Bed Bath and Beyond and its Relationship to Customers
January 29th, 2007
I made a stop at Bed Bath and Beyond yesterday to pick up a blanket, and I was reminded yet again why my initial thoughts of it being a fun trip always end up in disappointment.
BB&B is certainly not a discount store. While they send out plenty of large-postcard coupons for 20% off a single item, most of the merchandise there is nowhere near competitive with discount retailers.
I’m fine with that. A store can be what it wants. But BB&B isn’t really what I want.
Why?
Manhattan is a crowded enough place. Bed Bath and Beyond in Chelsea is a pretty big store (two floors), but there are consistently crowding issues. The store places goods in the middle of traffic paths. I understand that they are highlighting items of interest by displaying them in high-traffic areas, but my experience yesterday involved customers having to, on the spur of the moment, come up with a traffic control plan just to get around the store. I’m actually rather impressed by the way people came together to organize a bit, but quite upset with the store for making it that way. Aisles are obviously selected to give a path for traffic flow. When they’re not sufficient, the merchant is to blame.
As well, there must have been about 200 people in the checkout area waiting to pay and leave. While Amy was a bit upset that I was pissed off at the lines, I think that it’s justifiable to expect that when you’re paying a more-than-fair price for something that you should not have to have a subpar experience while in the store.
Amy said something about it just being busy, and that it wasn’t that bad.
I still contend that on a Sunday in late January (as opposed to November or December, or even early January), the store should be able to operationally scale its checkout system such that there isn’t a sea of humanity trying to spontaneously form the proper queuing structure to get everyone through in a reasonable amount of time. Management of BB&B bears the responsibility of the portions of my visit that they control, and… well… they failed.
I’ll be trying to remind myself just how bad it sucks next time I’m tempted to go there.
Oh, and Target, when the hell are you going to open up a Manhattan store?!?!?!
Entry Filed under: Businesses that Suck, General
15 Comments Add your own
1. Tutu | January 29th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
I have always have had a great experience @ bb&b. I go for one things and get more then what i need, The prices are really high and i honestly can find some other things that smell good and are good @ the local wal-mart, but i keep going to bb&b because of the quaity of the products. recentl i haven’t went to bb&b because i have found everything that i needed @ the local wal-mart for a much lower price.
2. Lee | February 17th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
“my initial thoughts of it being a fun trip ”
Dude, go buy a skirt! My ex-girlfriend used to try and force me to stop there. That store is for girls!
3. jed | June 6th, 2007 at 11:55 am
You think its bad shopping there, you should try working there, it sucks much worse i assure you. It is an evil company much worse than wal-mart in regards to how they treat their emplyees. i have worked for both
4. NevDull | June 6th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
I would assume that it sucks working there.
It appears that the problems are systematic, which means that it’s the fault of management. While oppressive management is horrible to work under, anarchy isn’t any better. And, quite frankly, at least the checkout area appears to be anarchy.
There’s little worse than being a customer somewhere and having an employee yell at you because you haven’t figured out the way that they want you to deal with the chaos.
I probably should start sending letters…
When I look at the difference between my paychecks and what I’ve got left at the end of the year, the amount of money I spend in a year is quite a lot. Rent eats up a big chunk, but there’s still a huge amount for food, clothing, stuff for the house, and discretionary spending.
It’d be nice if stores could figure out how to make me not feel dirty while spending it.
5. Anonymous | February 16th, 2008 at 12:12 am
I agree completely that working there is absolute hell. I can’t wait to quit but they have nobody right now so I feel bad for some reason.
I have at least four managers telling me different ways of doing things and each one yells at me if I’m not doing it their paricular way.
I wanted a simple little job and they take it way too seriously. It is as if they are trying to make it my life. You have to take like 10 tests to see if you know what you need to know. Ridiculous. They are supposed to spend several hours training on various things but they only give me like an hour to apparently become an expert on the damn place.
Hours are awful and the lugging of super-heavy boxes up huge latters all-day is exausting. I would rather stick needles underneath my nails
I have to work tommorow. Wish me luck.
6. Anon | May 22nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
You should not feel bad about quitting. My BB&B was short staffed and I called in sick with obvious lies two days in a row before telling the management that I didn’t care what their secret shop numbers were, and I quit. I also told them that Bed, Bath and Beyond sold useless things that only suburban moms with ridiculous disposable income can afford. Useless, useless things.
I am actually have a very high work ethic, it’s just that BB&B destroyed my soul. Hauling heavy boxes up ladders all day and being yelled at constantly on a walkie talkie is bad enough, but as the person above me mentioned, they give you mini ‘classes’ on towels and irons and shit like that and they test you to make sure you know what ‘ion infused’ and ‘1000 turkish thread count’ means.
Inane, horrible job.
7. Mr. Know It All | July 6th, 2008 at 12:51 am
Hey everyone pull up a chair and listen. I’m a amanger for Bed Bath and beyond let me give you the real low down on the company.
They pay thier hourly and the managers so little they can’t afford to be BBB customers.
Everyone I’ve met from the highest level to the part timers is unhappy and lookin for another job.
They care nothing about the customer only the shop score its the focus every month.
The only time the store is in a great condition to shop at is just before a visit from a VP or DM.
They do ZERO competitive shops not caring how high they are on anything.
The company has scaled back on payroll so far most stores have only 4 to 5 employees in the location at a time.
They think they are where Wal`Mart was 10 years ago? They have not got a clue!
They perform no background checks or drug test on employees because its to costly only when a problem pops up do they require any testing so” who knows what type of person you have waiting on you”
MAKES YOU THINK DOESN’T IT!
8. Mr. Know It All | July 6th, 2008 at 12:57 am
And Bridal Customers!!!!!!!!!!!! Guess what if you register at BBB they want all Bridel customers to scan or pick at least 400 items or more so it you only scan or pick less than the “MAJIC” number the store will scan where you left off anything they can find to make up the number getting them to thier goal and getting you abunch of gifts at your wedding you never wanted…………
9. Chuck | July 21st, 2008 at 11:07 pm
I can’t speak for anyone or anything,but our local BB&B in Jacksonville, FL seems to be turning part of its store into a dollar store. That means it’s having big troubles.
I called Customer Service thru the “800″ number and she sounded as if I woke her up, and was anything but attentive to me.
So tomorrow, wife and I are returning our purchase and kissing BB&B goodbye.
With all due respect to the VERY NICE people who work at the stores!!
10. Scott | July 22nd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
If you care about yourself as a person, don’t work for this place!
11. Cindy | July 27th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
I agree that Bed Bath and Beyond is a horrible place to work. You bust your ass to in the end just get treated like crap and get sucky pay.
If you aren’t a brainless robot or a retarded chimp then BBB is not suitable for someone to work at. Remember kids, keep on smiling no matter what insignifcant crap your manager is exploding over this time!
I will be quitting tomorrow. BBB: SUCK IT!
12. Front End "manager" | August 29th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I just googled “Bed Bath and Beyond Sucks” in a fit of rage, and this came up. I’m another employee who hates the job. I started working there because they work with my college hours very well, and every day that goes by I regret it. They keep cutting back hours and people, yet they bitch at the employees when shit hits the fan. Seriously? WTF is up with their concern over shop scores?
The only reason I haven’t called in Today or quit yet is because it would totally screw over some of my co-workers. I love my co-workers…and even most of the managers are nice. I’ll be leaving very soon, though.
As far as the store itself…I like shopping there. I have no idea why they think it is a great idea to stack goods from the floor to the ceiling.
13. Ben | September 22nd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I work at BBB. Well, I used to, I called in and quit about 10 min ago! I truly see no value in that job whatsoever. I’m an accredited college educated and experienced retail employee and somehow they thought 8.75 per hour was fair. I was working as many hours as some of my mangers for less than half the pay and no benefits. O and apparently I have to work more than 6 hours to get a break (extortion? Yes I was thinking that). I can’t see how I could be screwing them in any such way since they keep hiring new employees yet continue to cut back on our hours…..I fail to see how that makes any sense at all. So in a day or two they’ll replace me with some 17 year old and pay them minimum wage. See, we all end up ok. I don’t have a job lined up but I have many prospects. A few places told me to call back or come in so I’m just leaning on that right now, although it is risky. I figure tho this is a good way to save the money I don’t have because now I won’t be going out or driving much since I have no income…….good thing I still live at home. Damn Recession
14. A Girl | September 26th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I just got a call back from BB&B. I think I’m gonna go ahead and go to the interview. I know you guys say it sucks. but this is the first place that’s called me back for an interview in months!
15. BBB Employee | November 15th, 2008 at 12:56 am
I have worked at BBB for 3 years. It has been some trying times, definitely — most upper management sucks and from there it trickles down into lower management, I am lucky that at my store we just got a really great ops manager who’s freaking awesome, he could run the store single-handedly (and a hell of a lot better than our SM!) if he wanted to.
But what I really wanted to comment on to some of the other comments on here was about product knowledge classes…yes it can be annoying at times but I think that’s what sets BBB apart from other stores, our sales associates actually know what we’re talking about. I really pride myself on all my product knowledge and I have been able to help customers out more than sales people at other stores because of it.
Most of management is really crappy to the employees, that is not even a question, but some parts of it are not that bad. It’s retail!
Also maybe the BBB the OP went to was such a clusterfuck because it was in Manhattan. Manhattan is kind of a clusterfuck in and of itself, innit?
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