At the tail end of the "dot.com" era, a new company emerged in the gift/specialty market. The goal
of ebizmix was to be the B2B link between retailers and some of the best manufacturers in the industry. This site commemorates ebizmix.com and the people that poured their hearts into
making it happen.
To start the momentum,
the parent company, Hallmark Cards, used its own network of thousands of retailers and over a hundred of their best suppliers. Eventually, other retailers would catch on to the benefits and sign on.
A deal was near signing with Seaport Software, a Point of Sale software manufacturer, to integrate ebizmix into the re-order process, and research was underway to see how ebizmix could supply portable 'ordering terminals' at major gift shows around the nation.
It was a heck of a lot of fun and a whole lot of work. Sales and revenue goals were being met,
cash burn was around 1/10 that allowed, and there was excitement in the air. Within 2 years, sales of
over $1 billion appeared within reach. Talk of an IPO hung in the air. A $100 billion market was
waiting for us.
Around August 7, 2001, from out of nowhere, Hallmark stunned us by shutting it down not long after many of us had just joined the company. For some of us, it had been an extremely difficult decision as we already had proven and promising careers at Hallmark, but given that Hallmark told us we had at least two years to make this thing work, we decided it could be done, and the reward could be immense. Most employees were 'let go' immediately. A few were offered positions back at the Hallmark, although several chose severance instead. For those returning to Hallmark, there was no thought that this was something other than a return to normal, long term employment, apparently in contradiction to the official line spread after the terminations, saying that we all knew it was only a temporary re-employment situation.
On October 2001, the message 'ebizmix has ceased operations' was put on the web site. We were disappointed, but were also determined to put it behind us and get back to work. I was particularly happy when my manager said that I was to take the lead position on a project because the current lead was rotating off to another group.
Then around January 21st 2001, all of the 'ex-mixers' were called into separate meetings with a manager and an HR representative. Apparently there was no budget to keep us on as regular employees, so... they took our badges and escort us out of the building. A rather blunt and unexpected ending for sure, since there was supposed to be minimal employee disruption, and that historically, employees were their most valued resource. I wonder how they filled that lead position if there was no funding!
It's amazing that Hallmark ended up with zero presence in this space after having a fully functioning and expanding presence that was garnering much praise in the industry. Those in the know might be inclined to say that internal Hallmark politics had more to do with the demise of ebizmix.com rather than good business decisions. Some might say ebizmix.com was growing too fast, pre-empting many other long term but non-delivering projects at Hallmark, and when budget cutting time came around, ebizmix had no representation in the North American Management team at the time, so someone or persons found it expedient to kill a company and protect their turf. Then again, this could be a bunch of conspiracy talk. It would make for great talk on the discussion board. If you don't want to join this group it ok as I plan on converting this to a Joomla driven site along with a discussion board that allows anonymous postings.
So, not only did the now unemployed wonder who knew what and when as far as the shut down was concerned, you have to think the same question would be asked by the companies approached to do business or partner with ebizmix.com. You know a decision of this magnitudewouldn't have just been kicked around and agreed upon over a short period of time, and these companies were being approached for EXCLUSIVE business agreements with ebizmix.com. The fact is, some of these companies could have been pursuing exclusive agreements with other B2B vendors, but instead got burned by Hallmark in the end, potentially losing a competitive edge. In the end, no matter how you spin it, it was a truly shameful way for Hallmark to treat its employees, but it appears to continue to this day. In fact, I suspect we were the first ex-employees to be under Hallmark's then new abritration program, which has recently been in the news, and courts.
Above, a team photo. The smiles were real! We thought we had the world by the tail.
The ebizmix.com Web Site Screen Shots of ebizmix.com from 2001
Yahoo and Google search results for "ebizmix.com" Yahoo Google
