It will complete a fall from grace for the London-based company, which was valued at almost £800m when it went public in the summer of 2021 and was seen as the future of furniture retail. The Made.com name is expected to be sold immediately, likely to competitor Next in a cut-price deal. After a desperate hunt, no buyer interested in taking over the entire company emerged. One industry expert described it as a “basket”. Like other online companies, Made.com’s sales soared during the pandemic only to plummet when life returned to normal. It has spent several desperate months trying to raise the extra cash it needed to keep operating. Things came to a head last week. Made.com’s shares were suspended from the stock market and the company confirmed that administration was now on the cards. Insolvency experts at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) are lined up to handle the job and are expected to be formally appointed at a court hearing on Monday morning. There were buyers in the wings, but they only wanted Made.com’s trademarks and other intellectual property. The latter, who has a large furniture and homewares business of her own, is reported to have bid around £2m for the name. However, it faces competition from Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group, which has also been linked with the auction. Frasers is a serial buyer of troubled businesses and this year alone bought online retailers I Saw It First, Missguided and Studio Retail. But she has other bigger prizes in her sights, having bought shares in online fashion retailer Asos as well as high-end German label Hugo Boss. Made.com was created in 2010 by Ning Li and Brent Hoberman, who co-founded Lastminute.com with Julien Callède and Chloe Macintosh. Lee, who stepped down as chief executive in 2016 but remained on the board, told the Guardian in 2017 that Made.com wanted to be the new Ikea. “What we want to do is pioneer the next trend in how people shop for their home and really become the alternative to Ikea,” he said. For a while the future at Made.com looked bright and, as with other internet-based companies, the lockdown restrictions translated into a sales boom. Its sales soared as people spent more time at home during lockdowns and squeezed in purchases of furniture and homewares. But more recently, the cost-of-living crisis has seen households cut back on big-ticket purchases such as sofas as rising food, energy and mortgage costs eat into their extra cash. Subscribe to Business Today Get ready for the business day – we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Insiders say Made.com’s business model was flawed. Its early success was based on a just-in-time model, with parts shipped from manufacturers only after orders. Instead of dealing with a handful of suppliers, he worked with more than 200 factories. But that model meant that when the pandemic hit, causing massive supply chain disruption, manufacturers didn’t prioritize Made.com. More recently she had changed course, tying up her cash to ensure her warehouses were well stocked. But the timing was wrong, as consumers cut back on spending when the cost-of-living crisis began to bite. At the time of its launch, Made.com employed nearly 700 people, but as it struggled to hammer out a bailout deal in September, it revealed more than 200 workers were being laid off. An estimated 500 UK-based people remain and are expected to be let go by administrators. Made.com has already stopped accepting orders, but customers who have already bought something are facing an anxious wait to be reunited with their money. Once appointed, PwC will advise clients on how to claim a refund. However, there is no guarantee that the buyers will get their money back because it is possible that the company has other debts. Given the situation, customers who paid for their order using a credit card are advised to contact their card provider immediately and make a claim under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. If they paid by debit card, the advice is to claim through their bank’s chargeback system.