Jeff Bezos is famous for working retail organizations to the point where there’s no competition. He left people across the globe astounded when he stated that he would be closing Quidsi. He bought the business for $545 million hoping to make way more than that in profit. It turns out; low sales have blindsided his intentions. In an all-hands meeting last Wednesday, Amazon announced that it would be shutting down Quidsi. Hundreds of Quidsi employees are expected to be laid off. Amazon said the reason why the shutdown is happening is that Quidsi wasn’t making a profit.
Everything originally sold by Quidsi will now be available for purchase on Amazon’s website.
Quidsi planned to close a long time ago
In the background, Quidsi had been discreetly closing shop for over a year. In the final quarter of 2015, Amazon began diverting stock from Quidsi's fulfillment centers to their gigantic stockrooms. That process has been going on all throughout 2016 and is still a work in progress today. Quidsi's facilities are now coming up short in stock. Amazon has even taken the robots it created for Quidsi’s centers. They have invested in upgrading the robots for their stocked warehouses.
From the client’s viewpoint, Amazon wanted to keep consumers all on one website instead of on Quidsi's system of destinations like Soap.com and Diapers.com.
The Quidsi site tended to redirect customers to several other sites. With its stock escaping to Amazon's inventory, Quidsi no longer had a vital motivation to stand different from Amazon.
The battle between Lore and Bezos
Amazon administrators have not specified Quidsi in any of their revenue discussions since July 2015. The company has always been a touchy subject for both Amazon and Jeff Bezos since then.
Marc Lore helped to establish Quidsi in 2005. He pursued an extreme battle against Amazon, challenging the department giant’s merchandise. Amazon reacted by cutting inventory costs. This caused intense pressures in Quidsi’s margins, making investors skeptical of investing more in the company.
The drama didn’t stop there.
In 2010, a battle for ownership of Quidsi followed between Amazon and Wal-Mart.
Bezos won the feat when he offered to buy the company for $545 million. Lore has since left Amazon and Quidsi. Since 2013, he has pivoted and raised billions of dollars for Jet.com. Wal-Mart purchased Jet in 2016 for $3.3 billion. This placed Lore responsible for all of Walmart's web based business endeavors, making him a rival against Bezos.
Former employees and business experts say Bezos' personal competition with Lore could be one motivation behind why the Amazon CEO shutdown the Quidsi business.
