Bed Bath & Beyond’s Bankrupt Siblings Get New Life
Buy Buy Baby and Harmon to Reopen
Bed Bath & Beyond may never return to its brick-and-mortar heyday, but the doors at former corporate siblings Buy Buy Baby and Harmon are set to reopen, CNBC has learned.
Buy Buy Baby’s Revival
The group that bought Buy Buy Baby’s intellectual property at a bankruptcy-run auction in June, the owners of baby goods retailer Dream on Me, plans to reopen 11 stores in the Northeast as soon as this fall. The new owner, Dream on Me’s chief marketing officer, Avish Dahiya, said the company is setting off on an ambitious plan to return the brand to its glory years, with 100 to 120 stores over the next one to three years.
Harmon’s Resurgence
Private investor Jonah Raskas, who brought the dog-walking app Wag! public through a special purpose acquisition company in 2022, plans to reopen five Harmon stores in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and potentially more down the line.
Lessons Learned from Bed Bath & Beyond’s Demise
Neil Saunders, retail analyst and managing director at GlobalData, noted that people have picked over the carcass of Bed Bath & Beyond and managed to get some quite good bargains in terms of the value that they’ve paid for the intellectual property and the business. "People have learned from the mistakes of the past and are approaching this from a different angle," he said.
What’s Next for Buy Buy Baby?
When Buy Buy Baby’s doors reopen, shoppers can expect smaller stores, national brands, and a focus on experiences, community building, and learning. The revamped Buy Buy Baby will have a brick-and-mortar footprint, which will give it a competitive edge that will better differentiate it from mass retailers like Target and Walmart, which lack the expertise and focus that comes with a specialty store.
What’s Next for Harmon?
Raskas plans to keep everything the same, with the exception of a few optimizations and tweaks. "I’m not just buying a retailer, I’m buying something that was a community-loved favorite store that they went to throughout their entire lifetime and throughout all these different life-cycle journeys," he said.
Conclusion
The new owners of Buy Buy Baby and Harmon have an opportunity to make something out of the bankrupt businesses, thanks to better balance sheets and less exposure to underperforming locations. With an ambitious plan to reopen stores and bring back the brands, they hope to differentiate themselves from mass retailers and create a new shopping experience for customers.
