The Bed Bath & Beyond saga has long had the feeling of a gravely ill relative or friend. Despite expectations and preparation, the demise hits hard with deep sorrow. It is still stunning if not shocking.
Sunday’s Chapter 11 filing allows Bed Bath & Beyond the longest of shots to emerge from bankruptcy and/or sell its Bed Bath & Beyond and buybuyBaby retail businesses. The company more likely will wind down and close, its retail flags going to the highest bidders to be resurrected otherwise, possibly. That such an outcome has seemed inevitable for so long won’t necessarily ease the pain of the loss for the home and housewares industry.
The Bed Bath & Beyond saga is the latest lesson in how a retailer once planted firmly atop its competitive mountain can fall so steeply. This is a retail market in which the probability of successful second chances is not nearly as high as it might have been during the Chapter 11 era of the 1990s when vendor selling and consumer shopping options were not simply a click or two away. Truth be told, much of the home and housewares industry had already begun to map out business without Bed Bath & Beyond. So had flocks of shoppers, well before many vendors stopped shipments to the retailer last year, perhaps sealing its fate.
Even for the sizable group of home and housewares suppliers that limited or erased bankruptcy exposure while developing alternative sales channels, the expected closing of the single largest specialty retail chain for home products presents lasting consequences beyond its price to creditors, shareholders and thousands of workers. It is more wishful than probable that all of Bed Bath & Beyond’s market share will be redistributed to other digital and physical retailers in the home product space, although it does open a big window for veteran and newer operators to widen their influence in the category. Within days of Bed Bath & Beyond’s Chapter 11 filing, retailers including The Container Store and Big Lots announced limited-time programs to accept Bed Bath & Beyond coupons.
Bankruptcy and liquidation likely would not spell the permanent end of housewares sold under a Bed Bath & Beyond banner. Macy’s brought back Toys ‘R’ Us, whose collapse in the face of a mass market and e-commerce blitz seems most akin to the fall of Bed Bath & Beyond. The internet has become a refuge for the acquired and licensed remains of national retail brands once thought to be invincible, i.e., Montgomery Ward, Service Merchandise, Linens ‘n Things, The Sharper Image and Brookstone. The potential for such a scenario under the Bed Bath & Beyond brand offers little consolation for the time being.
Perhaps the saddest thing about the Bed Bath & Beyond saga is how the looming end of what for decades was a relentlessly commanding operation responsible for so much home and housewares growth is so unsurprising. That underscores one of the most fundamental business lessons: No matter how important and powerful a company becomes, it often is not as essential and indestructible as its leaders might believe and act.
Irreversible damage to Bed Bath & Beyond began before an ill-fated attempt under Mark Tritton’s management to transform the retailer radically, then a last-chance effort under Sue Gove to buy financial flexibility and time to save the business. It seems to have been too late for Bed Bath & Beyond for quite some time.
Despite the feeling of inevitability to a home and housewares industry and consumer market that has already begun to move on from Bed Bath & Beyond, this is still a sad moment for the business. And it still hurts.
