Hour Loop, Inc
For the period ended Dec 31, 2024. Filed Mar 27, 2025.
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FY2024 · Filed Mar 27, 2025
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Item 1. Business
*This Business section, along with other sections of this annual report on Form 10-K, includes statistical and other industry and market data that we obtained from industry publications and research, surveys and studies conducted by third parties. Industry publications and third-party research, surveys and studies generally indicate that their information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, although they do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of such information. While we believe that these industry publications and third-party research, surveys and studies are reliable, we have not independently verified such data and we do not make any representation as to the accuracy of the information.*Unless the context otherwise requires, “Hour Loop,” “we,” “us,” “our,” or the “Company” refers to Hour Loop, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries.
Overview
Our Business
We are an online retailer engaged in e-commerce retailing in the U.S. market. We have operated as a third-party seller onwww.amazon.comsince 2013. We have also sold merchandise on our website atwww.hourloop.com since 2013. We expanded our operations to other marketplaces such as Walmart, eBay and Etsy in recent years. To date, we have generated practically all of our revenue as a third-party seller onwww.amazon.com and only a negligible amount of revenue from our operations on our website atwww.hourloop.com and as a third-party seller on other marketplaces. We manage more than 100,000 stock-keeping units (“SKUs”). Product categories include home/garden décor, toys, kitchenware, apparels, and electronics. Our primary strategy is to bring most of our vendors product selections to the customers. We have advanced software that assists us in identifying product gaps so we can keep such products in stock year-round including the entirety of the last quarter (holiday season) of the calendar year (“Q4”). In upcoming years, we plan to expand our business by increasing the number of business managers, vendors and SKUs while improving profitability.
Business Model
There are three main types of business models on Amazon: wholesale, private label and retail arbitrage. Our business model is wholesale, also known as reselling, which refers to buying products in bulk directly from the brand or manufacturer at a wholesale price and making a profit by selling the product on Amazon. We sell merchandise on Amazon and the sales are fulfilled by Amazon. We pay Amazon fees for allowing us to sell on their platform. Our relationship with Walmart is also similar. We pay Walmart fees for allowing us to sell our merchandise on their platform. As stated above, to date, we have generated only a negligible amount of revenues as a third-party seller onwww.walmart.com.
The advantages of selling via a wholesale model:
| ● | Purchase lower unit quantities with wholesale orders than private label products. |
| ● | Selling wholesale is less time intensive and easier to scale than sourcing products via retail arbitrage. |
| ● | More brands will want to work with us because we can provide broader Amazon presence. |
The challenges of selling via a wholesale model:
| ● | Fierce competition on listing for Buy Box on amazon.com (as described below). |
| ● | Developing and maintaining relationships with brand manufacturers. |
Market Description/Opportunities
According to Marketplace Pulse, total U.S. retail sales increased 2.5% to $7.42 trillion in 2024 from $7.24 trillion in 2023. U.S. ecommerce sales increased 6.6% to $1,192.29 billion in 2024 from $1,118.68 billion in 2023.
Formation
The Company was founded in 2013 by Sam Lai, our Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, interim Chief Financial Officer and significant stockholder, and Maggie Yu, our Senior Vice President, a member of our Board of Directors and a significant stockholder. With their vision, leadership, and software development skills, the Company grew rapidly. From 2013 to 2024, net sales grew from $0 to $138,252,861.
We were originally incorporated under the laws of the State of Washington on January 13, 2015. In 2019, we formed a wholly owned subsidiary, Flywheel Consulting Ltd. (“Flywheel”), to provide business operating consulting services, exclusively to Hour Loop. On April 7, 2021, Hour Loop converted from a Washington corporation to a Delaware corporation.
Competitive Advantage
Among the approximately 1.9 million active third-party sellers on Amazon, we believe we have two main competitive advantages:
| ● | First, we have strong operations and sales teams experienced in listing, shipment, advertising, reconciliation and sales. By delivering high quality results and enhancing procedures through the process, our teams are competitive. |
| ● | Second, we believe our proprietary software system gives us an advantage over our competition. The system is highly customized to our business model; it collects and processes large amounts of data every day to optimize our operation and sales. Through advanced software, we can identify product gaps and keep them in stock all year round. |
With respect to our advertising strategy, we advertise those products that we estimate will have greater demand based on our experience. This lets us allocate our advertising budget in a fashion that delivers positive value. We advertise our products on Amazon. We allocate our advertising dollars prudently. This is accomplished by advertising items that deliver the most return for our advertising spending. We monitor the items being advertised by our competitors. On the operations side, we constantly refine our processes based on learnings from historical data. The combination of managing the business operations effectively along with allocating our advertising budget to high value items allows us to grow profitably. In cases where the advertising is fierce, we allocate the spending appropriately. Our strategy for competing with larger competitors is to monitor their pricing and not compete with them when their pricing is low or at a loss. Competitors sell at low prices or at a loss due to a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to, their desire to liquidate inventory or achieve short-term increase in revenue. During these times, we avoid matching their prices. This strategy allows us to stay profitable.
Historical Performance
Our year end net revenues and net income (loss) from 2013 through 2024 is presented in the table below:
| Year | Net Revenue | Year-over- Year % | Net Income (Loss) | Net Income (Loss) % | Year-over -Year % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $26,135 | - | $4,682 | 18% | - |
| 2014 | $1,102,237 | 4117% | $150,300 | 14% | 3110% |
| 2015 | $2,567,267 | 133% | $228,009 | 9% | 52% |
| 2016 | $7,337,012 | 186% | $77,752 | 1% | NA |
| 2017 | $17,487,124 | 138% | $(122,176) | (1)% | (257)% |
| 2018 | $24,402,144 | 40% | $657,821 | 3% | NA |
| 2019 | $26,564,693 | 9% | $(423,073) | (2)% | (165)% |
| 2020 | $38,655,264 | 46% | $3,820,698 | 10% | NA |
| 2021 | $62,792,981 | 62% | $4,783,773 | 8% | 25% |
| 2022 | $95,930,091 | 53% | $(1,477,623) | (2)% | (131)% |
| 2023 | $132,124,202 | 38% | $(2,429,694) | (2)% | 64% |
| 2024 | $138,252,861 | 5% | $657,447 | 0% | NA |
In 2024 and 2023, approximately 99% and 99%, respectively, of our revenue was through or with the Amazon sales platform.
Pricing Strategy and Policies
In an ideal world, we would like to price our products at key stone pricing or double wholesale cost. However, we operate in a hyper competitive environment and we must stay competitive. Therefore, we must draw a good balance between gross margin and revenue. Our main objectives focus on increasing volume and maximizing profits, which is achieved with a customized auto pricing system we developed internally, in combination with well-trained business managers’ judgment on pricing skills as well as constant monitoring. One principal feature of the pricing system is that it automatically syncs public data of competing offers from Amazon regularly, so business managers can make price settings and adjustments based on accurate data, and thus be able to set optimal selling prices for products. In addition, the system is constantly improved with new features and optimizations.
At a high level, our automated pricing tool helps us stay competitive while our business managers mainly focus on increasing gross margins. Our proprietary repricing tool analyze sales trend, projected sales, inventory age, inventory cost, potential profits, Fulfillment by Amazon (“FBA”) fees, competing offers, and seasonality and determines an urgency level, then depending on the level of urgency, it automatically adjusts prices accordingly.
Business managers, after establishing the bases for prices, begin to develop pricing strategies for each product while taking the current market conditions, company goals (e.g., increasing short-term or long-term profits) and strategies into consideration. Furthermore, business managers consider different marketing segments such as costs and competitions in order to develop effective pricing strategies and policies.
The following subsections provide more insight into various pricing strategies we have developed over the years. Our internal training mainly focuses on competition-based pricing policy and value-based pricing policy.
| 1. | Competition-Based Pricing Policy: 15% of our products are toys, which are extremely popular and competitive. In this type of environment where volume is high but gross margin is low, our main strategy is to purchase large quantities, so we can increase sales volume and price competitively while maintaining an average return on investment (“ROI”) of at least 15%. We are using the competition-based pricing policy to match competitors’ prices, which means constantly winning Buy Box (as described below). Our pricing system is capable of automatically matching all Buy Box. |
| 2. | Promotional Pricing Policy: To boost lagging sales, we adapted our own promotional pricing policy, which involves offering modest discounts on products with inventory age over 45 days, which proves to be cost-effective at reducing the number of low turn-over SKUs. |
| 3. | Value-Based Pricing Policy: We incorporate a value-based pricing strategy when inventories are constrained, which can happen when customer demand suddenly spikes due to external factors, supply shortage, or seasonal spikes. We set prices to reflect the value perceived by customers, especially on products under gift categories when consumer demands are higher. Contrary to a typical seller, we opt to maintain high gross margin instead of marking down prices and running special deals during the high-demand season during Q4. Therefore, business managers can achieve increases in both sales and high average ROI of 40%. |
Buy Box onamazon.com is the top right section on a product page where customers can directly add items to their shopping carts. Since many sellers onamazon.com can sell the same product, they must compete to “win the Buy Box” for a certain product. Winning the Amazon Buy Box simply means that you were chosen for the Buy Box placement. When you win this placement, customers have a button to directly add your product to their carts, giving you an advantage over competing sellers. For a seller to be eligible for the Buy Box, they must meet a set of performance-based requirements, including order defect rate, customer shopping experience, time and experience on the Amazon selling platform, and status as a professional seller.
Overview of Market & Competition
According to Marketplace Pulse, total U.S. retail sales increased 2.5% to $7.42 trillion in 2024 from $7.24 trillion in 2023. U.S. ecommerce sales increased 6.6% to $1,192.29 billion in 2024 from $1,118.68 billion in 2023.
In 2024, total U.S. ecommerce sales reached 1,192.29 billion, representing a 6.6% year-over-year increase from $1,118.68 billion in 2023. This is less than the U.S. ecommerce growth rate of 2023, during which total sales increased by 7% year-over-year from 2022.
Despite the slowdown, total U.S. ecommerce sales in 2024 still marked the highest on record. This is an impressive increase from a decade ago in 2011 when online sales in the U.S. totaled $199.3 billion. A year later, it breached the $200 billion mark for the very first time. From 2011 to 2024, annual U.S. ecommerce sales multiplied by approximately 10 times.
Target Market Size
Total Addressable Market
As an e-commerce company retailing in the U.S. market, our total addressable market covers all U.S. residents with Internet access, which segmentally includes repeat customers and new customers to online shopping every year.
Growth of E-commerce vs. Total Retail Sales
According to U.S. Department of Commerce data, e-commerce’s share of total retail sales has steadily increased, peaking at 16.4% in the second quarter of 2020. By the fourth quarter of 2024, it accounted for 16.4%, indicating a sustained and significant presence in the retail sector. Total U.S. retail sales increased 2.5% to $7.42 trillion in 2024 from $7.24 trillion in 2023. Consumers spent $1,192.29 billion online with U.S. merchants in 2024, which is around 16.07% of total U.S. retail sales for the year compared to 15.45% in 2023.
Growth of Amazon Prime Members
Amazon has over 180 million Prime members in the U.S., and we were seeing continuous year-over-year growth over the past years.
Operational Advantages
As of March 27, 2025, Hour Loop was recognized as one of the top 23 third-party sellers on U.S. Amazon, according to Marketplace Pulse, highlighting its continued growth, industry leadership, and outstanding sales performance.
Automation
We developed a proprietary software that is tailor made to all our operational needs. This includes managing order review process, shipment management, inventory management, accounting, and complete end-to-end third-party integrations. This allows us to scale, reduce cost, and improve quality.
Profitability Management
We have experienced operations managers tracking team performances with key performance indicators. We have departments specializing in logistic costs, advertising, marketing, and product management. We hold monthly process reviews to identify early red flags and look for areas to optimize. Each quarter, we set increasingly difficult bars both to grow gross margin and further reduce expenses.
Continuous Process Optimization
In order to improve operating efficiencies, we have effective process optimization adapting to the changing policies of the e-commerce marketplace. We continuously analyze our performance based on data. We conduct pricing reviews, inventory planning and profitability analysis using this data. This analysis provides us with insights on the processes that add the most value. Using these insights, we develop guidelines that help us improve our operations. These guidelines are incorporated into our operations which include (but are not limited to), identifying and ordering at optimal inventory levels, managing merchandise storage costs, optimizing transit times, and pricing at appropriate levels. Our operations staff follows these guidelines which help them perform optimally. By continuously analyzing data, we are able to find insights for improving our business. This drives continuous process optimization and its implementation into our operations. In addition, our proprietary software allows us to continually accelerate process effectiveness based on specific requirements. Over time, our system eliminates unnecessary procedures that could be replaced by an advanced algorithm. For instance, we simplify the FBA shipment process through application programming interface (“API”) integration. Our self-developed system also tracks insightful analysis of our profitability, clearer visualizes the drivers and optimums to better manage operational costs. We monitor operational parameters that drive our business and proactively try to optimize them. These include fine tuning our item selection, managing our inventory levels, estimating demand and pricing to maximize our profitability.
Data-Driven Approach
We make decisions based on analysis and interpretation of the data sets rather than observations over the market trend. By standardizing processes and combine data-driven management, we can ensure the organization maintains consistency that is high quality. Our business managers use historical data and sales projection provided by our proprietary software to find potential product gaps and keep products in stock all year round. This advantage enables powerful predictive insights in correlating real-time data with past sales patterns.
Training Programs
Our effective training programs accelerate employees’ professional development and enable the Company to hire new graduates or people without experience. Our training programs are very task-specific and we continually improve the materials in order to fit new industry needs. Other than the training material, we assign mentors to evaluate and monitor trainees’ performance at each stage of the training program.
Task Generalization
By generalizing each task with a standard process, we are able to shift assignments at regular intervals in order to find the most suitable employee for each specific task. Moreover, business managers are also able to rotate the vendors they manage easily. This allows our organization to effectively and consistently manage a vendor when a key employee who previously managed such vendor is no longer with the company. In addition, the task generalization allows the Company to hire remote teams to further reduce labor costs.
Multicultural Management
We have a multicultural management team that is linguistically and culturally diverse in order to make judgments from different perspectives. Our remote teams in Taiwan and the Philippines provide diverse professional insights on specific tasks.
Technological advantages
Our software architecture was designed from the ground up to be scalable, secured, and easily extensible. By using JRuby on Rails, we can make use of the best parts of Java, Ruby, and Rails without paying for their disadvantages. For example, we can use the massive collections of Java library, portability, speed, multi-threading, and maturity, but we do not have to be tied down with verbose code and strict typing. Rails allow us to quickly build web pages and integrate both the frontend and the backend. The application runs on Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) and can be easily scaled up to as many hosts as needed. It is accessible from a browser, so there is no need to set up or install anything on the client-side.
Cost Advantage
Access to Low Product Costs
We lower our product average costs by directly importing items that have high volume, purchasing in bulk with better prices, and negotiating discounts or rebates over increased purchase volume every year. Our strong growth of purchasing every year allows us to negotiate better discounts than the rivals. Therefore, we have the cost advantages to compete at low prices.
Efficient Processes and Technologies
Our proprietary software allows us to tailor make tools based on our specific use cases and leverage technologies to greatly reduce manual operations. We also saved the expense of using third-party software in managing inventory, orders, product listings, and especially the advertising analytic tool.
Low Distribution and Logistic costs
We saved the cost of managing the warehouse, shipping, and product distribution as we are enrolled in Amazon’s FBA program. The program allows us to reduce fixed costs of the physical assets and quickly scale up the business without thinking much about infrastructure complexity. Apart from using the FBA program, we also use FedEx, Amazon partnered carrier, Amazon Freight, and Amazon Global Logistics to reduce expense. The competitive shipping rates we secured provide us a cost-efficient way to deliver shipments from overseas and domestic to Amazon warehouse.
Efficiently Managed Operations
We have a good management structure within the firm and a data-driven system that allows employees to manage tasks quickly and cost-efficiently.
Reduced Labor Costs
We leverage third-party logistic companies to forward or prep our shipments to Amazon, which reduces our logistic operation labor costs. We also work with a labor outsourcing partner located in the Philippines that provides virtual assistants to help us with data entry and repetitive work, which is a very cost-effective way to do a lot of grunt work.
Key Competitors by Market Size/Share
Our key competitor is Amazon Retail. Amazon Retail frequently buys from the same brands we sell and sells them at a loss. Amazon Retail offers can be identified by the “Sold by Amazon” tag on Amazon’s site, and they are formed by two components: (i) Amazon Vendor Central, and (ii) the Sold by Amazon (“SBA”) program. We do not consider other third-party sellers as key competitors, because none of them represents enough market share to influence sales outcome. The addressable market is incredibly vast; thus, we believe there are plenty of opportunities for everyone.
Amazon Vendor Central
Amazon Vendor Central allows manufacturers and brand owners to sell directly to Amazon as a first-party seller. This is one of the key competitive factors as Amazon usually buys bulk from the brands and sells at a very low price, which leads to hyper-competitive pricing. On pricing control, Amazon does not always follow the minimum advertised pricing (“MAP”) guidelines from manufacturers, which also puts us at a disadvantage when selling the same products.
Sold by Amazon Program
With the rise of e-commerce platforms, Amazon is looking for opportunities to attract customers away from its retail store rivals. In 2019, Amazon rolled out its new SBA program to help sellers grow their business. This program gives brand owners the control of inventory management and listings with Amazon having the authority to constantly monitor and change the price to make sure customers are getting the best deals. Once the products are enrolled in the SBA program, Amazon will set the minimum gross proceeds (“MGP”) to pay sellers the lowest possible amount on each unit sold. This new program is another threat to our company as Amazon is the one taking control of pricing, and they set the price very low in order to compete with competitors’ low price strategy.
Competitor Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths of Sold by Amazon
First, ship from and SBA creates competition for potential customers who prefer to buy products from Amazon rather than a third-party seller. Secondly, Amazon monitors and manages pricing which makes the product price range at a highly competitive level. In fact, the chance of Amazon winning buy box is even higher as they have the best deal for customers. Finally, Amazon is not restricted by its policy to third-party sellers. One of the critical policies is the restock limit. Amazon limits certain items’ restock quantities based on recent sales activity, and this affects the in-stock rate of popular items that needs a greater volume.
Weaknesses of Sold by Amazon
As Amazon focuses on sales more than relationships with vendors, they do not follow vendors’ MAP strictly. We believe this has led to the devaluation of brands and will have a negative impact on building a long-term relationship with the vendors. Once the vendor hands over their price control to Amazon, we believe it is unlikely for them to sell at their original target price further, and it influences their offline sales. And in fact, it makes a huge difference in profitability to both Amazon and the vendor when reacting to the competitive pricing changes.
Apart from the weaknesses of business relationships, we believe Amazon also has disadvantages in the niche marketplaces, where product offerings are narrower and more personalized. As a third-party seller, we cooperate with vendors in developing custom projects that bring product differentiation and scarcity effect. However, we believe Amazon only concentrates on the masses, which gives them the deficiency of having products that are targeted in certain market segments.
Potential Substitute Products Posing Credible Threat to Company Products
No potential substitute products would pose a credible threat to our company as we have developed a wide product diversification.
As a company that focuses on reselling wholesale products, we have the resilience to find substitution of products or brands. We established product diversification by managing wide range of SKUs and continually expand our product categories. Our business strategy allows us to mitigate risk and generate significant profit by selling low volumes items diversified across a large variety of products.
In contrast, private label sellers manage small number of SKUs that have large volumes in return with higher profit per unit. However, private labels have much higher risk when experiencing stagnant or declining sales as they would have lower capability to find sales replacements that are already established.
Strength of Barriers to Entry
Higher Capital, Low Margin: Selling online is generally low margin, but it requires high capital investment in order to purchase goods and run advertising.
Product Differentiation: Our proprietary software allows us to manage a huge number of SKUs. This allows us to participate in profitable long-tail products in addition to well-known popular ones. The turnover rate for long-tail products is slow, so newcomers are not likely to enter. It also requires a sophisticated system to manage. Furthermore, vendor relationships do not happen overnight.
Advanced System: We have already developed a highly sophisticated system which has been refined over time to become highly effective. Even if a new entrant has a team of the best software engineers in the world, it will still take them many years to refine their system. There is a myriad of intricacies as to the effectiveness of a system. Even if the new entrants have the system built, it will still take them years to collect historical sales data. By the time new entrants have done all that, our system would have continued to mature. This means we would be able to manage more SKUs more profitably with lower costs.
Risk of Entry-Potential Entrants
Vendor Vertical Integration: A vendor may forward integrate into the e-commerce marketplace in order to directly engage with their online customers.
Multichannel E-commerce: There is a chance of established online retail firms such as sellers on eBay, Walmart, and Etsy expanding their business to the Amazon marketplace.
**Brick-and-Mortar:**As online retail is growing and offline retail is contracting, there are more brick-and-mortar stores migrating from offline to online.
Improving Sales of Popular Items and Securing the Inventories Without Paying Higher Storage Fees By Engaging the Services of Third Party Warehouses
As a retailer, our success is heavily influenced by the inventory control of our suppliers (vendors). However, many of our suppliers are having difficulties maintaining their stock level due to various reasons, such as the shortage of shipping containers, lack of labor, or disruption in manufacturing. The situation exacerbates during the pandemic and in peak season. In order to secure the inventories, we start to order large quantities of popular items or buying them out to store in the Amazon fulfillment center. However, the monthly storage fee of the Amazon fulfillment center in peak season (Q4) is 3.5 times higher than normal season, which puts pressure on our profits. To maintain the balance of inventory level and margins, we are currently contracting the warehousing services of third-party warehouses, including Rahl Distribution, Inc., Singh Logistics Inc, Founder, Carolina Prep & Ship, and Shenzhen Linkhub Co., Ltd to support our overall stock planning process. By doing this, we can improve sales by preventing popular items from going out of stock, since we had secured adequate inventories ahead of time. Furthermore, we can also avoid paying higher Amazon storage fees in Q4.
Growth Objectives
In 2024, the U.S. e-commerce market continued its upward trajectory. In addition to our sales-driven initiatives, we have been optimizing our procurement strategy by transitioning from preordering to a restocking model, implementing stringent inventory controls to maintain optimal levels and mitigate overstock risks. By adopting a more selective approach to product sourcing, we aim to sustain profitability and ensure robust cash flow. As product costs are projected to decline and market competition stabilizes, we anticipate maintaining a steady workforce, with potential slight increases through natural attrition. In 2025, we will continue executing these strategic initiatives, emphasizing profit maximization over revenue expansion.
Bank of America Loan
On June 18, 2019, the Company issued a Promissory Note (the “BofA Note”) in the amount of $785,000 to Bank of America for a loan in the amount of $785,000. The BofA Note matures on June 18, 2024 and bears interest at a rate of 8.11% per annum. As of December 31, 2024, the aggregate principal amount of the BofA Note outstanding was $-0-. On June 30, 2024, the Company paid accrued interest in full.
Taishin International Bank
On August 18, 2022, Flywheel entered into a line of credit agreement in the amount of $6,940,063 with Taishin of America Loa. The line of credit initially matured on August 30, 2023. On August 11, 2023, the line of credit was extended for an additional year, revising the maturity date to August 30, 2024. On May 28, 2024, the term of the loan was revised such that maturity date was extended to November 24, 2024.
Affiliated Loans
From time to time, the Company receives loans and advances from its stockholders to fund its operations. As of December 31, 2024, the Company had a total of $4,192,995 due to related parties, which included $3,499,418 in stockholder payables and $693,577 accrued for bonuses. While stockholder payables are generally non-interest bearing and payable on demand, the Company and stockholders entered into loan agreements for loans with terms over one year.
December 2020 Loan
On December 30, 2020 and later modified on September 16, 2021, the Company, Mr. Lai and Ms. Yu entered into a loan agreement of $1,041,353 and converted it into a retroactive interest-bearing (2%) loan with a repayment date of December 31, 2021. On January 18, 2022 and January 27, 2023, the Company repaid the loan principal and accrued interest in full. Together, Mr. Lai and Ms. Yu hold approximately 94.9% of the Company’s outstanding shares. Mr. Lai is the Company’s Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer. Ms. Yu is the Company’s Senior Vice President and a member of the Company’s Board of Directors.
July 2021 Loan
On July 27, 2021, the Company, Mr. Lai and Ms. Yu entered into a loan agreement with a principal amount of $4,170,418. The loan is subordinated. The original annual interest rate was 2% and the original repayment date was December 31, 2022. On December 28, 2022, the Company, Mr. Lai and Ms. Yu agreed to extend the term of the loan, with the new maturity date of December 31, 2024. On December 31, 2024, the Company, Mr. Lai and Ms. Yu agreed to extend the term of the loan, with the new maturity date of December 31, 2025. As amended, the annual interest rate of the loan is 5.5%.
Employees
As of December 31, 2024, our headcount stands at 151, signaling a modest reduction compared to 2023. We have intentionally opted for a less aggressive approach in terms of headcount. Looking ahead, we anticipate a planned increase to approximately 180 in 2025 to support the growth of our GMS. Our strategic focus is to enhance overall competency without a proportional increase in headcount.
Executive Officers
Set forth below is certain information regarding our executive officers.
| Name | Age | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Sam Lai | 43 | Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer |
| Sau Kuen (Maggie) Yu | 48 | Senior Vice President and Director |
Sam Lai. Mr. Lai has served as our Chief Executive Officer and been a member of our Board of Directors since June 2013 and our Chairman of Board since April 2021. He has served as our Interim Chief Financial Officer since March 29, 2022. He is a seasoned software engineer who has designed and built software and code from the ground up at Hour Loop, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., UnifiedEdge, Inc., Kits, and Applied Research Labs for the past 18 years. From December 2009 through June 2017, Mr. Lai served as a Software Development Engineer for Amazon.com, Inc. From March 2009 through December 2009, he served as a Senior Java Developer at UnifiedEdge, Inc. From February 2007 through March 2009, Mr. Lai served as a Senior Java Developer at Kits. From September 2005 through February 2007, he served as a Software Development Engineer for Amazon.com, Inc. From March 2003 through January 2004, Mr. Lai served as a Research Engineer Scientist Assistant at Applied Research Labs. Mr. Lai graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science from University of Texas at Austin in 2003 and a Masters Degree in Computer Science from University of California, San Diego in 2004. Mr. Lai does not hold, and has not previously held, any directorships in any reporting companies.
Sau Kuen (Maggie) Yu. Ms. Yu has served as our Senior Vice President and has been a member of our Board of Directors since June 2013. Ms. Yu graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science from University of California, San Diego in 2004. Ms. Yu does not hold, and has not previously held, any directorships in any reporting companies.
Mr. Lai and Ms. Yu are married.
Legal Proceedings
From time to time, we are involved in various claims and legal actions arising in the ordinary course of business. To the knowledge of our management, there are no legal proceedings currently pending against us which we believe would have a material effect on our business, financial position or results of operations and, to the best of our knowledge, there are no such legal proceedings contemplated or threatened.
Properties
Our corporate headquarters are located at 8201 164th Ave. NE, #200, Redmond, WA 98052-7615, where we rent a virtual office from an unaffiliated third party under a virtual office/meeting room agreement. This agreement provides for daily telephone answering, messaging and fax services, and paid access to conference rooms on an as-needed basis. The virtual office arrangement expires on August 31, 2025. Terms of the virtual office arrangement provide for a rent payment of $59 per month.
We also lease a warehouse located at Qiaojiao Road, No. 1, Qiaojiao Middle Road, Tangxia Town, Dongguan City, Guangdong, China, who handle our storage and warehousing from an unaffiliated third party. The terms of this service provide for a base payment that is charged based on our usage. Flywheel, our wholly owned subsidiary, had four office leases in Taiwan in 2024. The respective lease terms are February 9, 2023 to March 8, 2025, March 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025, June 1, 2024 to May 31, 2025, and August 1, 2024 to July 31, 2025 and the total contract amounts are $28,652, $123,107, $52,434 and $73,175 respectively. We believe that these facilities are adequate for our current and near-term future needs.
The text of this filing, as the company filed it with the SEC, without its images or exhibits. This is not investment advice.