3 ms·
Zulily's $2.4B acquisition is a disappointment
- baus 11y agoZulily's customers ultimately wanted the pricing discounts that Zulily's model provided combined with Amazon's service. That's probably impossible to do profitably.
- pcunite 11y agoAmazon, Newegg, and Wal-Mart .... you can't be one of them cheaply, but you can be niche. Stay there, enjoy it.
- adventured 11y agoThe biggest surprise survivor to me has been Overstock.com I don't think I've purchased anything from them in nearly a decade. Someone is buying from them however, sales have gone from $1.1b in 2012 to $1.5b for 2015, and they've been modestly profitable the last three years (so the business is likely fully self-sustaining). They also have no debt.
- schwabacher 11y agoI just moved and ended up ordering a lot of furniture from them because they have better prices and are easier to search (for furniture) than Amazon.
- pbreit 11y agoIMO, Zulilly was headed towards $0 so this is a crazy outrageously terrific exit, if you asked me.
- srunni 11y agoE-Commerce is a Bear, by Andy Dunn (CEO of Bonobos) is fantastic: https://medium.com/@dunn/e-commerce-is-a-bear-d233f02d52a5 https://medium.com/@dunn/e-commerce-is-a-bear-d233f02d52a5
- venomsnake 11y agoIs there any billion dollar acquisition outside of youtube, that has not been disappointment?
- codemac 11y agoYes - many? Is that a serious question? http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2010/20101115-01.htm http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2010/20101115-01.htm http://www.zdnet.com/article/cisco-finalises-ironport-acquisition/# http://www.zdnet.com/article/cisco-finalises-ironport-acquis...! (almost) There are many more, those are the only ones that I have personal knowledge of.
- venomsnake 11y agoIt would have been better to give the follow up of how products and companies evolved under the new ownership. And if they ended money making endeavors.
- codemac 11y agoWell -- search for "data domain". They make back their purchase price within 2 years of acquisition (and now making it back again almost every year). http://siliconangle.com/blog/2012/02/24/emc-and-data-domain-a-profitable-decision/ http://siliconangle.com/blog/2012/02/24/emc-and-data-domain-... My post was meant to encourage the OP to actually research acquisitions, as typing into ddg.gg "billion dollar acquisitions" returns results littered with successes.
- codemac 11y agoOh, and I almost forgot Data Domain http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2009/20090708-02.htm http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2009/20090708-02.htm
- lacker 11y agoPaypal and Instagram were staggeringly successful acquisitions.