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Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy

nytimes.com

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Re: Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy

#91

Post by ghaff »

nate wrote: post #63

I'm gonna miss it. I always thought it had an interesting Job to be Done when I observed my behavior with the store. We had one a few blocks from my home, and though I order from Amazon like I'm trying to win some kind of game, I'd go to BBB when I needed something that day and didn't want to spend any time on research. It was almost guaranteed that the thing I'd buy would just naturally be at the top of a review sit…

It seems to be a tough category. As I mentioned in another comment, another 500+ store chain in this category went bankrupt maybe a couple decades ago. Some of it may be demographics. I would assume their typical demographic is probably thirty-something to maybe 40-something couples. Younger people are mostly not outfitting houses with mid-tier nice stuff and older people mostly have all this crap and may need an occasional replacement but not much more than that.

These days I mostly go to a review site like Wirecutter or a sister site, a food blog, or somewhere like Cook's Illustrated and mostly order whatever they recommend and it's fine.

Re: Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy

#92

Post by rblatz »

nate wrote: post #63

I'm gonna miss it. I always thought it had an interesting Job to be Done when I observed my behavior with the store. We had one a few blocks from my home, and though I order from Amazon like I'm trying to win some kind of game, I'd go to BBB when I needed something that day and didn't want to spend any time on research. It was almost guaranteed that the thing I'd buy would just naturally be at the top of a review sit…

That's the role Costco has been filling for a lot of Americans recently. Most of the time you are going to find something at a decent price, that may not be best in class but at least it's going to be near the top of the price/utility curve.

Re: Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy

#93

Post by jandrese »

Animats wrote: post #45
bearjaws wrote: post #31

This is a huge loss IMO, buying kitchen supplies and bedding on Amazon is complete shit. Target isn't much better due to lack of variety and types of bedding. I've bought the same bed sheets for 5+ years, a few months ago I bought new ones since some bleach got spilt on one set, it comes in and I could tell immediately the quality was far worse. One wash later, its ripping & fraying. Thankfully I could return them. S…

I want to buy a mattress. Mattress review sites are all phony. Amazon is all phony reviews. Mattress FIRM is hugely overpriced. Bed, Bath, and Beyond's brands were just names they'd acquired. That entire industry has managed to shoot itself in the foot. Probably better to order from an actual manufacturer on Alibaba.

Mattresses are a huge racket in general. Think about how often you need to buy a mattress and then consider how many stores in you area sell only mattresses out of expensive storefronts full of salesmen. The margins per mattress have to be astronomical to support a business model like that. But on the other hand they are very heavy and bulky which makes them expensive to ship and since people generally need to try several out before finding one that is comfortable they aren't great for an online business model.

Re: Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy

#94

Post by jandrese »

zackmorris wrote: post #38

I have no great love for BBB, but they saved me countless times when I was looking for last-minute gift ideas. The store closest to me was always packed, and prices were just enough higher than other stores that I figured they were making bank. As the #1 place people think of for just about anything domestic, I don't know how they could be mismanaged so badly that the whole chain goes under?! On the flip side, they r…

Did they get bought out by a private equity firm? That's usually a death knell for a company.

Re: Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy

#95

Post by Finnucane »

dragontamer wrote: post #53
Finnucane wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your store is clean, reasonably well stocked, and has minimally competent sales staff, you might be preferable to a BBBy.

Today, sure. But I'm talking about even in October 2022, just a few months ago. No one was going to open a bedding store when BBBY was within walking distance.

No, we're going to order from LL Bean. We gave up on BBY years ago, the service has sucked for a long time.

Re: Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy

#97

Post by BaseballPhysics »

jandrese wrote: post #89
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, frankly, I think that does a disservice to the people buying the stock. Were a bunch of people buying into the meme stock hype? Sure. Does that make them financially illiterate? Well, the folks who bought Hertz sure look pretty damn smart in hindsight even though at the time they were being described in similar ways, so... who's to say if they are illiterate or just have a different view of value and risk?

Just because a risky behavior works out sometimes doesn't make it any less risky.

I never said it wasn't risky.

I'm saying it's unfair to assume it's proof someone is "financially illiterate", i.e. uneducated or stupid.

Educated people can have different assessments of risk.

Re: Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy

#98

Post by d136o »

humanlion87 wrote: post #8

I find the whole situation fascinating. Bed Bath continued to sell hundreds of millions of shares while they were preparing for bankruptcy and retail investors (or meme stock investors) continued to buy them. I assume Bed Bath did all the paperwork that is necessary (like calling out risks, that the raised capital will go to creditors first, etc) for such a stock sale. But it is clear they were doing it out of bad-fa…

I wonder how much of it is explained by all the company retirement plans that are set to auto invest via an index fund.

They says it’s retail meme stock buyers… but what if it’s everyone who doesn’t have time to look at things and these publicly traded companies are now just selling into those reliable biweekly/monthly retirement account contributions.

Re: Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy

#99

Post by steveBK123 »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #75
gizmo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bed Bath followed the email scammer strategy of making their scam so obvious only the most financially illiterate people could fall for it. Hard to pull of, but once you've got an investor base that's willing to believe anything you can dilute them repeatedly and they'll still believe it's 5D chess.

Eh, frankly, I think that does a disservice to the people buying the stock. Were a bunch of people buying into the meme stock hype? Sure. Does that make them financially illiterate? Well, the folks who bought Hertz sure look pretty damn smart in hindsight even though at the time they were being described in similar ways, so... who's to say if they are illiterate or just have a different view of value and risk?

Yes it does.

Just because someone does inevitably win the lottery does not make lottery ticket buying financially literate & savvy.

Re: Bed Bath and Beyond files for bankruptcy

#100

Post by chimeracoder »

criddell wrote: post #67
patrickthebold wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random thought and I figure there must be a law against this: But what about the opposite, could a company sell off it's assets and do stock buy backs right until it goes bankrupt so that some investors get more $ ahead of the creditors?

I've thought about that before. Would it be technically possible for a company to buy all of its shares back so that there are no owners? The company would be self-owned.

> Would it be technically possible for a company to buy all of its shares back so that there are no owners? The company would be self-owned.

No, because there's a statutory minimum number of shareholders (which varies by country but is always greater than zero).

But even if this weren't the case, it wouldn't be as weird as it sounds. In most states, nonprofits cannot issue stock, but they still exist as corporate entities.

The directors ultimately control the company. Shareholders are secondary: irrelevant, except insofar as they can vote out the board of directors.

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