In December 2012, Gome announced the integration of its two ecommerce arms Gome.com and Coo8 (via acquisition). And now we finally knew how the process panned out: about 400 staff were laid off while 90% were from Coo8.com.
Gome.com’s spokesman Peng Liang explained the apparently partial move citing overlap of positions. Mr. Peng said that C008 was an influential brand in e-commerce market and had obtained users’ recognition and would continue to exist. The principle of this integration was to achieve unity in diversity based on internal resource sharing.
According to the new plan, Gome.com will be focusing on building its online business while coo8 would be taking control of categories management and run as an open platform independently.
Gome still lags behind its other peers like 360buy and Suning, even the up-and-commer Yixun (also goes by 51buy.com) appears to be having greater momentum than Gome’s ecommerce initiatives.
Image credit: Coo8.com