They actually tried going into merch full bore, but somehow fucked it up by buying, then destroying ThinkGeek. It was an impressively fast decline too.
So fast that many people think they never actually intended to have it survive. They simply didn’t want to compete in the future, so they bought it before it was too big to compete with. But they had to reframe the massive purchase to shareholders as a potential profit-making venture, so they publicly stated that they were doing it to move into merch sales. And then they just nosedived it as soon as the purchase was complete, so they could shrug their shoulders and go “oops, well we tried!”
They actually tried going into merch full bore, but somehow fucked it up by buying, then destroying ThinkGeek. It was an impressively fast decline too.
So fast that many people think they never actually intended to have it survive. They simply didn’t want to compete in the future, so they bought it before it was too big to compete with. But they had to reframe the massive purchase to shareholders as a potential profit-making venture, so they publicly stated that they were doing it to move into merch sales. And then they just nosedived it as soon as the purchase was complete, so they could shrug their shoulders and go “oops, well we tried!”