Discount fashion retailer BHFO, once one of eBay’s top fashion sellers, is closing up shop, with CEO Stacie Sefton citing economic pressures for end of 23 year old business.
The company founded by Sefton with her husband Jon in their basement in 2003, started on eBay and by 2014 they were one of the largest fashion sellers on the platform and had moved into a 232,000-square-foot distribution and warehouse facility.
The business continued to grow both on eBay, where they racked up over 11 Million items sold, and their own website, BHFO.com.
BHFO was even featured in the eBay Mainstreet blog in September 2024.
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Unfortunately, 2025 appears to have been a tipping point for the company as local news outlet Corridor Business Journal reports BHFO laid off 32 employees in May and a recently filed Iowa Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice shows another 46 employees will be laid off effective November 26th, with Sefton confirming the business is shutting down.
BHFO, Cedar Rapids-based online fashion retailer, closing
BHFO, the discount fashion retailer headquartered in Cedar Rapids that helped revolutionize online apparel sales, is closing its doors, company CEO Stacie
“It is with a heavy heart we are announcing the closure of BHFO, Inc.,” Ms. Sefton said in an emailed statement to the Corridor Business Journal.
“Economic pressures like inflation affecting overall operating and shipping costs, interest rates and other challenges have impacted our decision to continue business online. We want to express our deepest gratitude to our employees, customers and vendors for your loyalty these past 23 years. It has been an incredible journey and we are very proud of what our team has accomplished.”
BHFO’s website is still active, but items have been set to “sold out” and a banner has been posted on the main page which simply says items are currently not available to purchase, but does not inform customers that the company is closing.
Similarly, their eBay page does not explicitly mention BHFO is going out of business, but their entire inventory appears to have been removed, except for 2 auctions which were already active that it appears they are allowing to run their course.
Hopefully buyers who may be waiting on recent purchases won’t be left in the lurch, like customers of Discover Books were last year.
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The potential impact the closure will have on eBay is less clear – losing one mega-seller might take inventory off the marketplace temporarily, but fashion is an extremely competitive and saturated category on the platform and other sellers may quickly move in to fill the gap.
And as we’ve seen with large sellers in trading cards categories, it may be that mega-sellers need eBay more than eBay needs them.
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BHFO has also been a regular featured seller on eBay Live, helping the platform expand their fashion offerings through livestream shopping.
As of time of publishing, BHFO still shows upcoming livestreams scheduled for next week, though it’s unclear if they will go ahead at this time.
Their Poshmark account shows all items are sold out, but their account on livestream shopping marketplace Whatnot, BHFO Liquidations, also still shows upcoming live events scheduled, so the company may be looking to blow out inventory as they wind down operations by the end of next month.
Stay tuned for updates in this developing story and let us know in the comments below what you think of BHFO closing!
