RIP Boo.com, which  finally closed its doors and called in the liquidators on Wednesday. Nobody loved it, you see: shareholders wouldn’t bail it out and there were no last minute (no pun intended) buyers. Welcome to Europe?s first high-profile dot-com casualty. 300 employees remaining after Boo’s 90-person layoff in November have said their goodbyes to the clothing shop this week. But what, really, did they expect? So many things were FUBAR over at Boo that it was a only a question of when, not if. First, technical glitches delayed the site’s launch by five months. Second, there were those huge start-up costs and the inability of the retailer to get enough customers quickly enough to cover those costs. Then there was the office on Carnaby Street., not known for its low rent rates, and the  corporate perks ? PalmPilots for all, five-star hotels on expense account ? not to mention first-class tickets to fashion shows. It had all got out of hand right from the word ?go?. Problems didn?t end there, though. The site?s Flash-based design excluded too many users, as did its ridiculous

cartoon saleswoman. On usability and customer satisfaction, Boo was already well into the red before the end came.

Of course pundits, no known for their reluctance to argue from the specific to the general, are now doling out warnings to the business to consumer sector. Plummeting valuations and absence of viable business plans have also got investors very worried. What?s for sure is that the days of online retailers having a natural headstart over bricks ?n? mortar stores are certainly numbered.