Entrepreneurship Failure
Reflection Paper: Entrepreneurship Failure
Table of Contents
Introduction and History of the Small Business Failure……..…………. 3
Reason for Business Failure ………………………………………………5
Analysis of Failure and Opinions ……………………………………….. 7
References ……………………………………………………………….. 10
Introduction
Of the many failed businesses to do my research paper on, I found Pets.com’s failure to be of particular interest. Introduced and launched to the world in August of 1998, Pets.com was originally created as a way to sell pet food and supplies over the internet. The basic idea was to serve all the pet owners in the billion dollar pet industry. They wanted to offer people who owned pets the convenience to make purchases over the internet and have the items shipped without having the hassle of driving to their local pet store.
Pets.com wanted people to “take advantage of their strong buying power” and thus eliminate the middleman. Potential customers may easily browse through their various categories on their website, pick out products they want and have them quickly delivered to their home. Pets.com made available to consumers an extensive product selection, large-scale inventory, competitive prices, and expert consultancy coming from a staff of pet-industry experts and veterinarians (Gray, 2009).
The concept was pretty much like that of Amazon when they first started (Amazon was also an investor of Pets.com) but instead of books it was pet products. Pets.com had a dog sock puppet as their mascot/spokes-dog and their motto on their commercials was “because pets can’t drive”. Pets.com had hoped to become the “one-stop shop for pet supplies" by providing a much wider product range for their customers compared to its competitors. A few of their main rivalry within the online pet industry were Petsmart.com, PetPlanet.com, Petopia.com, and Petstore.com. However, Pets.com did have a first-mover advantage as one of the very first
Table of Contents
Introduction and History of the Small Business Failure……..…………. 3
Reason for Business Failure ………………………………………………5
Analysis of Failure and Opinions ……………………………………….. 7
References ……………………………………………………………….. 10
Introduction
Of the many failed businesses to do my research paper on, I found Pets.com’s failure to be of particular interest. Introduced and launched to the world in August of 1998, Pets.com was originally created as a way to sell pet food and supplies over the internet. The basic idea was to serve all the pet owners in the billion dollar pet industry. They wanted to offer people who owned pets the convenience to make purchases over the internet and have the items shipped without having the hassle of driving to their local pet store.
Pets.com wanted people to “take advantage of their strong buying power” and thus eliminate the middleman. Potential customers may easily browse through their various categories on their website, pick out products they want and have them quickly delivered to their home. Pets.com made available to consumers an extensive product selection, large-scale inventory, competitive prices, and expert consultancy coming from a staff of pet-industry experts and veterinarians (Gray, 2009).
The concept was pretty much like that of Amazon when they first started (Amazon was also an investor of Pets.com) but instead of books it was pet products. Pets.com had a dog sock puppet as their mascot/spokes-dog and their motto on their commercials was “because pets can’t drive”. Pets.com had hoped to become the “one-stop shop for pet supplies" by providing a much wider product range for their customers compared to its competitors. A few of their main rivalry within the online pet industry were Petsmart.com, PetPlanet.com, Petopia.com, and Petstore.com. However, Pets.com did have a first-mover advantage as one of the very first
References: Bucholtz, Chris. “Poor Product Choices Doom E-tailer E-failures.” VARBusiness. November, 2000. Wolverton, Troy. “Pets.com Lacks Bite on First day of Trading.” CNET News.com. February 11, 2000. Gray, Paul. “Pets.com – A Classic Example of Product Development Failure” Brainmates.com.au. December 23, 2009 Wolverton, Troy. “Pets.com Raises $82.5 Million Today in an Initial Public Offering.” CNET News.com. February 10, 2000. Fischer, Jeff. “Why Pets.com Died.” MotleyFool.com. November 14, 2000. Crosby, Janet. “Because Pets Don’t Shop” Vetmedicine.About.com November, 2000.