'Bed Bath & Beyond Stores to Return in $25 Million Partnership With Kirkland’s'

[mbz321]

Bed Bath & Beyond just can't seem to die. And all this seems to be is a confusing mess of various partnerships.

Along with them announcing the brand being used by 'The Container Store', now it appears Overstock is injecting funds into home retailer Kirkland's, and I would assume a possible rebrand?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/compani ... r-AA1sEAlR

[rwsandiego]

...all this seems to be is a confusing mess of various partnerships. ...

Well, I hope it works for them. I can see the point of them investing in The Container Store. I can see the point in them investing in Kirkland's. I don't see the point of "Bed Bath and Beyond" branded merchandise at The Container Store. Didn't the lack of success with BBB merchandise contributed to Bed, Bath, and Bankruptcy? The licensing of the BBB name to Kirkland's to open smaller BBB-branded stores is just - odd.

[ClownLoach]

This just smells off since Kirklands was supposedly on the verge of liquidation earlier this year? But then they were bailed out by Gordon Brothers Liquidators? Not exactly who I think you call when you want to open new stores, but I guess in today's strange new world maybe I'm just not understanding how the game is played anymore.

[storewanderer]

Interesting story. The situation looks questionable for all brands involved.

[ClownLoach]

Interesting story. The situation looks questionable for all brands involved.

Maybe they can relaunch in a big box format with BB&B, Container Store, Kirkland's Home, and Buy Buy Baby all under one roof... They could license another available brand and call it... Kmart.

All joking aside, a $25M partnership is small potatoes. This is not going to deliver very many stores at today's extreme costs. It will probably be similar to the Buy Buy Baby revamp that just imploded. With that little money I doubt they can get more than 10 stores open and running long enough to possibly turn a profit.

One of the biggest problems with these revivals of dead brands is that they never measure up to the original. I haven't heard anything about this Toys R Us relaunch "opening dozens of new stores" aside from the one NJ store they got opened in a mega mall. That tells me it is not working out as a small 20K version of TRU isn't going to be enough - plus the nostalgia pulling the heart strings effect breaks when the customer is underwhelmed by the reduced size experience. The same problem will happen with this tiny version of BB&B. The appeal was having all that stuff under one roof, and the truth is there wasn't really anything terribly wrong with the concept until they tried to fix it and it went terribly awry with all that bargain grade product replacing expensive brand names and a sudden loss of sales and cash flow. The stores were not hemorrhaging money until the mass clearance of goods for the crap that would fail Big Lots quality control. So how many categories do you leave out? Making a new version that is a shadow of the original will not be a successful revamp of the brand.