There has been so much upheaval within the organization between the sale, stores closing, long time EEs being let go, contract replacement employees from outside the US, not to mention the "Staples" of the culture of bullying and blame, the visionless ineptitude of management, the lack of support from HR for reported grievances, the lack of knowledge with respect to IT and how to compete in the 21st century economy...and that's just the company view without factoring the utter chaos that is occurring within the US and globally on a daily basis.
With respect to Furniture, the belief that it may go to a 3rd party is a valid one based on the historical precedent of outsourcing set under Ron Sargent's tenure and continuously repeated under Shira Goodman's for all things that Staples leadership cannot manage effectively. Which, sadly, are most of the functions associated with the business.
For as much as the leadership at Staples loves to boast of their collective levels of academic and professional achievement by flaunting their advanced degrees and empty awards as a means to justify their behavior and decisions, they have failed to learn from history and allowed themselves to become bloated and complacent, and as such have driven a once thriving company to the brink of extinction.
Founded on supermarket chain executive turned entrepreneur, Tom Stemberg's notion that, "The world needed a supermarket for office products", Staples never moved away from the grocery store mentality that what they are selling is essential to the world as food/household products. To wit, Staples could not even successfully develop a BtoB delivery model and had to purchase Corporate Express to do so.
The mindset has always been that of Retail Store first and in Sycamore they have found a partner who professes as much in their description of themselves, "...a private equity firm based in New York specializing in retail and consumer investments."
Therefore, with both the original company and its new partner in lockstep, what would give anyone pause to think that the path that Staples is currently walking is going to change? Particularly in light of the fact that they have trotted out the same tired mechanisms of new branding without innovation of vision (Pro Time - What does that even mean?, 20/20?), "restructuring" (layoffs, cheaper foreign labor, ineffective upper management hires), closing stores (declining sales) and outsourcing IT (no internal technical prowess to compete in a 24-7-365 online economy).
Whether or not you work for Staples, you should have a healthy fear as the Staples scenario provides a window to the future idiocracy we are moving towards by continuing to repeat the mistakes of the past and accepting that complacency, greed, and mediocrity are the foundation of success.
An excellent post by @QfwpB85-1cxc that needed to be a thread.