Two years, a handful of lawsuits and hundreds of customer complaints later, the inevitable has happened: Burke Decor has shut down its site. As of this week, the Ohio-based e-commerce retailer’s homepage features an image of a lone candle, along with the message “We are not currently accepting new orders” and a link to contact client services.
The development follows the news that Burke Decor’s assets were listed in a somewhat mysterious foreclosure auction last Wednesday. The sale, conducted under the Uniform Commercial Code, was forced by Ampla, the company’s prime lender. It was not a public auction, and the lawyer overseeing the sale did not respond to requests for comment—nor did Burke Decor. In other words: It’s not yet clear who, if anyone, purchased what was left of the troubled brand.
The closure leaves both vendors and customers in the lurch. Late last year, FedEx sued Burke Decor for an alleged $1.7 million in unpaid bills. Meanwhile, last month Ohio attorney general Dave Yost sued the company in an attempt to recover $380,000 plus damages on behalf of more than 350 consumers. However, the total volume of jilted customers and missing money is not clear, and a Facebook group titled “Burke Decor Scammed Me” is rife with complaints, some dating back to early last year.
Burke Decor was founded in the late aughts by entrepreneur Erin Burke. Over the years, the site grew to include a small brick-and-mortar operation; a partnership with the video game Design Home; and a white-label service that provided e-commerce operations for others. Despite remaining a lean operation, vendors who worked with the company say that Burke Decor did more with less—the site’s curation managed to attract a clientele that included designers and celebrities.
The company began to experience serious problems in 2023, with customers’ orders going unfulfilled and refunds that never got paid. In an email exchange with Business of Home the following year, Burke pointed to several problems: “The business climate compounded with complex and unexpected lender issues, as well as systems changes and ‘updates’ we have faced with our e-commerce partner, payment processors, and search and advertising platform issues [with] Google [and] Meta that are beyond our control have presented significant challenges.”
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Early in 2024, there was some positive news: Some customers, including designers, were refunded directly via a Venmo or Zelle payment. The upbeat news was short-lived; in mid-May, the company was hit with a $6.4 million lawsuit by Ampla alleging failure to make key payments and Burke’s “fraudulent misrepresentations” of her company’s financial health.
Though the lawsuit was ultimately withdrawn on procedural grounds, several former employees told BOH at the time that the situation internally at Burke Decor continued to decline, with layoffs and missed payments continuing throughout the year. In the summer, Burke filed for personal bankruptcy in California, in a case that mingled her own finances with her company’s. Pinterest was one of her creditors.
Despite these struggles (and an exodus of vendors listing their product), Burke Decor’s website remained active throughout the drama. Its closing down will not get jilted customers their money back—and murkiness remains around what has happened to the company’s assets. But at the very least, the development ends a long and turbulent chapter for Burke Decor.
