Bed, Bath, Beyond will close about 150 stores and reduce its workforce by 20%

I seem to remember them having more and more "as seen on TV" gadgets in the aisles as time went on. Weird vibe

Yeah, a week or two ago I was trying to find some kitchen thing (don't remember exactly what) and thought to look at their selection. It was something I expected a bunch of kinds of, and they had one kind, which didn't meet my needs while also being much more expensive than what we ended up with from Target.

stopped by BBB a couple of weeks ago. Also was shopping for some new dishes. Everything is house brand (with exception of electronics mostly). No more gadgets/etc. Place looked like ghost town

BBB is stupid expensive compared to Amazon/online and even other B&M stores like Target, TJ Maxx and the like. A few years back they gave me the run around on returning a broken gifted dish set and refused to do it in-store even though I had all the information. On my way out I told the manager "this is part of why this store won't exist in 5 years." I had to mail back a heavy dish set to return it rather than them taking it in-store.

You can find clearance name brand things there for 50-75% off of MSRP in the returns section. A BBBY is right next to a Target I frequent so I look every couple weeks.

I got a 12" Staub skillet for $80 and a 4qt Le Cruset dutch oven for $100, and a smaller Lodge dutch oven for $40.

I worked for Ritz Camera back in the day and was mostly onto better things when they began this process, but I can say from my experience that there's really no coming back from it.

Not necessarily - reducing the workforce and closing stores may well be a healthy consolidation. Taking on debt may perform the same function on the balance sheet. You should worry if they take on debt to expand stores or the workforce.

AMD wasn't part of retail, but they cut like 20% of their staff in the high-flying tech field and then bet it all on Zen processors, and their "custom" projects (XBox and PS4/PS5).

Needless to say, it worked out for AMD.

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Its possible to survive downturns. You need to cut staff, stabilize the company, and then turn it all around. It takes a good management team with long-term vision.

I think "Best Buy" was a good turnaround in the past 10 years, and actually retail. So maybe a better example?

I dunno enough about BBBY. But its "possible" to turn a company around. I admit that most of these cases look like a lost cause though (Kodak, Sears, K-Mart, etc. etc.)