I visited The Container Store to see why sales are down. The selection was incredible, but the prices were higher than I expected.

• I visited The Container Store, a home storage and organization chain, in New York City.
• The company’s sales were down 12.2% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
• I loved the wide variety of options, but I concluded I’m not the store’s target customer … for now.

Before I moved to New York City, everyone warned me about the shoebox apartments I’d have to get used to.

They weren’t wrong.

Living in a one-bedroom apartment definitely requires some innovative storage solutions. In the past nine months, I’ve looked to stores like Target, Ikea, Walmart, and Amazon for homeware items, but I can’t stop my Type-A mind from searching for options to make my space more efficient.

Enter The Container Store, a home storage and organization retailer founded in 1978 in Texas. The company now has 102 stores across the US.

However, while the company boasts a cult-like following, sales appear to have struggled recently.

In June, the company reported that first fiscal quarter sales were down 12.2% compared to the first fiscal quarter of 2023, at $181.9 million in consolidated net sales. The following month, Modern Retail reported that the company “hasn’t posted a full-year profit” since 2021.

On the decline, CEO and president Satish Malhotra said in August, “Our first quarter sales results continued to be impacted by ongoing macro-related headwinds though we were encouraged by sequential monthly improvement over last year in general merchandise and Custom Spaces.”

He added, “While we cannot control the current macro environment, we are pleased with the progress we are making on our initiatives and continue to believe in the opportunities ahead as more and more customers realize the power of organization.”

It comes amid challenges from major e-commerce platforms like Amazon — which finished Q1 of 2024 with $143.3 billion in net sales, an increase of 13% compared to Q1 of 2023 — the state of the housing market, inflation, and sluggish consumer spending.

The Container Store did not reply to a request for comment from Business Insider.

With all this in mind, I decided to visit The Container Store’s Sixth Avenue location in Manhattan to see if the storage solutions were right for me and if I could understand the brand’s sales decline.

Here’s what I found.