Bed Bath & Beyond will not open or operate any retail stores in California because business conditions there are unsustainable and the state has “endless regulations that strangle growth,” the company’s executive chairman announced Aug. 20.
“This decision isn’t about politics — it’s about reality,” Marcus Lemonis said in an official statement. “California has created one of the most overregulated, expensive, and risky environments for businesses in America. It’s a system that makes it harder to employ people, harder to keep doors open, and harder to deliver value to customers.”
“The result? Higher taxes, higher fees, higher wages that many businesses simply cannot sustain, and endless regulations that strangle growth,” he continued. “Even when the state announces a budget surplus, it’s built on the backs of ordinary citizens who are paying too much and businesses who are squeezed until they break.”
Lemonis, who is also CEO of Beyond Inc., Bed, Bath, & Beyond’s parent company, emphasized that participating in the state’s current brick-and-mortar ecosystem will not benefit the company’s future.
“At Bed Bath & Beyond, our responsibility is to our customers and our shareholders. We will not participate in a system that undermines both,” Lemonis said.
Instead, the company will have two-day delivery and same-day services so California residents can still order the company’s products online, “without the inflated costs created by an unsustainable model,” he noted.
“We’re taking a stand because it’s time for common sense,” he continued. “Businesses deserve the chance to succeed. Employees deserve jobs that last. And customers deserve fair prices. California’s system delivers the opposite.”
The statement, which Lemonis shared on X, drew mixed reactions from commenters. One commenter accused the statement of being “a fancy backhanded way to say that being an online retailer is a better business than being a brick and mortar retailer.”
Lemonis replied that Bed Bath & Beyond “will have stores in almost every other state.”
The company has been reemerging from bankruptcy in recent years. It filed for Chapter 11 protection in April 2023. The company Overstock.com, Inc — which rebranded itself as Beyond in November 2023 — acquired Bed Bath & Beyond in June 2023, creating a new path forward for the company. According to an Aug. 20 report from NewsNation Now, Beyond had previously taken an ownership stake in Kirkland’s Inc. and plans to convert current Kirkland’s stores into “Bed Bath & Beyond Home” stores. According to the report, the first of these converted stores opened in Nashville earlier this month. If that store performs well, the company intends to convert 75 more stores.
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