Shopping.com Inc, the beleaguered online retailer yesterday tried to re-focus attention on its core business rather than on the various law suits and short squeezes that have bedeviled the company by releasing gross sales figures for the first quarter. However, despite the 88% rise from the previous quarter to $891,000, they are not likely to dispel the pall that has been hanging over the company, culminating in last week’s warning from the firm’s accountants in its annual report (10KSB – the small business version). Anyhow, they are gross merchandise sales, of which Shopping.com only gets a small percentage – the company’s revenues for the whole of the last fiscal were $850,724 and net losses were $5.5m. In the filing, the Los Angeles firm of Singer Lewak Greenbaum, and Goldstein LLP said the continuing heavy losses, negative cash flows from operations for the year ended January 31 1998 and the current outstanding class action suit, together raise substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern. Iot also said that the company’s survival is dependent on its raising more capital, and quickly. The company also added more than 10,000 new items in its 40 categories to its highly successful website yesterday in another attempt to revive its fortunes. The shares of the Corona Del Mar, California company were suspended in late March by the Securities & Exchange Commission because of a lack of accurate information about the securities of the company and more importantly, because share activity up until then may have been the results of manipulative conduct. Various analysts have downgraded the stock over the last few weeks, with the notable exception of Waldron & Co, which issued a buy rating. But Waldron is the company’s investment banker and led the initial public offering in July last year. This caused a flurry of class actions its against the company, Waldron its other bankers and various combinations thereof. á
