Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Apart from all the conspiracy theories, apparently the ubiquitious Mattress Firm just thought that Nothing succeeds like excess. It's not always a terrible business model. For instance, if you see two Circle K stores located across from each other, the thought is that This is a busy intersection, and *somebody* is going to put a gas station across from us to catch cars going the other way -- it might as well be *us*.

It can be more problematic for something like mattresses, which aren't a convenience purchase, or as the Houston Chronicle puts it:

Why store-on-every-corner strategy didn’t work for Mattress Firm:

Mattress Firm, as it gobbled up rivals and tripled its store count to more than 3,300 locations, seemed to have a storefront on every block — sometimes two storefronts. In its quest to become the biggest player in the $15 billion U.S. bedding industry, it pursued a strategy of clustering shops close together with the aim of crowding out competition.

It didn’t work.

The Houston retailer said as much when it filed for bankruptcy Friday, acknowledging that it operates too many stores and plans to shutter as many as 700 locations as it tries to get out from under $3.2 billion in debt through its Chapter 11 filing, which allows companies to restructure operations and finances while protecting them from creditors.

“I think they’re humbled,” said Seth Basham, an analyst with Los Angeles-based Wedbush Securities. “They grew far too fast with ambitions to be a national retailer.”

The Wall Street Journal has some more details including that the crisis is a world wide one in some sense:

The bankruptcy marks a rapid fall for the once high-flying bedding retailer and Steinhoff, the South Africa-based retail conglomerate that has been called “Africa’s IKEA.” Steinhoff, whose purchase of Mattress Firm marked its entry into the U.S. market, has been caught up in an accounting scandal that erupted in December. Its creditors, who hold billions of dollars of the company’s bonds, agreed to suspend all payments on its debt for three years. Steinhoff is expected to launch a debt restructuring for its European business in the U.K. later this month.

Commenter Andrew supplies a link that lists the South Carolina stores affected (so far). For the record, they are:

This particular store is next to Jimmy Johns, more or less near the top of the Harbison hill going towards Saint Andrews Road. As of yet, they have not posted any closing signage.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 7 November 2018 -- Here you can see (poorly) that the store has been cleaned out: