Why did pets.com fail

The online pet market was a crowded one in the time period when Pets. With so many competitors offering the same products and services to a finite number of consumers, it was no shock that many of these e- tailers failed.

It did have a very valuable domain name, a strong e-commerce affiliate, a very popular mascot, and other clever marketing ideas and strategies, but none proved to be truly successful in the end. They just offered products that were already readily available to consumers. It may be convenient for some people to have pet food and supplies delivered directly to their homes, but is it really convenient when they have to wait days to receive orders and pay shipping costs too?

Another factor was that there was just no way that online pet stores could offer an experience like physical pet stores were able to offer. They had to sell products below cost in order to compete, and they failed to recover from their losses. A large portion of the market for online pet retailers is not presently online.

This is a factor that affected Pets. Shipping costs for online sales are also mentioned as a reason for some businesses to avoid the online market. Some businesses can be successful even with high shipping costs, but Pets. There are many reasons why some firms may not want to enter the online selling market, and the experience of Pets. Bucholtz , Chris. Fischer, Jeff. November 14, Olsen, Stefanie. Granted, the idea of a Chinese Wall , which is meant to limit this type of collusion, has grown since the dot-com bubble.

New York Times. Company Profiles. Top Stocks. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for Investopedia. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. We and our partners process data to: Actively scan device characteristics for identification.

I Accept Show Purposes. Your Money. Personal Finance. Your Practice. Popular Courses. Investing Stocks. Key Takeaways Pets. Article Sources. The rest of the revenue was poured into high profile advertising followed by intense online, print, television, and radio advertising.

Their branding and advertising was solid with an easily navigable website; helped them in winning a few awards. But without realizing they were digging their own well with an unsustainable business model. The s had the insanity of Dot-com. The Internet was at a boom, dozens of startups opened every week. Another pet supply company, PetSmart felt threatened by the pet store website opened by pets.

PetStore also had a unique position in the market, they sell the products to pamper your furry, finned, or feathered pet friend. They also provide additional service by providing expert advice on pet care. They claimed to provide the lowest price and rapid delivery of pet products. They were an American retail chain in the United States and Canada. They were chains that had it all from food, accessories, furniture to the services of grooming, training, and daycare. They also sold and adopted various species of animals.

Their failed business model and mismanagement made them victims of the Dot-com bubble lead to the brief fame of the company. Eventually, the Pets. There were many loopholes in the company. In simple words, the whole model was an anti-business model. That meant selling off the domain name which PetSmart bought in December for an undisclosed price and the sock puppet which, in a nice bit of foreshadowing for the next bubble, went to a firm that sells subprime loans— subprime auto loans , to be specific.

Some of those involved in the failure struggled with the negative mark left in the public sphere. Wainwright, for one, laid low for a while.

But not anymore. McLemore, who runs the International Arcade Museum and is a major vintage arcade game collector , appears to have fairly warm memories of his time running the site, then spinning it off—the WebMagic website states that they had no regrets about the initial investors. And as for Jeff Bezos? Recently, I read a story about an entrepreneur who did something very similar to what Greg McLemore did in —a guy who bought the right domain at the right time.

Warren Royal. Royal has been around quite a long time, and spent time running BBSes before he got into the internet business. When the dot-com bubble burst, he left it for a while, and moved into another industry that knows a thing or two about bubbles: The mortgage industry. When the bubble burst there, Royal went back to the internet, looked around for interesting domains, and waited.

He just knew they were interesting. He soon had success playing off the election year, and that success grew after he realized that there was an amazing business model to be had in custom-made bobbleheads—and he figured out that there were factories that could actually pull it off. Like Pets. Royal lived through two bubbles, so he knew the pitfalls. He slowly turned his great domain into a better business.

I wonder if, had Pets. But once venture capital money got involved, the goal seemed to be to become a major company as quickly as possible—a path that offers no room for failure. But Pets.