OpenStore Shifts Focus From Shopify Aggregator to Menswear Brand

Shopify aggregator OpenStore is reportedly in the midst of a reorganization in which it is shutting down more than 40 Shopify stores, liquidating remaining inventory, and focusing solely on its menswear brand Jack Archer.

These changes follow a four-year period in which OpenStore acquired more than 40 Shopify storefronts offering a variety of products, CNBC reported Friday (Aug. 8).

OpenStore did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

Jack Archer said in a post this month on LinkedIn that it is becoming a stand-alone brand after spending three years inside OpenStore.

“Our company culture has an amazing mixture of startup-style tech talent, experienced retail brand leaders and unicorns,” the brand said in the post. “If you’re interested in working at a brand that’s using bleeding-edge tech to change the game in men’s apparel, we are hiring across finance, marketing, product development, eCommerce and supply chain.”

The former OpenStore website address open.store now redirects to jackarcher.com.

OpenStore was valued at $50 million in a funding round that closed in recent weeks after being valued earlier at $1 billion, the CNBC report said.

Other companies in the eCommerce aggregator space have also been in decline, according to the report.

These sorts of companies collectively raised over $16 billion when interest rates were low and the pandemic had driven growth in online retail, the report said. They aimed to use this funding to acquire independent sellers on platforms like Shopify and Amazon.

However, many eCommerce aggregators began to struggle in 2022 when venture funding dried up and consumers returned to physical stores, per the report. For example, Thrasio filed for bankruptcy in early 2024 and Unybrands cut jobs around the same time.

PYMNTS reported in February 2024 that Thrasio’s bankruptcy filing pointed to how Amazon aggregators were facing a reckoning that would have seemed unimaginable during the eCommerce boom seen during the pandemic.

As funding declined and macro pressures confronting the aggregators increased, the debt and obligations became more onerous than some companies could bear.

In July 2022, PYMNTS reported that some firms were applying the learnings of consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies to the operations of eCommerce aggregators that were struggling to figure out the nuances of creating popular consumer brands with the right logistics.

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