Well-known cross-border e-commerce platform reportedly laid off more than 80% of its employees! Sellers' payments have not yet been settled

This year, Qoo10, a well-known e-commerce platform in Singapore, has repeatedly appeared in people's eyes. At the beginning of the year, it was because of the acquisition of Wish; recently, it was because of the arrears of payment to merchants by its two Korean subsidiaries.

Recently, news broke that Qoo10 laid off more than 80% of its employees, including all departments except the human resources department; about 90 employees were affected, and only senior management remained from the original team of 110; the vast majority of the laid-off employees were Singaporeans, with only three foreign employees. According to former Qoo10 employees, the few remaining employees are only focused on maintaining the daily operations of the platform.

According to the company, the main reason for the layoffs was the challenging market environment and restructuring of the business. However, it was revealed that Qoo10's move was related to funding problems; also due to funding problems, the laid-off employees did not receive any compensation. In addition, there were reports that platform sellers and buyers complained online that the goods were not delivered and the customer service did not respond to the problems. Some sellers are still owed tens of thousands of Singapore dollars in payment.

According to a Singaporean seller on the Qoo10 platform, in response to an interview with local media, since last year, the platform has not been paying for goods as promptly as before; the seller is currently owed about 20,000 Singapore dollars (about 108,900 RMB). Other users left messages on Qoo10's social media, saying that in addition to the overdue payment, there were also problems with customer service follow-up during the transaction. In addition to the parent company Qoo10, its subsidiary Qube Network is also laying off employees.

According to foreign media reports, shortly after TMON and WeMakePrice were exposed for defaulting on payments to merchants, Qoo10 employees received a notice from the headquarters that the company might be affected. According to people familiar with the matter, Qoo10 expressed regret in a letter to employees, apologizing for the layoffs while emphasizing that "(the company) has no intention of laying off employees."

Some former Qoo10 employees speculated that the company might be preparing to sell its assets or shut down its business completely. However, as of now, Qoo10 is still operating normally.

Compared with its glory in 2012, Qoo10's current situation is regrettable. It is reported that in 2013, Qoo10 revealed that the number of members in Singapore exceeded 900,000, the number of sellers reached 53,000, and the business sales reached 73 million US dollars. Because it adopted a market model similar to Taobao in China, Qoo10 was called the Singapore version of "Taobao", and its business covered Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries. However, with the entry of Shopee, Lazada and other platforms into the Southeast Asian market, Qoo10's position was also impacted, and it finally ranked behind the Singapore version of "Xianyu" Carousell.

At present, it seems that this once glorious e-commerce platform is now facing severe challenges, and the road ahead may not be so easy. Let us wait and see whether Qoo10 can overcome the difficulties.

Qoo10

Cross-border e-commerce platform

Layoffs