Big Lots case highlights widening wave of retail closures

Sleep Number’s Chapter 11 filing, 27 On The Border closures, and West Marine’s first 59-store liquidation wave all landed in the same weekly closure tracker, a reminder that retail stress is moving through multiple formats at once. For Big Lots employees, that mix matters as much as the chain’s own bankruptcy history because it shows how quickly store conditions can change around them.

GrowthFactor’s Retail Store Closures Tracker, updated for the week ending June 18, listed a broad set of problems across the sector. Sleep Number said it would keep operating stores normally through a sale process. On The Border closed 27 company-owned U.S. restaurants while franchised locations stayed open. West Marine began its first closing wave under a liquidation and consulting deal, shutting 59 stores. Saks Global moved through a major reorganization, and Torrid said several more closures were planned in the second quarter.

Big Lots has already lived through the harsher version of that pattern. Former BL Stores, Inc. and its subsidiaries filed voluntary Chapter 11 cases on September 9, 2024, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Court documents later showed that 295 stores had already started closing sales and that about 250 more locations were expected to follow. At the time, the company was under pressure from inflation, rising costs and high interest rates, the same forces squeezing margins across much of retail.

The chain then tried to preserve part of the business. In late December 2024, Big Lots reached a deal with Gordon Brothers Retail Partners and Variety Wholesalers that was designed to keep roughly 200 to 400 stores open under the Big Lots banner. Reuters-based reporting at the time put the company at more than 27,000 employees and about 1,392 stores at the start of 2024. That transaction kept the brand alive in some markets, but it did not end the case.

On November 10, 2025, the bankruptcy cases were converted to Chapter 7, and Alfred T. Giuliano was appointed Chapter 7 trustee. That shift from restructuring to liquidation is a sharper warning sign than a normal store trim. It also changes the daily math for workers: transfer chances narrow, scheduling gets less predictable, and every nearby closure can add more experienced applicants to the same shrinking pool of hours.

The current wave of shutdowns shows why Big Lots workers keep watching other chains so closely. When specialty mattresses, casual dining, marine retail and department-store groups are all closing stores or reorganizing at once, landlords, shopping centers and local labor markets all feel the strain. For employees on the sales floor, it means the pressure is no longer just inside one company.