What happened to Tobi
Reviewed August 8, 2026 · verified against court filings and the retailer's own notices
- 2007
- Founded by Kenneth Chan, starting out in the San Francisco Bay Area before design and production moved to downtown Los Angeles.
- 2010s
- Grew into a vertically integrated online-only fast-fashion label, producing garments from sketch in under eight weeks and shipping to 150+ countries.
- Feb 2026
- Still trading — customer reviews continue to be posted through February, and the standing new-customer discount was still being advertised in early 2026.
- By Aug 2026
- tobi.com replaced with a closure notice. No bankruptcy filing, press release or public statement accompanied the shutdown.
Tobi closure FAQ
Answers reviewed August 8, 2026
Does the Tobi 50% off code still work?
No. That offer was a standing first-order discount applied at Tobi's own checkout, and Tobi's checkout no longer exists. Nothing can redeem it.
It is worth naming because it is almost certainly why you are here. Tobi ran a permanent 50% new-customer discount for years, which is unusual enough that it became the brand's main hook — and it is exactly the kind of offer that lingers in coupon databases long after the retailer has gone.
Is tobi.com a scam now, or still safe?
The real tobi.com currently serves only a closure notice and a contact address. There is no checkout, so there is nothing to pay for.
The risk to watch for is different: expired domains and lookalike URLs for shut-down fashion brands get picked up and reused. If you land on something calling itself Tobi that is taking card payments, treat it as unrelated to the original company until you can prove otherwise.
I have an open Tobi order or an unresolved return. What now?
The closure notice lists a contact email address as the only remaining route, and that is worth trying first.
If you get no response and paid by card, a chargeback through your bank is the practical option. Card networks impose time limits on disputes, so do not sit on it. Tobi had a long-standing reputation for slow refunds even while trading, and a closed company has no incentive or staff to improve on that.
Why did Tobi close?
No reason has been given publicly, so we are not going to invent one. What we can say is that Tobi sat in the position that has proved hardest to hold: a mid-market online fast-fashion label with no physical stores, squeezed between the ultra-low-price platforms below it and the better-funded DTC brands above.
2025 and 2026 have been unusually brutal for exactly that middle ground in US apparel. Forever 21's US operation wound down, Francesca's liquidated entirely, and tariff changes plus the closing of the de minimis exemption raised landed costs across the board.
About Tobi
Tobi was an online-only women's fast-fashion label founded in 2007, best known for party and going-out dresses at low price points and for a permanent 50%-off first-order discount. It designed in-house out of downtown Los Angeles, ran its own fulfilment, and sold internationally.
We are keeping this page rather than deleting it because the searches have not stopped and the honest answer is more useful than a page of dead codes. The going-out and fast-fashion brands below cover the closest ground.