Reincarnation is Making A Comeback?

A Second Chance?

If you thought that "Please Don't Go" was the last you would see or hear of the Pets.com sock puppet, guess again. Flashback to 2002, or sixteen short years ago...

1-800-Bar-None, which targets consumers with bad credit in making sub prime auto loans, replaced HOF QB Fran Tarkenton in their advertisements, by acquiring rights to "adopt" the former Pets.com sock puppet.

Hakan and Associates and Bar None, Inc. purchased the rights to the puppet under a joint venture called Sock Puppet LLC for $125K.  Ironically, BarNone's slogan for the sock puppets reincarnation was "Everybody Deserves A Second Chance"...



Flashback to 1998, twenty short years ago .... The Pets.com sock puppet mascot appeared in a Super Bowl commercial and had its own balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in 1999.

Backing a really well thought out business plan and superbly intelligent business model, Hummer Winblad was involved in Pets.com's first round of venture funding, and Amazon.com purchased a majority 54% stake in the company,

"This is a marriage made in heaven" - Pets.com CEO

Made in heaven and pure genius indeed, as Pets.com lost money on most every sale because, before the cost of advertising, the merchandise was being sold for approximately 33% of the price paid.

With huge discounts and FREE SHIPPING, more pure genius, for heavy bags of cat litter and cans of pet food, in a business where margins are only 2-4%, how could Pets.com do anything but lose money? No wonder that Pets.com went from initial operation in August 1998 to IPO February 11th, 2000, to liquidation on November 7th, 268 days later.

The company lost $147M in the first nine months of 2000, and the company was unable to secure more cash from investors. When Pets.com went public in February 2000, its stock started at $11 a share and rose to a high of $14. But the rally was short lived and Pets.com's stock quickly fell below $1 and stayed there until its demise. The company folded in November 2000, laying off about 300 employees. - CNN

The poster child of the dot.com Sillycon Valley plague of stupidity, the stock IPET, went from an IPO of $11 to a high of $14, then down to $0.19 the day of its liquidation announcement.

Now think about this latest reflation and parabolic run up in the Nasdaq and Russell 2000. It's different this time, right?   Stay tuned, no flippin, more to come in the conclusion, Deja Vu or History Repeats?