Candy manufacturer says so long to selling online.
Rick, I think we have an answer to your question as to why Hershey’s wasn’t interested in your Candy.com domain name. They’re giving up on e-commerce (at least for now).
According to several reports out today, the company is closing down its online store. A company spokesperson is quoted as saying “The present business model is not sustainable.”
The truth is that the model of selling candy online is a great one, but probably not right for Hershey’s. Sites such as Gumball.com, which cater to bulk candy buyers and store owners, and also luxury candy sites, are all positioned nicely online. But buying a mediocre candy bar gift basket online? Probably not.
[Thanks Jack for the tip.]
David J Castello says
Something’s seriously wrong here. If Hershey’s can’t turn a profit on-line the problem lies with their site and not their product. There’s no possible way a brand that popular can’t turn a profit unless the site was manned with ridiculous overhead/staffing. My initial reaction is that the site is being “managed” by their IT department.
Troy says
Hershey’s is probably paying 100 people to run the site, take orders and ship product when it could be done by 10-20. This is why these big companies have the hardest time making it online, because the business model is so different from what they are used to.
jblack says
So stocking store shelves by hand, moving the same product from location to location prior to any actual sales, inventory costs, unsolicited TV ads, etc., is MORE profitable than running at least a portion of the business online? The abacus enabled MBAs that provided this “conclusion” should be canned.
Domain Investor says
Quote –
“The abacus enabled MBAs that provided this “conclusion” should be canned.”
Most MBAs do not believe “bigger is better”.
If anything, they are trained to efficiently maximize business operations.
Signed,
MBA
Johnny says
Out with the Old Guard. 🙂
It shows Hersheys is not clever enough figure out the new business formula for success and simply wants to go back to old ways which is painless for them.
john andrews says
I completely agree Hershey simply doesn’t know how to make a profit selling its candies online. That web store is out of style, the products poorly marketed and too expensive.
Marketing fail. You might be able to sell Hershey kisses for a premium in the gift shop at Hershey Park, but you won’t sell many with a shopping cart online configured with theme park gift shop prices.
jblack says
Exactly why they should be canned DomainInvestor. Their replacements should upgrade the abacuses too.
Stephen Douglas says
Hershey’s = Old School, dependent on ad agency, old style marketing, slow to change (have they ever changed?), old fashioned “image” and not ready as a family-started corporate business to embrace “New Media”.
My assessment is that two Hershey executives: Javier Idrovo, Sr. VP of Strategy, Business Dev; and Michele Buck, Sr. VP and Global Chief Marketing Officer, dropped the ball on this one (probably serving only as “yes-men,” due respect to the gender of Michele).
Unfortunately, now all Hershey’s has to do is study how similar their New Media direction is to the past GM corporate policies to see the path on which they are headed. The BOD of Hershey’s should ask at their next board meeting: “What are they (Javier and Michele) doing to justify their paychecks”?
As for the running of the Hershey’s website, it’s most likely problematic EXACTLY as described by the above comments by Domain Investor, jblack, Johnny, Davey C, and anyone else who can “see into the cave” of Hershey’s lack of forward thinking.
However, the real question about who should have bought Candy.com can be addressed to Mars, Inc. Check out their website at http://www.mars.com.
Their whole theme is “global markets” and “making a difference” based on a century of experience. Their home page intro is New Media-based. Mars, Inc. is the candy company that we domainers should be scratching our heads wondering why they let this domain get by them…
Heck, dancing M&M characters should have spelled out “CANDY.COM” right from the start. Too bad.
The trouble doesn’t stop there. It gets worse:
I typed Candy.com into my browser and their website looks like the buyers of the domain only paid a few hundred dollars for the domain. The website is hideous. They didn’t even run spell check (“signifcant”, and “whats” are within the first 100 words on the site), the content text is “centered” with a serif font, and on Firefox, no images loaded except some bizarrely bloated logo. The image tags did redirect, but their destinations were even more frightening!!!
*pause*
What marketing vehicles are the new owners of Candy.com’s using to promote this very valuable and category-killing domain?
FACEBOOK and TWITTER!
No, I’m not kidding you. Check it out. It’s like they bought into some lame marketing director’s “theory” of how to “explode” their demographic and customer base. Yoiks! What’s scary is that Twitter has them with less than 500 followers. I wish I could have bolded that.
Come on, people. This domain can command an empire of online candy sales. This is NOT a good start out of the gate. They need someone with some true online marketing experience just to simply take advantage of the typein traffic they are receiving RIGHT NOW. Using standard social network sites to do “create their first image” makes them look weak, and it makes their company/website look cavalier and lazy.
So the second question for domainers is:
What are the (quote) “two highly experienced confectionary executives Joe Melville, CEO of Melville Candy Corporation & (Note: yes, they used an ampersand in place of the word “and”) Greg Balestrieri, Vice President of Melville Candy Corporation the 30 year old family-owned candy manufacturing company owned by Gary Melville…” doing with one of the most expensive domains ever purchased?
Not much, shamefully.
I would have at least put up a “Sign up for great candy coupons” link to build up an email list, giving every visitor a 30% off coupon, and paid a few thousand $$$ to have a somewhat decent website to create the illusion that the domain name’s website was equal to the value of the domain.
Like my Pop said when he saw something that didn’t make sense:
“Holy Mackerel, Andy!”
On several levels, Candy.com has revealed some pitiful business failures across the candy manufacturing world’s top players… except for the huge smile on Rick Da King’s face. However, if RS is focusing on his 5% interest in the company that bought the domain, he should be dogging them right now for the lame website… which is probably scaring away hundreds of potential customers every single day because the site looks so, well… 1996.
Dub-A always accuses me of long comments. I don’t see it. I’m just stating the facts as I see them. Maybe this should be posted as an article on my blog at http://www.successclick.com. However, I’m giving this one to my buddy Dub-A.
(Maybe Dub-A will post a comment on my blog someday! If he did, I would be honored, and I would probably even take a shot of some expensive Scotch, toasting him. I rarely do this… cough… hint hint!)
bernard says
LOL, an established online seller close his website, while a newbie from the domaining mob starts an online candy store by throwing tons of money in a domain.
Yet another sample showing that domainer trying to develop real world businesses with little to no chance to succeed.
bernard says
Btw, I am rather sure that any online candy store has moderate chance to succeed simply because people buy these product in an impulsive manner and want to smell the product.
Domain Investor says
This is a very complicated topic which can not be discussed correctly in this type of thread.
However, Stephen has made a number of excellent points (which he always does) in this confined thread.
One day, Candy.com will be a Harvard Case study. 🙂
It is a little too early to criticize the new Candy strategy. But, since Rick still owns a piece (no punn intended), I’m positive he will keep them on track.
It took me a couple years to fully understand Rick’s thought process. Now, I consider Rick one of the sharpest “domainers” in the biz.
If the new people can make Candy.com into a success story then Mars, Nestle, Hershey, etc will be knocking at the door wanting to buy a piece of the company.
Stephen Douglas says
@Domain Investor – This is a good comment:
“One day, Candy.com will be a Harvard Case study.”
lol — perfectly said.
However, I don’t have any doubt that new owners and RS will make Candy.com into something formidable within the next two years or sooner.
Robert Haastrup-Timmi says
Ooops! it’s not Candy! do you mean Chocolate?…ha ha!
Chocolate.com looks like a flourishing and successful website. I don’t know who is behind it, big shame to Hershey! All that money and no common sense!
Derek Jones says
I’m not surprised Hershey’s pulled back on it’s online sales efforts. On the one hand they are going head to head with their own customers and seeing as it’s in the middle of July the last thing I’d want to be doing is shipping chocolate via UPS all over the country.
Chocolate.com might have been a better name for them to own but Candy.com not so much. The new owners of Candy.com has the right idea in representing all sorts of manufacturers. But I do agree if you are going to spend $3 million on the name you had better spend a good amount on the site and distribution systems to match it.
Improved SEO says
It doesn’t surprise me that Hershey didn’t jump at the chance to buy Candy.com. However, I’m a little surprised that Mars didn’t snatch it up, considering they bought Wrigley to expand their product base.
Rick Shvartz says
MORONS
Chip says
As an investor in chocolate.com, I’m happy to see the flurry of activity in the arena. I (and the other investors) have believed with our wallets for five years that this is a category killer, and that candy.com is undervalued.
Look at fund.com selling for $10M. The value of generics is only going to increase…can’t help but do so!
For those who are curious, I came into chocolate.com at the right time. One of the pprincipals of Internet Real Estate Group helped me sell my prime domain name, timeshares.com. I was happy to invest in another property that they were acquiring. They own about a dozen killers…phone.com, software.com, podcast.com, patents.com, etc.
Yes, it was worth it, and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to buy in to another great name such as chocolate.com!
Chris Desouza says
Friggin Domainers have answers for every problem. Guess how many domainers can get employed at Hershey’s to turn their crappy MBA infested staff see the light?
Domainers are full of it.
Stephen Douglas says
@ Chip — nice write up, and you are a lucky dog! Stay the course and reap the harvest, cuz I know you’re going to be burping rainbows soon, broey!
@ Chris Desouza – I know about 25 potential candidates that can push a company towards some great online results through domaining smarts. They are full of “it”… the “it factor”, and they “get it”.
Greg Boasberg says
Hershey’s is OG.