Ritz Interactive Filing Bankruptcy
Ritz Interactive, the parent company of RitzCamera.com, WolfCamera.com and CameraWorld.com (among others), has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The brick and mortar brand of Ritz Camera Centers, Inc., which also operates Wolf Camera stores, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. Ritz Camera Centers, Inc. appears to have come out on the other side, albeit a bit leaner in terms of its locations and now known as Ritz Camera & Image, LLC. It’s important to note that these are separate entities – the online and brick and mortar stores.
That said, Ritz Interactive is in it rather deep at the moment and may have trouble meeting payroll and inventory expenses if the bankruptcy court does not help it out with its creditors by the end of this week. Ritz Interactive listed assets of $809,192 and liabilities of about $7.2 million in its bankruptcy filings.
While Chapter 11 bankruptcy is a reorganization process, it looks like Ritz Interactive may need some rather big crutches to lean on and come out of this alive.
As recent as 2009, Ritz Interactive was listed on Internet Retailer’s 2009 Hot 100 Best Retail Web Sites. Currently, the company remains No. 171 on Internet Retailer’s Top 500 Guide.
[via Internet Retailer]
$100 says that David Ritz will pull the same sneaky maneuver with RitzInteractive as he did when the brick & mortar stores went bankrupt. Create a new company with a slightly different name, wait for the business to go to public auction, then buy it back for pennies on the dollar and say “screw you” to all the people he owes money to. Funny that he has plenty of money to buy back his old companies but no money to pay his actual bills. I don’t know why any camera manufacturers continue to do business with this crook.
Amen to that….
I am amazed that Ritz is in business now. They’ve got a small inventory and charge full price for everything. Who would shop there?
I still mourn CameraWorld back before it over-reached and was forced under in the heady days of the tech bubble a decade ago. Before Ritz bought it, it was truly a great company.
I really mourn the Wolf Camera store’s back in the day when Chuck Wolf still owned them… They have NEVER been the same…
I feel for all the small manufacturers who really can’t afford to take this kind of financial hit. sad.