Rithum

Rithum (formerly CommerceHub and ChannelAdvisor) is a global ecommerce software company that provides cloud-based solutions for product listing, digital marketing, marketplace and drop-ship operations, and order fulfillment for brands, retailers, and suppliers.

Rithum

Company type	Private
Traded as	Nasdaq: CHUBA Nasdaq: CHUBK (formerly)
Industry	Cloud-based ecommerce fulfillment and marketing, marketplace
Founded	October 1997; 28 years ago (1997-10) (as Commerce Technologies, Inc.) Albany, New York, US
Founder	Frank Poore, Richard Jones
Headquarters	Latham, New York; London, England
Area served	United States, Canada, United Kingdom
Key people	Lou Keyes (CEO)[1] Mike Vantusko (CFO) Bill Smith (CSO) Suzin Wold (CMO) Ali Irturk (CTO) Janay Jesperson (CHRO) Doug Wolfson (General Counsel)
Products	Commerce Suite, Delivery Suite, Digital Marketing
Services	cloud-based ecommerce fulfillment and marketing for large retailers, marketplaces, consumer brands and their suppliers
Website	rithum.com

The company was created by the combined acquisitions of CommerceHub, founded in 1997 in New York, and ChannelAdvisor, founded in 2001 in North Carolina, both of which developed multichannel commerce platforms for large retailers and brands. In November 2022, CommerceHub completed its acquisition of ChannelAdvisor, bringing the two businesses under common ownership. In December 2023, the combined company rebranded as Rithum, unifying the CommerceHub and ChannelAdvisor offerings under a single corporate identity.

History of ChannelAdvisor

ChannelAdvisor is a multichannel ecommerce software business that now forms part of Rithum (formerly CommerceHub and ChannelAdvisor). Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Morrisville, North Carolina, ChannelAdvisor developed cloud-based tools to help brands and retailers manage product listings, digital advertising, and sales across online marketplaces and other ecommerce channels. In November 2022, ChannelAdvisor was acquired by CommerceHub in a take-private transaction, and following CommerceHub’s subsequent rebranding as Rithum in 2023, ChannelAdvisor’s technology and operations were integrated into Rithum’s broader connected commerce platform.

History of CommerceHub

CommerceHub is one of the world’s commerce networks, providing software for drop shipping, marketplace, digital marketing, and delivery management. Generating over $50 billion in GMV annually, it provides integration and fulfillment services to both online and brick and mortar retailers,^[2] distributors, and supplier companies such The Home Depot, Nordstrom, Macy's, Lowe's, Adidas, Kohl’s, Nike, Costco, QVC, Staples, Best Buy, Meijer, drugstore.com, Walgreens, Dell, Toshiba, Sanyo, Minolta, Gateway and Little Tikes.

CommerceHub was formed in 1997 to develop e-commerce integration services^[3] for the sharing of data and business processes between trading partners. As online retailing was developing, merchants were fulfilling orders via “virtual merchant” business models,^[4] selling online and fulfilling orders via drop shipping. Founder Frank Poore, a logistics expert familiar with retailer order management systems,^[5] recognized the growing online business was attracting retailers that had never sold direct and would change the way retailers and manufacturers needed to communicate to make drop shipping work.

Merchant data transmitted via a value-added network (VAN) was generally formatted as electronic data interchange (EDI).^[6] Online businesses found EDI was too cumbersome to accommodate all the file formats^[5] and business rules the growing volume of e-commerce retailers required. CommerceHub developed a web-based approach to serve e-commerce integration needs with their Universal Connection Hub,^[7] a translation engine that provides integration to translate and normalize supply chain communications, and enable electronic processing of purchase orders, change orders, and remittance confirmations in native file format. The Universal Connection Hub supports industry communications and file format options including web browser, VPN, VAN, FTP, web services, HTTPS, EDI, XML, flat files, spreadsheets, and others.^[8]

In 1998 drop-ship fulfillment services were added to the connectivity hub to provide management and monitoring of the order fulfillment life cycle. CommerceHub’s DropShip Master provided order tracking, visibility, and event management with automated exception alerts to customizable business rules.^[9]

In August 2000 CommerceHub received a multimillion-dollar investment from Interactive Technology Holdings, LLC,^[10] and announced the signing of a contract with iQVC, the online retailing division of QVC, to provide electronic business communications between iQVC and its participating vendors to automate management of iQVC customer service operations from point of sale through delivery. The company became profitable in 2002 with the signing of four Top 20 retailers.^[11] By 2003 CommerceHub had signed on 10 major e-commerce retailers and announced in 2004 that its network of integrated clients was approaching one thousand organizations representing nearly a million unique product SKUs.^[11]

CommerceHub was acquired by QK Holdings, a supply-chain management company, in an all-cash transaction, announced in August 2006.^[12] That same year Stephen Hamlin, former vice president of operations at QVC.com, joined the company as CEO.^[11]

CommerceHub went public in 2016 and was traded on NASDAQ. In May of 2018 it was acquired for $1.1 billion by GTCR and Sycamore Partners private equity firms, who took it private.^[13]

CommerceHub acquired DSCO Inc. based out Lehi, Utah in November of 2020.^[14] A month later, in December 2020, Insight Partners acquired a majority stake in CommerceHub for an estimated $1.9 billion.^[15]