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Strategies & Market Trends : Can you beat 50% per month? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (2892)	11/7/2000 10:24:41 PM
From: Smiling Bob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19256

IPET- called in March, right down to the name-its last asset. Not quite a year. Message 13056691 Pets.com put to sleep November 07, 2000 10:01 AM PT by Adam Feuerstein The sock puppet is dead. Pets.com (IPET), the struggling online retailer, known for its clownish sock mascot, said today it was closing its doors after efforts to raise additional capital or find a buyer failed. About 80 percent, or 255, of the company's 320 employees are being laid off immediately, and the company will sell a majority of its assets, including the rights to its sock puppet brand icon. "I am deeply saddened by this event and regret that we will not be able to continue our commitment to our customers," said CEO Julie Wainwright, in a statement. Pets.com is the highest profile Internet retailing failure since the much-hyped Boo.com went bust earlier this year. And its demise is another black eye for Amazon.com (AMZN), which owns 25 percent of Pets.com. In August, Living.com, an online furniture store also backed by Amazon, shut down and filed for bankruptcy protection. The pet product category was once hyped as one of the greatest e-commerce opportunities on the Web -- a prize sought after by no fewer than a half-dozen upstarts. But sales never materialized and consolidation soon followed. Petstore.com shut down in June, selling some of its assets to Pets.com. Petopia.com, owned in part by the Petco brick-and-mortar retail chain, fired 120 employees, or 60 percent of its workforce, at the end of October, as the company seeks more money or a partner. Pets.com was the only company in the bunch to go public, but investors were never impressed. The company never traded above $14 per share, and was stuck for months below $1 per share. The company fell 6 cents, to 72 cents per share, after news of the closure was announced. Pets.com decided to shut down after a lengthy, but futile, effort to find an investor who would throw a bone to the struggling retailer. Merrill Lynch was hired to find a buyer, and expenses were slashed to preserve cash. In the end, more than 50 prospective partners or buyers were contacted, but fewer than eight were even prepared to visit with the company, Pets.com said in a statement. Related story: Layoffs at Petstore.com 06/02/00 Adam Feuerstein covers e-commerce for UpsideToday. Reach him at adamf@upside.com. If you would like to submit a letter to the editor regarding this story, email online@upside.com upside.com