3 Suisses puts its web shops up for sale

3SI, formerly 3 Suisses International, will stop selling items online and will turn its attention to servicing eCommerce companies. The umpteenth restructuring plan will cost 80 jobs, mainly in France.

Belgian Unigro also for sale

“The 3SI Group has decided to sell its eCommerce activities in France, Belgium, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic”, the company (part of German post order company Otto since 2014) announced in a press release. Belgian Unigro, with home decoration products, is also for sale. “We have to make this transitional step, to launch a new structure with some 40 employees, including 3Suisses Belgium (with 23 employees), which can then be sold”, a spokesperson told Belga. “80 jobs will disappear.”

“That does not mean 3Suisses will disappear or that it will shut down soon”, spokesperson Antoine Pernod said. “The sale in a new structure, focused on eCommerce and free of any other activities (insurance, travel and so forth) to burden it, will give it a shot to start over with a clean slate.” The group hopes to finalize the sale “in the next 12 months”.

650 million euro debt

Former 3 Suisses, founded in Roubaix in 1932, has been in trouble for a while. The former mail order giant cut about 1,000 jobs since 2009. The company also decided to cut its famous catalog in 2014, and rather focus on eCommerce in an attempt to fight off the Amazons and Zalandos of the world. A catalog is tied to a product range for a longer time, while its competitors continuously altered their line-up.

However, the drastic decision did not bring the desired results as the group had another onerous year in 2015, with a 60 million euro loss on the back of a 120 million euro turnover. About 10 years ago, that turnover neared 1 billion euro. In total, the company’s losses since 2009 reached 650 million euro.