Luxury goods retailer Foofoo.com has apparently shut its doors. The site is no longer operational, and the phone number for the Virginia-based firm is not in service. The site launched last July targeting upscale shoppers.
Boo.com, another site aimed at the high-end retailing market, went out of business a few weeks ago after a high-profile launch. The European firm, which was backed by investors including Bernard Arnault, chairman of luxury goods group LVMH, Italy's Benetton family and investment banks Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan, sold its domain name, trademark and content to Fashionmall.com Inc. (FASH) Thursday. Fashionmall, a retailing portal site, said the site would eventually stop selling merchandise directly to consumers. Fashionmall sells traffic, space and advertising to retailers and collects commission on sales. It said the Boo site would be used to help it expand overseas.
Boo had earlier sold off it's technological assets, including a program that allowed the site to function in multiple languages and currencies, to British IT firm Bright Station Plc.
A spokeswoman for Petstore.com confirmed that the company has had a "reduction in force," but did not specify how many workers were let go. The pet space is one of the more crowded areas of e-commerce, with several firms fighting it out for a share of the market.
Layoffs have also been reported at ThirdAge.com, a Web site targeting baby boomers, and CBS.com.
Dotcom startups, once the darling of the IPO market, have been having a rough time of its lately.
The fallout began shortly after the holiday season ended, as firms and their investors began to realize that revenues would not, any time soon, cover the millions of dollars spent on marketing.
In some cases, notably health site Drkoop.com Inc. (koop) and retailer CDNow Inc. (cdnw), the firms' accountants and auditors went so far as to warn that they were unsure whether the sites could continue as viable concerns.
CDNow said today that it expects to announce either a merger partner or a new investor by the end of the month. The company has been working with investment bankers Allen and Co. and Deutsche Bank Alex Brown on a financing strategy.
In a widely-quoted report, Barrons in March reported a study that concluded that 51 of 207 companies it surveyed did not have enough cash to make it to the end of the year.
But just because dotcoms are struggling, doesn't mean the e-commerce phenomenon has died. In fact, a recent report from Department of Commerce found that U.S. consumers spent $5.26 billion online in the first three months of the year, a 1.2 percent increase from the fourth quarter of last year. While the sales represent a miniscule fraction of total retail sales, the growth is a good sign, since retail sales traditionally fall off in the first quarter following the holiday boom.
