View source for Woot

{{Short description|Company}}
{{about|the company|the slang term|w00t|other uses|Woot (disambiguation)}}
{{redirect|Brave Woman|the Brazilian telenovela also known as "Brave Woman"|Salve Jorge}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{more citations needed|date=February 2012}}
{{original research|date=August 2010}}
{{Advert|date=July 2015}}
{{update|date=April 2018}}
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{{use mdy dates|date=October 2012}}
{{Infobox website
| name = Woot, Inc.
| logo = Woot Logo.svg
| type = [[Subsidiary]]
| collapsible = yes
| collapsetext = Screenshot
| screenshot = Woot.com screenshot.jpg
| foundation = {{start date and age|2004}}
| location = [[Carrollton, Texas|Carrollton, TX]]
| key_people = [[Matt Rutledge]]<br />(Founder and former [[chief executive officer|CEO]])
| industry = Retail
| products = Electronics, Household Goods, etc.
| num_employees = 140
| parent = [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]]
| homepage = [http://www.woot.com/ woot.com]
| revenue = US$164 million (2008)<br />{{increase}} 39.7% from 2007<ref name="inc5000">{{cite web|url=http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2008/company-profile.html?id=200800250 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080822134913/http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2008/company-profile.html?id=200800250 |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 22, 2008 |title=Woot listing in Inc. 5000 for 2008 |date=September 12, 2008 |access-date=2011-12-05 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2009/10/26/story12.html | first=Lisa R. | last=Brown | title=Woot.com expanding with new South City office | date=October 25, 2009}}</ref>
}}
'''Woot''' (originally '''W00t''') is an American Internet retailer based in the [[Dallas]] suburb of [[Carrollton, Texas]]. Founded by electronics wholesaler [[Matt Rutledge]], it debuted on July 12, 2004.<ref>{{cite web|author=Woot |url=http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=2584 |title=The Blog – Random Crap |website=Woot.com |date=July 12, 2007 |access-date=2011-12-05}}</ref>  Woot's main website generally offers only [[One Deal a Day|one discounted product each day]], often a piece of computer hardware or an electronic gadget. Other Woot sites offer daily deals for T-shirts, wine, children's items, and household goods. Two other sites offer various items. On June 30, 2010, Woot announced an agreement to be acquired by [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=13389 |title=The Blog – June 30, 2010 – BREAKING: Woot To Be Acquired By Amazon, Then Left To Amuse Ourselves |website=Woot.com |date=June 30, 2010 |access-date=2011-12-05}}</ref>
== Sales model ==
Woot's original tagline was "One Day, One Deal" and is now "Don't work to find deals. Let the deals find you".<ref name="odod">{{cite web|website=Woot.com|date=2013|title=Isn't Woot all about 'One Day, One Deal'? 'What is Woot?', FAQ Q#4|access-date= 2013-12-30 |url= http://www.woot.com/faq#q4}}</ref> Originally, Woot offered one product per day until its stock of that item was sold out, or until the product was replaced at midnight [[Central Time Zone (North America)|Central Time]] with the next offering. If a product sold out during its run, the next item would not appear until midnight, except during Woot-Off promotions. Woot was a forerunner in the one-deal-a-day business model. Customers could buy up to three of the sale item, although the site occasionally limited product quantity to one per customer.
Products are never announced beforehand. This sales model means that defective products cannot be replaced, only refunded. The company also does not provide customer support for the products it sells; in case of issues, customers are advised to seek support either from the manufacturer or through the online user community on the Woot forums.
Following its acquisition by Amazon, Woot's business model was heavily modified to sell a selection of products across different categories, moving away from its foundational business to better complement its Amazon partnership. The selection within a category varies and if a product sells out early enough in the day, a new product is generally offered for sale in its place.
Woot sometimes sells refurbished items.  In 2011, sales of 6,200 refurbished [[Motorola Xoom]]s included a small number (about 100) that weren't refurbished properly and may have been sold with data from the devices' previous owners.<ref>{{cite news|work=Chicago Tribune | title= Xooms sold on Woot.com may contain previous owners' data| date= February 3, 2012|author=Wong, Wailin  | url= http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-xooms-sold-on-wootcom-may-contain-previous-owners-data-20120203,0,3320612.story | access-date= 2012-02-05}}</ref>
== Marketing style ==
Woot's main site previously featured a daily podcast by Matthew Shultz, that briefly described the item up for sale and included a humorous song or skit. This has since{{When|date=February 2012}} been replaced by a weekly video podcast. [[Photoshop contest]]s among Woot forum users for prizes, including cash, free shipping on Woot orders, and the [[Booby prize|Monkey Prize]] (typically a random monkey-related item of little or no value) were other promotional events.{{citation needed|date=December 2011}}
Community members have contributed back to the site by offering Woot-related services. These include status checkers, [[Dashboard (Mac OS)|Dashboard]] [[Software widget|widgets]], and [[Windows Sidebar]] widgets to report when the next product is listed; there are also [[webcast]]s and other methods to monitor the site's status.
== Special events ==
The site occasionally deviates from the one-product-per-day model for a "Woot-Off". A Woot-Off lasts for an unannounced length, usually 24–72 hours.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.woot.com/WhatIsWoot.aspx#q9 |title=Woot : What is Woot? |publisher=Woot |access-date=2012-02-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111205165237/http://www.woot.com/whatiswoot.aspx#q9 |archive-date=December 5, 2011 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> During a Woot-Off, products usually sell out quickly, and when one product sells out, it is replaced within a minute or two by a new product. A percentage bar shows how much stock of the current product remains. However, Woot never gives the exact quantity available until after the item has sold out.
Beginning with the "[[Release candidate|gamma]]" launch of the [[Neuros Technology|Neuros MPEG 4 Recorder]] on February 9, 2005,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=42884 |title=Woot: The Community: Woots: Neuros MPEG4 Recorder |website=www.woot.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714221236/http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=42884 |archive-date=2014-07-14}} </ref> Woot has occasionally partnered with another company to launch a new product with a one-day exclusive Woot sale.
Starting in August 2004, Woot began occasionally offering a blind grab bag officially called "Random Crap", in lieu of typical product sales.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2004-08-13|title=Random Crap|url=https://forums.woot.com/t/random-crap/42240|access-date=2021-06-03|website=Woot|language=en}}</ref> While today its accompanying picture of a paper lunch bag with a question mark has kept its unofficial name "Bag of Crap", (BOC) it was originally dubbed "Bag of Crap" during the early years of the site when a physical bag of some kind (notebook, iomega zipper bags, etc.) was sold with the 1–3 "craps" and was part of what you were buying.<ref>{{cite web|author=Woot by Wootbot on July 18, 2005 at 12:00&nbsp;am |url=http://www.woot.com/blog/viewentry.aspx?id=80 |title=Random Crap |publisher=Woot |date=July 18, 2005 |access-date=2011-12-05}}</ref> Today, the BOC contains at least three "crappy" items and one bag<ref>{{cite web|author=Woot by Wootbot on May 15, 2009 at 5:03&nbsp;pm |url=http://www.woot.com/blog/viewentry.aspx?id=8273 |title=Random Crap |publisher=Woot |date=May 15, 2009 |access-date=2011-12-05}}</ref> whose value and quality are not guaranteed, but sometimes expensive items are included. The BOC has been known to sell out in a matter of hours.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2014/july/matt-rutledge-woot-has-a-new-deal-mediocre-corporation/|title=This Internet Millionaire Has a New Deal For You|website=D Magazine|language=en|access-date=2019-02-27}}</ref> During the January 25, 2011 selling, the website received a record 3.1 million requests, and the product was sold out within eight seconds.
During [[April Fool's Day]] 2008, Woot staged a Woot-Off offering the same product repeatedly,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Murphy |first=Samantha |date=October 2008 |title=Winning Woot |journal=Chain Store Age |volume=84 |issue=10 |page=50}}</ref> except for a few brief periods when Woot sold Bags of Crap instead. Three years later on April Fools' Day, Woot staged a "Bag of Crap" flash game, which users were instructed to play in order to win the privilege of buying Bags of Crap.
On April 1, 2011, eight thousand Bags of Crap were sold. Later in the day, once the Bag of Crap selling period was over, a Woot admin said that there were over seven million attempts to get the Bags of Crap.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=4407834 |title=The Community: Woots: Random Crap – Level 1 |publisher=Woot |date=January 4, 2011 |access-date=2011-12-05}}</ref>
Debuting on March 10, 2010, Woot ran limited one-hour versions of the Woot-Off called Happy Hour. These events were promoted solely via Twitter, and did not appear on woot.com's front page.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.woot.com/blog/post/woot-happy-hour-no-you-cant-run-a-tab |title=Woot Happy Hour: No, You Can't Run a Tab - Woot |access-date=July 12, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006181546/http://www.woot.com/blog/post/woot-happy-hour-no-you-cant-run-a-tab |archive-date=October 6, 2014 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Happy Hour didn't quite work out and was put on an indefinite hold by August 2011.<ref>http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=4578289 {{Dead link|date=February 2022}}</ref>
== Acquisition ==
On June 30, 2010, Woot was sold to Amazon for a reported sum of $110 million.<ref>{{Cite web |last=D'Onfro |first=Jillian |title=This story about Amazon's Jeff Bezos eating octopus for breakfast is symbolic of his business strategy |url=https://www.insider.com/jeff-bezos-matt-rutledge-profile-2014-6 |access-date=2022-03-16 |website=Insider |language=en-US}}</ref> The CEO, Matt Rutledge, sent an E-mail<ref>{{Cite web |last=CEO |first=Matt Rutledge, Woot |title=Dear Woot Employees, Here's Why We Just Sold To Amazon |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/dear-woot-employees-heres-why-we-just-sold-to-amazon-2010-7 |access-date=2022-03-16 |website=Business Insider |language=en-US}}</ref> to employees stressing that Woot would continue to operate as per usual. However, in June 2014, he crowdsourced a new website called Meh to become the successor of Woot, citing dissatisfaction with changes made by Amazon.
== Related sites ==
Woot has created several [[Brand extension|spin-off]] sites, some following a similar business model as the main site, others providing other retail-related services. These include:
* Wine.woot 2006–2017,
* Shirt.woot begun 2007,
* Sellout.woot 2007,
* Kids.woot 2009–2017,
* Deals.woot closed 2016,
* Home.woot 2011–present,
* Sport.woot 2012–present,
* Electronics.woot launched 2012 as Tech.woot, renamed Electronics.woot in 2014,
* Tools.woot 2013–present,
* Accessories.woot 2013–2017,
* Computers.woot 2014–present.
== References ==
;Citations
{{Reflist|30em}}
==Bibliography==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050624020527/http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1073341,00.html ''Time'' magazine's "50 Coolest Websites 2005"]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080625073144/http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1790096,00.asp ''PC Magazine'' site review]
* [http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2005/11/04/if-wall-street-went-woot.aspx ''Motley Fool'' article]
* [https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/technology/circuits/28woot.html New York ''Times'' article]
* [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6594285 National Public Radio ''All Things Considered'' interview with Woot writer Jason Toon and developer Luke Duff (Streaming Audio)]
== External links ==
* [http://www.woot.com/ Woot website]
{{Amazon}}
[[Category:Internet forums]]
[[Category:Online retailers of the United States]]
[[Category:Companies based in Carrollton, Texas]]
[[Category:Retail companies established in 2004]]
[[Category:Amazon (company) acquisitions]]
[[Category:2010 mergers and acquisitions]]
[[Category:Deal of the day services]]