E-commerce vendor n2N folds when lone client Victoria’s Secret says goodbye
What started as a high-profile project to create a state-of-the-art e-commerce platform for lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret has come to a crashing halt with the retailer’s parent company, Limited Brands Inc., pulling the plug on the technology vendor it funded to lead the project, n2N Commerce Inc.
“N2N is winding down their operations,” a spokeswoman for Limited Brands tells Internet Retailer. “As a result of that, we’re not moving forward with an n2N product.” She says Limited has not made a decision on how to proceed on the project to replace Victoria Secret’s aging, mainframe-based e-commerce platform with a new system.
However, a source close to n2N says the Cambridge, MA-based technology company was forced to begin laying off its roughly 70 employees the week before Christmas because of Limited’s decision to stop working with n2N, leaving n2N without its only client and principal investor. “It caught everybody off guard,” says the source, who asked not to be named.
Among those apparently surprised by the action was the other investor in n2N, General Catalyst Partners, a venture capital firm based in Cambridge, MA. The source says General Catalyst is considering legal action. General Catalyst and n2N declined to comment.
Limited Brands and General Catalyst invested a total of $30 million in n2N, which set about building an e-commerce platform that the company would host for major retailers and that would provide them with real-time access to data across sales channels. N2N executives said they were targeting the top 50 retail chains for their technology, with Victoria’s Secret to be their demonstration client.
“We believe n2N will reshape the retail industry,” Martyn Redgrave, chief administrative officer and chief financial officer at Limited, said in announcing the creation of n2N a year ago. “Having an independent technology provider focused on the large multi-channel retailer will allow our entire industry to re-think the expensive and difficult path of building everything ourselves.”
In its short life, n2N attracted top executive talent and important technology partners. The CEO was Ruben Pinchanski, a former executive vice president of Limited’s web operations. Stan Dolberg the company`s chief platform strategist, was a former chief research officer at consulting firm Forrester Research.
N2N was piecing together the Victoria’s Secret system with components from a range of technology vendors. Among the vendors working with n2N were Demandware, which specializes in online merchandising and marketing; Allurent, a provider of shopping cart and web design technologies; personalization specialist ChoiceStream; and Sterling Commerce, a provider of order management systems for online retailers.
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