Bed Bath & Beyond is rising from the grave.
A couple of months ago Bed Bath & Beyond announced that they would be going into liquidation. They stopped accepting coupons on April 26, stopped accepting gift cards on May 8 and stopped allowing returns and exchanges on May 24 for products bought before April 23. They’ve gradually shuttered all their stores, with all stores expected to have been closed by June 30, 2023.
That was the end of Bed Bath & Beyond. Or so we thought.
It turns out that Overstock had other ideas. They announced yesterday that they’ve spent $21.5 million on buying the Bed Bath & Beyond brand name, domain names and loyalty program assets. They’re going to be rebranding Overstock as Bed Bath & Beyond with their websites being updated accordingly. That means that Overstock.com will become bedbathandbeyond.com. They’ve already changed their Canadian website to bedbathandbeyond.ca:
As you can see, it looks similar to Overstock’s website with the exception of the Bed Bath & Beyond logo and blue and white branding instead of red and white.
They’ve apparently decided to make this change as their company name ‘Overstock’ doesn’t have the connotation that they’d like nowadays. While it made sense when the company was first starting out given how they sourced their products, their business plan has changed since. I’m not sure that changing your name to a company name that people now associate with a failed, closed business is any better, but I’m also not the CEO of a $1.38 billion company, so what do I know?
Their loyalty program Club O will be getting rebranded as Welcome Rewards which was the former name of Bed Bath & Beyond’s loyalty program.
What This Means For Gift Cards
There’s nothing in their press release regarding how gift cards will be affected, but I think that’s because there’ll be no real change in policies going forward. Although their name and websites are being rebranded, it doesn’t look like the website or order processing will be changing in any way which means Overstock gift cards will still be useable on the new BedBathAndBeyond.com website once that goes live.
I also don’t think this will mean any beneficial change for those holding Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards from their former life that have had zero value since May 8. I don’t believe that the $21.5 million that Overstock paid for various assets includes the now-zero value on Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards, so I’d be very surprised if those can be used in the future on the soon-to-come Bed Bath & Beyond website. That will likely cause confusion for some gift card holders in the future in that they can buy and redeem new Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards but not old Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards.
Thanks to Matt for the heads up about this.
From the FAQs on the Canadian website (https://www.bedbathandbeyond.ca/faq):
“I have a Bed Bath & Beyond gift card. May I use it on the new website?
We are not able to honour gift cards that were issued and unused. Gift card balances from preexisting digital and physical gift cards expired under previous Bed Bath & Beyond ownership.”
No big surprise there.
Of course. My $250 gift card that I just received a month before the BK is worthless. And since it’s a 2+ hour drive to the nearest store, I didn’t even know about the May 8th cutoff. Grrrr
I have Bed Bath & Beyond Gift cards worth over $200. Would I be able to use them on the new website or at a store in the USA?
Unfortunately not – Overstock/Bed Bath & Beyond aren’t planning on accepting old Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards.
We are so so disappointed that we cannot use our bed bath & beyond GIFT CARD that we received in the past instead of cash for a return. It leaves a sour taste in our mouths as to whether one should even continue to use Overstock’s products (as Bed Bath & Beyond). Obviously, THE consumer does not come first in Overstock’s way of doing business. Is it really worth completely loosing consumers, versus allowing the gift cards to be used & keeping such customers for many years to come!???
To be fair to Overstock, the gift cards had expired before they bought the limited assets of Bed Bath & Beyond. If they were to honor those, they’d have potentially lost millions of dollars on the purchase of those assets as what they’d paid didn’t include the value of the old Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards. They’d also have no way of knowing what value was on those gift cards as they won’t have had access to the old BBB computer systems.