Long Island losing another Bed Bath & Beyond

Long Island is about to lose another Bed Bath & Beyond.

The home goods retailer’s Manhasset store will close in February, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The closure is part of "a store optimization plan that will see us establish the right network of stores to serve our customers," Bed Bath & Beyond spokesman Dominic Pendry said.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., headquartered in Union, New Jersey, said in July that it planned to close about 200 stores over two years to right-size its real estate portfolio and focus on cost-cutting. The company, which also owns BuyBuy Baby, did not respond to Newsday inquiries about how many employees would be affected by the closing.

Located at 2103 Northern Blvd., the Bed Bath & Beyond shares a building with a Whole Foods Market in Munsey Park Plaza, across the street from the high-end Americana Manhasset shopping center.

The two-level store occupies 41,393 square feet, according to the website of the building’s landlord, Kimco Realty Corp. in Jericho. Kimco declined to comment on the store’s closing.

In November 2018, Bed Bath & Beyond closed two Long Island stores – in South Huntington and Inwood. There now are 11 Bed Bath & Beyond stores on Long Island, including locations in East Northport, Farmingdale, Plainview and Oceanside.

The retailer has been struggling for years as it loses customers to online competitors, such as Amazon and Wayfair, and big-box chains, including Walmart and Target. Those competitors offer the convenience of quick delivery and often at cheaper product prices.

Bed Bath & Beyond has responded by closing unprofitable stores, cutting unprofitable brands and focusing more on its own private-label brands, said Jaime Katz, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar Investment Service in Chicago who covers retail.

"I don’t know if differentiation is going to shine through immediately but I think they are trying to put forth efforts to accelerate any product differentiation they can… through things like private label," she said.

Bed Bath & Beyond plans to invest $250 million in about 450 of its stores across North America in the next two to three years, Pendry said.

"This is part of a comprehensive strategy to invest where it matters most to our customers, including the launch of an array of new customer-inspired owned brands next year," he said. The chain will also focus on "omni-channel" service — having online and in-store sales platforms that complement each other.

As of Aug. 29, Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. had a total of 1,476 stores, including 955 Bed Bath & Beyond stores in the United States and Canada and 128 BuyBuy Baby stores, which sell clothes, furniture and other items for infants and toddlers.

Home goods stores have seen a sales boost during the COVID-19 pandemic this year, as consumers stuck at home spend money to improve their abodes. While Bed Bath & Beyond benefited from that spending, it still lags behind its competitors, Katz said.

Bed Bath & Beyond’s sales online and at stores open at least one year increased 6% in its fiscal second quarter ended Aug. 29, which was its first increase in comparable sales since the fiscal 2016 fourth quarter.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.