03 Sep Walmart To Sell Shoes.com To CriticalPoint Capital
Walmart has agreed to sell Shoes.com to CriticalPoint Capital, the Los Angeles based private investment firm and owner of JackRabbit and Olympia Sports, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Walmart bought Shoes.com’s intellectual property for $9 million in 2017. It made Shoes.com the flagship domain for ShoeBuy, which it bought from IAC in 2016. Shoes.com was sold by Brown Shoe, now called Calere,s in 2014 to Canadian online shoe seller ShoeME but ShoeME closed down in early 2017. On its website, Shoes.com said it was founded in Boston in 1999 as “the first online shoe shopping destination.”
CriticalPoint Capital acquired Olympia Sports in October 2019, Clever Training, a commerce provider of fitness gear and technology, in May 2018, and JackRabbit in March 2017. Other properties owned by CriticalPoint include FutureDontics, Alatus Aerosystems, Imperia Engineering Partners, Arlonn Electronic Materials, PLX and Inconel Holdings.
The Bloomberg report also noted that Walmart reached an agreement to sell Bare Necessities, the intimate apparel brand, to Delta Galil Industries.
“The number of customers we’re serving in these categories on Walmart.com, along with the corresponding sales volume, is very different than before each acquisition,” Walmart told Bloomberg in an e-mailed statement.
Terms of the deals were not disclosed. CriticalPoint hasn’t commented.
Was-Mart in recent years has acquired a number of digital start-ups and online players to jumpstart its online business. It continues to own Moosejaw, Bonobos, Eloquii, Hayneedle, Allswell and Art.com. Last fall, Walmart sold ModCloth, a vintage-inspired women’s clothing, shoes, handbags and accessories e-commerce site, to Go Global Retail, a Los Angeles investment platform. Also last year, Walmart shuttered its Jet.com and phased out the brand.