It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

It's tough to keep up with all the Internet retailers biting the dust these days. Just over the past few weeks, we've seen the disappearance of beauty goods store Eve.com, teen site Kibu, and luxury goods e-tailer Miadora. Short-sellers are betting that one of the next to fall may be a company called Global Sports Inc. (GSPT), which has its fortunes linked to e-commerce. About 1.8 million shares of the company's stock have been sold short, according to the National Association of Securities Dealers. That's an astonishing 68 times the average daily trading volume in the stock. Compare that with a mere five days of short interest for e-tail punching bag Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and less than a day for the much-maligned Priceline.com (PCLN).

But short-sellers may be betting on the wrong company going belly-up. Although it's dependent on electronic commerce, Global Sports isn't one of the let's-spend-everything-we-have-on-TV-advertising dot-coms. Rather, it's a new model of what e-tailers can do to make money. Global Sports builds and runs the e-commerce sites for other, better-known companies, such as Athlete's Foot, Sports Authority (TSA), and BlueLight.com, the online arm of Kmart (KM). The companies with the established brand names do the marketing, and Global Sports takes care of managing their Web sites.