After floundering for years amid a changing retail landscape, Bed, Bath and Beyond (BBBY) finally filed for bankruptcy in April 2023. Reasons for the decision have to do with everything from an inability to pivot to online sales to several mismanaged attempts at a turnaround.
Going from a peak of over 1,500 locations across the country in 2017, the chain that launched out of New Jersey in 1971 announced that it would permanently close the remaining 360 Bed, Bath and Beyond and 121 Buy, Buy Baby locations.
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While the chain is still trying to find a buyer for a last-minute Hail Mary, the liquidation process has already begun. Many of the stores will be open until the end of May as the chain sells off its inventory.
Veronika Bondarenko
This Is What's Happening At The Bed, Bath and Beyond In NYC
On May 2, I popped by the 92,000 square-foot Bed, Bath and Beyond store in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood to check out how the sales process is going.
The 620 Sixth Avenue location has been home to Bed, Bath and Beyond or years but, in 2021, the space was reconfigured to be its "flagship location" — it even had a coffee shop with an in-store barista.
Going in now, there is not yet any sense of the type of chaos that one typically associates with liquidation. Different home goods categories were still laid out in their old spots and people were coming in and out just as they would have done pre-bankruptcy.
The biggest change is the "sale" and "10% off" signs taped onto every display but any massive discounting has yet to begin. The biggest discounts I've seen were 20%, while brand-name items such as Nespresso machines and the Instant Pot are only discounted by 10%.
There were even staff still manning the Soda Stream machine counter as they explained both the product and the sale process to visitors who stopped by.
Another reporter who stopped by the Chelsea location for Curbed at the end of April observed hearing other shoppers say things like "nothing's on sale" and "this is very disappointing."
Veronika Bondarenko
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Coming in a week later, there now appear to be more discount signs and empty shelf space. It stands to reason that this will increase as the end of the month draws near and Bed, Bath and Beyond amps up its discounting — coming later will ensure bigger discounts but also make it more difficult to find the truly desirable pieces that get snapped up first.
My last experience of anything similar occurred when storied New York department store Barneys filed for bankruptcy at the end of 2019. Over the course of the following months, the Madison Avenue location grew progressively more chaotic as unsold inventory started gathering in piles with bigger and bigger price cuts.
In what is perhaps foreboding of what's to come, one other sign of liquidation imagery I've observed was a child riding a scooter in between packed boxes of inventory.
To prepare for deep discounting, Bed, Bath and Beyond officially invalidated any remaining coupons customers may have had. Although competitors The Container Store (TCS) and Big Lots (BIG) stepped in by offering those discounts to customers who come to them during the liquidation period.
