Pets.com was a dot-com enterprise headquartered in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, US that sold pet supplies to retail customers. It began operations in November 1998 and liquidated in November 2000. A high-profile marketing campaign gave it a widely recognized public presence, including an appearance in the 1999

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and an advertisement in the

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...

. Its popular

sock puppet A sock puppet or sockpuppet is a puppet made from a sock or a similar garment. The puppeteer wears the sock on a hand and lower arm as if it were a glove, with the puppet's mouth being formed by the region between the sock's heel and toe, and ...

advertising mascot was interviewed by ''

People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

'' magazine and appeared on ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. Th ...

''. Although sales rose dramatically due to the attention, the company failed to become profitable and became known as one of the victims of the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

in the 2000s. Since 2001, the domain has redirected to

PetSmart PetSmart is a privately held American chain of pet superstores, which sell pet products, services, and small pets. It is the leading North American pet company, and its direct competitor is Petco. Its indirect competitors are Amazon, Walmart, ...

's website.

History

On November 21, 1994, the Pets.com domain name was registered by

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

-based entrepreneur Greg McLemore. The Pets.com website launched in early November 1998 as a spinoff of WebMagic and Pets.com was incorporated in February 1999. After its start by Greg McLemore and Eva Woodsmall, Pets.com was purchased in early 1999 by

Julie Wainwright Julie L. Wainwright is an e-commerce entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of The RealReal, an online marketplace for authenticated luxury consignment. Career Clorox Early in her career Wainwright began working for The Clorox Company in bran ...

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

was involved in Pets.com's

first round First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

venture funding Venture capital financing is a type of funding by venture capital. It is private equity capital that can be provided at various stages or funding rounds. Common funding rounds include early-stage seed funding in high-potential, growth companies ( ...

, purchasing a majority 54% stake in the company. Amazon, along with

Hummer Winblad Venture Partners Hummer Winblad Venture Partners is an American software and web focused venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. Its founders include John Hummer and Ann Winblad. The firm was an early investor in Napster, the first popular file ...

and Bowman Capital Management invested $10.5 million into Pets.com in March 1999. The

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Pets.com, Julie Wainwright, said of Amazon's investment, "This is a marriage made in heaven". By October 2000, Amazon had a 30% stake in the company. Pets.com spent most of the venture funding on large

warehouse A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities ...

s and other shipment infrastructures, as well as purchasing their biggest online competitor at the time, Petstore.com in June 2000 for $10.6 million. A regional advertising campaign using a variety of media began, which included

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

, print,

outdoor advertising Out-of-home (OOH) advertising, also called outdoor advertising, outdoor media, and out-of-home media, is advertising experienced outside of the home. This includes billboards, wallscapes, and posters seen while "on the go". It also includes pla ...

and a Pets.com magazine, which had its first issue published in November 1999. The first issue was sent to 1 million pet owners in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

during the month it was first published. Pets.com started with a five-city advertising campaign, which was expanded to 10 cities by Christmas 1999. The company succeeded in making its mascot, the Pets.com sock puppet, well known. The Pets.com site design was extremely well-received, garnering several advertising awards. In January 2000, the company aired its first national commercial as a

ad which cost the company $1.2 million. That ad was ranked #5 by ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

s Ad Meter. The company went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange in February 2000 and raised $82.5 million; the former Nasdaq stock symbol was IPET. Despite its success in building brand recognition, it was uncertain whether a substantial market niche existed for Pets.com. No independent market research preceded the launch of Pets.com. During its first fiscal year (February to September 1999), Pets.com earned $619,000 in revenue, and spent $11.8 million on advertising. Pets.com lacked a workable business plan and lost money on nearly every sale because, even before the cost of advertising, it was selling merchandise for approximately one-third the price it paid to obtain the products. Pets.com tried to build a customer base by offering discounts and free shipping, but it was impossible to turn a profit while absorbing the costs of shipping for heavy bags of cat litter and cans of pet food within a business field whose conventional profit margins are only two to four percent. The company hoped to shift customers into higher-margin purchases, but customer purchasing patterns failed to change and during its second fiscal year the company continued to sell merchandise for approximately 27% less than cost, so the dramatic rise in sales during Pets.com's second fiscal year only hastened the firm's demise. In September 2000, Pets.com opened a new customer service call center in

Greenwood, Indiana Greenwood is a city in Johnson County, Indiana, United States. The population was 63,830 at the 2020 Census. Greenwood is located between Indiana State Road 37 and Interstate 65. The city shares a border with Indianapolis and is the most pop ...

and relocated the majority of its customer work force to

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

in order to cut costs. They aggressively undertook actions to sell the company.

offered less than the net cash value of the company, and Pets.com's board turned down that offer. The company announced on November 7, 2000 that they would cease taking orders on November 9, 2000 at 11am PST and laid off 255 of their 320 employees. Pets.com had around 570,000 customers before its shutdown. Pets.com stock had fallen from its IPO price of $11 per share in February 2000 to $0.19 the day of its liquidation announcement. At its peak, the company had 320 employees, of which 250 were employed in the warehouses across the United States. While the offer from PetSmart was declined, some assets of Pets.com, including its domains, trademarks and subsidiaries such as Flying Fish Express, were sold to PetSmart in December 2000. As of 2022, the Pets.com domain redirects to PetSmart.com. Wainwright and nine other executives stayed during the liquidation and held a stockholders' meeting on January 16, 2001 to finalize the liquidation. Wainwright received $235,000 in severance on top of a $225,000 "retention payment" while overseeing the closure. The company changed its name to IPET Holdings, Inc. on January 16, 2001 and liquidation of the company was completed on January 18.

Charity work

During the company's existence, Pets.com partnered with

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary Best Friends Animal Society, (BFAS) founded in its present form in 1993, is an American nonprofit 501(c)(3) animal welfare organization. BFAS does outreach nationwide with shelters, rescue groups and members to promote pet adoption, no-kill an ...

to start a

charity Charity may refer to: Giving * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing * Ch ...

called "Pets.commitment", which provided funding and support for

animal shelter An animal shelter or pound is a place where stray, lost, abandoned or surrendered animals – mostly dogs and cats – are housed. The word "pound" has its origins in the animal pounds of agricultural communities, where stray livestock would ...

animal therapy Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is an alternative or complementary type of therapy that includes the use of animals in a treatment. The goal of this animal-assisted intervention is to improve a patient's social, emotional, or cognitive functionin ...

service dog In general, an assistance dog, known as a service dog in the United States, is a dog trained to aid or assist an individual with a disability. Many are trained by an assistance dog organization, or by their handler, often with the help of a profe ...

programs,

pet care Pet sitting is the act of temporarily taking care of another person's pet for a given time frame. It commonly occurs at the pet owner's home, but may also occur at the provider's home or at a pet sitting place of business or organization. Pet sitti ...

and wellness organizations. The charity's motto was "people helping animals, animals helping people." After the Pets.com website closed in November 2000, Pets.com donated more than 21 tons of dog food to help

Musher Mushing is a sport or transport method powered by dogs. It includes carting, pulka, dog scootering, sled dog racing, skijoring, freighting, and weight pulling. More specifically, it implies the use of one or more dogs to pull a sled, most commonl ...

s in Alaska's Interior in December 2000.

Sock puppet

Pets.com hired the

office of

TBWA\Chiat\Day TBWA\Chiat\Day ( ) is the American division of the advertising agency TBWA Worldwide. Created in the 1995 merger of TBWA and Chiat/Day, the agency operates offices in Los Angeles, New York City, Nashville, and Mexico City. Prior to the merger, ...

to design its advertising campaign. The firm had recently created the popular

Taco Bell chihuahua Gidget (February 7, 1994 – July 21, 2009), nicknamed the "Taco Bell Chihuahua", was an advertising figure and mascot for Taco Bell from September 1997 to July 2000. She was voiced by Carlos Alazraqui, and developed by TBWA. The Chihuahua is a ...

. For Pets.com, they designed a doglike sock puppet that carried a microphone in its paw. The puppet, performed by

Michael Ian Black Michael Ian Black (born Michael Ian Schwartz; August 12, 1971) is an American comedian, actor, writer, and director. He has starred in several TV comedy series, including ''The State'', ''Viva Variety'', '' Stella'', '' Wet Hot American Summer: Fi ...

(an alumnus of

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

's surrealist comedy sketch show ''

The State A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. There is no undisputed definition of a state. One widely used definition comes from the German sociologist Max Weber: a "stat ...

''), was a simple

with button eyes, flailing arms, a watch for a collar, and a stick microphone emblazoned with "pets.com". The sock puppet first appeared in Pets.com's advertising in August 1999. As the puppet's fame grew through 1999 and 2000, it gained almost

cult status A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...

and widespread popularity. The puppet made an appearance on ABC's ''

'' and ''

Nightline ''Nightline'' (or ''ABC News Nightline'') is ABC News' late-night television news program broadcast on ABC in the United States with a franchised formula to other networks and stations elsewhere in the world. Created by Roone Arledge, the progra ...

'',

WABC-TV WABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios in the Lincoln Square neighbor ...

-produced ''

Live with Regis and Kathie Lee ''Live with Kelly and Ryan'' (or simply ''Live'') is an American syndicated morning talk show hosted by Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. Executive produced by Michael Gelman, the ''Live with...'' show formula has aired under various hosts since ...

'', was interviewed in ''People'' Magazine, ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' Magazine,

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...

and

Adweek ''Adweek'' is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1979. ''Adweek'' covers creativity, client–agency relationships, global advertising, accounts in review, and new campaigns. During this time, it has cover ...

and even had a "falloon" made in its image for the 1999

. In addition to the media appearances the Pets.com puppet made, merchandising was also done for the company including clothing, other trinkets, and a retail version of the sock puppet that delivered some of the puppet's famous lines, which started shipping on June 13, 2000. More than 10,000 puppets had been sold in its first week of availability and more than 35,000 puppets had been sold by late-July 2000. The Pets.com sock puppet toy was available until the website's shutdown. The Pets.com sock puppet also had an “autobiography” of himself titled ''"Me by Me",'' which was released in 2000, a

coffee table book A coffee table book, also known as a cocktail table book, is an oversized, usually hard-covered book whose purpose is for display on a table intended for use in an area in which one entertains guests and from which it can serve to inspire convers ...

featuring a compilation of photos with quotes. After Pets.com liquidated, Hakan and Associates and Bar None, Inc. purchased the rights to the puppet under a joint venture called Sock Puppet LLC for $125,000 in 2002. Bar None, Inc., an American automotive loan firm, gave the puppet a new slogan: "Everyone deserves a second chance." and aired nine commercials featuring the puppet in July 2002.

Lawsuit

As Pets.com's recognition began to grow, it attracted the attention of the creators of

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is a puppet character created, puppeteered and voiced by Robert Smigel. As his name indicates, Triumph's comedic style is almost exclusively insult comedy. A Montenegrin Mountain Hound, Triumph often puffs a cigar, ...

. Representatives from

Robert Smigel Robert Smigel (born February 7, 1960) is an American actor, comedian, writer, director, producer, and puppeteer, known for his ''Saturday Night Live'' " TV Funhouse" cartoon shorts and as the puppeteer and voice behind Triumph the Insult Comic D ...

sent letters, including a

cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not dis ...

demand, to Pets.com claiming that the puppet was based on Triumph. Pets.com responded by suing Smigel in the

U.S. District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

in San Francisco in April 2000, demanding $20 million in damages for

defamation Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...

and trade libel. Wainwright responded to the lawsuit, saying that "We were surprised when we received the letter because there is obviously no relation between the Pets.com Sock Puppet and Triumph". Canadian sock puppet character

Ed the Sock Ed the Sock is a sock puppet character, created and voiced by Steven Joel Kerzner, who first appeared on Canadian local cable television in 1987. He is best known for his hosting appearances in the 1990s on MuchMusic and his own late night talk sh ...

, who had previously accused Smigel of basing his Triumph character on himself, also used the incident for publicity. The lawsuit was dismissed in February 2001 by

Judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

Charles R. Breyer Charles Roberts Breyer (born November 3, 1941) is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States federal judge, Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Breyer se ...

Legacy

The publicity surrounding the Pets.com puppet, combined with the company's collapse, made it such a symbol of dot-com folly that

E-Trade E-Trade Financial Corporation (stylized as E*TRADE) is a financial services subsidiary of Morgan Stanley, which offers an electronic trading platform to trade financial assets. The company receives revenue from interest income on margin balanc ...

referred to it in an advertisement during the 2001 Super Bowl. The commercial, which parodies the famous crying Native public service advertisement from 1971, shows a

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...

riding on horseback through a ruined dot-com landscape. The chimpanzee comes across a company named "eSocks.com" that is being demolished and weeps when a discarded sock puppet lands at his feet. In June 2008,

CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...

named Pets.com as one of the greatest dot-com disasters. Pets.com's concept was successfully realized by

Chewy.com Chewy, Inc. is an American online retailer of pet food and other pet-related products based in Dania Beach, Florida. In 2017, Chewy was acquired by PetSmart for $3.35 billion, which was the largest ever acquisition of an e-commerce business ...

, prompting comparison between the two companies by analysts after Chewy held their IPO in 2019. Chewy's founder

Ryan Cohen Ryan Cohen (born 1985 or 1986) is a Canadian entrepreneur and activist investor. He founded e-commerce company Chewy in 2011, and was the company's CEO until 2018. Cohen is currently the chairman of GameStop. Early life Cohen was born to a Je ...

rejects comparisons to Pets.com, telling

Yahoo Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...

in 2019, "That is an absolute crazy comparison. I think there’s really nothing in common between those two businesses."

References

External links

Pets.com
(domain now owned by

)
"Pets.com, Sock Puppet's Home, Will Close"
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' article
"Investors put Pets.com to sleep; Garden.com wilts"
��Internet Retailer
"Pets.com is extraordinary!"
��

Epinions Epinions.com was a general consumer review site established in 1999. Epinions was acquired in 2003 by DealTime, later Shopping.com, which was acquired by eBay in 2005. Epinions users could access reviews about a variety of items. On 25 March 2014 ...

"Pets.com to finalize liquidation plans"
��''

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

'' via the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

{{Portal bar, Companies, San Francisco Bay Area Retail companies established in 1998 Retail companies disestablished in 2000 Internet properties established in 1998 Defunct online companies of the United States Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Pet stores Online retailers of the United States Dot-com bubble Internet properties disestablished in 2000 2000 initial public offerings Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq