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Hot Topic To Buy ThinkGeek Parent Company Geeknet

Posted by timothy on from the timmy-salute dept.

jones_supa points out the news (also at Ars Technica, and -- paywalled -- at the Wall Street Journal) that clothing and music retailer Hot Topic has announced plans to buy Geeknet, parent company of ThinkGeek and ThinkGeek Solutions, for $117.3 million. ThinkGeek Solutions is a distributor of video-game themed merchandise through licensed web stores. Hot Topic Inc. will pay $17.50 per Geeknet share. Privately held Hot Topic, based in Los Angeles, has more than 650 stores in the U.S. and Canada. Geeknet will become a Hot Topic subsidiary. This news inspires some nostalgia here; ThinkGeek was for a long time one of Slashdot's sister sites under the umbrella of VA Linux, and I had some fun years back helping to set up the ThinkGeek booth at LinuxWorld in New York.

4 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Ah, Nostalgia... by dark.nebulae · · Score: 5, Funny

    This news inspires some nostalgia here; ThinkGeek was for a long time one of Slashdot's sister sites under the umbrella of VA Linux, and I had some fun years back helping to set up the ThinkGeek booth at LinuxWorld in New York.

    Ah, yes, back in the day before Dice ruined slashdot, those were fine times, weren't they...

  2. Sycamore Partners is the real buyer by McGruber · · Score: 5, Informative
    Sycamore Partners, a private equity firm, owns Hot Topic, so it's really them who is buying Thinkgeek.

    Good luck figuring out who owns Sycamore Partners.

  3. Shipping costs by sjbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    plus $7.00 shipping (more than it actually costs to ship).

    Actually that's probably pretty close to their actual cost to ship an item like that. Couriers like Fedex and UPS charge by weight (or dimensional weight) and discounts to shippers are based almost entirely on volume. Thinkgeek doesn't do the kind of volume Amazon does and won't get the kind of discounts Amazon gets. So I'd expect their freight cost to be $5-7 or so for an item like that for ground service with tracking. Then you have to consider handling. They have to pay for a box and stuffing which will probably cost between $0.50-1.00 and they have to pay someone to put the item in the box, seal it, and ship it which is probably another $0.30-0.75. Frankly $7 isn't shocking at all.

    People have gotten spoiled on freight costs but I used to own a company that would ship several hundred packages a week and $7 shipping and handling for delivery by UPS or similar is pretty much what you should expect to pay from anyone who isn't a very large company that ships thousands of packages a day.

  4. Re:Ah, memories... by LaurenCates · · Score: 5, Funny

    Demands like that from an AC are exactly the kind of turn on that makes a girl want to do naked camera stuff, but I think I might pass today.

    But thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm sure you're dashing and suave yourself, honey-child.

    --
    Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.