New Online Pet Retailer Is No Pets.com

from the trying-it-again dept

Tue, Jun 19th 2007 4:45pm — Joseph Weisenthal

Perhaps the most iconic failure of the dot-com era was Pets.com, which pretty much symbolized everything that was wrong during that period. Of course, there's no particular reason why an online pet supply store couldn't be successful. Red Herring notes that online retailer Pet Food Direct has completed a fresh round of investments (via Dealbook); naturally, the magazine makes allusions to Pets.com. But the lesson to be drawn from Pets.com had nothing to do with selling pet food, rather it was all about the company's profligate spending and silly marketing gimmicks. So unless we start to see a return of sock puppet mascots and Super Bowl ads for startups, there's nothing to be particularly alarmed about here.

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Jemma, 19 Jun 2007 @ 6:03pm

Pets.com RIP
It's greedy sows like me who put Pets.com out of business! Since the company provided me with an endless stream of free coupons and electronic gift cards, I rarely paid for anything except the cost of shipping. The rational part of my brain understood that all of the dot coms were going to bust up sooner or later, because they all used the same sales tactic to draw in customers.

My biggest Pets.com score was a $25 gift certificate and free shipping, regardless of the weight of the item purchased. So I bought two hundred dollars worth of cat litter. The look on the UPS guy's face was, as they say, priceless, when he innocently asked 'What the hell do you have in these heavy boxes, cat litter?' Hundreds of pounds of cat litter, carried up three flights of stairs. I opened the last box of cat litter about two years after Pets.com went bust.
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Mark, 19 Jun 2007 @ 6:34pm

Re: Pets.com RIP
So, you paid $175 for cat litter? Albeit did last you several years, didn't the wasted space take away from the purchase?
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David, 19 Jun 2007 @ 7:00pm

Re: Pets.com RIP
try chicken feed starter, from a feed lot. It is like $12 for a 50 pound bag and works great for litter. Just as good as world's best at 1 dollar a pound or so.
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DittoBox, 19 Jun 2007 @ 8:03pm

Re: Pets.com RIP
You sir/ma'am/miss have my eternal admiration.

I salute you.
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Ferin, 20 Jun 2007 @ 5:32am

Pet food suppliers
My parents use a similar service to have their pet food delivered at home. It's a hell of a lot cheaper, and they have all the nutrional info and feeding tips, plus a huge selection of different foods. They've even put info about where the foods come from up since the whole mess with the wet food a few months ago. It's really quite nice, place the order, put the can outside, and when you come home, a fresh bag of food is in the can waiting. The .com bubble produced a lot of jokes, but I agree that this demonstrates that a lot of the company's did have some decent ideas, even if they screwed up the execution so completely.
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Math Police, 20 Jun 2007 @ 9:43am

Re: Re: Pets.com RIP
if its about a dollar a pound, wouldn't it be about $50 for a 50 pound bag?
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jun 2007 @ 6:33am

Do you want a giraffe?
petsovernight.com "Delivering little bundles of love, in a box, directly to your door."
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