Out-Law News

Ready2shop.com fails in bad month for dot.coms


Ready2shop.com, a fashion advice web site based in London, laid off 14 staff on Friday and stalled its web site having run short of funding. The closure comes at the same time as a new report saying that 130 dot.coms have failed worldwide since January.

Ready2shop.com, which was launched last year with £5 million venture capital funding, is hoping to continue its off-line operations, providing fashion content to print publications and television. It hopes that a change in future market conditions will make additional VC funding more likely.

The company's business plan predicted profitability in 2002. However, according to FT.com, the company’s only on-line revenue came from a £600,000 one-year sponsorship deal with Cable and Wireless.

A report by San Fransisco-based WebMergers observes an accelerating rate of closures in internet companies worldwide. Closures have accelerated in November with 21 companies closing in the first half of the month. That compares with 22 shutdowns for the entire month of October, which was the highest month to date.

According to the report, 75% of failed dot.coms were in B2C sector. 26 B2B companies also folded. 60% of the total were e-commerce companies. Content properties constituted 25%.

About 8,000 employees lost their jobs as a result of the company closures, according to Webmergers' estimates.

Nearly 35% of shutdowns were in the state of California. New York accounted for 11% and European companies made up 8% of the total.

We are processing your request. \n Thank you for your patience. An error occurred. This could be due to inactivity on the page - please try again.