Name least of Pets.com's woes; Blame poor management, not generic moniker.

Advertising Age, January, 2001 by Chevron, Jacques R.

Advertising Age and The Economist have both reported that Web addresses with generic names are falling in price following a series of well-publicized failures: Pets.com; Garden.com and Furniture.com, to name a few. The implication is that generic brand names are detrimental to e-companies that use them. Maybe so. I do agree that consumers are better able to remember an entity with a name that's out of the ordinary, such as Amazon.com This seems easier than ascribing a new meaning to a generic name that's already familiar. But if generic names were really counter productive, Head & Shoulders and Shake 'n' Bake would have long ago ceased to exist.

It's not the name. It is basic management!

Consider Pets.com, for example: I conducted research in 1995 on...

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