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Since 2022, the wave of bankruptcies and closures of e-commerce platforms seems to be particularly severe. On December 14, Brosa, a well-known home furnishing e-commerce platform, entered bankruptcy liquidation procedures and launched a series of sales on its official website. At the same time, another home furnishing platform, Made.com, also fell into a desperate situation. Owing huge debts, another e-commerce platform went bankrupt It is learned that recently Made.com said that its board of directors has proposed to formally end its business through member voluntary liquidation so that the company's appointed liquidator can evaluate its remaining assets before the management is completed. This British home furnishing e-commerce platform, which is standing on the edge of a precipice, seems to have its feet hanging in the air and is beyond redemption. In the context of high inflation and cost crisis, Made.com has suffered a significant reduction in consumer demand. Since the beginning of this year, its performance has been sluggish, and it has been continuously reducing costs and reducing its scale. On the one hand , it plans to lay off about one-third of its employees, and on the other hand, it will integrate the supply chain and close some businesses. But unfortunately, the cracks in performance are still getting bigger and bigger. Made.com's pre-tax loss for the first half of the year was £35.3 million, compared with a loss of £10.1 million in the same period last year. The loss of profits comes at a time when Made.com is saddled with a huge debt, owing a total of at least £75 million to suppliers and warehouse owners. With its performance plummeting, Made.com has also become an outcast in the capital market. Its valuation was approximately 775 million pounds when it was listed on the London Stock Exchange in June 2021. However, as of October 25, 2022, Made.com's stock price plummeted 93% to 0.5 pence per share, and its total market value fell below 2 million pounds. Made.com has to sell itself to survive due to the desperate situation. Due to the huge debt and tight cash flow, Made.com needs 70 million pounds to ensure the performance in the next 18 months. But ultimately negotiations with the acquirer broke down, and after unsuccessful attempts to obtain financial support, Made.com entered bankruptcy administration last month. It is reported that Made.com announced in late October that it would stop accepting new orders and auction off thousands of remaining inventory in an effort to recover funds for creditors. But at the same time, more than 300 Made.com employees will be laid off, and only a few will be retained to maintain the subsequent business closure process. Not only that, when Made.com went bankrupt, there were still 12,000 unfulfilled orders in the UK and other parts of Europe, and consumers did not get the refunds they deserved. From a once-popular e-commerce platform to its current bankruptcy, Made.com’s situation is regrettable. Buildings rise and fall: Made.com went from a glorious IPO to bankruptcy In 2010, Chinese Li Ning, Brent Hoberman and Chloe Mackintosh jointly founded Made.com in London. Made.com's operating model is relatively novel, connecting product designers with users to provide personalized, high-quality custom furniture. When the designer's furniture drawings are posted online, consumers can vote for their favorite design drawings and then place an order and pay. The platform then uniformly invests in Chinese OEM factories for production. This unique business model means that consumers can purchase Made.com products directly, avoiding the middlemen who make a profit from the price difference and reducing costs, so there is no need to face the pressure of redundant inventory. The steadily growing Made.com has been expanding its product categories and creating a diversified product ecosystem, while also expanding into various markets, including Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium and other countries. Through a series of innovative development strategies, Made.com's performance has grown by leaps and bounds. In 2017, Made.com's sales exceeded 100 million pounds, doubled again in 2019 to 200 million pounds, and increased again to 300 million pounds in 2020. With its rising revenue, Made.com has also begun to seek a broader development stage and knocked on the door of listing. In June 2021, Made.com was listed on the London Stock Exchange with a valuation of approximately 775 million pounds and a stock offering price of 2 pounds per share. However, the successful listing did not become a stepping stone for Made.com's further growth, but instead became a turning point for its downward trend. In 2021, Made.com's pre-tax loss reached 31.4 million pounds, and in the first half of this year, the loss further expanded to 30.5 million pounds. Judging from the disclosed financial report data, Made.com's customers are gradually losing, and its total number of orders and platform active users have dropped by 26% and 5% respectively. However, at the same time, Made.com's promotion cost burden has become increasingly heavy, with the proportion of marketing expenses in the first half of 2022 increasing by 3.2% to 17.5%. In fact, Made.com's performance loopholes have long been traceable. Although Made.com's sales achieved a leap forward in 2017 and made a profit for the first time, it has not been able to maintain its upward momentum since then, and the gap in losses has continued to widen, with losses of 4.5 million pounds and 19.6 million pounds in 2018 and 2019 respectively. I watched it rise up, and I watched it collapse. In just one year, Made.com experienced a heaven-and-hell fall from a glorious listing to bankruptcy.
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