November 9, 2000
The tumbrels are rolling through the e-lanes of online commerce. Not only are hundreds of smaller e-fish dying largely unnoticed but now many of the bigger ones are turning blue around the gills.

Against this somber backdrop, analyst Henry Blodget of Merrill Lynch & Co. warned today that the biggest online toy store, eToys, the biggest online grocery, Webvan and one of the biggest electronics retailers, Buy.com, are on the critical list and may not be able to raise enough cash to continue operations. Furniture.com, Pets.com and MotherNature.com all expired earlier in the week.

Nor is the plague restricted to business-to-consumer e-sites. Zona Research said yesterday that many business-to-business sites are -- or soon will be -- in trouble. The company warned that even sites that dominate their niche and are well-managed and growing fast may not be able to generate enough cash quickly enough to satisfy today's edgy investors.

Pets.com said that although it had more than 500,000 customers and had raised $82 million in a public offering earlier this year, it was unable to raise sufficient capital from its existing investors or from new ones. It stopped taking orders this morning.

Blodget and other analysts not long ago had pronounced the patients in perfect health, robust and growing rapidly. Earlier this year, Blodget boosted Webvan's long-term potential as "huge" and its stock price shot to $20. It languished at $1.35 yesterday.

eToys proclaimed rumors of its imminent demise overstated and said it had options for raising money and expected to reach profitability by 2002.

Buy.com still shows signs of life. It shipped over 1 million orders in the third quarter of the year but its stock price has fallen in recent months from a high of $35.58 to $1.66 yesterday.