Jane.com owes sellers over $10 million after website collapse

Hundreds of sellers on the e-commerce platform Jane.com were getting ready for the Black Friday shopping rush when the site suddenly shut down on Nov. 17.

Hundreds of sellers on the e-commerce platform Jane.com, which targeted female consumers and helped small businesses make millions, were getting ready for the Black Friday shopping rush when the site suddenly shut down on Nov. 17.

Now, sellers say they are owed tens of thousands of dollars and have no clear path to recover it. Some had spent thousands of dollars getting ready to handle a surge of orders. In total, Jane’s sellers are owed $10.1 million in sales, according to documents signed by Jane’s last CEO and published by DSI Assignments, a company that helps businesses liquidate their assets to repay creditors as an alternative to bankruptcy. Those documents show that 13 sellers are owed more than $100,000 apiece.

The end of the Utah-based platform left many sellers feeling betrayed. They had used Jane for years to list products, and some made millions and grew small businesses over the website’s 12-year run. NBC News spoke to nine people who worked for or with Jane, including sellers from six small businesses and a former Jane employee, all of whom said they felt misled by Jane in some way. 

“It’s been a shock,” said Dana Hicks, the owner and CEO of the graphic T-shirt retailer Limeberry Designs. “It was hard this weekend going through a Black Friday without the typical Jane numbers that you see.”

Jane was founded by Megan and Michael McEwan in 2011. Sellers would list their wares — often women’s and children’s clothes, customized goods and home decor — on its site, and buyers were urged to make purchases with flash deals and advertising that Jane ran. Jane took 20% to 25% of sales, with sellers getting the rest. Former sellers who lauded the early days of Jane described it as having a boutique, close-knit atmosphere between buyers and sellers, which distinguished it from corporate giants like Amazon. At its peak, the documents said, Jane did $250 million in annual sales. When it closed, Jane had over 90 employees and more than 1,300 sellers who are owed money from sales, according to DSI’s documents.