Bed Bath & Beyond will close 200 stores as the retailer’s sales plummeted 50 percent. (Getty)
Bed Bath & Beyond may have to rethink the ‘beyond’ part. The retailer said Wednesday that it will close 200 stores over the next two years.
Although online sales more than doubled during April and May, the company’s total sales fell by nearly half during its latest quarter. As a result, Bed Bath & Beyond will begin to permanently close a portion of its locations later this year, according to CNBC.
As of May 30, the company, which includes the chains Buybuy Baby, Christmas Tree Shops and Harmon Face Values, operated 1,478 stores, of which 955 are Bed Bath & Beyonds.
“We saw there were a number of stores dragging us down,” Chief Executive Mark Tritton told CNBC. “We will continue to look at the rest of our concept doors, now that we have established the data criteria.”
Bed Bath & Beyond is just the latest retailer to be forced into closures by the coronavirus pandemic.
The same day that Bed Bath & Beyond made its announcement, Brooks Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Bed Bath & Beyond was one of the many retailers that recently began to resume paying rent as stores reopened. In May, the retailer paid no rent in any of its locations. In June, it paid in almost 39 percent of them, according to the latest Datex Property Solutions report on national retail chains.
However, the trends may not be cause for celebration quite yet as some states have once again initiated shutdowns, further clouding the future for retailers. [CNBC] — Sasha Jones