Letsbuyit boardroom bickering to blame for collapse

And they're still at it

By Kieren McCarthy, 19th January 2001

Updated Letsbuyit.com may be a dead dodo, but the company's management (hang on, haven't they all resigned?) may as well rename it Letsclingtoit.com as they blinkedly blunder forward asking anyone with more money than sense for around about £50 million.

In fact the management team is rapidly making itself a laughing stock. Just about everyone - including the liquidators - has said the company has flatlined but they have decided to take the forced bankruptcy to court in a bid to overturn it. The current trustees have grown so sick of the whingeing that they put in their tuppence worth yesterday and said "deplorable" management, administrative chaos and boardroom bickering had caused the company's demise.

But still the naivety continues. They still believe someone will rush forward with the cash - even though the two companies to have a close look at it have turned up their noses - and you'll find them hanging round in corners, rosy-cheeked, declaring loudly to anyone that will listen: "It's a solid business model, it just needs some short-term cash."

No it doesn't, it a money-eating monster. The business model is rubbish. The community it envisions simply doesn't exist - people will not buy something just because others are. Its margins are far too small to be meaningful and it doesn't actually get that cheap a price anyway - all Letsbuyit is is a temporary large company that gets a bulk discount. It's a nice idea, but it doesn't work, not the way it's been set up anyway.

Let it go, lads, let it go. ®

Update

Our Dutch friends at Planet Mulitmedia have got hold of an official report into Letsbuyit and translated it for the sake of our readers. Very interesting and damning indeed. Have a look here.

Letsbuyit.com very very nearly titsup.com

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