Employees of Indonesian online furniture retailer Fabelio have aired complaints on social media, saying they have not received their salaries from the company in months. They created a petition on Change.org in November, calling for the company to pay its staff and vendors, who have been owed funds since September. The petition has collected 1,660 signatures as of December 10. Its creators expect to collect 2,500 signatures.
The petition’s creators said that they received 75% of their IDR 2.5–7 million (USD 174–487) monthly salary from Fabelio in September and haven’t been compensated since then. Fabelio’s management has not offered clarifications regarding the fate of the company or its cash flow issues.
KrASIA got in touch with a Fabelio employee who said that aside from staff salaries, the company hasn’t paid employees’ obligatory insurance and social security contributions, or BPJS Ketenagakerjaan, for months. “I think this [problem] happens to all employees. This is certainly detrimental to us and our families. I need to borrow money here and there just to fulfill my family’s daily needs.”
Fabelio’s employees have repeatedly approached company leadership about the missed payments but have yet to receive a response. “There is a rumor that Fabelio will shut down the business, but I don’t know for sure. If it’s really happening, we want the company to be responsible, fulfill their obligations, and pay the employees before they close down,” the staffer who spoke to KrASIA said.
The most recent post on Fabelio’s Instagram account is from November 14. The post has more than 100 comments, most of which are complaints from employees and vendors who are owed money, as well as customers who are not able to cash out their refunds.
According to the company’s website, Fabelio has nine brick-and-mortar showrooms in Greater Jakarta, Bandung, and Surabaya. One showroom located in Alam Sutra, South Tangerang, is still in operation, while the others are temporarily closed, said the administrator of Fabelio’s WhatsApp business account. The admin said they did not know when the showrooms will resume operations.
Fabelio has yet to respond to KrASIA’s request for comment.
Fabelio was founded in 2015 by CEO Marshall Tegar Utoyo and his co-founder Christian Sutardi. The startup offers local and imported furniture in Indonesia. It also provides a B2B interior design consultation service for offices, hotels, and restaurants.
Fabelio has raised a total of USD 19 million over five rounds. The most recent was a Series C round that took place in June 2020, led by AppWorks, Endeavour Catalyst, and MDI Ventures. In an interview with KrASIA in March, Utoyo said that Fabelio has just expanded its business from Jakarta to the entire island of Java. Fabelio has served more than 85,000 consumers and sold over 200,000 items.