Pets.com

The sock puppet outlived the company

Shut down
19902026

Pets.com sold pet food and litter online, and spent so much on advertising that its sock puppet mascot became more famous than the company. It went from an IPO in February 2000 to liquidation in November of the same year, 268 days, and became the standard illustration of what the dot-com crash looked like.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 1998
  2. November 1998 Launch
    Pets.com opens

    A spinoff of WebMagic, selling pet supplies online.

  3. 1999
  4. 25 November 1999 Feature
    The sock puppet floats in the Macy's parade

    The mascot becomes better known than the shop.

  5. 2000
  6. 30 January 2000 Feature
    A Super Bowl advertisement

    Bought weeks before the Nasdaq peak.

  7. 11 February 2000 Funding
    IPO at $11 a share

    The company raises $82.5 million on the public market.

  8. June 2000 Acquisition
    Petstore.com bought for $10.6 million

    The biggest online rival is absorbed on the way down.

  9. 7 November 2000 Shutdown announced
    Liquidation announced

    The shares are worth 19 cents. 255 of 320 staff go.

  10. 9 November 2000 Shutdown
    The last orders

    268 days after the IPO.

The site through time

Browse pets.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

1998 1999 2000 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Pets.com, Inc. 1998–2000 Founded Amazon held a majority stake after the first round, about 30% by 2000

Key figures [edit]

MetricValueAs ofConfidence
Valuation (USD) ▲ 300 million November 2000 Estimated Total investor capital burned between 1998 and liquidation

Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Announced liquidation on 7 November 2000 and stopped taking orders two days later, 268 days after its IPO. 255 of 320 staff were laid off immediately.

Our analysis: Pets.com sold heavy, low-margin goods below cost and paid to ship them. Every order lost money, so the more the advertising worked, the faster the company died.

History [edit]

A mascot with better numbers than the business

The domain was registered in 1994 and the site launched in November 1998, but Pets.com only became famous once Julie Wainwright took over in 1999 and the marketing started. Amazon bought a majority stake in the first funding round, and the money went into warehouses, a shipping network, and a campaign that was enormous relative to the size of the business.

The centrepiece was a sock puppet dog with a microphone, voiced by Michael Ian Black. It floated in the 1999 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, ran in the 2000 Super Bowl, and was interviewed on Good Morning America and in People. Surveys found more Americans recognised the puppet than had ever bought pet food online.

The arithmetic

The problem was visible in the unit economics from the start. Pet food is heavy, cheap and bought in bulk, which makes it close to the worst possible thing to ship individually. Pets.com sold below cost and absorbed the shipping, so every successful order deepened the loss. Advertising made the losses arrive faster.

The IPO came on 11 February 2000, at $11 a share, three weeks before the Nasdaq peaked. By November the shares were worth 19 cents.

268 days

On 7 November 2000 the company announced it would liquidate. Orders stopped on 9 November and 255 of 320 employees were let go the same week. The whole public life of the company, from first trade to last order, lasted 268 days, and it had burned through roughly $300 million.

The assets were sold off. PetSmart took the domain, which still redirects there. The rights to the sock puppet went for $125,000, and it later turned up advertising a car loan company, which is a more dignified retirement than most of the era managed.

Similar projects

eToys.com Worth more than Toys R Us, for about a year 1997–2001 Jet.com Walmart paid $3 billion, then switched it off 2015–2020 Webvan Right idea, twenty years early, at a billion dollars a mistake 1999–2001 Kozmo.com A video in an hour, free, by bicycle 1998–2001 Half.com It once bought a whole town for its name 1999–2017 Boo.com $135 million in eighteen months, on a site nobody could load 1999–2000

Sources [edit]

  1. Pets.com Sock Puppet's Home Will Close The New York Times 8 November 2000 [archived]
  2. Pets.com killed CNN Money 7 November 2000 [archived]

Last verified: 13 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).