Shoes.com, ShoeMe to Shut Down Operations Immediately
Shoes.com announced via a sudden and brief news release that it will be shutting down operations as of today.
The Canadian company says will take all three of its e-commerce properties—SHOES.com, OnlineShoes.com and ShoeME.ca—offline, along with closing the two SHOES.com brick-and-mortar stores in Vancouver and Toronto.
“Employees were made aware of the decision this morning, and have been compensated through the end of the month,” the company, which Coastal Contacts founder Roger Hardy acquired in 2014, stated. “[We are] working with its secured lenders to determine the process to liquidate assets and currently intends to assign some or all of the group companies into bankruptcy.”
Last year the company was ranked as a top performing Canadian-owned ecommerce company by Internet Retailer’s 2016 Top 500 Guide and just last month they won an e-commerce award.
Between 2014 and 2015, the company’s sales reportedly grew by 150 percent bringing 2015 annual revenues to over $200 million.
However, by autumn something had gone terribly wrong. Layoffs reduced the workforce from more than 600 to barely 200.
Originally founded by Sean Clark, Hardy joined the startup in 2014.
