Multiply to Shut Down on May 6, 2013

Launched in March 2004 in Boca Raton, Florida, Multiply had around 11 million registered users. It transferred to Jakarta, Indonesia in 2012 when it switched from a social networking site into an e-commerce site. Sadly, a year has not even passed and it has announced its closing.

According to its CEO Stefan Magdalinski, "About a year ago, our local Multiply teams were given the mighty challenge of totally re-inventing the company. After much effort, we are forced to admit that we were not able to pull it off. I’m proud of my team for their diligence and determination, despite the disappointing outcome."


Multiply has been described as a vibrant Social Shopping destination and that the Multiply Marketplace is one of the world's largest online shopping malls that connects merchants with shoppers interested in all kinds of products and services, from clothing and jewelry to electronics and appliances. Multiply has also provided store owners a free way to open a shop, with unlimited storage for posting photos, videos and blogs about their products. Multiply's social media tools allow shops to spread the word through their network of customers and fans, and help shoppers learn more about products and share their opinions and experiences with each other.

In its heyday, Multiply was a very popular social network among Filipinos, rivaled only by Friendster. But both companies have had to reinvent themselves in an effort to regain market share lost to social networking juggernaut Facebook: Multiply transformed itself into an online marketing site, while Friendster has since become a "social discovery and gaming" site. 

Quoting Multiply's announcement on its website:

We regret to announce that Multiply will be closing on May 6, 2013 and ceasing all business operations by May 31, 2013.

Multiply will maintain normal site operations through May 6. We will use the rest of May to make sure the all accounts are settled and that merchants receive full payment for all the transactions they completed on our platform. This will also provide our merchants with time to find and migrate to alternative ecommerce platforms, settle all payments on items bought and delivered, and to minimize disruption to their businesses.

Multiply will ensure that you receive all funds you earned on the platform no later than May 31, 2013. We will close the actual marketplace sooner, on May 6, 2013, to ensure that all orders have sufficient time to complete and be delivered to your customers before the end of the month.

Merchants who have premium subscriptions should contact our customer support and we will ensure that they receive a full refund for the un-used time on your subscription.

All I can say is that I will miss Multiply. I used to use this as a repository of my photos and videos, then used it to buy stuff after its reinvention. I'm sure the cause of this sudden closure is its newly formatted shopping interface, which sucked big time! It has become hard to search for merchants, products, and do other stuff. Even my bookmarked stores could no longer be accessed.

Good riddance, Multiply.

Til then...

xoxo Nash