Todays Wall Street Journal notes that EToys said holiday sales will fall far below expectations, jeopardizing its survival chances. The firm has hired Goldman Sachs to explore "strategic alternatives," including a possible sale or a merger.


AND:

At the end of 1999, the e-commerce industry was talking, ad nauseam, about the coming shakeout. Pundits foretold a year in which cluttered e-tailing categories like pets and drugs would be winnowed down to one or two strong companies that could do battle with the Web operations of traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers.

Those who championed the bricks-and-clicks approach went one step further in 2000, arguing that true multichannel retail success could be achieved only by adding catalog divisions, as well.

The result of such Wall Street wisdom was, of course, not so much a consolidation among so-called pure-play Internet retailers as it was a decimation. Even as customers continued to flock online for purchases, investors, doubtful that e-tailers could ever turn a profit, fled so quickly that Internet merchants had little means of shifting course as prospects for profitability were dimming.

Now, with so many e-tailing companies heading for the exits, and others adding catalogs or building traditional stores, one question for 2001 is whether any pure-play Internet merchants will survive intact. According to industry executives and analysts, few, in fact, will. And those companies that do hang on will look profoundly different from the predictions of 12 months ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/te...gy/18COMM.html


AND:

Last year, employees at highflying Priceline.com enjoyed a holiday bash at a tony Hilton hotel in Rye Town, N.Y.

This year it's cookies and punch in the cafeteria. On a weeknight. Employees only.
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/2...8/2924583s.htm

[This message has been edited by doc (edited 12-18-2000).]