Barneys will likely keep thousands of dollars belonging to brides, shares today’s Times. The defunct retailer will keeps the brides’ registry credits if they don’t redeem them by this Thursday.
This is also bad for the brands that were sold via Barneys' registries. For example, let's imagine Barneys sells Waterford. If a bride registered for a Waterford product, and that item was gifted by a family member, Waterford would expect that item to be bought by Barneys for the bride and shipped to the bride. With the Barneys closures and bankruptcy, Waterford's name would have been used to sell a gift that was never given. The gift giver, bride, and Waterford lost. The only entity that won: Barneys. Waterford lost because Barneys never bought the item to ship to the bride.
Bridge has features in place to ensure all the parties win. For example, at the bottom of Bridge registries Bridge outputs a preferred redemption period date (normally a year from the wedding date). By doing this, Bridge helps the store move the liability off the store’s books.
In the example shown here, a Bridge registry encourages the registrant to redeem her credit by October 15, 2020. (The wedding date was a year prior on October 15, 2019.)
To our knowledge, Barneys has no suggested or required redemption period date--hence the resulting chaos it caused. Sadly, some stores look at registry credit as an interest free loan, and Barneys with all of its debt may have viewed registry credit as such.
I will note that I have heard of other retailers closing and a rush of brides entering the store to redeem credit. I think there may be a case for industry standards and even laws about registry credits. As a reference, we may benefit from looking at rules and laws about gift cards. What obligation do stores have to help customers redeem gift cards and registry credit? What best practices can we offer to help brides and brands get their due?