US-based gardening products and services retailer Garden.com has become the latest high-profile dot.com failure, joining Pets.com as one of the few publicly traded internet companies to go under.

The company has announced a phased shut-down of its retail operations over the coming fortnight. In a statement, Garden.com said:

“In short, the company has been unable to raise the additional funding necessary to finance the company's growth moving forward, and our Board of Directors' was forced to make the difficult decision to begin an orderly, staged shut-down of Garden.com's consumer business.”

The company, which began in 1995, had 1.5 million customers. However, it never made a profit. In its first quarter this year, it made a net loss of $9.9 million. Its shares peaked at over $20 in October 1999. By yesterday afternoon, they had fallen to just 6 cents.

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