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20 January
More ecommerce layoffs: Google, Wayfair, Saks.com make job cuts
A tough round of tech layoffs are continuing into 2023.

Google sign
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
A tough round of tech layoffs are continuing into 2023.
Friday brought more layoffs across ecommerce, as a more difficult economic climate continued to leave tech and retail platforms seeking to reduce costs in the first month of 2023.
On Friday, the following moves were announced:
In each case, it means a person lost their job. It also points to the business reality of operating at a time of massive economic swings. Companies staffed up when demand was high and capital was plentiful. Now, they are seeing a pullback in both, and rewriting their futures accordingly.
Here’s a look at each of the situations:
The layoff news at Google was communicated in a Friday morning email to employees from Sundar Pichai, who is the CEO of both Google and Alphabet. Pichai wrote that the layoffs would cut across “Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions,” but wasn’t specific about how commerce-related functions will be affected.
Pichai sounded a similar note to other leaders of the largest tech companies, referencing how the company hired quickly as tech boomed during the pandemic, and is now pulling back.
“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,” Pichai said. “To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”
This week showed that tech layoffs aren’t relenting as 2023 begins. The news came on the same week that Amazon began a previously-announced round of reductions that will bring the total roles affected by the last several months of cutting to 18,000 roles. The layoffs are focused on the company’s commerce division, as well as people operations. Microsoft, which wants to play a bigger role in commerce but does not have as large a business as those companies, also said this week that it will lay off 10,000 employees, or 5% of the company’s workforce.
Wayfair said that about 1,200 of its 1,750 layoffs will affect people who hold corporate positions, amounting to 18% of that workforce. The reduction was described in a news release as an effort to “eliminate management layers and reorganize to be more agile.”
“The changes announced today strengthen our future without reducing our total addressable market, our strategic objectives, or our ability to deliver them over time,” said Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah, in a statement. “In hindsight, similar to our technology peers, we scaled our spend too quickly over the last few years.”
Wayfair said its job cuts are coming on the heels of a restructuring in August. All told, they will amount to $750 million in savings. The company is also working to realize another $650 million in non-labor-associated savings through reductions in spending on operations, advertising and capital expenditures.
Shah said that the holiday shopping period brought a positive topline performance, with order volume being a bright spot. However, the company has long struggled on the bottom line. It has racked up $980 million in losses so far this year.
GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders called the layoffs “a necessary step to right-size a business that has been profligate in spending but has been far less successful in delivering a return.” But he said the actions should have been taken “many years ago,” and said it will be a low-margin business even if it does reach sustainability through the cost-cutting moves.
At Wayfair, “the costs of customer acquisition, the amount of advertising required to drive sales, and the cost of servicing those sales are all incredibly high,” Saunders said. “Traditionally, this has been justified by a massive expansion in the revenue line. However, post-pandemic revenue has been in decline; and with the current state of the consumer economy, going back to the stellar growth of the past looks highly unlikely.”
While the layoffs at Saks.com are of a notably smaller size than those detailed above, the layoffs do underscore how challenges are affecting individual brands and retailers, as opposed to being confined to the platforms that power commerce.
It’s also a reminder of the role that venture capital played in fueling ecommerce growth over the last several years. In 2021, Saks’ ecommerce business was spun out from Saks’ brick and mortar stores by owner HBC through a $500 million investment from private equity firm Insight Partners. The ecommerce company then staffed up following the split, but is now seeking to manage costs, WWD reported.
Amazon partnered with Hexa to provide access to a platform that creates lifelike digital images.
A 3D rendering of a toaster from Hexa and Amazon. (Courtesy photo)
Amazon sellers will be able to offer a variety of 3D visualizations on product pages through a new set of immersive tools that are debuting on Tuesday.
Through an expanded partnership with Hexa, Amazon is providing access to a workflow that allows sellers to create 3D assets and display the following:
Selllers don't need prior experience with 3D or virtual reality to use the system, according to Hexa. Amazon selling partners can upload their Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) into Hexa’s content management system. Then, the system will automatically convert an image into a 3D model with AR compatibility. Amazon can then animate the images with 360-degree viewing and augmented reality, which renders digital imagery over a physical space.
Hexa’s platform uses AI to create digital twins of physical objects, including consumer goods. Over the last 24 months, Hexa worked alongside the spatial computing team at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the imaging team at Amazon.com to build the infrastructure that provides 3D assets for the thousands of sellers that work with Amazon.
“Working with Amazon has opened up a whole new distribution channel for our partners,” said Gavin Goodvach, Hexa’s Vice President of Partnerships.
Hexa’s platform is designed to create lifelike renderings that can explored in 3D, or overlaid into photos of the physical world. It allows assets from any category to be created, ranging from furniture to jewelry to apparel.
A Hexa 3D rendering (Courtesy photo)
The result is a system that allows sellers to provide a new level of personalization, said Hexa CEO Yehiel Atias. Consumers will have new opportunity see a product in a space, or what it looks like on their person.
Additionally, merchants can leverage these tools to optimize the entire funnel of a purchase. Advanced imagery allows more people to view and engage with a product during the initial shopping experience. Following the purchase, consumers who have gotten a better look at a product from all angles will be more likely to have confidence that the product matches their needs. In turn, this can reduce return rates.
While Amazon has previously introduced virtual try-on and augmented reality tools, this partnership aims to expand these capabilities beyond the name brands that often have 1P relationships with Amazon. Third-party sellers are an increasingly formidable segment of Amazon’s business, as they account for 60% of sales on the marketplace. Now, these sellers are being equipped with tools that enhance the shopping experience for everyone.
A video displaying the new capabilities is below. Amazon sellers can learn more about the platform here.
Hexa & Amazon - 3D Production Powerhousewww.youtube.com