December 12, 2001

3:20 PM

eToys is back online.Wall Street Journal: "Before it shut down, eToys lost hundreds of millions of dollars. But much of that cash had been spent to build a brand that made eToys one of the best-known names in online retailing. KB Toys recognized the value of the brand, and this summer acquired the defunct company's assets for $14 million," and has since relaunched the site as a skin for their own store, but with the look and feel of the original etoys.com.
posted by me3dia (10 comments total)

So I guess those hundreds of millions paid off -- just not for eToys.

The first entry for UnFuckedCompany.com.
posted by me3dia at 3:23 PM on December 12, 2001

It's been back for a while now. They seem to have preserved the original site's functionality.
posted by donkeyschlong at 3:29 PM on December 12, 2001

A Tale of Two eToys. What happens when an e-commerce giant takes on a group of Swiss cyber-artists in court? Internet chaos. Remember etoy.com?
posted by Carol Anne at 3:45 PM on December 12, 2001

all i know is i paid $7/share for ETYS not long before they were selling at twenty cents a share.

if KB Toys is so happy with eToys, maybe they can send me an XBox for Hanukkah and we can call it even.
posted by tsarfan at 3:57 PM on December 12, 2001

does this help answer mathowie's question?
posted by mattpfeff at 5:44 PM on December 12, 2001

i wonder if they sell this gag gift i got for my friend, recently: evibe. i still cannot for the life of me figuire out why that first E is there.
posted by lotsofno at 6:11 PM on December 12, 2001

More proof that a large scale web business that actually works is just the electronic equivalent of ordering from a catalog from an already established business. So how long until Amazon runs out of money?

I love the most wanted toys list. Maybe I'm out of touch but I can't imagine too many kids demanding their own personal ATM/bank for Christmas. Looks like the equation for making the most wanted list equals whatever crap we got too much of or whatever has a great mark-up.
posted by skallas at 6:41 PM on December 12, 2001

The toy manufacturers probably pay for the inclusion of their toys in the most-wanted list. I know this is how the international videogame retailer I used to work for filled its catalogue and its top-picks list.

That said, I have to give KB Toys credit for seeing a useful marketing tool sitting there waiting to be purchased for (relatively) little money and going for it. It's very good business.
posted by jkilg at 11:16 AM on December 13, 2001

lotsofno: I know I should have realized what I was getting from the name "evibe", but please try and warn us before you link to shophustler.com; some of us are surfing from work.
posted by gd779 at 11:24 AM on December 13, 2001

ah, my apologies gd779. i thought it was somewhat obvious, but i guess i should've taken precaution anyway.
posted by lotsofno at 5:50 PM on December 13, 2001