The Story of Pets.com

from the failure-in-action dept

A great case study of the absurdity that is Pets.com. It's a fairly detailed article that points out everything they did wrong (things that many people had been saying since they were founded). They have negative margins, their cost to bring in customers is well over the average order price, and they're having a hard time turning visitors into customers. It seems the only thing they did well was create a recognizable brand in the form of a Sock Puppet that may be their most valuable asset when it comes time to figure out what to do with the company.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Daniel G, 10 Aug 2000 @ 1:26am

    Sock puppet a legal liability


    The funny sock puppet dog was ripped off from Late Night with Conan O'Brian. So it looks like they even screwed *that* up.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.