Just to add to the comments... woot.com is a website, it's wares are sold on the website, and that should be the primary place in which to get information about the website. I do not use twitter, have no need to use twitter, and if that is the only place woot.com is going to sell their Big ol' Cornucopia then I will very likely look elsewhere for deals. Woot has SOME decent deals, but the Big ol' Cornucopia is the best deal and what keeps most people interested. It is a shame that you can't get website information FROM the website anymore

tperciva wrote:Just to add to the comments... woot.com is a website, it's wares are sold on the website, and that should be the primary place in which to get information about the website. I do not use twitter, have no need to use twitter, and if that is the only place woot.com is going to sell their Big ol' Cornucopia then I will very likely look elsewhere for deals. Woot has SOME decent deals, but the Big ol' Cornucopia is the best deal and what keeps most people interested. It is a shame that you can't get website information FROM the website anymore

You people do realize that woot loses money on the Balls of Carbonite, right? They did it as a marketing gimmick, which worked fairly well for them.

Amazon is much less willing to lose money on this endeavor than the original founders were. They will do it only when they think it will attract or retain customers in sufficient quantities to make the expense worthwhile.

dbcooper wrote:I've been with WOOT! for many years now, bought lots of stuff, and always enjoyed the sense of "being a part of it." Now, to me, it's just another mega-site hawking the same wares you can buy anywhere else. Gone are the fun days of camaraderie, cat pic posts, etc, that made woot-offs seem like a huge, drunken family reunion party.

...SNIP...

Personally, I hereby revoke the '!' from Woot! and replace it with a '?'. Woot?

Drunken Family Reunion...that sums it up nicely. Now it's more like an office party, with the HR reps (Amazon) hiding in the corner making sure no one gets too out of hand. Oh well, it was good while it lasted...

WOOT?...I'll second that!

Here lies w00t. A grand ole boy that had a good run. Succumbed to it's final fate by the hands of Amazon. Survived by the troves of bargain hunters left to find their deals elsewhere.

R.I.P. w00t!

I am so very much in the grieving-for-woot-that-was group, too.

I miss the community and the fun. I used to believe that I belonged to something unique and interesting. I liked turning new people on to woot, and feeling like I was initiating them into a special club.

All the little changes in the past few years have finally killed it for me, though. I can't put my finger on just one thing. Whether it's the re-selling of an item over and over again. Or the meh prices. Or the declining wit in the writeups, and nosediving intellect in the forums. Or the over moderation. Or the redesign. Or the gimmicks and the mistakes. It just all adds up to woot sucking.

I read about the debacle with the pirate's treasure game (I missed it cause I don't check woot regularly anymore) and just cringed. The woot I used to belong to would have REWARDED the people who figured it out early. They would have been exhaulted!

The clincher for me personally, was when woot sold the cast iron skillet with the exclamation point on the bottom. (The first time. Not the third time.) Now, I actually need a skillet. And I used to FREAK OUT when inside jokes like that were sold. I mean, I actually own woot off lights. I used to plug them in whenever there was a woot off. Yup, I'm that person.

And here was this skillet with the woot logo. And I couldn't even get myself vaguely excited about it. Because I just don't want to even remind myself of what woot is now, compared to what it used to be. And I definitely don't want to advertise to other people that I'm a wooter.

I think that sums it up: I'm embarrassed now to associate with woot. And that's sad.

I can't figure out what you all are crying about. Woot sucks because no one posts cat pictures in the comments anymore? Woot sucks becasue they don't sell leap frogs anymore? You're not driven to spend an entire day hitting refresh on your computer? It sounds like you all matured about 5 years over the last 5 years, that the cat meme faded and no one makes leak frogs anymore. Oh and Big ol' Cornucopia are never promised and not easy to get. That's what makes them so alluring.

cwellons wrote:Woot! definitely is in the decline and I'm sad to see it. I inquired with woot about the Basket of Cranberries. This was their response:

Hello,
Thank you for taking the time to email us. We appreciate your concerns as well as your business.
We do still sell our Big ol' Cornucopia but we primarily promote it during special events through our social media outlets.
Woot Member Services,
Daniel

I take this as a "yes we still do but not as often, and most likely not on wootoffs anymore." So my guess is probably holidays then? See you all on Christmas.

Wow. That email you got seriously leaves me flabbergasted. I knew deep down they were basically phasing them out, and the fact that the staff never replies to this question in the forums anymore made it fairly obvious. But for someone there to actually say it just makes me a little sad. Although I wish a staffer would just have posted that in one of the many Big ol' Cornucopia threads.

I realize the crap has been a marketing gimmick and now that they have a solid base they are pushing that gimmick out to twitter and facebook, but it just sucks.

It is the end of an era, indeed.

cowboyleon wrote: Woot sucks becasue they don't sell leap frogs anymore? .

You mean leak frogs, right?

The lifecycle is short on the internet. Seems like woot is on its last legs. But maybe not. I wonder, does Amazon really make more $ with woot in its new form? Or did they (like Cisco and the Flip) buy something they didn't understand and are now destroying in a bit of absent-minded, megacorp blundering.

No matter either way to me, at this point. RIP, woot.

(Deinstalling Wootalyzer...)

Long time Wooter... No more.

Really sad, it's like Woot! caught a deadly hemorrhagic fever in the Amazon and died a bloody, slow, painful, wasting death.

Rest In Peace - we will remember you fondly.. (at least up to the point where someone at Woot thought that a couple of cast iron frying pans on Facebook could replace flying monkeys and the Big ol' Cornucopia

dsmmrm wrote:You people do realize that woot loses money on the Balls of Carbonite, right? They did it as a marketing gimmick, which worked fairly well for them.

Amazon is much less willing to lose money on this endeavor than the original founders were. They will do it only when they think it will attract or retain customers in sufficient quantities to make the expense worthwhile.

Eh I'm not sure they exactly lose money. Not every box they send is worth $5 shipping. So you add that plus the initial $3.

Most of their Big ol' Cornucopia#39;s cost probably around $2-3 to ship because of their business account with UPS/USPS, so that just adds to the profit from the Big ol' Cornucopia

So as far as losing money goes, I don't think they lose money, but perhaps gain just a little over.

As for the other posts, I really could not have said it better myself. The Amazon machine has taken over and has destroyed what we all came to love and cherish.

I guess deep down inside I knew it was going downhill... but didn't want to accept it...

As with the others, I too didn't even pay much attention to this woot off. Past woot off's I'd be at my pc for 24 hours + waiting for that next product, hoping it would be something awesome or funny... now it's just stale, same products that are just barely marked down.. my woot off lights used to spin for joy but now I do not turn them on anymore.


Goodbye, my dearest woot!... I loved you so dearly, and now you're gone.

woot?

dontwantaname wrote:Drunken Family Reunion may be the best description of a woot off. Although, usually, we were all still talking when it was over.

*of a woot off before the Amazon take over

I'm gonna go ahead and throw my $.02 in as a lurker and visitor, not so much a community participant.

I see the multiple storefronts as a possible hindrance to the woot-off. Half the fun of the woot-off was that you'd get a good mix of a variety of things at good prices. You never knew what was going to be next.

Now, with the storefronts, the main woot storefront seems to carry 1000 different versions of the same thing, and a bunch of variations of similar products. If you don't own Apple products or an Xbox360, a portion of this woot-off was completely worthless to you.

I understand that this is supposed to be a liquidation thing, but i'm sure there's more to liquidate than just Xbox headphones and iPhone trinkets. Where's the random car wax, lightbulb puller, Christmas tree, and watermelon growing kit?

IMO, Woot should make an effort to get their hands on interesting and diverse crap, not just mountains of the same stuff.

dontwantaname wrote:

Now nobody even post a cat picture.

Amazon didn't do that. Although it started after Amazon bought woot.

I can't speak for everyone, but I almost never post on product threads anymore. It isn't much fun pushing the limit if the line is drawn somewhere before even something that used to be encouraged.

I'm still bitter that I had posts linking a better product than the one was for sale deleted a month ago or so.

Un0fficial wrote:Eh I'm not sure they exactly lose money. Not every box they send is worth $5 shipping. So you add that plus the initial $3.
woot?

Add in the cost of packaging, both materials and labor, and I'd still stand by my Big ol' Cornucopia#39;s losing money assertion.

Not that it's terribly important as a single data point. All the other posts here have done a great job pointing out the many facets of Woot's demise. Virtually everything that made it special is gone. Nice job Amazon. Maybe Woot was cutting into their sales too much and the takeover was just a kill shot from the getgo.

Personally, if I ever was lucky enough to create a successful business such as Woot, I would never sell it to a corporate big-house such as Amazon. In fact I'd probably try to keep it in my family..

The creators of woot! should be ashamed of what it has became. Since day 1 of my first woot experience, I had always wanted to work at woot. I've put in probably 50 or so applications. Now to be honest if I was offered a job I'd refuse

Hrmm..surprised to see so many people all bent about the woot-off. There wasnt anything that I was like "Onerous Massive Family Gathering I need that!" this time for me..but still some good deals to be had imo.

I think the amazon partnership is a good thing..they kind of set the bar for level of service for an ecommerce site but still let woot! be the quirky place that it is.

Pretty new wooter myself..but it seems just fine to me!

pyrobedlam wrote:Hrmm..surprised to see so many people all bent about the woot-off. There wasnt anything that I was like "Onerous Massive Family Gathering I need that!" this time for me..but still some good deals to be had imo.

I think the amazon partnership is a good thing..they kind of set the bar for level of service for an ecommerce site but still let woot! be the quirky place that it is.

Pretty new wooter myself..but it seems just fine to me!

You're new, if you were here 2 years ago you would understand how amazing woot was.

pyrobedlam wrote:

Pretty new wooter myself..but it seems just fine to me!

Poor bastard, you don't even realize what it once was. I guess now I get it when old folks say things were so much better back in the day.

wisenekt wrote:Poor bastard, you don't even realize what it once was. I guess now I get it when old folks say things were so much better back in the day.

Things were better back in the day..

Yeah things are definitely a lot different now, it's no longer fun to follow a woot-off. I used to lose sleep and watch it for days. Even when there was no Big ol' Cornucopia it was worth following for the products, prices, the monkeys, and the folks hanging out in the threads. But all of that is gone. I knew I must not be the only one, when I started watching the last couple of woot-offs for a few minutes and no one ever comments on the products anymore. It lost its luster, its fun. I'll miss it a lot.

I'll still check Woot every day or so, but it's not unusual to miss a week. It used to be so exciting to check each item at midnight.

BUT, all that aside, I am sure Woot knew that this was going to happen, and they made the decision anyway, so it was made with their best interests. I don't see them going back because the original people don't like it anymore. And in that respect, it's ok. And in a way, I am happy about the change, because now I won't spend so much time on the site. Sometimes it was a bit overboard.

Do you think this will be a Black Friday thing? Or maybe Cyber Monday?

Or maybe a magical box with crap in it??

...and I am horrible at this. Whatever.



and

Un0fficial wrote:Eh I'm not sure they exactly lose money. Not every box they send is worth $5 shipping. So you add that plus the initial $3.

Most of their Big ol' Cornucopia#39;s cost probably around $2-3 to ship because of their business account with UPS/USPS, so that just adds to the profit from the Big ol' Cornucopia

So as far as losing money goes, I don't think they lose money, but perhaps gain just a little over.

Actually, you're considering the shipping price only. What about the wholesale costs of the products they send you in those boxes.

For a grand total of $8, I have never had anything worth less than about $30 wholesale and probably more retail. So they probably did take a loss on them. If they sold each individual product separately, they would make much more than $8 per box of crap.

Un0fficial wrote:Personally, if I ever was lucky enough to create a successful business such as Woot, I would never sell it to a corporate big-house such as Amazon. In fact I'd probably try to keep it in my family..

The creators of woot! should be ashamed of what it has became. Since day 1 of my first woot experience, I had always wanted to work at woot. I've put in probably 50 or so applications. Now to be honest if I was offered a job I'd refuse

You say you would never sell but that all depends on the price. My house, for example, is not for sale. I do want another serving to move away from my nice neighbors so I'd never sell -- unless the price is right. If someone offered me a million dollars for my home, I'd sell it.

And that's just like my business. Today, I have no intent to sell but if some large corporation comes in and offeres me a couple billion dollars for it, how could I refuse that? I can always take that money and startup a new business and still have most of the money left over.

And now moving away from the one-deal-a-day system.

I have sent a personal email to Matt Rutledge. For those of you who don't know, Matt was the CEO of Woot! before the Amazon take over.

I provided him with some screen shots of what people were saying in this thread, hopefully he'll see my email and understand where we're coming from and what has happened to his creation.

I would give his email out on here because it is public on his google+ profile, but I will not. If you would like to send him an email, go to his G+ profile to find it. His woot.com email no longer exists apparently.

Although he may not be the CEO anymore, perhaps he can still talk with some people to stop this madness!

Woot off has officially Jumped The Shark! I found myself purchasing as a means of support. I forgot this was about me and taking advantage of some possible deals.

I'm out.

I suggest that whenever Woot posts something on a social media site everyone post a comment or reply about missing Bunch of Cheer flying monkeys or whatever you miss about the old Woot. Maybe, just maybe they will get the message that they are ruining a great thing!