Back in 1994, of course, the online pet market looked comparatively tranquil. That’s when Greg McLemore, a 31-year-old entrepreneur from Pasadena, Calif., registered the Pets.com address and launched the site as an online community for pet owners. Last March, McLemore outfitted the site with some e-commerce capabilities and brought it to eminent Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Hummer Winblad. The firm invested $2 million and handed the reins to Web veteran Julie Wainright, the 42-year-old former CEO of video retailer Reel.com. One of Wainright’s first acts at Pets.com was to call her old rival Bezos, who had recently offered her a job, and ask him to fund her new venture. Fresh from similar investments in Drugstore.com and Homegrocer.com, Bezos signed on.
The move was akin to a pit bull’s step-ping into a pen of Chihuahuas–everyone jumped, including the brick-and-mortar pet leaders. Petsmart, the nation’s largest pet retailer with 472 stores around the country, immediately kicked its Web strategy into high gear. “We didn’t want to be snuck up on,” says CEO Phil Francis. Five weeks later it joined with a Web venture called PetJungle to build a Petsmart Web site that will formally launch next month. All the activity also forced pet chain Petco, with 465 stores around the country, into hiring banker Morgan Stanley to hash out its own strategy.
amazon.com: The latest buzz says the e-commerce giant will expand into toys. CEO Jeff Bezos isn’t talking, but toy sites are gearing up for a fight.
