Zulily’s going-out-of-business sale in early December didn’t entirely deplete the inventory of goods held by the Seattle-based online retailer that abruptly shut down late last year.
Gordon Brothers, a 121-year-old global firm that orchestrates liquidations and restructuring, announced this week that it is selling off more than $85 million of Zulily’s unsold shoes, clothes, accessories, housewares and other items. It’s also offering for sale the inner workings of two 775,000-square-feet fulfillment centers, which includes more than seven miles of conveyor belts, racks and shelves, furniture, hundreds of barcode scanners, lifts and trucks, and other warehouse miscellany.
“This is a great opportunity to acquire a wide selection of well-known nationally branded fashion and home products inventory,” said Ulos Anderson, Gordon Brothers’ senior managing director for commercial and industrial, in a statement Tuesday announcing the sale.
Zulily was once a high-flying Seattle startup that attracted millions of customers with an innovative e-commerce model aimed at moms. The company was valued at $4 billion following its IPO ten years ago.
But as GeekWire detailed earlier this month, the company eventually lost its identity and struggled to maintain a competitive moat.
Zulily deteriorated rapidly after being acquired by private equity firm Regent in May in a deal with QVC parent Qurate Retail Group, which had acquired the company in 2015 for $2.4 billion.
Regent said in May that it planned to grow Zulily in new markets, but then laid off more than 800 employees across three states.
Zulily’s vendors last year said they weren’t getting paid. Some say they are still owed money from the company for unpaid invoices. Vendors recently received emails from Zulily notifying them that their inventory was ready to be picked up from at former Zulily warehouses in Nevada and Ohio.
Regent put Zulily in liquidation last month as part of an agreement with a third-party fiduciary operating under the name of Zulily ABC LLC, a subsidiary of a San Diego-based firm by the name of Douglas Wilson Companies that, among other things, specializes in receiverships and liquidating assets of troubled companies.
The so-called “assignment for the benefit of creditors” — also known as an ABC — is an alternative to a bankruptcy filing.
Interested buyers in Zulily’s remaining assets are directed to contact Gordon representatives. The company’s site urges prospective bidders to come inspect the lots that will be offered through a “private treaty sale,” which is something like an auction. The site warning buyers “that machinery, equipment, merchandise and other items (the ‘goods’) are sold on an ‘as is/where is’ basis with no warranties.”
Boston-based Gordon is in the business of unloading a wide manner of goods, properties and companies themselves. Current sales include flatbed trucks available in Dubai and textile producing machinery from Germany.
The Zulily sales will be held in-person and online. It was unclear as to where the retail merchandise is warehoused. No dates for the sales were posted. We’ve reached out to Gordon for more details.
Zulily has an ongoing lawsuit against Amazon that it filed last month, alleging price-fixing and supplier coercion. The lawsuit is based in part on allegations in the Federal Trade Commission’s separate antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.
