Ecommerce Startup Failures

Turkish q-commerce pioneer that pioneered 10-minute grocery delivery — reached a $12B valuation and expanded to 9 countries, then executed multiple mass layoff rounds and exited every market outside Turkey in 2024.

Discount marketplace IPO'd at $14B then sold for $173M three years later

Built the rails for live commerce in America — then the trains stopped coming.

The last-mile commerce platform serving rural Kenya raised $52M and shut down in July 2024, leaving 50,000 agent entrepreneurs without their business model.

The luxury fashion e-commerce pioneer that invented the trunk show pre-order model raised 345M dollars and filed Chapter 11 in June 2024.

The Apple Store of cannabis burned through $500M and filed bankruptcy

India's fastest unicorn. Built a D2C empire in six months. Spent the next three years undoing it.

Chicago's upscale corner store for millennials. It closed all 33 locations on the same Tuesday morning with no warning.

Uber paid $1.1B for on-demand alcohol delivery in 2021. Shut it down in 2024 because Uber Eats already did the same thing.

Online used car marketplace IPO'd at $2.5B in 2020. Shut down e-commerce operations in January 2024 after $800M+ in losses.

Raised $3.4B to buy Amazon FBA brands. Became the fastest company to reach $1B valuation. Filed Chapter 11 in 2024 when the roll-up math stopped working.

The Everything Store couldn't get Americans to watch shopping TV on their laptops.

Co-shopping with influencers sounded great — brands just couldn't measure if it worked.

Amazon for the price-sensitive: $1 items shipped free, no questions asked

The $11.8B q-commerce giant that conquered Europe then retreated to Istanbul

Barcelona DTC florist raised 75M EUR and was named Spain best startup in its sector — entered insolvency in 2024 and sold to a creditor for 1M EUR, a 98% value destruction

The world's largest wine app — which couldn't turn 50 million users into profits

The AI shopping assistant that raised $38M claiming its AI automated purchases — then journalists discovered human workers in the Philippines were doing it manually

Subscription dog toys that SPAC'd into oblivion on Wall Street.

Italy's online grocery pioneer shut down by a market that outgrew it

Australia's fashion rental leader survived lockdowns only to discover customers preferred buying clothes post-pandemic.

The West End's bag delivery startup got left holding the bag.

The 10-minute grocery unicorn that burned $1.3B delivering bananas at a loss

Alibaba and SoftBank poured $440M into Paytm's ecommerce arm to fight Amazon India. Five years later, Paytm quietly shut the consumer shopping app.

The note-taking unicorn that tried to become a platform — and got outclassed by apps that just took better notes.

76 years in Mexico. Amazon and Liverpool finished it.

The on-demand cleaning platform that couldn't keep its cleaners — or its customers.

Germany's online furniture unicorn. IKEA went digital. Wayfair arrived. Home24 delisted.

Pinterest tried to become the social shopping layer — TikTok Shop and Instagram did it instead

The Berlin q-commerce startup that raised $750M and ended up absorbed by a supermarket chain

China's $3B fashion social platform IPO'd on NYSE and then watched Douyin steal its entire business model.

The £8B online car dealer that expanded itself into administration

India's midnight grocery genius was swallowed by the Reliance machine and disappeared.

India's social fashion pioneer ran out of style before it ran out of road.

Indonesia's second-largest marketplace that abandoned ecommerce entirely after its IPO

The millennial Costco raised $500M and filed bankruptcy the same year it went public

Colombia's pet care e-commerce startup ran out of capital trying to build vertical integration in a thin-margin category

The FDA's December 2022 CBD ruling wiped out its entire retail channel overnight.

PostNL spent €50M trying to out-Chinese the Chinese in ecommerce — and failed in 18 months.

Last-mile delivery across 6 Latin American countries. Shut down 11 months after its last funding round.

South Korea's bargain pioneer couldn't compete in the age of Coupang's juggernaut.

Wedding e-commerce startup discovered that Indian brides still prefer to try before buying.

The luxury fashion marketplace that peaked at $23B and was rescued from bankruptcy by Coupang for $500M — a 98% destruction of peak value

Ugly vegetables delivered to save the planet. The planet didn't pay enough to keep the lights on.

SPAC'd at $1.6B, traded down 94% as pandemic pet adoption proved a one-time spike.

Southeast Asia's grocery delivery pioneer that could not survive the super-app squeeze

Africa's informal market ecommerce platform ran out of road before reaching scale

Pandemic collectibles mania built its GMV — and the post-pandemic hangover killed it.

Google's $1B+ cloud gaming platform — shut down in 18 months after launching without games.

Europe's biggest Amazon brand aggregator raised €500M. Then the aggregation model collapsed globally.

Brazil's largest retail empire hid R$20 billion off-balance-sheet until a CEO discovered it on day 10

West Africa's African fashion marketplace ANKA couldn't solve the 35% shipping cost problem.

Central Europe's online grocery pioneer retreated from four markets and restructured after burning through €300M+

Spain's top online sports shop overordered in the pandemic boom and drowned in debt.

German-founded quick commerce startup that raised $430M and launched simultaneously in New York, Mexico City, Bogotá, and Lima — shut down all operations in 2023 when q-commerce economics collapsed globally.

Brazil's marketplace connector unicorn collapsed after over-diversifying into fintech, logistics, and payments simultaneously

Flash-sale moms' site IPO'd at $2.5B, acquired for $2.4B, shut down for $0

A crowdfunded adventure lifestyle box couldn't outlast soaring Facebook ad costs.

A loyalty spinout that was always just one restructuring away from oblivion.

The UK greeting card platform IPO'd at £1.2B at the COVID peak and collapsed 75% within 18 months

The $73M DTC contact lens disruptor couldn't blink past regulatory and acquisition cost pressure.

The Latin American Thrasio. Raised $760M. Then the aggregator model died.

Wayfair's budget home brand — shut down when Wayfair itself nearly collapsed

An online pet pharmacy that couldn't survive Chewy's pharmacy arms race.

LatAm's Thrasio raised $220M from SoftBank to aggregate profitable e-commerce sellers—then restructured as the e-commerce aggregator category globally collapsed in 2022-2023.

Sweden's fast fashion darling with €300M in sales filed for bankruptcy when influencer marketing costs met reality.

Prosus bet $500M on LatAm used cars — and retreated in 7 months

Tencent backed this WeChat commerce pioneer, then built a better solution internally.

China's membership commerce platform IPO'd on NASDAQ and was fined for running a pyramid scheme.

Brazil's e-commerce platform unicorn that went public at $3.5B and saw 85% of that value evaporate

Russia's Amazon hit a $750M bond default and lost its Nasdaq listing in six months.

Plus-size clothing subscription raised $82M and couldn't crack the returns problem

Abandoned the group-buying mechanic that made it special — became just another e-commerce site.

China's fashion social commerce platform. Pinduoduo and Douyin destroyed it.

The $15B instant delivery unicorn that raised $3.4B, closed 76 warehouses, and laid off 1,500 people when investor patience for unit economics losses ran out

Latin America's Shopify. Raised $500M. Laid off 25% in 2022.

The UK furniture unicorn that IPO'd at £775M and filed for administration 16 months later

Tried to make American B2B buyers act like Chinese social shoppers — they refused.

Brazilian quick commerce startup promising 10-minute delivery of grocery staples — collapsed in 2022 as part of the global q-commerce wave that proved ultrafast grocery delivery economics were unsustainable at startup scale.

The Russian-backed NYC grocery delivery startup that collapsed two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine — killed by OFAC sanctions

Turkey's original online marketplace killed by eBay after Trendyol made competition unwinnable.

Merging live video with payment infrastructure sounded seamless — merchants said no.

Personalized dog food that cost more to acquire a customer than a year of feeding them.

The personal styling subscription that peaked at $10B and fell 97% as fast fashion made curation irrelevant

The London ultra-fast grocery startup that raised $200M and shut down when the math of delivering in 20 minutes never worked in one of the world's most expensive cities

Brazilian social commerce startup raised $53M from a16z to replicate Pinduoduo in LatAm—then shut down when group buying did not translate to Brazilian consumer behaviour.

DTC mattress unicorn IPO'd at $575M in 2020 after raising $339M—then was taken private in 2022 at $6.90/share, down 79% from its IPO price, after years of losses proved the model unworkable.

Brazil's SoftBank-backed furniture e-commerce unicorn laid off hundreds and abandoned its logistics infrastructure as the post-COVID furniture demand cliff arrived.

Mexico online grocery startup raised $40M from Tiger Global to build a commission-free model—then shed hundreds of workers as the economics of Mexican online grocery refused to work.

India's social commerce unicorn. Raised $1.1B. Shut down grocery vertical. 200 layoffs.

Ten-minute grocery delivery that lasted ten months in the UK

Brazil's SaaS for SMB merchants on marketplaces raised $200M from SoftBank and Tiger Global—then laid off 800 employees in 2022 when the marketplace commerce boom normalised.

Czech ecommerce's biggest brand absorbed into Allegro after €120M of unprofitable regional expansion.

Australia's DTC mattress and furniture brand. Post-COVID furniture demand collapsed.

Southeast Asia fashion unicorn collapsed when its CEO's numbers didn't add up

Pan-LatAm e-commerce marketplace backed by Tengelmann and JP Morgan, acquired by Chilean retailer Falabella in 2018 — quietly wound down in 2022 when the acquirer decided to consolidate under its own brand.

Brazil's Pinduoduo — $80M from Tiger Global and SoftBank to prove social group-buying could work in the Amazon era — shut down in 2022 when the subsidies ran dry.

The Netflix of fashion ran out of occasions when COVID cancelled every event that justified the subscription

The $200B pandemic darling that lost 89% of its value in seven months

The open-source darling of DTC retail quietly abandoned by its corporate acquirer.

The $1.2B quick commerce startup that raised $260M from Tiger Global and a16z, then exited the US in 4 months and Europe within a year

Rocket Internet co-founder raised $260M for a global q-commerce network spanning Europe and Latin America—then shut down all European operations in 2022 after just one year.

Norway's online grocer retreated from Germany after burning through cash on a market that wasn't ready

The personal home manager app — promising but COVID and the unit economics killed it.

Jewelry rental raised $12.9M and sold for $14.6M — a decade of work for a 13% return to investors.

Social commerce for Colombian micro-entrepreneurs. Couldn't reach scale.

Pioneered the mattress-in-a-box. IPO at $575M. 150 copycats later, went private at 45% below IPO.

Ukraine's busiest classifieds platform silenced by artillery fire.

Ron Johnson tried to replicate Apple Store magic at customers' homes

Lima's traffic chaos and Rappi's cash burned Listo! to the ground silently.

Pioneered the beauty subscription box at $485M. Sephora copied it. Sold for $1 to Walgreens in 2021.

242 years. Amazon took the last decade. COVID finished it.

Walmart tried the luxury personal shopper model twice, failed twice — first Jetblack, then Code Eight.

The auto repair marketplace that couldn't solve the trust problem inherent to car repair.

Laid off everyone in 2019, rebuilt alone, then couldn't raise the $20M it needed to win.

Colombia's fashion ecommerce dream dismantled by geography and giants.

A lifestyle media empire's subscription box got lost in a corporate merger shuffle.

Mark Cuban and Ashton Kutcher couldn't make bodysurfing a billion-dollar market.

Online grocery for Colombian suburbs. Couldn't raise beyond Seed.

India's $300M furniture unicorn-hopeful sold to Reliance for pennies after $100M in venture funding

Chilean packaging and e-commerce supplies. Amazon Business arrived.

India's fashion pioneer sold for 88% less than its peak valuation and was quietly buried by its acquirer four years later.

Uruguay's B2B e-procurement platform that couldn't outlast the COVID shock.

Walmart spent $50M texting groceries to rich New York moms for $600/year subscriptions.

Target-backed dollar-store app raised $50M. Shein, Amazon, and Wish made cheap better. Shut down November 2020.

Spanish OTA's Chilean operation. COVID grounded the entire model.

Bombfell competed with giants on a shoestring budget and quietly disappeared in the pandemic.

Bet the company on voice shopping—consumers never actually bought anything.

Australia's stationery darling over-expanded globally and collapsed under AUD 30M in debt.

Walmart's $400M bet on text-based luxury shopping evaporated in under two years.

COVID killed Kenya's women's fashion platform before it could scale.

Guatemala's grocery delivery pioneer crushed by pandemic demand it couldn't handle.

Latin America's largest OTA. COVID grounded the whole business.

The Pinterest competitor backed by Snoop Dogg and Will.i.am — outcompeted and quietly gone

SoftBank's $3 everything store that burned $292M in 20 months

Egypt's price comparison leader got squeezed out when Amazon bought its biggest customer.

Walmart paid $3.3B for Amazon's most credible challenger — then shut it down to recycle the talent

Indian online eyewear startup. Lenskart won. Coolwinks couldn't.

178 years old. Killed by online booking in 2019.

Amazon tried to clone Instagram inside its app and nobody noticed or cared.

Swedish indie-creator marketplace acquired by Shopify and shuttered a year later.

800,000 subscribers for gamer boxes. Shipping delays destroyed trust. Chapter 11 in 2019.

India's third e-commerce unicorn quietly sold to Qoo10 for $70M after achieving a $1.1B valuation

Brazil's first NYSE-listed tech company raised $186M at $484M valuation. Amazon Brazil and Mercado Livre destroyed margins. Acquired by Magazine Luiza for $30M — 94% below IPO price — in 2019.

A social shopping feed of 30M products that could not convert browsing into buying

Certified refurbished phones in Brazil: great idea, wrong margins

A billionaire's bodysuit dream became a billion-yen nightmare.

Spain's top C2C fashion app — until Vinted made commissions extinct

The ride-hail startup that gave equity to drivers — then got absorbed by a competitor before proving the thesis.

MENA's second Amazon burned $67M trying to beat the first Amazon.

The on-demand shipping service that forgot shipping companies exist — and subsidized every box.

Nigeria's second-largest e-commerce unicorn sold for a reported $10M after $73M raised — Africa's biggest startup write-off

Argentina's Amazon-challenger backed by Bertelsmann lost an unwinnable war against Mercado Libre

Spain's self-publishing platform. Amazon KDP launched in Spanish and ended it.

The Middle East's electronics marketplace that couldn't survive the Amazon shadow.

Texas's beloved local delivery app — absorbed by a grocery chain as national giants arrived.

Mexico's Shopify. Shopify arrived. Kichink didn't survive.

Shopping inside Instagram. Instagram built it themselves.

Microsoft Research's panoramic photography miracle — killed by a corporate focus change

SoftBank's $6.5B Indian e-commerce bet collapsed when it refused a Flipkart acquisition offer and was left to slowly die as Amazon and Flipkart divided the market.

The original gig economy marketplace — saved by IKEA after a near-fatal pivot nearly destroyed it.

On-demand valet parking — solved an expensive problem for a small urban niche, then ran out of density.

The premium mobile studio that bet serious tabletop gamers would pay for digital — they would, just not enough of them.

The #GIRLBOSS fashion empire that turned an eBay side hustle into a $350M brand — and lost it all to lawsuits and a founder war

The Arab world's biggest ecommerce brand swallowed whole by Amazon.

Dubai's beloved bootstrapped marketplace killed by the harsh math of competing against VC-funded rivals.

Marc Lore built Diapers.com to $300M revenue. Amazon noticed, dropped diaper prices 30% to force a sale, acquired Quidsi for $545M in 2011, then shut every property in 2017 once the threat was neutralized.

The photo host that broke millions of websites overnight by ransoming its own users

The anonymous campus social network that couldn't survive what anonymity enables.

Spain's flash-sale pioneer. Acquired and absorbed by Veepee.

Influencer-curated quarterly boxes couldn't generate enough recurring revenue to survive.

A million fashion fans tracking price drops couldn't generate enough affiliate revenue to keep the lights on.

The most beautiful visual storytelling app that no one could figure out how to monetise

Members-only flash sales pioneer raised $236M and hit $1B valuation. Trained customers to never pay full price. Luxury brands pulled merchandise. Sold to Hudson's Bay for $250M — a 75% haircut.

France's best train booking app. Trainline acquired it. French rail UX got worse.

A square smartphone with a physical keyboard in 2014 — bold design, wrong decade.

The flash sale home décor unicorn that Bed Bath & Beyond bought for less than its last funding round

Nokia's music platform survived the Microsoft acquisition — then Line Corporation killed it

The French indie studio that built cult 4X strategy games — acquired by Sega before the franchise could scale.

Brazil's Groupon raised $30M from Rocket Internet and Naspers. When the daily deals market globally collapsed, so did Peixe Urbano.

Dropbox built a separate photo app that competed with its own product — then killed it

The design marketplace that raised $336M, pivoted three times, and sold for under $15M

Spain's largest luxury flash sales acquired by Amazon for $80M — Amazon shut it after 5 years because flash sales conflicted with Amazon's everyday-low-price brand positioning

A web-based buy and sell platform with mobile and social network integration allowing users to trade goods and digital content.

Raised $1.5M to send a single word. The internet called it stupid. They were right.

Design flash-sale site pivoted four times and ran out of identity

The design flash-sale unicorn that raised $336M, grew to 2,000 employees in 18 months — and sold the whole thing for $15M

The photo backup startup that lost its users' irreplaceable memories on the way down

Location-based mobile app connecting businesses with customers seeking flash deals in real-time.

A Google Ventures-backed kids' clothing box imploded under operational chaos and wrong shipments.

Pioneered in-store mobile rewards, only to discover walking in isn't the same as buying.

Justin Kan's Y Combinator errand startup — outpaced by TaskRabbit before reaching critical mass.

An online flash sale platform that offered discounted high-end fashion brands and accessories to budget-conscious consumers.

Facebook replaced your Android homescreen with Facebook. Users replaced it with the uninstall button.

Google's opt-in location sharing — shut down to force users to Google+.

The dot-com luxury discounter that survived the crash but not the smartphones

Post to 40 social networks at once — until the social networks said no

Nokia built an app store 1 year before Apple — and made it so bad users preferred nothing.

Amazon's gifting spinoff that lasted 13 years without ever mattering

Powered mobile internet on a billion phones — then the iPhone made it obsolete overnight

The location-sharing app that arrived before smartphones were ready for it.

Amazon-backed online pharmacy that got beaten by CVS and acquired by Walgreens for $429M.

Frid.ge was a group messaging online platform.

48 days on sale. The shortest hardware product life in Microsoft history.

Announced the free legal music revolution in 2006 — launched in 2008 — died in 2009

Invented social check-ins in 2000 — Google bought it to kill it.

P&G's $50 million bet that personalized shampoo would conquer the internet

CDNow was Amazon before Amazon was Amazon. Then Amazon became Amazon.

The digital software store born ten years too early

The $1.2B grocery delivery startup that tried to build 26 city warehouses before proving it worked in one

Kleiner Perkins-backed prestige beauty e-commerce — discovered that luxury cosmetics buyers want to smell the samples first.

The toy e-tailer that IPO'd at $8B and went bankrupt two years later when the dot-com dream evaporated

Online printing raised $70 million and lost to a startup charging less for more

The furniture dot-com that discovered sofas are not books — delivery costs made every sale a loss.

The 1-hour delivery startup that burned $280M delivering $1.99 candy bars for free in 2001

IPO at $78 per share in 1999. Filed for bankruptcy in 2001. A $4 billion valuation on $30M in losses.

Priceline's "Name Your Own Price" for groceries — burned $360M to sell discounted detergent, then folded.

Spent $1.20 to deliver $1 of pet food. Mascot survived.

400 bike couriers, $30M, and a business model that lost money on every single delivery.

Disney's toy store that tried to sell children's data after going bankrupt

Swedish-founded fashion dot-com burned $135M in eighteen months and became the defining symbol of dot-com excess.

Raised $48M to sell sofas online. Burned through it in 17 months. The furniture dot-com cautionary tale.

The luxury fashion startup that burned £80M per month building a website most users' internet connections couldn't load

The sock puppet that burned $300 million in nine months

They burned $100M selling shovels online. The internet wasn't ready for shipping dirt.

Wine personality app that could not convert taste into transactions

€750M raised to deliver groceries in 10 minutes, absorbed by a supermarket in 3 years

Egyptian furniture ecommerce raised $17M and collapsed as currency devaluation wiped out margins

Same-day grocery delivery in under two hours in German cities

Indian quick-commerce pioneer that rebranded to Blinkit — but Zomato acquired it at distress.

Madagascar's first B2C marketplace collapsed under logistics gaps

Russian digital goods marketplace collapsed under Western sanctions

The Uruguayan marketplace that couldn't outrun MercadoLibre

Peruvian grocery delivery startup that built loyal base but could not survive Rappi and Cornershop entry.

Nigeria B2B FMCG distribution startup backed by Matrix Partners India that raised $10M before mass layoffs exposed the informal retailer credit model as unworkable.

More.com raised $36M to sell health and beauty products online in 1999 — and ran out of money in 18 months, a victim of the online drugstore wars nobody won

Lesara raised 80 million euros to sell direct-from-factory fashion and home goods at ultra-low prices before Shein existed — and filed for insolvency in April 2019 after Shein, Wish, and Zalando attacked from every direction simultaneously.

Moroccan social commerce startup overwhelmed by Jumia and cross-border Chinese platforms

Nigerian B2B FMCG distribution startup that raised $2M and was killed by naira devaluation.

Raised $135M to build 3D interactive fashion e-commerce in 18 countries — the website required broadband that 90% of users didn't have in 1999

Luxury goods resale marketplace for Southeast Asia

Singapore used car marketplace unicorn raised $360M but could not escape used car economics

Amazon brand roll-up company that raised 400 million dollars to acquire and scale FBA brands before the Amazon ecosystem and macroeconomic shifts crushed the model.

Morocco B2B FMCG platform for hanout corner stores that raised $5M from Outlierz Ventures before the same credit and spoilage economics that killed African B2B peers shut it down.

An Irish grocery delivery startup that partnered with Lidl and Tesco but could not survive the q-commerce wave crashing.

Tunisia's leading e-commerce platform was crippled by foreign exchange controls on international payment processing

Singapore online grocery pioneer raised $26M, was acquired by Lazada, then Lazada shut it down when Alibaba restructured Southeast Asian operations.

Fashion rental pioneer from Portugal that could not make the economics work at scale.

Southeast Asia ecommerce enabler raised $70M then sold at discount as Lazada and Shopee dominated

A mobile shopping app backed by GGV Capital that let you shop multiple brands in one cart and ran out of money during COVID.

Cameroon's online marketplace drowned in cross-lingual logistics and mobile payment fragmentation

Latvian private label supplement dropshipping platform raised €3M but customer acquisition became unsustainable

Online eyewear pioneer trapped between physical and digital

Enjoei IPO-ed on the B3 exchange in 2020, raising 1.1 billion reais on the promise of building Brazil leading second-hand fashion marketplace — and watched its stock fall 93 percent by 2023 as Shopee, Vinted, and Mercado Livre ate its market from all sides.

London Amazon aggregator raised $200M to roll up third-party sellers and dissolved when Amazon changed its algorithm and the category imploded.

Cambodia's homegrown marketplace was overwhelmed by Lazada and Shopee's regional push

Brazil's design-forward furniture marketplace raised $25M but could not overcome the brutal logistics of delivering large items across a continent.

East Africa B2B ecommerce for informal retail rebranded to Wasoko then collapsed

Premium photo products startup that raised $29M and was squeezed by Shutterfly and Canva at both ends.

JD.com Indonesian subsidiary invested billions to replicate China ecommerce success in Southeast Asia and exited in 2023 after eight years of losses.

Norway most successful online grocery raised $390M and expanded to Germany and Finland before pulling back entirely from international markets in a mass layoff spiral.

The Colombian online grocery startup that could not solve the last-mile equation

The Amazon brand aggregator raised $225M from General Atlantic to buy and scale FBA brands and quietly wound down when the aggregator model revealed structural unit-economic failures.

Brazil's largest wine e-commerce raised $40M from Ambev's venture arm then sold at a distressed valuation as logistics costs proved insurmountable.

CityMall raised 75 million dollars to bring group-buying commerce to Tier 2 and Tier 3 Indian cities — and shut down in April 2023 after discovering that social commerce referral loops in India do not generate enough basket size to cover logistics.

Rocket Internet LatAm ecommerce clone survived a decade only to be quietly killed by its acquirer.

Swedish indie beauty brand digital DTC experiment failed against Sephora's influencer machine

Indian SME store builder replaced support staff with AI and watched churn spike

El Salvador ecommerce competing against Mercado Libre and Amazon.mx in a 6-million-person market

Abidjan's e-commerce pioneer collapsed under cash-on-delivery fraud and logistics costs

Egyptian social commerce platform for micro-entrepreneurs ran out of capital amid currency crisis

The Nigeria B2B consumer goods distribution startup raised $110M from Tiger Global and Lightrock to digitize FMCG supply chains and became a zombie when naira devaluation and NPLs compounded its losses.

Polish beauty e-commerce challenger crushed by Allegro and Douglas

Jokr quick-commerce exited Mexico after burning capital on 15-minute delivery that could not reach break-even

Indonesia fashion ecommerce startup backed by Vertex Ventures and Sequoia India that raised $35M and shut down in 2021 as Shopee and Tokopedia crushed standalone fashion players.

Polish promotion engine SaaS raised €2M but could not compete as Talon.One and Voucherify dominated

Personal styling service acquired by Nordstrom for $350M was quietly shut down 6 years later

Peru largest corporate-backed ecommerce marketplace shut down after two years when MercadoLibre dominance made the economics of building a local competitor impossible to justify.

Fashion rental subscription acquired Lord and Taylor department stores and collapsed in the pandemic

Ecuador ecommerce without the national logistics network to compete against Mercado Libre and Servientrega

Buenos Aires' fashion e-commerce aggregator was killed by MercadoLibre's fashion push and Argentina's macro crisis

Nigerian 30-minute grocery delivery startup that ran dry before break-even

Dot-com fashion pioneer raised $135M and burned it in 18 months before a single profitable order

India used two-wheeler marketplace that raised $22M from Omidyar Network and Accel before OLX Autos and CarDekho's two-wheeler vertical made the standalone model unviable.

Thai fashion ecommerce pioneer raised $52M but sold to Central Group as Shein and Zalando squeezed

Lagos B2B ecommerce for informal grocery retailers that raised $15M from TLcom Capital before running into the same unworkable credit and cold chain economics that destroyed the category.

The Scandinavian quick-commerce startup that launched too late into a dying category and shut down in 2023 as every major European q-commerce operator pulled back

Vietnam ecommerce pioneer backed by FPT that raised $61M before merging with Tiki in a distressed deal as Shopee and Lazada took over the market.

Ghanaian fashion ecommerce could not solve last-mile delivery in Accra and closed

Albania's e-commerce marketplace collapsed under cash-on-delivery economics and diaspora import competition

Turkish fashion ecommerce raised $12M then was destroyed by Lira hyperinflation

Barcelona sustainable furniture startup raised EUR 14M and shut down in 2023 unable to solve artisan furniture unit economics at scale.

Myanmar grocery delivery startup destroyed by military coup

Bolivia's high-altitude e-commerce startup faced insurmountable logistics and payment gaps

Tiger Global-backed Brazilian ecommerce startup raised $23M and shut down unable to compete with Mercado Livre and Magazine Luiza.

Moldova's e-commerce marketplace was squeezed between Romanian platforms and the country's emigration-shrinking consumer base

India's online furniture startup acquired by a rival for a fraction of invested capital

Online grocery startup that could not survive Brazil's post-COVID logistics economics.

Curated online shopping marketplace focused on authentic premium brands positioned as a trusted alternative to Amazon for quality-conscious shoppers

Bangladesh beauty e-commerce pioneer overwhelmed by Daraz and counterfeit products

Barcelona grocery delivery startup squeezed out by Amazon Fresh and well-funded rivals.

Mexican online brokerage raised $57M but could not hold users as Robinhood and Bitso competed

The Swiss online farmers market that connected consumers with regional producers but could not make last-mile delivery economics work at scale

A French instant grocery startup backed by Sequoia that shut down after just 12 months when q-commerce funding evaporated.

The British D2C sofa brand that spent a decade building a design-forward furniture identity and entered administration in 2022 as supply chain costs crushed its margins

Rabbit burned through $11M trying to deliver groceries in 20 minutes across Cairo — and shut down after just 10 months, becoming a monument to quick commerce hubris

DealShare raised $165M to bring social commerce to tier-2 India — then the unit economics proved that WhatsApp group-buying does not scale profitably

Mexican online supermarket raised $65M and wound down after failing to crack last-mile economics.

Colombian Meesho-inspired social commerce platform for women entrepreneurs that raised $10M from Kaszek but could not replicate India's social commerce density in Latin America.

London on-demand grocery startup acquired by Zapp at distress after raising £11M

Philippines retail data startup backed by SoftBank Ventures Korea that raised $10M to crowdsource FMCG shelf data before the business model proved unsustainable.

The premium online supermarket that couldn't scale its model

Montreal sustainable fashion brand raised CAD$32M and filed for creditor protection in COVID

Retail media and loyalty platform for independent grocers

Justo raised 87 million dollars to let restaurants own their online ordering without paying Rappi or PedidosYa commission fees — and then laid off more than 70 percent of its staff in 2022 as the unit economics never worked.

Lippo Group poured $500M into an Indonesian ecommerce platform and shut it down two years later when Tokopedia and Lazada proved unbeatable.

South African premium kitchenware e-commerce brand acquired by Woolworths and stripped of independence.

Jumia exited Senegal proving West African ecommerce economics were brutal

MENA e-commerce brand aggregator that acquired and scaled third-party marketplace sellers across Amazon and Noon in the Middle East

The French quick-commerce startup that raised 40 million euros and was absorbed by Carrefour in 2022 before the grocery giant wound down the service entirely

An online used car marketplace that went public via SPAC and filed for bankruptcy a year after Carvana survived its own near-death experience.

German baby products ecommerce pioneer that IPO-ed in 2015 and spent seven years being crushed by Amazon and dm.

Mohamed Alabbar e-commerce platform that raised $1B to beat Amazon in MENA but is losing the war.

The Arab answer to Amazon that could not keep the lights on

The second-largest Amazon brand aggregator raised $775M to assemble a portfolio of 100+ FBA brands and quietly imploded when the aggregator model collapsed industry-wide.

Pakistan-Saudi B2B retail tech that raised $36M from Shorooq Partners to digitize informal retailers before mass layoffs in 2023 exposed the model as unworkable.

South Korea's original flash-sale pioneer — a decade of decline ending in payment collapse

Mongolia's first B2C marketplace was undone by Ulaanbaatar's extreme delivery geography

Home24 was Europe leading online furniture retailer, IPO-ed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange at 14 euros per share — and was squeezed out by XXXLutz at 2.75 euros per share in 2023 after years of losses against IKEA and Wayfair.

Indonesia tech-enabled micro-store startup backed by Vertex and East Ventures that raised $30M before mass layoffs exposed the unit economics of upgrading informal kiosks as unsustainable.

The Polish challenger to Allegro that raised 5 million euros attempting to build a better e-commerce marketplace and shut down after three years unable to dent the incumbent

The Spanish-founded Amazon aggregator raised $55M to build a portfolio of Amazon brands and filed for Chapter 7 as the aggregator wave crested and broke.

Indian social fashion discovery platform crushed between Myntra and Meesho

Southeast Asias most-funded direct-to-consumer fashion startup raised $53M and shut down as Shein and Lazada made local fashion margins impossible.

Vietnam book seller turned e-commerce pioneer outgunned by Shopee

Mobile auction marketplace raised $32M and shut down as TikTok Shop and Wish commoditized impulse buying

Jessica Alba's natural baby products company that created a market only to watch everyone enter it

Alibaba-backed e-commerce giant conceded Vietnam to Shopee and TikTok Shop

Spain's hyperlocal grocery platform crushed between Glovo and Getir

Social product discovery for 11M users — Instagram Shopping and Pinterest Shopping provided native product tagging that eliminated the need for a separate social shopping app

DTC custom furniture startup raised $45M and shut overnight leaving thousands of orders unfulfilled