Top Amazon seller Packable begins liquidating and announces job cuts after failed SPAC attempt

Key Points

• Packable, the parent company of top-ranking Amazon seller Pharmapacks, is laying off employees and ceasing operations, according to documents viewed by CNBC.
• The health and beauty product retailer was at one point the largest seller on Amazon's third-party marketplace.
• Packable is liquidating after a failed effort to go public through a special purpose acquisition company.

Brent Lewin | Bloomberg via Getty Images

About a year ago, online retailer Packable was preparing to go public through a special purpose acquisition company. With the SPAC market having evaporated and the economy now sputtering, Packable is laying off staff and preparing to liquidate, according to internal documents reviewed by CNBC.

Packable is the parent company of Pharmapacks, an online seller of health, personal care and beauty products. Pharmapacks was founded in 2010 as a single brick-and-mortar pharmacy in the Bronx, New York, before it turned to the internet and established a big home on Amazon.

Last September, Pharmapacks was the No. 1 Amazon seller in the U.S., though it now ranks fifth among the site's top sellers nationwide, according to research firm Marketplace Pulse.

Packable said in a notice to employees Monday that it was laying off 138 people, or roughly 20% of its staff, with the remaining 372 employees expected to be terminated as individual winddown responsibilities are completed. The memo was signed by Leanna Bautista, the company's chief people officer.