Apparently All Those Bed Bath & Beyond 20% Off Coupons Aren't Great for Business

By Kara Brown  |  November 5, 2015 | 11:20pm
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It looks like the only reason you shop at Bed Bath & Beyond in the first place might be disappearing: The company is reportedly in financial trouble because they’ve conditioned their customers to never pay full price for anything.

I hate to laugh at the misery of others, but that rule flies out the window when it’s a Fortune 500 company with business practices that even I would have raised an eyebrow to. Seriously, what the hell did they think would happen?

Business Insider reports that Bed Bath & Beyond disclosed their troubles to investors and cited the fact that customers are so used to items being on sale or using coupons, that they’re happy to wait on a purchase until one of those things becomes available.

Man, the day I discovered that those 20% off coupons never expire AND you can use more than one of those babies at a time, I never looked back. I specifically remember standing in line at the Bed Bath & Beyond on the Upper West Side and having a stranger tap me on the shoulder and warn me that I had no reason to shop at the store if I wasn’t using a coupon.

Bed Bath & Beyond will reportedly be scaling back on those coupons, which—yeah, good idea guys! Last week alone, I received two in the mail and another over email. Plus, I keep all the coupons that are still being sent to the former tenant in my apartment unit.

As Business Insider notes, brands that are associated with constant sales lose value to the customer, which sort of seems like something you’d learn in whatever MBA program Bed Bath & Beyond executives probably graduated from.

If people were willing to wait until they receive an enormous coupon in the mail to buy a new bamboo cutting board, my guess is that they might also be willing to wait two days for an Amazon Prime shipment. Good luck to you, BB&B.

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Image via Bloomberg/Getty.

 
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