And you’re replacing Bed Bath and Beyond with another home store, Rooms and Spaces. Will it be more of a Homesense or a CB2It’s somewhere in between. What we’re planning is a trendy home goods store with well-liked pre-existing brands. We noticed that there aren’t a lot of options in Canada for high-quality, great-looking houseware that’s also affordable—you’ve got really expensive pieces and then the really cheap stuff at Walmart.
No. Bed Bath and Beyond’s financial problems started when its US locations stopped doing well—it was partially the growth of online shopping, but the company also focused too much on selling its private label, which people weren’t super familiar with. The Canadian stores struggled because Bed Bath and Beyond was an American-first company: decisions about what to stock were based on demand in the US.
We buy things that other people don’t see the value in. For example, a lot of people don’t understand how a store like Sunrise Records is still in business. Even in the age of streaming, people like the surprise and delight that you get when physically browsing through tens of thousands of items.