Being a creature of habit, I find it good to stop, review, and reflect on some facet of the everyday in my life every so often. Little could be more everyday than my daily web-surfing routine, and, during this particular holiday weekend (which sees a ritual feast in celebration of who and what we have that we are thankful for, followed by a frenzy by many to get more stuff they can't live without), considering my shopping choices has to be high on the list. Those two considerations meet squarely at Woot.com.
Ah, Woot. Once upon a time, it was a fun, quirky little site (founded in 2004, per Wikipedia). One deal a day, generally on something tech/geek related. You never knew what you would find there, and much of what was presented there was actually good deals on things you might want, if you fit their niche. I did, and I found it glorious. Not that I bought more than a fraction of what they offered, but I came to understand the popularity of things like QVC among other segments of the population.
Well, if success breeds one thing, it's a desire for growth. They started offering wine deals in 2006, which I figured would fall by the wayside with the various state laws involving alcohol, but it persevered for over a decade. Next came daily T-shirt deals in 2007, and that brought me in all the closer, as the shirts were similarly tech/geek niche oriented. It's no exaggeration to say that Woot t-shirts were a major part of my wardrobe for well over a decade.
Of course, growth not only calls for more growth, but it also attracts a certain sort of business professional with a certain mindset. You know the type, "appealing to a broader market will increase revenue", "reducing costs will increase our profit", and of course, my favorite, "you're leaving money on the table if you don't do X". More sub-sites, starting with kids in 2009, were launched, and Amazon acquired Woot in 2010. While at the time I feared there would be a sudden shift to turning Woot into Amazon's surplus site, those changes happened much more slowly. More noticeable were things like t-shirt quality taking a dive (which was of course spun as providing customer choice, once the option of paying more for a quality shirt was added).
But, fast or slow, things progressed to where they are today. You have several daily deals, but they seem to be just highlights of select items in vast seas of dreck that Amazon wasn't able to push through their regular website. Plus, those highlighted deals seem to come back fairly often... whether that's "due to popular demand, we sourced another batch for you to have a go at" or "we're going to keep putting these up until we manage to get rid of them", I'm in no position to say, but, from what I've seen, I would bet the latter. Even the t-shirts have taken a dive, not in physical quality this time, but just in composition - the vast majority seem to be nothing more than pop-culture mash-ups these days.
Suffice it to say, Woot has changed, and not for the better, in my opinion. Looking at my order history, I haven't ordered anything from them in the past year, and for quite some time before then it was only shirts that kept me coming back. So, yeah, Woot is now out of my daily visit routine. I'm on their email lists, so I'll still get offers for a while, but it won't be that long before I get the urge to reduce my marketing email load, and, barring something unexpected happening between now and then, Woot will be part of the "I don't need your emails any longer" group. So, goodbye Woot, it was fun while it lasted.
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