Bed Bath & Beyond went from homeware powerhouse to the retail doghouse over the course of the last decade.
1. They didn’t see the online revolution coming The beginning of Bed Bath & Beyond’s decline dates back to the mid-2000s, when the company was slow to pivot to news shopping habits and market realities, leaving the door open to competitors, the company admitted in its bankruptcy filing. 2. Bed Bath & Beyond the brand The chain had built its success by selling tons of merchandise made by others. But when sales started to slip, they brought in a new CEO, Mark Tritton, in 2019. He had previously been the chief of merchandising at Target TGT . One of his innovations was to create new lines of Bed Bath & Beyond-branded merchandise, which had helped Target succeed.
4. Meme stock ride Bed Bath & Beyond’s liquidity problems and tumbling stock price left it vulnerable to the machinations of the market. In late 2021, it became the focus of a so-called “meme stock” run, in which investors, many of whom took their cues from chat boards on Reddit, pushed the company’s stock price up for a period of time. This trading frenzy had nothing to do with any signs of promising performance by the company, but in an effort to capitalize on stock-market volatility.