Seattle e-commerce brand Zulily slated to return under new owner
The rise and fall of Zulily
Layoffs, a lawsuit against Amazon and as of this week, liquidation. The downfall of e-commerce giant Zulily has been drawing both local and national interest.
Ecommerce retailer Zulily is making a comeback as Beyond, Inc., parent company of Overstock and Bed, Bath & Beyond, announced Thursday it acquired the brand.
The announcement said Beyond, Inc. is purchasing the intellectual property and other brand assets of Zulily for $4.5 million plus acquisition costs.
Zulily posted on X, former known as Twitter, saying: "The only purple that saves you money. Coming soon."
"This acquisition doubles down on our belief in the off-price market, and its importance to building our business, improving our margin profile, and growing our customer file," said Marcus Lemonis, Executive Chairman of Beyond, Inc. "Zulily, in combination with our legacy brand, Overstock, will provide our vendors multiple outlets that, not only meet customers at various price points, but also offer an additional outlet to improve their inventory turns and financial performance."
The new Zulily site is expected to be operational by June of 2024.
A view of the Zulily logo before the MLS regular season match between Toronto FC and Seattle Sounders FC on April 13, 2019, at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, WA. (Photo by Joseph Weiser/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
"Bringing the trusted Zulily brand into our asset-light business model allows us to offer furniture and home furnishings, apparel and footwear, jewelry and watches, among other categories that are also core competencies of our off-price Overstock business with flash sale deal pricing," said Dave Nielsen, CEO of Overstock. "The ramp with Zulily is simple, as the website and mobile app are already built and available in the Shopify environment. We will be able to integrate it seamlessly into our back-end systems for order fulfillment, logistics, and operations to be handled by our existing teams."
Overstock.com is also making a comeback under Bed, Bath & Beyond.
Overstock.com is also making a comeback.
The rise and fall of Zulily
Founded in 2009, the focus of the brand was feminine. Promising eye-popping deals and 9,000 new products a day.
READ MORE: Seattle-based online retailer Zulily says it will go into liquidation, surprising customers
For a time, the company was among the jewels of Seattle’s startup scene. Zulily went public in 2013. Two years later, QVC purchased it.
This past summer, the Belltown headquarters were vacated. In December, roughly 800 employees were laid off.
In the midst of the chaos, Zulily announced it was suing Amazon over allegations of price fixing.
For several years, Zulily was the sponsor listed on the kits for the Seattle Sounders FC.