A POPULAR Bath & Body Works mall location was abruptly shut down, leaving shoppers greeted with a metal gate and sign.
In light of the sudden shut down, fans of the retailer speculated about the lack of sales.
A popular Bath & Body Works store in a shopping mall abruptly shut down (Getty) Bath & Body Works shoppers discussed the closure in a Facebook post from Monday (Getty)Bath & Body Works, a beloved personal care and home fragrance retailer, operates nearly 1,800 locations across the US.
The company has been closing down stores in recent years to reduce costs and reallocate its footprint.
Its goal is to expand its slew of standalone stores, with previous plans to shutter 50 mall stores in 2023.
Another mall location got the ax this month, as a Bath & Body Works fan shared the news on Facebook.
“Bath & Body Works in CambridgeSide suddenly shut down…..” wrote shopper Irene Namer in a post on Monday.
The Massachusetts store, located inside the CambridgeSide shopping mall, was guarded with a metal gate and a sign out front informing fans of the shutter.
“Bath & Body Works store has closed. We apologize for any inconvenience,” read the sign.
It also encouraged shoppers to visit other retailers inside the mall for “candles, body care, and more,” including TJ Maxx, Victoria’s Secret, and Sephora.
SHOPPER SPECULATION
Left with minimal context about the situation, Bath & Body Works shoppers in the comments speculated about the closure.
One fan noted that the location appeared to still have merchandise inside and wondered if the closure was due to unpaid rent.
“No. Bath & Body Works is good at paying their rent. Bath & Body Works doesn’t do liquidation sales. They close and ship all their merchandise to other stores or back to the distribution centers,” explained a fellow shopper.
“They hire labor temps to do all the work of packing and palletizing the merchandise. A contractor is hired to deal with the fixtures (either dumpster or certain fixtures sent to other stores) but they absolutely don’t sell their fixtures to the public.“
Another shopper pointed out a peculiarity with the sign itself, which encouraged shopping at rival stores.
“It looks like the sign is from the mall itself rather than B&BW, which is why it’s directing people to competitors,” they wrote.
Other pointed out that the store closure fit with the recent trend of Bath & Body Works “moving out of the malls and into strip centers.”
The personal care retailer isn’t the only store that has left the CambridgeSide mall, which shoppers have dubbed a “frankenmall.”
It has seen store shutters left and right over the past few years, according to shopper reports on Reddit.
US braces for '45,000 store closures'
Some 45,000 bricks-and-mortar stores could close in the next five years, experts have warned.
Several major retailers have announced store closures or gone out of business altogether in recent years.
In 2023, chains such as Foot Locker announced plans to close up to 400 outlets by 2026.
While, other well-known retailers like Tuesday Morning and Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams filed for bankruptcy in 2023.
Bed Bath & Beyond has closed all of its brick-and-mortar stores and is now an online-only retailer.
The most affected retailers have been clothing, consumer electronics, sporting goods, hobby, book, music, and home furnishing stores since the start of 2019.
UBS has predicted the total number of retail stores will drop by 45k from 958k to 913k.
Despite that, the report says that certain stores should thrive while others decline.
It said retailers such as Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, and Target, could be among the winners.
In an old post, one user explained how they moved out of the area in 2014 and returned in 2023, “really shocked to see how many stores have shut down.”
“There’s about 106 stores that have closed down or moved (become ‘outdated’). Looking at this list is just heartbreaking,” they wrote, listing off retailers such as Gap, H&M, Banana Republic, Best Buy, Starbucks, and Macy’s.
“Those are all places I can’t even imagine the Galleria without. Where are kids supposed to go to buy clothes? How do they get suits for dances and proms? Where do they even buy electronics anymore?” cried the shopper.
“The mall’s been decimated. What on Earth happened?”
Store closures are nothing new, with retailers projected to close 15,000 stores in 2025 as they experience a period of “disruption.”
Party City tops the list of retailers with the most number of closures already planned this year, set to shutter around 800 stores after 40 years.
Bath & Body Works has been slowly closing down mall locations in favor of standalone stores (Getty) Read More Details
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