Failing Retailers

On The Huffington Post website, it talks about the store Linens' n Things having to file for bankruptcy recently. They have closed 120 underperforming stores around the U.S. with many of them located in California. The article reports that Ken Perkins, who is the president of research company RetailMetrics LLC, says the stores' reason for closing is because of the lagging economy and the stores' operating issues. This is said to be the worst retail recession the U.S. has seen in about 30 years.

Linens' n Things had 589 stores in 47 states but has now reduced their numbers dramatically. Burt Flickinger III, who is the managing director of the consumer industry consulting firm Strategic Resource Group says "The business will be smaller but it will be more stable." I agree with this statement but I don't know how much longer the retailer will last especially because of it's competition with Bed Bath and Beyond. This article says that there is a Bed Bath and Beyond located within almost 3 miles of 50% of the Linens' n Things stores. Bed Bath and Beyond tends to have more variety and up to date products so that puts a damper on Linens' n Things business.

An article on Times-Herald.com which was posted back in October of 2008 says that a Linens' n Things store located in Newman (which is the city where this article is from) passed the first round of store closings. The company had planned to restructure it to keep it from going under but that failed. They were then going to auction the company off to someone that could help it survive but that also failed. The Linens' n Things store in Newman finally closed its doors. The closing of all these stores is sadly adding to the increasing numbers of unemployment in the United States.

Websites used:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/02/linens-n-things-files-for_n_99867.html

http://www.times-herald.com/local/Linens-n-Things-closing-all-stores-571686