On Monday, May 22, 2000, The Walt Disney Co. announced that its majority-owned Toysmart.com has gone off-line. Disney purchased 60% of the e-commerce site for educational toys in August for an estimated US$50 million. Disney execs, which made up 3/5s of the board, decided to shut down operations after a new round of financing was denied. One hundred-ten of the remaining employees were laid off. In April, 205,000 Web surfers visited the site compared to 1.3 million for Toysrus.com and 1 million for EToys said Media Metrix. "The on-line toy market is an incredibly competitive business that has some very strong players," a Disney spokesperson said. "After careful review with Toysmart and evaluation of other options, we concluded that ceasing operations and maximizing the assets of the company was the best course of action for Toysmart.com." Toysmart is the second toy site closing its portal doors this month, on May 5, Viacom's RedRocket.com also shut down.
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