Play.com to become a customer-only online marketplace

Jersey-based French media retailer Play.com will become a customer-only online marketplace and cease selling its own items, reports MCVUK.

Play.com will become a marketplace-only service beginning in March, with customers purchasing and selling goods through their site only and Play collecting a small part of the sale.

The company blames the closure of the Jersey tax loophole this year for its struggles. Play.com was purchased by Japanese internet company Rakuten for 25 million British pounds in September 2011, and two months later the Jersey government announced it would close the tax loophole allowing retailers to skip consumption taxes on items retailing for 15 British pounds or less.

Since the beginning of January, 147 jobs at the company's Jersey office have been cut, along with 67 from its Bristol and Cambridge offices.