Remember the long, long-ago of, er, just last week when we thought Hot Topic was planning to buy the parent company of online specialty retailer ThinkGeek? Well, now they’re not. A mysterious new suitor showed up just a few days later, and it appears they have the better bid. And so, Geeknet today announced that their brief fling with Hot Topic is over, and they will be joining up with GameStop instead.
That’s the news from Geeknet this morning. Geeknet CEO Kathryn McCarthy said of the deal, “Our Board and management team believe this transaction is in the best interest of Geeknet and its stockholders.” She continued, “As a part of GameStop’s family of brands, Geeknet will be well-positioned to achieve our goals of increasing our brand awareness and expanding our product offerings.”
GameStop CEO Paul Raines had an equally bland statement to offer, saying, “This acquisition creates value to all stakeholders involved. The addition of Geeknet is an important expansion of our global multichannel platform and we are excited to leverage their product development expertise to broaden our product offering in the fast-growing collectibles category and deepen relationships with our existing customer base.”
Both Hot Topic and GameStop have overlapping interests with ThinkGeek’s target audience. The former sells lines of licensed apparel and accessories that dovetail with ThinkGeek’s offerings. The latter still primarily sells games and consoles — though for how much longer, who can say — to an audience who are also likely to be interested in related paraphernalia from ThinkGeek.
by Kate Cox via Consumerist
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