Gree Electric Appliances, Inc., is recalling 1.56 million dehumidifiers sold between 2011 and 2014 under brand names like Kenmore and GE due to fire and burn hazards, according to the Consumer Products Safety Commission.

Gree, based in Zhuhai, China, has received reports of at least 23 fires, 688 incidents of overheating, and $168,000 in property damage with the recalled dehumidifiers, the CPSC said in a news release.

The recall involves 42 models of dehumidifiers manufactured in China between January 2011 and February 2014 and sold under the brand names Kenmore, GE, SoleusAir, Norpole and Seabreeze.

The dehumidifiers, which cost between $110 and $400, were sold between 2011 and 2014 at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menards, Sam’s Club, Sears, Walmart and other stores nationwide, the CPSC said.

Consumers can find the model number and date code on a sticker on the unit. Anyone with an affected unit should stop using it immediately and contact Gree for a refund.

Gree USA, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of the Chinese appliance company, was sentenced in April to pay a $500,000 criminal fine after pleading guilty to failing to notify the CPSC that millions of dehumidifiers it sold were defective and could catch fire, according to a news release by the Department of Justice.

The fine was part of a $91 million resolution with three related Gree companies — one based in California, another in Hong Kong, and the other one in Zhuhai, China. The three companies knew their dehumidifiers were defective, failed to meet safety standards and posed a fire hazard, but the companies did not report that information to the CPSC for months, according to court filings cited by the DOJ.

Bed Bath & Beyond may never return to its brick-and-mortar heyday, but the doors at former corporate siblings Buy Buy Baby and Harmon are set to reopen, CNBC has learned. 

The group that bought Buy Buy Baby’s intellectual property at a bankruptcy-run auction in June, the owners of baby goods retailer Dream on Me, plans to reopen 11 stores in the Northeast as soon as this fall, Dream on Me’s chief marketing officer, Avish Dahiya, told CNBC. 

But the group isn’t stopping there. 

It’s setting off on an ambitious plan to return the brand to its glory years, with 100 to 120 stores over the next one to three years, said the marketing chief, who is also an officer on the Buy Buy Baby transition team. 

“We definitely see merit in expanding to that number across the U.S.,” Dahiya told CNBC in the company’s first interview since its acquisition. “Similar to what we have done in the Northeast, it will be more cluster-based versus one-off.”

Dahiya added: “We believe omnichannel is critical for the success of the business and stores play a role, so it’s important that we have stores come in sooner than later.” 

Meanwhile, private investor Jonah Raskas, who brought the dog-walking app Wag! public through a special purpose acquisition company in 2022, plans to reopen five Harmon stores in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and potentially more down the line.

“This business never failed. This business was shut down because Bed Bath was failing,” Raskas told CNBC. “We have the luxury of deciding which stores to reopen … we have that ability to focus on the right places at the right time where the customers really want us back again.” 

When Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy April 23, it repaid its creditors by auctioning off bits and pieces of its broken empire to investors. No one was willing to buy the entire company, but some saw the value of its individual assets — and managed to snag them for a song. 

Overstock bought the intellectual property to Bed Bath’s namesake banner for $21.5 million, a price that Bank of America internet analyst Curtis Nagle bluntly described to CNBC as “pretty cheap.” Dream on Me’s owners, meanwhile, have the chance to rebuild Buy Buy Baby after it received its trademark, data and 11 of its store leases for about $16.7 million, far below what the chain could’ve gone for as a going concern. (The new Buy Buy Baby will operate independently from Dream on Me.)

Raskas, on the other hand, snapped up Harmon’s trademark for a mere $300,000 when the chain could’ve once went for $5 million to $10 million, he said. 

The new operators of Buy Buy Baby and Harmon have a chance at making something out of the bankrupt businesses, thanks to better balance sheets and less exposure to underperforming locations, according to Neil Saunders, retail analyst and managing director at GlobalData.

“People have picked over the carcass of Bed Bath & Beyond and they’ve managed to get some quite good bargains in terms of the value that they’ve paid for the intellectual property and the business,” he said.

What will the new Buy Buy Baby offer?

When Buy Buy Baby’s doors reopen, shoppers can expect smaller stores, national brands and a focus on experiences, community building and learning, said Dahiya, Dream on Me’s marketing chief. 

About 80% of the staff — including the merchant, tech and marketing teams — previously worked at Buy Buy Baby, and the company has tapped Bed Bath veteran Glen Cary to be its chief of stores, Dahiya said. Cary spent about two decades with BB&B, overseeing stores at Buy Buy Baby and Bed Bath’s namesake banner, according to his LinkedIn profile. 

The revamped Buy Buy Baby is envisioning registry events and product displays that will allow new parents to meet each other, learn from each other and test out big-ticket items like travel strollers before making a purchase. 

A brick-and-mortar footprint is important for the company’s overall strategy because it’ll give it a competitive edge that’ll better differentiate it from mass retailers like Target and Walmart, which would be tougher to do if the business was online only. The big-box stores have leaned heavily into the baby category but they lack the expertise and focus that comes with a specialty store.

″[Mass retailers] have an aisle or two aisles of baby. We have a store of baby. That’s the difference, right?” said Dahiya. “We are very focused on the category we are in.”

When it comes to baby goods, especially higher-priced items that are more technical, consumers need more “hand-holding” that’s better suited for an in-store experience than online, said Melissa Gonzalez, the principal at architecture and design firm MG2 and founder of the Lionesque Group.

“There’s a mix of so much education that’s needed that cannot really be fulfilled online in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming and intimidating,” Gonzalez told CNBC. “On average, when somebody’s spending like more than, say, $200, then it’s a different price point of consideration where they’re going to need multiple touch points before they can make a decision and on average, there’s not as much comfort to do that online-only.”

Dream on Me has been in the baby business since the 1990s. While its manufacturing capabilities and expertise make it well-suited to compete, busy families need convenience and are already comfortable doing their baby shopping at Walmart and Target. In order to survive this time around, Buy Buy Baby will need to focus on offering a unique value proposition, said Saunders from GlobalData. 

“It’s not only Buy Buy Baby that failed. There’s also before it, Babies R Us failed and Toys R Us, which used to have baby stuff, and it failed. So, it’s a difficult model to get right,” said Saunders. 

“It really needs to focus on specialism and that means having products that other retailers don’t, having services that other retailers don’t and being renowned for really strong advice and expertise in the baby segment and having really good locations as well.” 

What’s next for Harmon?

Raskas, who bought the intellectual property for Harmon, had been a longtime customer of the chain when he heard its 50 stores were shutting down. 

Immediately, his curiosity was piqued, and he started doing outreach to a board member to figure out if there was something wrong with the business.

“There was nothing. There was no red flag,” said Raskas, 37, during an interview with CNBC. “The exact line was, ‘There’s so many fires here to put out every single day, it just was something we needed to kind of move past.’” 

When Bed Bath declared bankruptcy a few months later and investors began swarming over its namesake banner and Buy Buy Baby, Raskas started asking about Harmon, which had all but gotten lost in the noise. 

He learned the company had done about $150 million in sales in 2022, had been profitable every year for the past two decades, and that seven out of every 10 customers who came into the store bought something.

“I went and discussed with my lawyers and we said, ‘OK, what’s the kind of bare minimum bid that we can throw out?’” Raskas recalled. “And that’s what we did.”

With a $300,000 bid, he secured the rights to Harmon’s trademark and plans to reopen five of its best-performing locations in New York and New Jersey hopefully by year-end. More could come down the line, Raskas said.

David Abrams, the founder and CEO of brokerage and advisory firm Masonre, has been advising Raskas and scouting locations for the stores, one of which could open in Manhattan. 

“There’s probably no better time to be a tenant,” said Abrams, adding that he’s looking for storefronts with better rents and visibility.

At its heart, Harmon is a drugstore chain that sells a lot of the same products that CVS and Walgreens do, but it earned a cult-like following with its wide assortment, travel-sized products, low prices and its beloved private label Face Values. 

Standing outside of a now-shuttered Harmon’s location in New Rochelle, New York, where Raskas and his family used to shop about an hour north of Manhattan, he pressed his face against the glass and recalled what the store was like during better times. 

“What stood out was wide aisles, great lighting, the employees were super friendly,” said Raskas. “In today’s age, where a lot of times your in-person shopping experience is just kind of fine, painful or hellish, it was refreshing. I knew I’d get what I need … and I’d get out fast.” 

The location, situated at the end of the North Ridge Shopping Center alongside an Italian restaurant and a smoothie shop, was one of Harmon’s bette- performing stores and one Raskas is considering reopening.

Jennifer Kiggins, a trainer at the Rumble Boxing studio a few doors down, can’t wait. 

“I think they had really great prices and they had everything you need from like toilet paper and paper towels to sunscreen to makeup, any like random thing,” said Kiggins, 28, who grew up shopping at Harmon with her mom. “I feel like it was always there.” 

Luckily, aside from a few optimizations and tweaks, Raskas plans to keep everything the same. 

“I’m not just buying a retailer, I’m buying something that was a community-loved favorite store that they went to throughout their entire lifetime and throughout all these different life-cycle journeys. … That’s why I think this is so exciting,” said Raskas.

“Everyone loves a comeback story and everyone loves to come back to something that they thought was gone and now is back again.”

Target and Walmart are both catering to thriftier shoppers, but the two big-box retailers have seen very different outcomes when it comes to winning their dollars.

Target missed Wall Street’s sales expectations for the fiscal second-quarter. Walmart beat Wall Street’s revenue estimates for the three-month period. Target slashed its forecast for the year, while Walmart raised its outlook.

The companies’ diverging performances illustrate some of the retailers’ fundamental differences.

Walmart, the nation’s largest grocer, makes more than half of its annual revenue from selling groceries — a category that shoppers buy even when times are tight. Target draws only about 20% of its yearly revenue from grocery, making it rely more on sales of items such as clothing, earrings and throw pillows that customers may skip when feeling frugal.

Target, which tends to draw a more affluent customer than Walmart, may also be seeing a more dramatic swing in spending as consumers shell out on Taylor Swift tickets and European vacations. Those shoppers could also be trying to balance splurging on services with shopping at places perceived to be cheaper, such as Walmart or TJX Companies-owned T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and Home Goods, which posted year-over-year sales and profit growth earlier this week.

Yet Target’s and Walmart’s contrasting results also capture how some retailers are having more success than others catering to fickle consumers and navigating economic headwinds.

Wall Street added to the confusion with its own counterintuitive moves. After earnings reports, it snapped up Target’s stock on Wednesday and sold off Walmart’s shares on Thursday. The potentially surprising moves could reflect the companies’ recent stock performance, since shares of Walmart are up about 10% this year compared with Target shares’ decline of about 13% during the same period.

Despite the differences, the companies showed they still have much in common. Target and Walmart leaders offered similar descriptions of American consumers who now think twice before spending money on nonessential items while paying more for food.

“As we look at the consumer landscape today, we recognize the consumer is still challenged by the levels of inflation that they’re seeing in food and beverage and household essentials,” Target CEO Brian Cornell said on a call with reporters. “So that’s absorbing a much bigger portion of their budget.”

Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey echoed similar sentiments, describing consumers as “choiceful or discerning” on a call with CNBC.

Yet both executives added that shoppers can be persuaded to spend, with a good deal or when getting ready to celebrate holidays or seasonal events.

Here’s a closer look at three key ways that Target’s and Walmart’s most recent quarterly results diverged:

Online winners and losers

As shoppers head out into the world again, some retailers have seen double-digit declines in online spending.

Target followed that pattern in the second quarter. Its digital sales dropped by 10.5% year over year.

Walmart bucked the trend. E-commerce sales rose 24% for Walmart U.S. in the second quarter.

Both retailers pointed to curbside pickup as a major driver of online sales — a key differentiator from competitor Amazon.

Walmart chalked up online sales gains to store pickup and delivery, as well as more advertising revenue. It also credited its third-party marketplace, which is Walmart’s take on Amazon’s online business model. The online marketplace is made up of vendors who list items on Walmart’s website, which helps to expand the merchandise assortment and comes with a higher profit margin than selling online items directly.

Customers are also visiting Walmart’s website and app more often, Rainey said. The number of weekly active digital users grew more than 20%, he said on the company’s earnings call. The number of customers buying items on Walmart’s marketplace increased 14% in the second quarter, with double-digit growth across home, apparel and hard lines, a category that includes sports equipment and appliances.

Target has lagged behind in online sales. But it is making moves to try to turn around trends.

The retailer will roll out a remodel of its digital experience in the next three months, Target Chief Growth Officer Christina Hennington said on an earnings call Wednesday. She said the website will “include different landing experiences, more personalized content, enhanced search functionality, ease of navigation and other updates to bring more joy and convenience to our digital guests.”

Walmart, for its part, refreshed the look of its website and app in the spring.

Target will dangle another perk to attract more online business. Starting this summer, it is adding Starbucks drinks to curbside pickup at most stores.

Mixed reads on discretionary spending

For more than a year, Americans have generally shown reluctance to spring for new outfits, gadgets or other items that they can live without.

That’s made life harder for retailers, which rely on big-ticket and impulse-driven purchases to buoy sales. The merchandise tends to drive higher profits than selling the basics such as milk, bread and paper towels.

Rainey, Walmart’s CFO, pointed to signs that may be changing. He said there was “modest improvement” in discretionary goods in the second quarter, even though general merchandise sales still dropped by low double digits year over year. He said sales of blenders, hand mixers and other kitchen tools popped, as some consumers cook more at home.

Target didn’t see the same relief. Sales of frequency categories, such as food and beauty items, weren’t enough to offset weaker discretionary sales at the retailer.

Target’s Hennington said trends in discretionary categories “remain soft overall.” She pointed out some exceptions, including the popularity of a Taylor Swift vinyl and colorful Stanley tumblers designed with Chip and Joanna Gaines.

Both retailers, however, said they’re stocking up on essential items and placing more modest orders for discretionary stuff. Target, for instance, said at the end of the second quarter, its overall inventory levels fell year over year — but it intentionally reduced discretionary inventory even more.

Optimism vs. pessimism about what’s ahead

Retailers have plenty to worry about as food prices remain high, interest rates rise and student loan payments return.

But Walmart and Target struck contrasting tones when speaking about the months ahead.

Target CEO Cornell said sales trends improved in July, but not enough to keep the company from cutting its outlook for the year. When asked about back-to-school shopping, Cornell and Chief Financial Officer Michael Fiddelke stressed it was very early in the season.

Walmart hit a more confident note. On the earnings call, CEO Doug McMillon said general merchandise sales outperformed the company’s expectations. He said the popularity of GLP-1 drugs, medications such as Ozempic that are used for diabetes and weight loss, could also drive foot traffic and revenue going forward.

And, he added, “the trends we see in general merchandise sales make us feel more optimistic about those categories in the back half of the year.”

McMillon said back-to-school has gotten off to a better start than the company predicted. He said that spending tends to correlate with consumer spending later in the year — which could be a positive sign for the critical holiday season.

“Typically when back-to-school is strong, it bodes well with what happens with Halloween and Christmas and GM [general merchandise] in the back half,” he said.

Target shared similar hopes that customers will open up their wallets and reverse the retailer’s sales slump as the season of pumpkin spice and gift-giving approaches. It saw traffic and sales trends improve in July, which it credited in part to spending for the Fourth of July holiday.

“We know our guests want to celebrate culturally and seasonally relevant moments and will be leaning into those moments in a big way in the third quarter and the upcoming holiday season,” Hennington said.