Serial entrepreneur Doug Putman plans to launch his latest retail venture by taking over most of the remnants of Bed Bath & Beyond, in a new chain called rooms + spaces.
Putman, who has made similar moves when HMV, Toys ‘R’ Us and DavidsTea went insolvent, plans to open the home store brand in 21 former locations of Bed Bath & Beyond and buybuy BABY storefronts later this summer.
“We certainly think that it’s a growth area, the market is massive — billions and billions of dollars,” Putman told CBC News in an interview.
“That is kind of the story with most things that we buy — good companies that have just lost their way,” he said. That’s a reference to Putman’s previous retail ventures, all of which follow a similar pattern: coming in and either moving into former locations of a defunct chain, or in some cases buying up the brand itself.
“We felt like we could put together a team that could service the Canadian marketplace, the way that Bed Bath & Beyond used to.”
Putman’s endeavour will start with 21 locations scattered across Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador. That’s less than half of the 60-odd locations that Bed Bath & Beyond took up, and Putman says he would have been happy to take in more.
“In some cases, there were other retailers that were interested and in some cases, the deals just didn’t make sense to do it, [but] anywhere that we’re not, we’re still looking,” he said.
In total, rooms + spaces will launch with 800,000 square feet of retail space, plus an e-commerce website. The company will be hiring about 500 people off the bat, and the venture will be led by Greg Dyer, the former general manager for Bed Bath & Beyond in Canada.
Putman says he would have been prepared to start with even more locations, but landlords had other tenants in mind.
A major one of those tenants was revealed in a separate piece of news on Wednesday, as Canadian Tire announced it would be taking over 10 former Bed Bath & Beyond stores and converting them into Mark’s Work Wearhouse and Pro Hockey Life locations.
Financial terms for Putman’s transaction were not released, but the price tag for Canadian Tire’s deal — $1.6 million to acquire 10 leases — suggests landlords were keen to find people to take over as many of Bed Bath & Beyond’s several dozen locations as possible.
Stiff competition
“They got a great deal,” retail consultant Liza Amlani says, but that’s not to suggest that either venture is without risk.
The home and decor market that rooms + spaces is targeting, meanwhile, is huge and growing, she says, but already full with experienced, large players.
She notes that one of the chain’s locations will be in London, Ont., in an outlet mall that already has a half-dozen other chains selling similar goods in close proximity, from Winners, Marshalls and HomeSense to Bouclair, Urban Barn and Kitchen Stuff Plus.
“How do they know what the customer wants from them, as they never existed before?” she said. “That home customer has more choices than ever.”
She says it’s a monumental task to make sure the chain will have inventory on the shelves in time for launch, but Putman says he is confident that won’t be an issue, since vendors were very receptive to the plan.
“It’s a lot of inventory, it’s a lot of supply chain management, but it’s all stuff we’ve done before, so we feel pretty comfortable on our timeline,” he said.
Amlani said Putman’s strategy is “a crazy idea but it could work if certain ducks are in order.”
HALIFAX – The federal Fisheries Department says an endangered North Atlantic right whale has become entangled in gear in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The department says the whale was sighted Wednesday by a Transport Canada aerial surveillance team northeast of the Gaspé Peninsula, off Anticosti Island.
Officials say it’s not known what type of gear has entangled the whale or where the gear came from.
Based on observation, experts at the New England Aquarium have confirmed the whale is a female known as Chiminea.
The department says it is continuing to monitor the area and if the whale is located and conditions allow, efforts will be made to disentangle the animal.
Last October, the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium estimated there were 356 North Atlantic right whales left on the planet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Canadian pop icon Nelly Furtado has been named one of three headliners for the opening ceremony of the upcoming Invictus Games.
Furtado, from Victoria, will share the stage with alt-pop star Roxane Bruneau of Delson, Que., and American singer-songwriter Noah Kahan.
They’ll be part of the show that opens the multi-sport event in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., in February.
The Invictus Games sees wounded, injured, and sick military service members and Veterans compete in 11 disciplines.
The Vancouver Whistler 2025 Games will be the first of seven editions to feature winter adaptive sports, including alpine skiing, Nordic skiing, skeleton and wheelchair curling.
British Columbia’s Lower Mainland will host the Invictus Games from Feb. 8-16.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
