, ubiquitous and never expiring, became such a part of the American shopping fabric that even mobster Whitey Bulger had one in his kitchen drawer. As recently as 2018, the chain had more than 1,500 stores.ĪP People walk the stacked aisles of Bed Bath & Beyond in New York in 2016. It outlived its main rival Linens 'n Things, later buying BuyBuy Baby, the World Market and online retailer One Kings Lane. Launched in 1971 with two towels-and-bedding stores in New Jersey, Bed Bath & Beyond grew even through the Great Recession. For months, the chain has been losing both money and shoppers, struggling to restock shelves as suppliers and banks cut off its tab.īeneath the chaos, the home goods giant has faced a fundamental question: In a world that shops online, swarmed by competitors, where does it fit in? Soon after, that store indeed shuttered.īed 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 numerous last-gasp financing deals. "I remember thinking it feels like the last days of Sears in here," said Daniel Callahan from Louisville, Ky., about a visit to once-beloved Bed Bath & Beyond a few months ago. A vision of this chain's survival is bleak. It plans to begin closing its 360 Bed Bath & Beyond stores and 120 BuyBuy Baby stores. Once an unstoppable retailer - deemed a "category killer" for its triumph over many rivals - Bed Bath & Beyond has now filed for bankruptcy. A fluorescent light buzzed and flickered overhead. She scanned the bare cul-de-sac of home decor that displayed a few mirrors and a scuffed wall shelf. "Is it me or is it particularly cold in here?" one shopper asked another, pushing an empty cart past a wall of identical comforters. A total of 10 shoppers meandered the vast and visibly sparse aisles of a Bed Bath & Beyond in Northern Virginia on a recent Sunday.
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