Long after the failure of Webvan, the concept of companies delivering groceries very quickly grew from about 2020, and several companies were vying for business from dark stores.[5]
The company's investors pressured it to grow very fast to obtain first-mover advantage.[7] This rapid growth was cited as one of the reasons for the downfall of the company.[8] Webvan started taking orders in the San Francisco Bay Area in June 1999.[9]
Webvan placed a $1 billion order with Bechtel to build its warehouses, and bought a fleet of delivery trucks.[10] In 2000, Webvan bought HomeGrocer, a competitor that was also losing money, for $1.2 billion in stock.[11][12] At its peak in 2000, Webvan had $178.5 million in sales but it also had $525.4 million in expenses.[1]
Financing
Benchmark Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Borders each invested $3.5 million in the company in a Series A round in 1997, buying shares for $9.58 each.[13] Sequoia later invested another $50 million, Softbank Capital later invested $160.3 million, and Goldman Sachs' venture arm invested $50 million.[13]E-Trade and Yahoo! each invested $10 million.[13] In total, venture capitalists invested more than $396 million in Webvan.
The company raised an additional $375 million in an initial public offering in November 1999, during the dot-com bubble that valued the company at more than $4.8 billion.[14] Up to that time, the company had reported cumulative revenue of $395,000 and cumulative net losses of more than $50 million.[15]
Management
None of Webvan's senior executives or major investors had any management experience in the supermarket industry, including its CEO George Shaheen, who had resigned as head of Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), a management consulting firm, to join the venture.[14] Webvan had a contract to pay Shaheen, who gave up a $4 million per year salary at Andersen, $375,000 per year for life.[16] When the company filed bankruptcy in July 2001, Shaheen was an unsecured creditor.[17] Shaheen resigned in April 2001, while the company was on the verge of shutting down.[3]
Bankruptcy
The company lost over $800 million and shut down in June 2001, filing for bankruptcy and laying off 2,000 employees.[18][1] As part of its shutdown process, all non-perishable food was donated to local food banks.[19][20]
Reasons for failure
Commentators point to several reasons for Webvan's failure:
Aggressive expansion to many cities without proving its business model in its first market[21]
A business model targeting price-sensitive mass-market consumers rather than upmarket consumers who would be more profitable[8]
Building its own warehouses and fulfillment infrastructure from scratch,[8] in contrast to services such as Peapod which survived the dot-com bust and used the infrastructure of existing supermarkets (as did the later Instacart)
CNET named Webvan one of the largest dot-com flops in history.[22]
Legacy
Thousands of webvan tubs survive as household storage bins
A large number of Webvan's colored plastic shipping tubs are now used for household storage.[23] The company's distinctively shaped vans, now repainted, are still seen.
Some executives of the company went to work for Amazon.com.[24]
From about 2020 many companies were vying to provide ultrafast delivery, similar to the Webvan concept.
^"Nevadans lose jobs at 'Net's Webvan". Las Vegas Sun. July 9, 2001. "The company's list of unsecured creditors will include Webvan's former CEO George Shaheen, who resigned in April, triggering a clause in his contract that required the company to pay him $31,250 per month for the rest of his life. With the bankruptcy, Shaheen "will have to get in line with the rest of our creditors," Grebey said."
