How do you integrate seven retail brands, hundreds of retail stores, a handful of e-commerce sites, and three different merchandising staffs with as many offices—all while keeping the parts moving smoothly? If you’re Amy Sullivan, you do it strategically and, most of all, quickly.
Sullivan is the president of Bed Bath & Beyond, the resurrected retail nameplate that has recently rolled up a surprising roster of brands—a list that now includes The Container Store, Kirkland’s, Overstock, BuyBuy Baby, Lumber Liquidators and Cabinets to Go. In one of the bigger mashups the retail sector has ever seen, Sullivan, BBB CEO and executive chairman Marcus Lemonis, and the various merchandising and buying staffs from those rolled-up brands are reconfiguring these pieces into a new order.
Sullivan talked about it all with Business of Home this week, starting with the opening of the first-ever hybrid location in Fort Worth, Texas, where an existing Container Store was retrofitted in just five working days—“without closing the store,” she says—to combine the merchandise of the two iconic brands. This is the first of about 100 similar conversions that will take place by the end of the year.
Sullivan told BOH the store currently features 60 percent Container Store goods, with the balance comprising Bed Bath & Beyond’s mix of home textiles and housewares. Ultimately, she expects the inventory will end up being closer to 50-50 once more back-to-campus goods arrive over the next few months.
Rather than the two brands being siloed side by side, the merchandise is integrated, assorted by what she calls “room solutions.” Even though the location employs The Container Store fixturing for the most part, trademark elements of the former Bed Bath & Beyond floor plan—such as bays, a towel wall and a gadget wall—have been incorporated. TCS’s former SKU-heavy assortment has been pared down to eliminate duplication, while BBB’s mix (which is still being worked on) will eventually include a half-and-half split between home textiles and housewares. Some Kirkland’s decor will also be included, and space will be carved out for Cabinets to Go and Lumber Liquidators goods once the deal to purchase them is completed later this year.
This strategy will be duplicated online, where the existing Container Store website will be the centerpiece of the company’s e-commerce presence when it launches in September.
Also still to come is the “home services” component that Lemonis has proclaimed will be a defining element of this retail amalgamation, including home repair and design services and even real estate transactions. Sullivan said these offerings are still works in progress, with a targeted fall launch date.
As the physical stores and virtual services are being reworked, so too are the merchandising staffs that will buy for all of these brands. The TCS and BBB teams are currently being consolidated at The Container Store’s Dallas offices, and will be housed in the new Beyond Retail Group. Overstock will maintain its Salt Lake City offices, and with the closing of the Kirkland’s (Brand House Collective) headquarters in Tennessee, a small product development office will be opened in Nashville to fill the void.
As for Sullivan? “I’ll mostly be on airplanes and in hotels,” she says.
When all of the rearranging is completed, here’s what she says the big picture will look like: about 100 hybrid stores that were previously The Container Store locations, each measuring around 20,000 square feet; about 50 smaller-sized co-branded locations that were formerly Kirkland’s larger stores, each in the 5,000-to-10,000-square-foot range, selling an edited assortment from their big brothers; and about 150 Bed Bath & Beyond Seasonal Living locations, a transformation of former Kirkland’s units that will focus on textiles, small furniture and home decor. Another 100 of the former Kirkland’s fleet will be closed as leases expire, and the name itself will fade away as a store banner, relegated now to an in-store brand for home decor products.
Once Lumber Liquidators and Cabinets to Go are brought into the fold, they will maintain about 200 locations, which will feature both brands as well as the Elfa closet and storage line that had been the flagship of former Container Store locations.
The company also has plans to bring BuyBuy Baby back into the physical retail game sometime next year. That’s when Overstock locations, acting as outlets for all of the company’s brands, could also be opened.
It’s an ambitious plan to be sure, and given the way the company’s strategy has continually evolved since Lemonis took over in late 2023, it very well may be subject to change. But, as Sullivan puts it, “We’re about everything centered around the home.” As such, it’s a plan that has the potential to fill a big white space in the retail world.
For now, her job is clear: Move quickly and don’t break things.
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Warren Shoulberg is the former editor in chief for several leading B2B publications. He has been a guest lecturer at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business; received honors from the International Furnishings and Design Association and the Fashion Institute of Technology; and been cited by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and other media as a leading industry expert. His Retail Watch columns offer deep industry insights on major markets and product categories.
