Up to 85% Off: Zulily Liquidating, Sacking 800 in Company Shutdown
Online retailer Zulily has reached the end of the line.
The e-tailer known for limited-time sales will start laying off Seattle headquarters employees next year in the latest bout of upheaval for the former Qurate property now owned by a Los Angeles private equity firm.
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According to Washington state data published Thursday, the mom-minded online marketplace is permanently closing its longtime central office in Amazon’s hometown and cutting 292 workers in the process. Several Zulily employees shared “open to work” posts on LinkedIn Thursday and Friday. Layoffs will start on Feb. 7 next year.
On Saturday, the Zulily website formally announced the company shutdown and layoffs that will total about 800 when other offices and warehouses close. State-required notices filed last week in multiple locations indicate that the layoffs are expected to begin in February. The job losses compound several rounds of layoffs earlier this year. Former CEO Terry Boyle left this past October.
The company began liquidating inventory over the weekend, with markdowns of 70 to 85 percent off many fashion and home categories and brands including Cole Haan, Reebok, Sorel and Lucky Brand. Zulily also sells a limited selection of men’s products.
A customer service representative said Monday that Zulily has stopped taking orders from outside the U.S. Consumers in the U.S. can still place orders, and any product page listing a gift-box icon indicates that those items could still be ordered for delivery by Christmas. The rep confirmed the website shutdown, but didn’t know when the website would be fully disabled. He also said that many products have already sold out.
Compounding its troubles, the e-tailer reportedly has been sued by vendors over unpaid invoices. GeekWire on Thursday reported that Seattle-based software consultancy GenUI is owed $191,776 after Zulily fell behind on monthly payments in April. It cited a second lawsuit by Texas-based Omni Logistics claims Zulily owes it more than $2.7 million, although it Zulily denies owing the company anything.
Zulily has had its share of challenges as it struggled to evolve from a children’s apparel flash-sale site. The Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit accused Amazon of weaponizing its algorithm to stifle the competition by preventing rivals from offering lower prices. The suit claimed that Amazon used its anti-discounting strategies to target Zulily following its “Best Price Promise” in 2019 that displayed lower price alongside the higher prices of identical products sold on Amazon or Walmart.com.
The 14-year-old e-tailer was co-founded by Mark Vadon and Darrell Cavens in 2009. Zulily became a Wall Street tech darling when its 2013 IPO valued the company at $2.6 billion. Despite $1 billion in annual volume and a peak market value north of $6.5 billion, sales began slowing in 2014, and some questioned whether the flash-sale model had staying power.
Liberty Interactive‘s QVC division came to the rescue, acquiring the company in August 2015 for $2.4 billion, but at a purchase price that was significantly below its peak market valuation.
“While QVC and Zulily will be operated as separate consumer facing brands, the collaboration creates numerous opportunities, including leveraging QVC’s global scale, curation, vendor relationships and video commerce expertise at Zulily. Similarly, Zulily’s younger customer demographic, personalization expertise and e-commerce capabilities will boost QVC,” Liberty Interactive said at the time. Liberty kept Zulily’s management team in place, including Cavens remaining as president and CEO. Vadon joined Liberty’s board of directors.
The business continued to struggle and laid off some workers in a 2019 restructuring. Zulily’s fortunes worsened when revenue contracted in 2022 and into this year, resulting in a series of layoffs as well as a warehouse closure.
Despite signing hundreds of new brands last year to attract more customers, sales never recovered. Qurate Retail, the former Liberty Interactive before its rebrand, sold the money-losing business to new owner Regent LP, which did not return a request for comment.
The Regent portfolio also includes women’s specialty apparel chain Intermix as well as Club Monaco, La Senza and Escada. It has worked with Ralph Lauren and Hanesbrands on previous deals.
