More Layoffs At Fab, The Retail Site That Lost A Third Of Its Staff And Most Of Its Traffic This Year
The company gave Business Insider this statement:
We haven't announced any layoffs. It is accurate that Fab is undergoing management changes as we realign the business to execute on our 2014-2017 plan. There will be a number of management changes involved as we streamline the organization and move to a category P&L based structure. As not all of the organizational changes are final yet, we are withholding comment on any specific individuals until later this week.
Little of the news coming out of Fab these days is good. The company, which once had around 700 employees, now has about 390 by our count.
Here's the one piece of good news sustaining the company right now: Earlier this year, it raised $165 million in new investment this year alone, for a total of $336 million in all venture funding.
So the company is not imminently going out of business.
But that money came as the company changed strategy, from a "flash sales" daily deal model to a more traditional online retail model. That change has been accompanied by these less than upbeat moves:
- COO Beth Ferreira will leave by the end of the year.
- Founder Bradford Shellhammer is leaving.
- Traffic to Fab.com nosedived in the fall to about 25% of its peak levels.
- 100 staff were laid off in October.
- Previously, 100 staffers were laid off in Berlin.
- The company is known to not be profitable (the changes are designed to get it into the black).
- CEO Jason Goldberg and CTO Nishith Shah will forfeit their 2014 salaries.
Fab was at one time valued at $1 billion. We'd love to hear from anyone who knows whether these moves will leave the company poised to meet that estimation - or otherwise.