What Happened to Zulily? Site Seems to Be Shutting Down

The Gist:

• Zulily’s site is down after a huge sale.
• The company laid off hundreds of people.
• Zulily was acquired from QVC’s parent company in May.

An affordable online site for mothers to buy name-brand goods for their children seems like a great idea. However, in Zulily‘s case, it doesn’t necessarily seem to be working out that easily.

The company operates with a rotating roster of discounts, encouraging customers to check back for the next big deal. They also don’t hold any inventory, but instead rely on drop shipping or vendor-owned merchandise. Zulily aims to consolidate these into one marketplace that sells clothing, toys, and more.

However, it may just be falling apart.

It’s still uncertain exactly what’s happening between Zulily’s digital closed doors, but an “all things must go sale” raised a red flag. The site completely went offline then under the guise of being “under maintenance.” Shoppers won’t be able to gain access via the app either.

On top of the technical delay, the staff is experiencing wide layoffs which is always a cause for concern in the business world. Across Washington, Nevada, and Ohio, the company is set to cut over 800 people, especially in their distribution centers, according to Retail Dive.

Often, companies are required legally to notify the state and employees when layoffs are coming. Since the company is based in Washington, it isn’t clear if the cuts are coming from their administrative employees or just from warehouse staff. In Nevada, the layoffs center around the planned closure of a fulfillment center.

As for Ohio, it appears there’s a bit of both occurring. Another fulfillment center is set to close its doors, but the filing with the state also indicates that impacted employees will be “including remote employees who report to the facility.” What exactly the roles are or their functions aren’t specified.

Naturally, the company’s former talent and staff flooded LinkedIn to look for new jobs. Eric Hanson, who worked in talent acquisition for the company, gave some more insight as to what is going on. He indicated that Zulily is “unfortunately closing its doors in the upcoming months.”

An official statement from the company hasn’t been made yet, so while all signs point to a shut down, it isn’t official. That being said, no Zulily shoppers should get their hopes up.

All of the layoffs and shutdowns come after a strategic business decision. In May 2023, Zulily was bought out by a private equity group Regent from Qurate Retail Group which notoriously owns QVC. The consumer shopping conglomerate historically keeps a variety of retail brands under its belt.

Just ahead of Qurate’s move to off-board Zulily, came the launch of a new product. Sune is a video-based shopping app that aims to emulate the QVC trend in the modern world of the influencer. It’s backed by Qurate Retail Group and leans into the current retailing trends.

The app launched in April and had been in development for months. However, the trend of video shopping accelerated quickly and is already latching onto consumers.

Sune is now competing against more established sites like TikTok. The era of video shopping is now upon us and it appears that it may have major implications for more traditional web retailers.