Subscribe to our FREE Newsletter , or Telegram and WhatsApp channels for the latest stories and updates. Other than questioning Khazanah Nasional Bhd (Khazanah) and Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB)’s reasoning to invest millions in FashionValet (FV), many have wondered what led to the e-commerce website’s fall. Since the investment used public funds, many wanted to know why FashionValet which started out promising failed at the end of the day.
Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan pointed out three probable factors that led to FashionValet’s downfall while answering Bukit Bendera MP Syarleen Abdul Rashid’s question at the Dewan Rakyat yesterday (114 November). The three points are: The Covid-19 pandemic changed the way we did things. Businesses with physical stores had to pivot to an online business model, especially during the Movement Control Order (MCO) periods.
This also meant fewer people were buying premium products, such as the luxury headscarves sold by FashionValet’s dUCk brand. FashionValet’s aspiration to become a multi-channel shopping platform featuring local brands led them to rapidly build more physical stores. However, the pandemic threw a wrench in the plans and the market for premium clothing fell significantly.
FashionValet experienced strong competition from other social media sites with a marketplace such as Facebook. This forced FashionValet to focus only on its own home brands such as dUCk and LILIT. As such, FashionValet’s site w.