Talk:Pets.com

Inaccuracy

There's a lot of talk here about returning money to stockholders. This never happened. I was a stockholder and remember the announcement that the head of the company was "donating the remaining assets to charity" which maddenned all of us. The stockholders got nothing from the pets.com "liquidation" if you could call it that. So QUIT ADDING IN HERE THAT MONEY WAS RETURNED TO STOCKHOLDERS. THIS IS UNTRUE. 66.90.150.79 03:21, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry

surreal sockpuppet? WP:SOCK - ing some show?

The pets.com sock puppet bears an uncanny resemblance to the character "Judge" from Irish surrel children's tv show "Wanderly Wagon"

Weight

Approximately 70% of the article is devoted to the pets.com puppet, with very little to the company itself. That seems a bit much. --Misterwindupbird 17:04, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It was one of the most noteworthy things pets.com ever produced (which may be saying something, but anyway...) That being said, if you can find more information about the core business, by all means, add it in, and the article will balance out more. This article is still a bit stubby concerning the core business issues. I added what I could find through a cursory search when I created the article. Skybunny 21:56, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Slogan

I think the Pets.com dog's slogan was "Pets.com, because pets can't drive." Perhaps this should go in the article?

Drdestiny7 09:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment added to Skybunny's talk page, better put here

I edited your article for the facts, not what press clippings you appeared to use. I was a senior executive at the company and therefore know what happened and am aware what was reported to have happened. Your article had significant errors in almost every paragraph, starting with the first sentence. The company did not file for bankruptcy. It closed its doors with a net positive worth to give money back to shareholders. I am assuming that you just picked up articles that had invalid facts in them and your article did not include intentional misrepresentations of the facts. BettyandLou 12:35, 2 August 2006

Greetings. Welcome to Wikipedia! I'd like to state for the record that I don't have any personal feelings one way or the other about pets.com, and have tried to reference where I can. On some further review, it does appear that pets.com didn't file chapter 7, but may in fact have liquidated itself. This is great, and can be corrected easily. The only thing I'll ask here is two things related to the article going forward:

1. Please source assertions made; while I understand you were a senior executive at the company, this may give you access to insight many of us do not have, but this article also needs source referencing to maintain its credibility. If you could, please source facts to make this article the best it can be! (Please see Wikipedia: Citing sources.)

2. Please do not use this article as a ground to 'defend' the company from reports made about it. Several new parts of this article have been added with a tone like 'The media incorrectly reported...' and so on. If there are sources which bear these out, making such an assertion is not necessary, and all that need be done is reference the source after stating a given fact. If there is a credible source, for instance, that shows that IPET was profitable during its public period, please simply source that, and the facts will be self evident. If there is a source that shows that the sock puppet interview was booked before the buy by Disney, again, please source it to strengthen the counterpoint. If the case about the sock puppet being 'sponsored' by Disney cannot be verified as being said by anyone either, then it is pure conjecture and probably shouldn't be in the article at all. No matter what, sources will probably be all of our friends as we put together the facts!

Again, welcome, and I'm sure your input on the company will be welcome, as well as you can source it. Please however be aware that dozens of editors do edit this article, and there will be some back-and-forth as the details are fleshed out - and that the article must maintain an objective, encyclopaedic tone. Thanks! Skybunny 21:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

---

Skybunny,

 You seem very earnest and very engaged in the wikipedia experience.    

Here is what I am struggling with in your article as I first encountered it a couple of weeks ago. Your first declaration was that Pets.com filed for bankruptcy. I removed this from your story and rewrote the truth. Now, upon further research, you see that, you were incorrect. I knew you were incorrect since I was at the company. However, there are several articles written by journalists that reported just what you wrote. Specifically, there are at least 20 news reports that I know of that stated that Pets.com filed for bankruptcy. All are "sources" but none were accurate. Your original writings pulled from many published articles that had incorrect data in them. I am not defending the company; I am trying to correct your "facts" which aren’t really facts in many cases. By analogy, yesterday a pundit on Fox News said that he didn't believe that Israel was really firing rockets into Beirut and that damaged buildings were due to shoddy construction. This statement could be written on Wikipedia and then sourced to this pundit to appear as factual.

  Pets.com was public and there are public documents filed with the SEC that accessible to anyone.

If you are interested in doing investigative journalism, that is a good place to start. If you do care to do this, you will need to understand how to read financial statements. For example, the line item that is called, "cost of goods sold" is comprised of many elements, not just product costs. There are picking and packing costs added into the line item. The sales and marketing line item includes among other things, warehouse costs, and customer service and space allocation. It is not just advertising dollars. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BettyandLou (talk • contribs)

I think everyone here welcomes your corrections and insights. Corrections are good, but statements backed up by references are better. Sources aren't a guarantee of truthfulness, but they do allow one to verify the veracity of the facts and of the speaker: the fact that your pundit was on Fox News, for example, would lead me (given my own opinion of Fox News) to question his statements, but only if the fact were properly cited.

Given your knowledge of the company, you probably have useful knowledge as to good published records about the company. Did you collect news clippings? Have you given any published interviews? Add a link to them to the page. You probably know how to read your company's financial statements better than we could; can you refer the reader to the appropriate section of those reports? This will make the article stronger and more encyclopedic, than if it relies only on your word: you are, after all, posting anonymously. --ScottAlanHill 07:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

"It closed its doors with a net positive worth to give money back to shareholders." I have posted a response to this fabrication here several times and for some reason it keeps getting removed. I was a stockholder, and pets.com did NOT give anything back to any of us. In fact, what really happened was the person who was running pets.com liquidated all of their inventory and then donated the money they got to charity. And yes they did declare bankruptcy, but only after doing this specifically so that stockholders could get nothing. I think this person is protecting his/her reputation and resume and is not interested in this being a fair article. I would suggest this person being blocked from being able to write on this article altogether, since this is the fourth or fifth time I have had to say this and it keeps getting deleted. 72.177.35.88 (talk) 00:03, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

PC world article

This is currently linked to from PC World's 25 worst websites just so you are all aware.Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 16:39, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Dog Treats?

The last sentence of the article claims that the Pets.com Sock puppet had his own brand of dog treats in 2004. Is there a source for this statement?TDS18 02:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

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