E-Commerce Times Talkback

Re: Survivors of the E-Commerce 'Death Watch'
Posted by: ECT News 2001-06-04 16:16:46

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One year ago, Goldman Sachs released a report highlighting 10 well-known e-tailers that
were facing a cash crunch and likely to fail within a year, unless they got an infusion
of funding or a new business model.

As it turns out, Goldman Sachs was half right with its dot-com "Death Watch," which was
based on the securities firm's analysis of the cash positions and burn rates of 32
publicly traded online retailers. Five of the companies are still around to talk about
beating the list, while five are gone or virtually gone. The question is, how did the companies that beat the e-commerce
Death Watch manage to do so?

Re: Survivors of the E-Commerce 'Death Watch'
Posted by: dot-com maven 2001-06-05 17:22:57 In reply to: ECT News

Perhaps a more interesting article would be the casualties of the e-commerce "death watch." In other words, an analysis of why the companies that failed went out of business.

It is far from clear that the companies that are still "hanging on" are going to be around in a year or even a few months, so what they have to say is of questionable value. However, what the failures did wrong would spell out some important lessons...

Re: Survivors of the E-Commerce 'Death Watch'
Posted by: celticsfan 2001-06-06 11:16:56 In reply to: dot-com maven

Certainly what the e-commerce firms still in business have to say is of more than "questionable value" because they are obviously doing something right to get this far and lead in their markets (pharmacy, auto sales, etc.), as discussed in the article.

Although they are "hanging on" as you say, the point is that they have made the right decisions while others did not.