The following was posted today on <a href="http://www.dotcomscoop.com/">http://www.dotcomscoop.com</a>:

...
Sunday 9:25 P.M. EST

New York-based movie e-tailer BigStar announced that its board of directors authorized the purchase of an additional one million shares of the company's common stock. In December, the company announced plans to purchase up to two million shares of its stock.

As part of the stock repurchase program, BigStar also announced that it has bough back 1.4 million shares of stock from ValueVision International Inc. The two companies have also agreed to discontinue a co-marketing agreement that included "The BigStar Show" on ValueVision's television shopping channel. ValueVision's representative on BigStar's board of directors also resigned.

The troubled e-tailer is struggling to stay in business, according to a source close to the company. In recent months, the company has seen its stock delisted from the Nasdaq big board, lost two key executives and sold its direct marketing division.
...

Is another ready to bite the dust?...

They've been fading fast for over 9 months now..

Can you honestly see any of these pure internet players actually surviving?

Honestly? Nope.

I wonder if we'll all be buying from B&M this time next year?? :(

<small></small>Ahh, I long for the good old days when the prices at Suncoast were more or less the best prices around!

Stock buy back?
 

What is strange about this thread is... most of the time when a company buys back their stock it is because they have extra cash and/or feel the stock is under valued. Which allows the company to keep more of any profit in the future.

What am I missing here?

If "BigStar" was really in trouble they would not be using their cash to buy back stock.. but would be using such cash to try to pay off creditors....

--David

They could be buying the stock in a desparate attempt to increase its price and keep it listed on NASDAQ. They've been below $1 for a while now.

I can image a few e-tailers staying. Probably:
-buy.com
-Amazon.com
-800.com
-DVD Planet

I may be wrong, but these seem to be selling pretty well.

DVDPlanet has a B&M retail location.
Amazon wants to start B&M retail locations.

Not sure if 800.com has a B&M location.

I am amazed that buy.com has lasted this long. They usually offer a good discount. How are they making money???

selling well, perhaps, but still not making a profit. as we've seen, this business structure can't last forever.

DJ

Of course, DVD Planet has apparently had problems with their website orders of late (that's what they told me when I called to find out why it took them eight days from my order to date to ship out two DVDs that were listed as 'in stock'). Make people wait over a week before shipping in stock items, not telling them why there was a delay (and making them call you to find out what the problem was or when the items were shipped, etc), taking two or three days (if at all) to answer emails and not sending out confirmation of shipping, etc. and you're bound to start losing customers no matter how good your prices may be.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 17, 2001--BigStar Entertainment Inc. (OTCBB:BGST) today announced that its common stock, previously traded on the Nasdaq National Market, commenced trading today on the OTC Bulletin Board.

Nasdaq's decision to delist the company is based on the bid price of the company's common stock closing below $1.00 for 30 consecutive trading days.

About BigStar Entertainment

BigStar Entertainment Inc. operates bigstar.com, a leading Shop-A-Tainment(TM) destination site, based on internal analysis of traffic, sales and other metrics. bigstar.com is exclusively dedicated to filmed entertainment products, selling over 45,000 videos and digital video discs (DVDs). BigStar's offering of more than 8,000 movie trailers, served through its BigStar Broadband Theater, is among the largest on the Internet.
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closed at .20 today.

Re: Stock buy back?
 

As an accountant I agree. When a company gets into cash flow difficulties they usually try to raise more finance by borrowing money or issuing new capital. The last thing they would want to do is spend money buying back their own shares. However, if the reason is merely to prop up their share price, enabling the shares to be relisted on Nadaq then this could well be the last throw of the dice.

I was flamed when I criticized etailers like Chpaters, but the truth remains: You CANNOT charge high prices on the web, when your overhead should be lower, and still expect to get business, especially when your prices are higher than retail. Its unacceptable, consumers won't buy it, and anyone who does deserves to go out of buisness. Bigstar, Chapters, et al are in troble because people can get their product cheaper at retailers. It is THAT simple.