SmartBargains, a B2C firm, gets big funding
More VentureWire: "SmartBargains, an online shopping site that features discounted brand name merchandise, said it secured $33 million in its first round of funding, led by Highland Capital Partners. Other investors include America Online, Berkshire Partners, Dorset Capital, General Catalyst, Madison Dearborn, and the Gordon Brothers Group."

You thought B2C was dead? The biggest reason Boo.com failed was not usability (though it helped) but its pricing policy, because no one buys clothes full price these days. The big brands allowed Boo to sell their wares only if they didn't discount them, in order to protect their existing channels. They only protected themselves from actually selling anything (at least they managed to avoid channel conflict.) There's only so much .com hip youngsters with more money than brains you know (Lastminute, as in "buy 10 pounds of caviar for only £99,999 and get a free delivery tonight!", might have realized that too late).

Have good buyers looking for real hot deals in limited quantity, put the pressure on the customer (the quantity is limited) and here you go. As their name implies, if SmartBargains know what and how to buy, they'll get buyers easily enough. There are some hefty margins in apparel retail that you can cut into, provided you have purchasing channels. How about getting the stuff from a liquidator? Cheap pashmina shawls anyone? You might look like it's '99 but you get what you pay for.

04/10/01 update: EBay to re-sell returned goods, through a participation in ReturnBuy, which raised $15M.

06/25/01 update: Case Studies: Overstock.com, Finding Gold in Doomed Dot-Com Dreck, Vulture as Savior (articles about competitor Overstock.com).

07/27/01 update: EBay Goes Retail.

09/10/01 update: Amazon loses a PC-store partner.

12/18/01 update: Overstock.com Hits $100 Million Profitably with Email Marketing (another case study).

03/06/02 update: Overstock.com files for IPO.