Mercatalyst is now Stores.com
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There’s no such thing as too obvious. Apparently.
You know how we’re part of a company that also runs stores like MorningSave and SideDeal? That company will now go by the daringly imaginative name Stores.com.
The product of thousands of hours of focus groups, the bold new identity consolidates our strategic positioning as a company that runs stores. Also, it’s easy to spell.
We haven’t changed ownership or our business model or anything else. Just the name and logo. Here and there you might see “Stores.com” where you would’ve seen “Mercatalyst”.
Otherwise, same ridiculous deals, same even more ridiculous jokes, and of course, same opinionated community as always.
PS. We’re working on some other stuff that’s even bolder. Watch this space. (Well, not this space, specifically. Just, like, the Meh universe in general.)
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Growing up in the 80s, I really enjoyed the science fiction publisher Tor Books. Eating S’mores is a fun childhood memory as well. I wondered what if we actually brought the two together for like a smart but fun way to shop. Boom.
Explaining where I work just got a whole lot simpler.
@Thumperchick It’s really easy. You just say, “I work at Stores.com which used to be this company called Mercatalyst when we changed our name from A Mediocre Corporation because we got sick of explaining the joke about how we used the be the team from Woot (which started as Synapse Micro) but we sold to Amazon in 2010 and then left and launched a store that was kinda the opposite of what Woot became in spirit and name called Meh that we built on this new e-commerce platform named Checkout.org.”
I don’t see what’s so difficult about that. You get an entire 30-seconds in an elevator pitch.
@shawn We should go on an eras tour.
How in hell was a name like stores.com not already taken?
@rpstrong They probably had to pay several million dollars for that domain. I’m proud of them
@rpstrong welcome, fellow Meh shopper. There exists another class of entity who can make what was taken available to them. They can see us, but we have to take their existence on faith. I believe!
@sleuth Several million may have been the comparison price at Amazon, but . . .
@rpstrong ohhh, it wasn’t…used to be owned by Hammacher Schlemmer and Mercatalyst acquired the brand name late last year (November 2025) and stores.com, apparently, must’ve been part of said deal. Hammacher Schlemmer had owned it for decades prior.
@PHRoG @rpstrong Good catch! Yeah, the DNS records show stores.com being updated around then too. I wonder how Mercatalyst buying their assets came to be
@PHRoG @rpstrong HAH! I knew all those “going out of business” fake sales were indeed, fake.
@darkstar80 @rpstrong they only acquired the brand…physical assets such as inventory, property, etc. were not part of it. Soo, technically, they did.
@rpstrong @sleuth yup, domain was unlocked for xfer in Jan.
I, for one, have very strong feelings about this change.
I love the juxtaposition of Hammacher Schlemmer right above meh
So I’m not jumping between parallel universes, got it.
Vacations? Shores.com
Sleep products? Snores.com
Contaminated products? Spores.com
The possibilities are endless.
@oppodude With additions like smores.com?
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be the type to just buy the .com instead of settle for the .biz… But I shop at Meh, so you already know I’m gonna get the .biz.
In unrelated news you can all see my new website at stores.biz
Oh shit, wait… I’m wrong in my assumptions. Hammacher Schlemmer is in on this!
Please tell me Jeff Bezos didn’t buy them and then buy you! I hope it’s wrong and HS is Snapster’s breakfast octopus burrito.
@djslack
“The content of the page cannot be displayed”
Becuase you are only selling pipe dreams of the non-smoking meaning of pipes?
Old News … According to the Press Release on mercatalyst.com this happened 2 months ago tomorrow!
https://stores.com/pages/press-stores-com-emerges-as-multi-brand-e-commerce-platform
So, when’s the next pasta drop? Since all you Stores.com people are probably watching this thread?
I really enjoyed dropping 50+ pounds of pasta on coworkers porches during the pandemic.
I know the answer is probably never, but I gotta ask. Maybe do a pasta sale at least?
I find it stupidly amusing. I thought mercatalyst was a dumb name. Personally I liked mediocre because it was descriptive. Stores is not.
@Cerridwyn Exactly!! Stores.com is totally
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Cerridwyn I both agree with this and yet find it technically incorrect.
@Cerridwyn you can still use mediocre.com at least
My work filters classify stores.com as malware. Was it previously a shady as hell site? Or was boner-garage.biz taken, so you sought out stores.com?
Stores.com… the most meh URL for a retail company
I guess it was inevitable
I just got my Mercatalyst tattoo!