From March 2013, online retailer Play.com is to shut down its retail business to become marketplace-only.
The Jersey-based firm blamed the move on the ending of Low Value Consignment Relief, which allowed items less than £15 to be sold to the UK VAT-free. All 147 staff in Jersey are to be made redundant as well as 67 in its Cambridge and Bristol offices. Play.com will now become more like a shopping centre, no longer selling directly to customers.
In a statement Play.com said: “Moving forward we are intending to focus exclusively on our successful marketplace, which is our main business area, and to phase out the direct-retail part of our business.”
In September 2011, Play.com was taken over by Japanese e-commerce operator Rakuten. It paid £25m ($39.3m, 28.6m euros) for the company, which at the time had 14m registered users and was one of the largest online retailers in the UK.
If you would like to receive the latest toy trade news straight to your inbox, please click here to subscribe; you can also follow Toy World on Twitter and Facebook.
