Bed Bath & Beyond has experienced years of dwindling sales. Most recently, the merchant lost 33% in digital sales in 2022 compared with a year earlier, according to Digital Commerce 360 data.

There is not much ground to be gained by competitors. By the end of its tenure, the ailing home goods merchant accounted for 1.4% of overall houseware/home furnishings in the U.S. market in 2022, according to Digital Commerce 360 analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce data.

Digital sales for the housewares and home furnishings category decreased in 2022. Consumers spent less time and money on home improvement projects. Instead, consumers allocated funds to pre-pandemic activities like dining out and traveling. Including Bed Bath & Beyond, the U.S. Top 1000 Digital Commerce 360 retailers accounted for 29.9% of housewares/home furnishings category sales in 2022. That is down from 32.1% in 2021. Notably, without Bed Bath & Beyond, web sales for the category would have declined 4.1% in 2022.

Amazon continues to dominate home goods category

Mass merchants like Amazon.com Inc. (No. 1 in Digital Commerce 360’s Top 1000 retailer rankings), Walmart Inc. and Target Corp. (No. 5) have also experienced a slowdown in ecommerce sales. Amazon still holds the majority of the home goods category market share with 88.47% in 2022. That is down compared with 86.13% in 2021, according to market research company YipitData.

Walmart (No. 2) also experienced a decline. Its market share accounted for 7.27% in 2022, compared with 8.58% in 2021. And Target Inc. also dropped in 2022 to 4.27%, compared with 5.29% in 2021.

A long time coming

Bed Bath & Beyond never quite caught on to ecommerce, says Rich DePencier, area managing partner and chief marketing officer of Chief Outsiders, a management consulting services company.

The retailer didn’t experience the pandemic-induced burst of ecommerce growth other merchants did. Of the top five merchants in the houseware/home furnishings category, Bed Bath & Beyond was the only retailer to have less than 10% 3-year CAGR, according to Digital Commerce 360 analysis.

Where Bed Bath & Beyond shoppers will shop instead

When asked where Bed Bath & Beyond shoppers will shop instead:

• Amazon (68%)
• Target (58%)
• Walmart (48%)
• Home Goods (34%)
• At Home (12%)
• Macy’s (10%)
• Wayfair (5%)
• Crate & Barrel (3%)
• Williams-Sonoma (3%)
• Overstock (2%)
• Nordstrom (2%), according to Numerator, a consumer insights and analytics company survey of 500 verified Bed Bath & Beyond shoppers on April 24.

The opportunity lies in providing the shopping “experience” that Bed Bath & Beyond offered consumers, DePencier says.

“Retailers that are willing to invest in becoming more of a solution for consumers stand to benefit,” he says. That entails connecting the online and in-store experience of shopping for “big cultural moments.” These moments include weddings, babies, and college dorm room shopping.

Wayfair is opening stores in the U.S. to give consumers the option to see in-person what they might buy online. In 2022, IKEA invested $3 billion to turn stores across the U.S. and Europe into delivery hubs and support its ecommerce sales. In April 2023, IKEA invested $2.2 billion to expand storefronts and fulfillment networks throughout the U.S.

“Merchants like Wayfair are trying to create that in store experience. It’s just like how an IKEA has a warehouse right next to the store. You can pick the product on your way out,” says Gopi Polavarapu, senior vice president and general manager of Kore.ai, an artificial intelligence customer experience software vendor. “Especially when it comes to three or four day delivery commitments. It’s impossible to commit to those [timeframes] because they don’t have warehouses in every market.” That’s where locally positioned storefronts come in handy to provide last mile delivery, he says.

Bed Bath & Beyond was too slow to adopt new technology

Before the pandemic, Bed Bath & Beyond had a game plan in place to use technology like QR codes to help consumers shop in-store. Then the pandemic hit and the merchant didn’t adjust its ecommerce side of the business, Polavarapu says.

Polavarapu previously worked at software vendor Zebra Technologies, which sells electronic sensors and industrial scanners. The software and device vendor met with Bed Bath & Beyond in 2019 to introduce these devices to modernize in-store shopping experience, he says. “The plan included placing QR codes [on merchandise] to help shoppers” find what they needed in store, Polavarapu says.

“But when it came to digital ecommerce, they were much slower in adopting technology,” he says. “They tried to save as much [money] as they could rather than modernizing their entire operations.”

Bed Bath & Beyond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 23. It plans to liquidate inventory and go out of business.

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The expansion will be fueled in part by an investment of as much as $200 million in Bergdorf Goodman’s parent company, Neiman Marcus Group, by Farfetch Ltd., an online luxury retailer that also sells its ecommerce services to other retailers.

Nieman Marcus is No. 74 in the 2021 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000.

Farfetch and Neiman Marcus executives said Tuesday they will work together to improve Bergdorf Goodman’s U.S. website and launch its first international websites in 2023. In an interview, Neiman Marcus Group CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck said he couldn’t disclose which countries the company is targeting — but China is a top “consideration.” Providing websites in different countries will reduce shipping times and import expenses for shoppers to buy from Bergdorf Goodman.

“I think we will open in a lot of countries,” van Raemdonck said. “The question is really which countries do we double down on, from an investment point of view.”

Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus products will also be available on Farfetch’s website, which sells to customers in more than 190 countries. That’s a potential source of additional revenue for Neiman Marcus, which is looking to bounce back after filing for bankruptcy during the pandemic.

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Van Raemdonck said the company considered going international on its own, but it ultimately decided to partner with Farfetch because it offered speed and efficiency.

“We are doing really well right now,” van Raemdonck said. “We’re growing at an accelerated rate compared to pre-COVID and at a higher profitability rate.”

The deal with Farfetch will further speed up growth, he added.

Van Raemdonck and Farfetch CEO Jose Neves didn’t disclose how much Neiman Marcus Group is paying Farfetch for its ecommerce services or what kind of revenue they eventually expect to generate on the new Bergdorf Goodman websites or on Farfetch’s own website.

Farfetch shares initially rose on news of the partnership before falling 4.7% at 12:35 p.m. in New York, following a reversal in U.S. equity markets.

Both executives said they are bullish on the U.S. luxury market, buoyed in part by strong economic growth.

“It’s also growing fundamentally because there are more consumers, younger consumers who are entering the luxury market during the pandemic,” van Raemdonck said.

The average age of customers who spend more than $10,000 each year with Neiman Marcus Group has fallen by seven years compared with before the pandemic, he said. The men’s business is also robust.

“A partnership of this scale with one of the U.S.’s preeminent luxury retailers is a stamp of legitimacy on Farfetch’s technology,” Wells Fargo analyst Ike Boruchow wrote in a research note on Tuesday.

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“That’s it,” my wife declared as she slammed the newspaper down on the kitchen counter. “I’m not shopping at Old Orchard anymore!”

She was responding to the news that the village of Skokie, home to the Old Orchard shopping mall, had agreed to raise the sales tax at the mall 1% — to 11.25% for retail purchases and an appetite-suppressing 13.25% for restaurant bills.

The money the higher tax raises will go directly to the mall owner. Proponents say it will produce $84 million over 23 years that the mall owner, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, will use to make improvements designed to bring consumers back to the mall. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is a Paris-based company formed in 2018 after French commercial real estate firm Unibail Rodamco bought Westfield Malls, one of the largest U.S. shopping mall operators.

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield announced plans to close several regional malls in the U.S.,  largely because of the sharp reduction in sales due to the pandemic. Online shopping already was cutting into mall sales, and COVID-19 surely didn’t help. Mall pedestrian traffic declined 91% in the first year of COVID before starting to rebound in 2021, according to INRIX, which monitors vehicular and human traffic. And retail advisory firm Coresight Research projected in 2020 that 25% of U.S. shopping malls would close in three to five years.

But is raising prices the way to make malls more attractive? Surely not, but what is? That’s the question.

Comparing online to in-store sales tax

A consultant’s report provided to the Skokie Village Board of Trustees argued that Old Orchard’s best customers are not that price sensitive.

“Affluent households and higher-skilled workers, the primary source of sales at Old Orchard, place a relatively high value on their time,” the report argued.

They clearly haven’t met my wife, who has shopped at Old Orchard for decades. She immediately got strategic. She observed that the only store she really likes at Old Orchard is L.L. Bean, and that she can order online from the apparel retailer and, if necessary, return items to the store at the mall.

“That way I won’t have to pay the sales tax at Old Orchard,” she concluded, triumphantly.

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That approach would save her a fair bit of change. Orders from LLBean.com for delivery to our home in Chicago carry a sales tax of 6.25%. That’s the rate the State of Illinois dictates for online or phone orders from out-of-state retailers like L.L. Bean, No. 62 in the 2021 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000, that have a physical presence in the state.

That’s a difference of 5% from the 11.25% now charged at Old Orchard. That is more than enough to change the behavior of a price-conscious shopper like my significant other.

The extra 1% Old Orchard is adding comes on top of an already combined local and state rate of 10.25% at the suburban mall. Across the U.S., the average state and local tax is 7.24%, according to a Digital Commerce 360 analysis of data from the Tax Foundation. (The average state sales tax alone is 5.66% for the 45 states and the District of Columbia that have sales taxes.)

Department stores leave shopping malls

But not all shoppers are solely motivated by price. An example is my colleague Lauren Freedman, who ran her own ecommerce consulting firm, The E-tailing Group, for decades before joining Digital Commerce 360 as senior consumer insights analyst.

Lauren is a world-class shopper. And shoppers like her want shopping malls to shop at, so she’s willing to pay a little more to help a retail hub like Old Orchard survive.

“I want Old Orchard to survive,” she says. “As neighbors and city dwellers, we have to ask ourselves, ‘Do I care if this store or mall exists?’ If you want this to be part of your world, you’ve got to support it, or it won’t exist.”

Fair enough. And it’s true enough that Old Orchard is facing some of the same problems as other malls. While it still features well-known department stores like Nordstrom and Macy’s, it lost Lord & Taylor in 2018 and Barnes & Noble more recently. Part of the money raised with the additional tax is earmarked to improve the former Lord & Taylor space to make it attractive to a new tenant.

Attracting appealing new retail tenants is a tall order, given that the bankruptcies of department stores like J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus and Stage Stores have left gaping holes in many malls. In fact, Green Street Advisors has predicted that half of mall-based department stores would close, leaving lots of anchor spaces empty.

Retail store survival strategies

The decline of department stores and the many bankruptcies of specialty retailers during the coronavirus pandemic have left lots of retail space empty at shopping malls. Malls have responded by reducing the square footage allotted to retail stores from 73.6% in 2014 to 65.0% by late 2021, according to Innovating Commerce Serving Communities (ICSC), the trade association formerly known as International Council of Shopping Centers that took a new name last year.

Instead of stores, malls increasingly feature restaurants, movie theaters, professional offices, gyms and nail salons.

ICSC’s decision to take “shopping centers” out of its well-known name is itself a sign of consumer shopping shifting away from malls. Where are they shopping instead? Online, obviously, is a big part of the answer, as ecommerce accounted for 19.1% of retail sales in 2021, up from 8.0% in 2012, according to a Digital Commerce 360 analysis that excludes products like gasoline and restaurant meals rarely purchased online.

But is there still a place for brick-and-mortar retail? I know shoppers like Lauren Freedman and my wife like to go to stores. Even I do when I’m shopping for something I’m excited about buying. But the loss of nearly 20% of sales to websites, combined with the ease of comparing prices online that’s squeezing profit margins for all retailers, puts store-based retailers in a bind.

Still, some are finding a way to prosper. One of the best examples is Best Buy Co. Inc., No. 5 in the Top 1000. A decade ago, many thought the consumer electronics retailer would fall victim to “showrooming” — consumers checking out products in a store, then, often using their mobile phones, comparing the price on Amazon and other retail websites. Many thought consumers would ultimately buy on the web to get lower prices.

To its credit, Best Buy’s executives took the problem on directly. They decided to match online prices, including Amazon’s. Then they put a bigger focus on selling higher-margin secondary items, like cables and headphones, along with providing in-home services to help shoppers set up the flat-screen TVs and surround-sound music systems they bought at the store.

Target, too, has more than held its own by freshening up stores, adding private-label products that generally carry higher profit margins and investing in omnichannel services. That makes it convenient to shop at Target, no matter whether you start your quest online or in the store.

Brick-and-mortar retail has to innovate to survive, and I suppose you could argue that’s what Old Orchard is doing by raising prices 1% to fund mall improvements. It will be interesting to see if it works. I suppose it depends on whether there are more price-first shoppers like my wife or consumers like Lauren who just want to be able to keep going to the mall.

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Boohoo said Monday it’s buying the Debenhams brand for 55 million pounds ($75 million). Separately, Asos Plc said it’s in exclusive talks with administrators of Philip Green’s Arcadia Group Ltd. over the U.K. retailer’s Topshop and other labels.

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Although the online retailers are seeking to revive stalwarts of the country’s shopping centers, their interest centers on ecommerce and brands like 240-year-old Debenhams may survive only on the web. That threatens the positions of thousands of employees after the U.K. retail industry shed more than 100,000 jobs last year.

Boohoo rose as much as 5.7% in London, while Asos gained as much as 3.5%.

Boohoo said Monday it will acquire the Debenhams label and fashion sub-brands including Manta Ray and Principles. The modest purchase price reflects the fact that Boohoo is not buying any of the retailer’s inventory or keeping its 124 stores. When the current U.K. lockdown ends, they’ll only reopen long enough to sell remaining merchandise before closing again.

Last-minute deal

Boohoo’s last-minute swoop reflects the fast-growing retailer’s desire to expand its offerings online beyond its main customer base of young women. It also wants to use the Debenhams website as an Amazon-style marketplace vehicle to sell third-party brands and expand into sports and homewares. Debenhams, which employs 12,000 people, mainly in the stores, is one of Britain’s best-known retailers.

The department-store chain has struggled recently, weighed down by hefty rents and property taxes. Fierce competition from e-commerce in the U.K. has led consumers to visit stores less frequently, and the pandemic accelerated the trend. Debenhams entered administration, a U.K. form of insolvency, in December and is currently being liquidated.

Boohoo bought the Karen Millen and Oasis brands out of insolvency in 2019.

While the Debenhams star has been waning for years, the business still commands a large share of the beauty market and its website attracts more than 300 million visits each year, making it a top-10 online retail destination in the U.K.

“This looks a sensible bolt-on acquisition,” said Greg Lawless, a retail analyst at Shore Capital, in a note. “It enables Boohoo to enter adjacent markets—beauty, sports and homewares—nd bolsters their share in clothing across ladies and menswear.”

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group Plc, which had been in talks to rescue part of the Debenhams’ business, could now try to strike deals with landlords to take control of some of Debenhams’ stores for its own brands.

Frasers drives a hard bargain on rents, however, and said Monday that it’s closing its House of Fraser store in Edinburgh for good after failing to reach an agreement with the building owner, Anders Povlsen of Bestseller AS. About 200 jobs will be lost.

Topshop talks

Asos confirmed the talks for Topshop and some other Arcadia brands after Sky News reported that it’s the frontrunner to buy such assets from the insolvent company. A price of more than 250 million pounds ($343 million) is being discussed, according to the report.

The talks also include the Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands, according to a statement, which didn’t specify if a transaction would include any stores.

Asos wants to expand its customer base and has a strong businesses in the U.S. and Europe, where Topshop brand-recognition is high. The fashionable label has struggled in recent years since Green’s retail empire faltered after the sale of his BHS department store in 2015 and as lockdowns worsened already falling sales.

Fashion retailer Next Plc and a range of other potential acquirers were previously reported to be interested in Topshop.

Any deal would be funded in cash, Asos said. There’s no certainty of a transaction, it added.

Analysts at Berenberg said Asos’s move to buy the Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge brands makes “good strategic sense” as they are well known among the retailer’s target customers and a “natural fit” with the rest of the business.

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Soltau departed Dec. 31. Stanley Shashoua, the chief investment officer of Simon Property Group Inc., took over as interim CEO while a search for a new CEO is conducted, according to a statement from the company.

Mall owners Simon and Brookfield Asset Management acquired J.C. Penney Co’s retail operations to help keep one of their biggest tenants in business.

The departure is another burden for the struggling department store chain, which made rapid-fire leadership changes over the past decade as a series of turnaround plans fell short. While it wouldn’t be unusual for new owners to bring in a new leader, restarting the process could hurt J.C. Penney as it tries to right the company, said David Swartz, equity analyst at Morningstar Inc. “It’s not great news,” Swartz said.

Soltau, hired in October 2018, was in the middle of overseeing her own turnaround plan and putting a new team in place when the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe this year and temporarily shuttered many retail stores. By May, J.C. Penney was bankrupt. She remained in the top job throughout the bankruptcy process, and the new owners highlighted her comments as CEO in the Dec. 7 announcement of the relaunch under the JCPenney name. JCPenney is No. 31 in the 2020 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000.

Simon and Brookfield plan to establish a temporary office of the CEO that will include members of JCPenney’s current management team, according to the statement. J.C. Penney Co. was split up during the bankruptcy into the operating company, which is owned by the mall operators, while lenders get the property company. The latter remains in the Chapter 11 process and is expected to emerge in the first half of 2021.

Soltau came over from craft retail chain Joann.com (No. 339), and before that was an executive at now-defunct Midwestern department store chain Shopko Stores Inc. Soltau worked to improve inventory management and lure more shoppers by revamping merchandise.

Now, as an intensifying pandemic threatens more disruption and store closings, “it would be much smoother” if Soltau could continue steering the turnaround, or if the company had a plan in place, Swartz said.

Macy’s finds a new chief merchandising officer

Macy’s Inc. (No. 14) named  Nata Dvir as the new chief merchandising officer of the Macy’s brand. Dvir is senior vice president and general business manager for beauty and center core merchandise, and effective Feb. 1. will be chief merchandising officer.

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Dvir will be responsible for leading Macy’s merchandising, with oversight of all merchandising categories and private brands, according to a press release announcing the news. She will replace Patti Ongman, who was promoted to the post about two years ago and has been at Macy’s for 35 years. Ongman plans to retire when she leaves her post.

“Nata is a strong merchant with deep connections to our partners, first-rate instincts and an eye for newness,” said Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette. “I’m confident that she will continue our merchandising transformation, influencing our customers’ personal style through accessible fashion, clear value and an enhanced digital and store experience.”

Dvir has been with Macy’s for more than 15 years. She has held various leadership positions and was given a newly created role of general business manager for beauty in 2017.

Wolverine Worldwide names a new president of global ecommerce

Wolverine Worldwide Inc. (No. 241), which owns footwear and lifestyle brands such as Harley-Davidson, Hush Puppies and Keds, appointed Matt Blonder as its new president of global ecommerce.

Blonder comes from shoe brand Reebok, where he served as the global head of marketing for more than three years. At Reebok, he “transformed the brand’s digital strategy, led a complete refresh of Reebok.com, revamped the digital consumer experience, and introduced a new global loyalty program,” according to the press release. And before that, he held leadership positions at Barnes & Noble Booksellers Inc. (No. 76) and Toys R Us Inc.

“Wolverine Worldwide witnessed a dramatic change in consumer behavior last year, highlighted by a significant shift to ecommerce and heightened digital engagement,” said president Brendan Hoffman. “We capitalized on this by accelerating our pivot to a digital-first strategy and expanding our digital investments and capabilities, all aimed at engaging consumers online with pinnacle brand experiences, fresh and innovative product, and compelling storytelling.”

Wolverine Worldwide has a goal to achieve $500 million in global ecommerce revenue for 2021, Hoffman said.

“Matt’s proven track record makes him the ideal person to lead this ongoing digital transformation,” he said.

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The company said in a statement Tuesday it intends to sell its inventory and remaining assets, including its intellectual property and ecommerce business, through the court-supervised process. Pier 1 filed to begin an orderly wind-down “as soon as reasonably possible” after stores are able to reopen following government-mandated closures because of the pandemic.

“This decision follows months of working to identify a buyer who would continue to operate our business going forward,” Robert Riesbeck, chief executive officer, said in the statement. “Unfortunately, the challenging retail environment has been significantly compounded by the profound impact of COVID-19, hindering our ability to secure such a buyer.”

Pier 1 sought court protection in February with plans to shut about half of its stores and said it was in talks with multiple potential buyers. The Fort Worth, Texas-based company had posted multiple quarters of declining sales and losses amid a raft of new competitors like Wayfair Inc.

On March 30, it canceled a scheduled auction for its assets, saying lenders would take ownership of the company. However, the company said it was still in discussions with various parties about how to maximize the value of its assets.

Pier 1 is “left with no choice” but to wind down retail operations and look to sell all its remaining assets, attorneys for the company write in court papers. “It is now clear that Pier 1’s future does not involve any brick-and-mortar retail locations,” they said.

Since store-closing sales can’t be held until state-mandated lockdowns are lifted, the retailer is seeking court permission to pay current employees severance and bonuses to discourage them from leaving before the chain can wind down. Pier 1 is also asking its bankruptcy judge to set an auction on July 8 for its intellectual property and ecommerce business, other court papers show.

Bloomberg News reported last month that Pier 1 was expected to receive a revised purchase offer from a company called CSC Generation that would keep open fewer than 100 of the company’s 900-plus locations. The bid was expected after the retailer’s bankruptcy court process was paused while stores are shuttered in accordance with coronavirus containment measures.

The case is Pier 1 Imports Inc., 20-30805, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of Virginia (Richmond)

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Retailers like furniture seller Pier 1 Imports Inc. (No. 121 in the 2019 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000) and direct-mailer Bluestem Brands Inc. have pointed to virus woes in justifying their requests for court protection, while cash-strapped energy companies—already reeling from an oil market sell-off—are seeing the pandemic disrupt long-standing restructuring plans.

Patient zero for the insolvency world may have been publicly traded Valeritas Holdings Inc., a bankrupt seller of diabetes devices that said in early February the shutdown of factories in China pressured its supply chain, worsening an existing cash crunch. The company plans to sell itself for just $23 million, citing uncertainty surrounding when workers in rural China will return to factories among its many problems.

“Given the commercial reaction to the virus and the wheels of the economy slowing at this pace, the implications will be wide-reaching and long term,” Duston McFaul, a partner in the bankruptcy practice at Sidley Austin LLP in Houston, said in an interview. “Credit and lending markets are all taking a step back to gauge the implications and to know how to react.”

Empty shelves

The Chinese factories that produce so much of the world’s goods—including Valeritas’ V-Go Insulin device—are beginning to reopen, but empty store shelves will likely become a common sight in the coming months.

The virus will “likely have some effect on inventory levels for the foreseeable future,” Pier 1 CEO Robert Riesbeck said in court papers last month when the company filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors.

Industries reliant on crowds like restaurants, retail and hotels will likely see an impact from the virus and could be forced to dismiss employees or cut their hours, said Sidney Scheinberg, chair of the bankruptcy and creditors-rights arm of Godwin Bowman PC in Dallas. Restaurant chains are already under pressure from rising wages and third-party delivery service competition.

In some cases, the virus helped finish off companies that were headed for court anyway. Foresight Energy LP, the newly bankrupt coal miner, said in its court papers this week that its prospects were hurt when COVID-19 weakened the economy and demand for coal. Foresight had been in trouble for some time, though: it suspended its quarterly dividend in May and missed an interest payment in October.

School closings

An attorney for Dean Foods Co., the top U.S. milk processor that went bust in November, told a bankruptcy judge in Houston Thursday the company is getting calls from schools across the country to take back milk deliveries in the wake of virus-related closings. Dean would lose millions of dollars each month if its school food service business dries up, Brian Resnick of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP said, because schools account for such a large portion of the company’s milk sales.

The pandemic is hitting deal financing, too. Art Van Furniture LLC, which filed for bankruptcy last week, was closing in on an out-of-court cash infusion when the virus crushed equities markets, helping the deal fall apart, Chief Financial Officer David Ladd said in a court declaration. Elsewhere, a proposed $320 million sale of bankrupt Alta Mesa Resources Inc. assets is in doubt because the buyers say they can’t line up the promised financing amid the virus-induced market turmoil.

That makes Houston-based EP Energy Corp. look like one of the lucky ones. The oil and gas producer disclosed its bankruptcy plan back in October, well before coronavirus was making headlines. Creditors fighting the driller’s proposal argued earlier this month that the pandemic could tamp down demand for oil in the longer term, and that the company’s plan to keep at least $1.5 billion of debt on its books wasn’t feasible.

Judge Marvin Isgur ultimately approved the plan. Three days later, oil prices crashed.

“I know that we’ve got problems out there and I don’t know how to deal with them,” Isgur said in a hearing Wednesday, where he confirmed he’ll sign a court order enforcing his earlier ruling. “I’m just going to be prepared to deal with them the best I can.”

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To help bring the numbers into focus and better understand the ecommerce landscape for the year, it’s worth a look back at the big headlines in retail in 2019.

Ecommerce bankruptcies and acquisitions of 2019

There were some big shake-ups in retail last year. Here’s a recap of bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions.

16 retailers filed for bankruptcy in 2019, and more than half of them were acquired by other companies seeking to salvage troubled companies.

Discount shoe chain Payless ShoeSource Inc. (No. 462) shut down its online operations as it liquidated its U.S. and Puerto Rico stores and, in February 2019, filed for bankruptcy for the second time in two years. But in January 2020, the company emerged from Chapter 11 and announced a new executive team that will focus on global operations in Latin America, currently its largest business unit, and elsewhere.

FullBeauty Brands Inc. (No. 105), a women’s plus-size apparel retailer, filed for bankruptcy in February 2019 and set a record for the shortest U.S. corporate bankruptcy after a judge approved the company’s restructuring plan less than 24 hours after the merchant filed for Chapter 11. FullBeauty executives cited competition online from Amazon, Kohl’s Corp. (No. 24) and Walmart Inc. (No. 3)—all of whom have entered the plus-size clothing market—as the reason for the company’s financial trouble.

Fast-fashion apparel chain Forever 21 (No. 115) filed for bankruptcy in September 2019 after struggling to transition its appeal to Generation Z shoppers, who are shifting away from mall-based shopping to ecommerce and opting for edgier streetwear brands. In February 2020, several companies announced they are jointly acquiring the teen retailer and will continue to operate its U.S. and international stores. Authentic Brands Group—which owns Barneys New York (No. 197), Aéropostale (No. 261) and Nine West (No. 290)—and mall owners Simon Property Group Inc. and Brookfield Property Partners LP cut a deal for $81.1 million to keep Forever 21 afloat. The new owners plan to expand the company’s international presence.

29 retailers were acquired in 2019, and several made big waves in the retail industry.

In late November, luxury giant and Louis Vuitton owner LVMH (No. 20) purchased jeweler Tiffany & Co. (No. 179) for $16.2 billion—the largest retail acquisition of the year among those where selling prices were disclosed. The deal is LVMH’s biggest ever and could help the French company compete against Richemont Group (No. 35) by adding to its stable of high-end labels such as Bulgari jewelry, Christian Dior fashion, Dom Perignon Champagne and Cognac. Rival Richemont’s jewelry business includes Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels.

The Tiffany takeover is anticipated to expand LVMH’s access to U.S. luxury shoppers while giving the iconic American brand more reach in Europe and China. Combined web sales for the two companies neared $4.541 billion in 2018, according to Digital Commerce 360 estimates.

Japanese cosmetics group Shiseido Co. bought digitally native beauty brand Drunk Elephant for $845 million in October. The move is expected to help Shiseido appeal to younger consumers in the United States and adds to its portfolio of prestige skin care brands, a key growth area for the company in recent years as consumers have shown willingness to spend on higher-priced beauty products. Drunk Elephant is a favorite among the millennial and Generation Z set given its nontoxic ingredients and Instagram-friendly packaging, and the brand will likely be able to scale its business with access to Shiseido’s resources and manufacturing.

Other big health and beauty conglomerates also have been on an acquisition spree as they target the younger market by nabbing upstart brands. In November, Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. (No. 49) agreed to buy the remaining two-thirds of Have & Be Co., the South Korean owner of cosmetics line Dr. Jart+ and men’s grooming brand Do The Right Thing, that it didn’t already own for about $1.1 billion. According to Estée Lauder, the acquisition will expand the company’s reach in the Asia-Pacific region.

Under pressure to turn its business around, Coty Inc. agreed in November to pay $600 million for a majority stake in Kylie Jenner’s trendy beauty brand, Kylie Cosmetics (No. 177). Kylie products were first sold exclusively online before Ulta Beauty (No. 91) stores began carrying the brand in late 2018.

Things didn’t work out as planned for Schick’s parent, Edgewell Personal Care Co., as it aimed to revamp its nearly century-old razor brand with the acquisition of Harry’s Inc. (No. 201), a hip maker of shaving supplies. Edgewell abandoned plans to buy the direct-to-consumer disruptor in a proposed $1.37 billion deal after the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the move on antitrust grounds. The failed deal could have implications for big companies that sell consumer packaged goods and hope to snag young, digitally native rivals endangering their market share.

Edgewell and Procter & Gamble Co. (No. 669) operated their respective Schick and Gillette brands of men’s razors as a “comfortable duopoly” for years, according to the FTC. Product prices jumped without a corresponding change in costs or demand, the agency argued, but with Harry’s entry into the market, the CPG conglomerates were forced to drop prices and develop new products. If Edgewell bought up Harry’s, competition again would be effectively eliminated, which the FTC said harms consumers. Harry’s expanded its direct-to-consumer business with retail chain partnerships—starting with Target Corp. (No. 16) in 2016 and now selling at Walmart.

Here’s a roundup of some of the big news and trends that emerged last year.

• Amazon increased pressure on other retailers with 1-day shipping
  Amazon spent nearly $2 billion in 2019 to offer Prime members free 1-day shipping, forcing much of the ecommerce industry to catch up. Walmart began rolling out free 1-day shipping in a few markets in May, and Target rapidly increased its push to offer multiple same-day fulfillment options.
• Buy online pick up in store had a good 2019 holiday season
  Retailers’ buy online pick up in store (BOPIS) programs were especially successful last year. With a shortened holiday period leaving six fewer prime shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, consumers turned to stores to fulfill online orders for last-minute gifts in greater numbers. BOPIS revenue for the season grew 35% year over year, according to data from Adobe Analytics. In the week leading up to Christmas, BOPIS sales climbed 55% higher than the season average. The research firm bases its data on more than 1 trillion visits to more than 4,500 retail sites and measures transactions from 80 of the top 100 U.S. online retailers ranked in the Top 1000.
• Curbside pickup programs surge in 2019
  In other omnichannel developments, curbside pickup ramped up in 2019 as big names reaped the benefits of earlier investments in the initiatives. Walmart, Target and Nordstrom Inc. (No. 18) have offered curbside pickup for at least a year and continued to roll out the programs in 2019, with Walmart expanding grocery pickup to 2,700 locations. In Target’s third quarter, the retailer’s sales volume fulfilled through curbside delivery grew more than 500% year over year. While a portion of the growth was driven by the addition of more than 800 new curbside pickup points, the retailer said more than half of the gains stemmed from mature locations. Fulfilling online orders through curbside pickup is more cost-effective for Target than traditional shipping methods, the mass merchant said.
• More digitally native brands open brick-and-mortar stores
  In a reverse retail trend, as retail chains are shuttering stores, an increasing number of digitally native brands are turning to physical stores to capitalize on brand buzz, grow sales and learn more about their customers. In the last year, retailers like mattress brand Saatva Inc. (No. 164) followed in the footsteps of eyewear maker Warby Parker (No. 168), which started selling direct-to-consumer on the web and now is a full-fledged retail chain with locations across the country. Saatva opened its first store in December and aims to open a dozen or more stores in major markets over the next couple of years and up to 20 locations in the subsequent few years, according to executives. Lingerie brand Adore Me (No. 389) began opening bricks-and-mortar stores in 2018, and its fleet hit six locations last year. And in August, bedsheet brand Boll & Branch (No. 433) secured $100 million in funding from a private equity firm to expand its physical footprint from one location to more than 10 stores in the next few years. The retailer said its current physical store, which is “very profitable” and generates millions of dollars in annual sales, gives consumers the chance to touch products—an important experience when shopping for bedding. Additionally, Boll & Branch’s in-store average order value is about two to three times higher than that of purchases made online, executives say.
• Happy Returns eases the hassle of returning online orders
  Other web-based retailers with few or no stores are partnering with retail chains and vendors like Happy Returns to help ease the hassle of returning items ordered online. The returns management vendor allows customers to make in-person returns with immediate refunds at more than 700 locations around the country—such as “return bars” housed in all Paper Source (No. 1583 in the Next 1000) stores, a pilot program through 80 Sur La Table Inc. (No. 293) spots and a test at more than a dozen Cost Plus World Market (part of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., No. 69) locations.Southern-inspired clothing brand Draper James (No. 1737 in the Next 1000) cut return costs and increased conversion after linking up with Happy Returns in January 2019 for its physical drop-off points. Shoe brand Rothy’s (No. 343) began working with the vendor in 2018 for returns processing and started using additional Happy Returns software in 2019. Since then, the number of shoppers opting for an exchange rather than a return and refund has increased 33%, return rates have declined and conversion has increased, executives say. Amid growing interest in its services, Happy Returns raised $11 million in the spring to hire more sales staff and add capabilities to its software.
• Nike removes stops selling on Amazon
  In November, Nike Inc. (No. 33) announced it will pull its products off of Amazon and cut ties with the marketplace. As part of a pilot that began in 2017, the athletic apparel and sneaker heavyweight joined Amazon’s brand registry program and sold directly on the site as a wholesaler rather than allowing unauthorized third-party merchants to dictate how unsanctioned or fake Nike products were listed and priced. Brands have long struggled to decide whether to reject Amazon outright as a dangerous competitor or play ball by officially listing their own products on the platform in exchange for more control and greater access to customers and data on purchase behavior. Nike reportedly struggled to crack down on unauthorized sellers without much help from Amazon, and official Nike products had fewer reviews than other third-party listings, leading to worse positioning on the site.Sandal manufacturer Birkenstock (No. 2128 in the 2019 Digital Commerce 360 Next 1000) and mobile phone accessory brand PopSockets LLC (No. 781) had previously ditched Amazon because of similar hassles. But analysts say the departure of Nike—perhaps the marquee name in Amazon’s brand registry program—could spark fears of other brand partners that might be prompted to make a similar exit. IKEA (No. 37) has since followed suit after ending a pilot program that launched in 2018.
• Product rentals pick up steam
  A new business model continued to pick up steam in 2019, with more retailers offering product rentals. Apparel chain Urban Outfitters Inc. (No. 45) launched a rental clothing subscription service called Nuuly last summer. For $88 a month, shoppers can rent any six pieces from more than a thousand SKUs across its Urban Outfitters, Free People and Anthropologie brands as well as others. The service includes free 2-day shipping and returns plus laundry and dry cleaning services. Bloomingdale’s (part of Macy’s Inc., No. 5) also announced that the department store would launch its own rental service in September. With myList, shoppers can receive four styles at a time and swap out boxes as frequently as they want for $149 a month and purchase items they liked in a try-before-you-buy move.Nuuly and myList join the ranks of other apparel retail chains that had previously launched clothing rental options: Ann Taylor (part of Ascena Retail Group, No. 82), Express Inc. (No. 103) and New York & Co. Inc. (No. 202). The global online apparel rental market could reach $1.9 billion by the end of 2023, according to estimates from Research Nester, a market research consulting firm. According to analysts, rental clothing appeals to younger shoppers, who are cost-conscious and care about sustainability.
• Sales for Amazon Prime Day 2019 jumped 71%
  The fifth annual Amazon Prime Day sales event from July 15-16 was record-breaking, according to Amazon, and Digital Commerce 360 estimates Amazon sold $7.16 billion worth of goods globally during the 48-hour period. This was up 71% from the $4.19 billion sold during the 36-hour sale in 2018. Although Amazon doesn’t disclose total gross sales, the company said more than 175 million products were sold in 2019 compared to 100 million in the previous year. Amazon also reported that sales of products from its marketplace sellers crossed $2 billion, an increase from Prime Day 2018, when marketplace sales “far exceeded” $1 billion.

Bloomberg contributed.

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