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A popular Bath & Body Works store in a shopping mall 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 Bath & Body Works store in a shopping mall was closed, leaving customers with a metal gate and sign.
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 was closed 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 shuttering.
"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 was rampant in the comments section. One fan noted that the location appeared to still have merchandise inside and wondered if the closure was due to unpaid rent.
"… 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.
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.
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 45,000 from 958,000 to 913,000. Despite this, 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 (became ‘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.
A shopper carries a Bath & Body Works bag in the SoHo neighborhood of New York, US, on Saturday, January 21, 2023. The Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to release personal spending figures on January 27. Photographer: Jordana Bermudez/Bloomberg via Getty Images