SAN K.

It's pure luck, says Linda Sigal of the Simms Sigal import agency, that Beyond the Rack owes her Montreal company a mere $352.57, a drop in the bucket of the $44.3 million it owes to a lengthy list of creditors.

Beyond the Rack, a Montreal flash-site retailer founded by former Saks executive Yona Shtern and Robert Gold in 2009, was once a beacon of success in the new online retail world. It raised $100 million in venture-capital funding, but has never made a profit.

The demise of the company it has until April 22 to restructure or find a buyer for its assets opens comparison to many of its competitors: Gilt Groupe was bought by Hudson's Bay for $250 million early this year after being evaluated at $1 billion in 2011.

Nordstrom picked up HauteLook for $180 million U.S. cash plus up to another $90 million over three years; and the granddaddy of the model, French site Vente-Privée, is thriving, with 22 million active members in Europe.

A flash site sells discounted items for a limited time to registered members.

"It was a beautiful business in that it had no ownership of goods,'' Sigal said of Beyond the Rack, often called BTR. "They didn't purchase goods up front."