Jane .com, a Lehi-based virtual shop that promised to revolutionize online purchasing and support the success of women business owners, served as the foundation for Shera Wheeler’s company. She claimed that Pink Pineapple Clothing, her business, generates about third of Wheeler’s household income and that Jane is the source of almost all of her business.
However, according to now-extinct people, the shop shut down on Friday, and Wheeler claimed it owes her$ 125, 000. It’s devastating, according to Wheeler. ” I feel like I’ve been taken advantage of.”
According to a recording of the all-staff appointment on Friday that The Salt Lake Tribune obtained, Krista Kochivar, Jane’s CFO, can be heard telling team members that Jane is in the operation of liquidating its resources.
Jane’s assets are being transferred to a trust as part of an “assignment for the benefit of creditors” method, which the corporation is undergoing. This deliberate alternative to bankruptcy. According to Kochivar, a trustee will buy the assets and guarantee the “highest probable benefit to Jane’s lenders.”
According to the recording, employees were not given the option of compensation.
Five decades after Mike and Megan McEwan founded Jane .com in 2011, it was offering about 250 talks per day and had about 2,000 active buyers. Inc. reported these numbers in a 2016 content asking how Jane was “doing so well in an industry that’s supposed to be going extinct” and suggesting that the answers were the “uniqueness” of her home and clothing products as well as the rate of those display sales.
Mike McEwan told a group at Brigham Young University in 2017 that Jane hit its second million dollar moment half that time. Under CEO Taleeb Noormohamed, the style website Glossy reported that the company’s overall profits reached$ 1 billion in 2020. New CEO Joana McKenna revealed to KSL her plans for future expansion earlier this year.
Kochivar, however, blamed Jane’s demise on an evolving e-commerce space that boutique retailers may no longer keep up with on Friday, one week before Black Friday and the beneficial start of the holiday shopping season.
Sites like Shein and Temu, which offer inexpensive mass-produced merchandise, are dominating online purchasing, according to Kochivar.
The past couple of years, Kochivar said,” We’ve been hard fighting a very steep fight.” It becomes difficult to compete on price at some point.
Early on Friday night, the Jane .com site went offline, leaving nothing but the simple information” Down for maintenance.” Friday and Monday attempts to get in touch with the company’s management were fruitless.
Wheeler’s doubts that there was a problem were confirmed by the media on Friday. Vendors, who frequently identify as small business owners and focused on Jane for sales, claim that they are left wondering what went wrong and whether they will always receive the money they were owed.
What does that mean for all small firms, exactly? Jen Abegg, who began selling bracelets on Jane .com more than ten years ago, said. ” As a small business owner, it’s been really upsetting. People will be devastated by it.
After executives informed Jane’s around 100 employees that the company was “ceasing procedures” on Friday, one former employee said,” It was just sad.” The Tribune consented to withhold the employee’s identity because it did n’t want to endanger a previous paycheck. ” It’s unhappy for so many people besides myself,” she said.
” Ghosted” vendors
Abegg claimed that in recent months, she and another sellers had experienced “ghosting.” Numerous Jane .com sellers asserted that the business owes them tens of thousands of dollars in emails, interviews, conferences on Reddit, and Facebook. Some users shared photos of their amounts that were taken just before the site went offline.
Wheeler’s girl Katie Stacey has been promoting her clothing store, Copper Lane Clothing, on the system for 12 years. She claimed that she is one of the product’s best sellers and that it owes her about$ 35, 000.
I feel thus betrayed, Stacey sobbed on Friday.
Copper Line Clothing, a boutique clothing store owned by Katie Stacey, conducted the majority of its operations on Jane .com ( courtesy of Bella Alder ). She estimated that the online market owes her about$ 35, 000.
Payment decreased or completely stopped in October, according to sellers. Some vendors claimed they were informed that the vendor support group was behind on processing payments and down a participant. Some claimed that Jane .com was figuring out some kinks and that the systems had changed.
A Jane .com customer service agent wrote in an email to contractor Jesse Peffor,” We learned that a key part of the finance team just went out on home left, and they are working to get another team member up to speed as soon as possible.”
The justifications seemed flimsy, according to some suppliers. They eventually came to a complete stop. Vendor Alexis Cassar told The Tribune,” I feel quite disappointed for the lack of correspondence from Jane.”
Some vendors claimed that Jane .com was still in contact with them regarding offers but would not answer any inquiries regarding repayment. When they realized they were n’t being paid, some contractors, including Abegg and Cassar, allegedly pulled their offers or stopped fulfilling orders.
He and his family, according to Lonnie Carroll, tried a kinder strategy. In the middle of November, a Jane .com member asked them to release more talks after paying some of their outstanding balance, according to Carroll.
Carroll remarked,” We said we’re glad to, but promise us we will see this chunk of money sitting there now pushed through.” We reasoned that if we were selling, we would get compensated. We took the chance.
Since then, they have never heard from Jane, according to Carroll. He claimed that the dealer owes them about$ 55,000.
Similar to this, some users are in the dark. One client contacted The Tribune in the presence of a site or customer service in search of details on how to request restitution. Over the past year, a flood of adverse website reviews have come from customers who were unable to contact customer service. On social media, another customers shared their experiences.
Revolution gone awry?
Jane was established as a “boutique market” for household goods, equipment, and children’s clothing. Its ultimate goal was to “be the platform committed to discovering and supporting women-owned companies,” according to an April media transfer promoting International Women’s Day.
Abegg claimed that Jane .com used to be so successful with her bracelets line that her father left his job to assist her in carrying out orders. She claimed that the jewelry industry became her family’s main source of income, and for a while, Jane .com accounted for about 80 % of her sales.
Jane .com provided sellers presence and sales volume, and its three-day display offers gave buyers a sense of necessity. Jane became an easy and effective sales platform for a cut of the proceeds—roughly 25 %, according to several vendors.
Vendor Heather Gray wrote in a Twitter post and an email to The Tribune,” In the beginning, my materials and innovative images, in partnership with their platform, were dreams come true.” Without their original leadership, I would n’t be where I am today.
Consumers also liked it. Quick online reviews praised the project’s high-quality products at affordable prices. Individuals” swore” by the market, according to readers.
Jane, which was entering its tenth year, appeared to be on track for more development when Tritium Partners invested$ 40 million in it in 2020. Customers of Jane’s had purchased “more than$ 1 billion of goods,” according to a statement made at the time, and the business was still “skyrocketing.” By that time, it had appeared six times on the Inc. 5000 listing of privately held companies with the fastest growth.
When The Tribune asked for comment on Jane’s bankruptcy, Tritium, a private equity firm with headquarters in Lehi and Austin, Texas, declined.
Jane was included in names of the fastest-growing businesses from Utah Business and Financial Times in 2022. In an appointment with KSL this spring, the new CEO McKenna made a commitment to make the company more “evergreen” by doing away with display sales and presenting more long-term offers. Vendors and past workers claimed McKenna slowly left after that.
The former individual claimed that from the outside, things had been different and that the worker had endured four rounds of mass layoffs since they began in 2020.
According to some dealers, the site’s dynamic edge was lost, it became “oversaturated” with vendors and goods, and the conversion to longer-term agreements resulted in a decline in sales. Abegg remarked,” It’s just not particular again.” ” It’s no longer distinctive.”
The Jane building is located at 3401 N. Thanksgiving Way in Lehi. ( Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune )
removing the parts
More than a few vendors who contacted The Tribune reported that they thought the online store might have been in trouble recently. It did n’t lessen the blow in any way.
Before the shutdown was announced but in acknowledgment of what appeared to be an impending decline, Gray wrote,” I feel like I’ve suffered a great dying today.”
It almost feels like grief, Wheeler said on Monday. It arrives gradually. I’m perfectly good one second, crying the second.
Abegg and Cassar claimed to be fortunate, to have started switching to other markets, such as Etsy and various specialized websites, despite having fairly low balances. They are concerned that additional sellers may find it more difficult to adapt.
Logan residents Stacey and Wheeler both claimed that once their unpaid accounts got too large, they had to let their whole workers go. Wheeler, who claimed to have been the blog’s biggest fabric merchant last year, fired eight people while Stacey fired three.
Stacey said,” We’re going to try to sell it on our own, but we do n’t have the kind of traffic we need.” We will need to relocate from our inventory. I’ll most likely find employment. Wealth is what we need.
For online retailers, the holiday period is typically the busiest time of year. Many sellers expressed their sorrow over losing company, which they rely on to get them through the year, while also feeling sorry for their clients.
Stacey remarked,” I feel awful for consumers right now.” ” I’m certain that tens of commands have been placed. For [ Jane ] to fail this week must be so bad.
It puts us in a difficult situation, Cassar said. To these buyers, we want to buy. To them, we really want to promote. However, we are unable to inform them of what is happening.
The past few weeks have been a lesson in “how fine people are,” Wheeler said, if there is any silver coating. Suppliers have been contacted by other online retailers to provide assistance, resources, and guidance. She’s clinging to expect.
Wheeler declared,” We’re never giving up, that’s for certain.” ” We’re going to give it everything we’ve got.”
Shannon Sollitt is a member of the Report for America regiment who writes about sustainability and business accountability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Please think about making a tax-deductible gift of any quantity today by clicking here. Your donation to meet our Structural grant helps her continue to write stories like this one.