"It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To WOOTerday"
7How do I say goodbye to what we had?
The good times that made us laugh
Outweigh the bad.
I thought we'd get to see forever
But forever's gone away
It's so hard to say goodbye to WOOTerday.
I don't know where this road
Is going to lead
All I know is where we've been
And what we've been through.
If we get to see tomorrow
I hope it's worth all the wait
It's so hard to say goodbye to WOOTerday.
And I'll take with me the memories
To be my sunshine after the rain
It's so hard to say goodbye to WOOTerday.
- 25 comments, 53 replies
- Comment
But it really wasn't hard. It was easy. Those dicks ruined everything fun about Woot. And the products are over priced clearance shit from Amazon. I haven't bought much (if anything) there in the past year or two. I've nearly stopped going there entirely. It's sad, but at least we got to keep our community (for the ones that made it over anyway). I'm sure more will show up eventually.
Thank you for expressing my feelings exactly!
well said, the sad part is they are trying so hard to be like the old woot and it is so embarrassing and equally frustrating to look at.
Hey...my son still works there but I think that HE thinks the writing is on the wall for him. That may just be a good thing for everyone.
Agreed, Woot silently slipped away from my daily routine. I barely noticed the absence until my sight of my roomba reminded me of ol' days.
@capguncowboy You're still alive?!
@capguncowboy Word.
I only go there to watch people complain about woot, and customer service saying "Sorry, send an email".
It seems like all the forum moderators do is tell people to email, or check their email.
http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5812010&pageindex=1&replycount=7
I'm not sure if the audience has changed and demand better customer service, or if they just have a lot of orders and a few fall through the cracks. There has been a shift -- more customers are hostile and threatening that there were before.
You said, "cracks."
To be fair, most support issues pre-'Zon were referred to email too.
I got attacked by other customers for suggesting that woot once had good customer service.
Amazon now promotes woot on Amazon. People who are not used to "how woot does things" and expecting AZ level service. Also, more people.
@capguncowboy - It is a combination really. The old customer support team flat out left last November. The new team doesn't have the same experience, training, or authority to do the job as well. So, when people write in to service, they get poorly-worded 'canned' responses that do little to solve the issue.
The fact that Amazon has advertised Woot, via email, brought Amazon customers to Woot - and those customers expect the Amazon experience - which just won't happen at Woot.
The switch to vendors drop-shipping cause serious issues with shipping and notification, without a clear way to figure out if or when your items shipped.
Couple all of this with the fact that the crowd of vocal supporters has dwindled to about a dozen across all
Woot sites, and that those supporters are also disillusioned with Woot, and there aren't enough positive posts to balance out the negative.
Well said. I think it's humorous, really. From the article I read, it was more of an experiment for Amazon. Result discovered!
Indeed. Very well summed up TC. I didn't know that about the old CS team leaving.
It's all starting to make sense. Thank you for the insight!
Didn't know CS left. Canned or everyone left at the same time? Dropshipping is a big issue. Zappos already learned. Coulda told Amazon.
I knew that PrettyWootPrincess left not long after she gave me the Woot tour in Dallas last fall, but I didn't know about CS. Too bad.
I'd still shop there.
I would too if they ever had anything I wanted to buy. That's a rare occasion
I wouldn't. I've made three purchases in the last 6 months and all have had CS issues.
I do still shop there. :)
Do you think Amazon would ever sell woot back to you?
I buy way more there than I do here!
I still shop there, but it's less fun.
I still shop there too. It would be funny to see snapster as the first sucker on something(s), esp a bag of crap.
I used to care about being in the top 10 of the leader board. Now I'm going to watch that number go down like the French in World War 2.
I still shop there, too, but spend more time on the DW community. Still have some friends there.
I have not found anything there is a really long time that I like, want, need, or am even tempted by. I still check every day, force of habit, and am so finished with it. I visited when I could in the forums just to keep in touch.
I want to like them still, but it is admittedly getting harder and harder to hold on to hope that things will turn around. Things have just fallen off then cliff though it seems, and it's not just the ridiculous amount of items they are selling now. Getting stock answers from customer service rather than the quality follow up when I have issues with something (and there are issues which saddens me too.) No more AA shirts except on rare occasions. Heck, even the "mascots" of Woot, the spinning lights and screaming monkeys, are absent these days. It's not the same fun site that I visited in the past, and the recent attempts to seem like their old, fun and wacky selves just comes off as lame.
Still, I am grateful for the comments forum and the opportunity it gave me to make goofy comments which were noticed by others and led to me being recruited by another tee shirt site to do their goofy write ups for a while.
Post-Amazon Woot tries very hard to sell us a lot of different products that we don't want to buy. Pre-Amazon Woot carried fewer products, but we didn't really want to buy those either. We did buy them though, because Pre-Amazon WOOT was excellent at making us WANT to buy crap we didn't need. #gaspoweredtoiletplungers
Oddly enough, I don't remember those, but I want one now. That's about what I'd be willing to pay for it too.
I missed those, too. But the one thing I REALLY regret missing was the Hammock Chair of Death (2 pack).
I'm hesitant to shop there for large-ticket items because there's so many product complaints and then followed by customer service complaints. In the past I had a couple of items that arrived broken and customer service took care of it immediately. Doesn't seem that way anymore.
I only go to woot anymore because it is in my "daily bookmarks". well i don't actually go to woot.. but rather wootsalker.com
Woot.com is such a confusing mess now and the only way to easily navigate it is through wootstalker.com
Flushlights. Who still has 'em?
Broke my flushlight. I do have a footflush still! It seems to just sit on the floor collecting dust and other bathroom nastiness though.
I got one in a BoC. Installed it as a joke on my housemate's toilet. He got his girlfriend/exgirlfriend/girlfriend pregnant and moved out...
So the lesson is, flushlights get your ex-girlfriend knocked up?
I just bought a home... Debating on installing my foot flush...
My co-worker wanted to buy the domain name amazonsdumpster.com and redirect it to Woot, but he never did. Pity.
I haven't bought one item from Woot this year, and that's kind of sad, really. Woot really was a unique place... One that I can't wait to see at meh.com.
I still spend time there, but it's been more sporadic. I still buy things from time to time, approaching them with an expectation that I may or may not receive what I order. I haven't recommended them to anyone in a loooong time.
As one of the more vocal ones remaining that started a discussion on shirt a couple months ago in hopes to help them gain back some business ... that didn't seem to get much beyond just community discussing among themselves, I can't help but to feel they're a lost cause.
It probably hasn't helped that I've had 14 print issues in the past 27 shirts either.
I have a lot to thank for over there, but with all the higher-ups there now seemingly hell-bent on destroying all that made it unique, it won't be hard to say goodbye. And cake won't bring me back.
I don't think there's a big enough jar to ship the cake it would take.
Heh! I'd say more Fresh Cake again, but seeing how I had issues on every subsequent offering- registration, colors, hair, holes, belly, etc.
I've tried to buy items a few times in the last year but haven't since (I think) the last monkey games. They had some nice boots recently but kept selling out of or not having my size, or I'd have added two more sales.
But I still have the zombie monkey Three Piece Woot sent me and I'm going to treasure it forever. Or until someone in search of special crap offers too much money for it.
Bought a couple of things in the past few months, a patio umbrella and some tees., but the spirit is gone. Haven't even followed the last few W-offs.
When I do find something I want at Woot, I check Amazon for the same item, then look for warehouse deals. More often than not, the same item is there at the same price. Since I have Prime, I get free 2-day shipping rather than paying $5 for shipping sometime, by some means, while hoping the item will arrive intact. So I suppose Woot is generating sales for Amazon, after a fashion.
I'm with many others. I have no ill will to Woot. I just don't often find much I want to buy there anymore. Between not having much weird or goofy AND doing a terrible job of making me want to buy (I mean, damn - I bought 3 Hip Hop Hippies back in the day. WHY??) my purchases there have plummeted. I've been knocking on the door of 100 buys for the last year now. Oh well. I'm sure they are making a profit. I just suspect it's on lots and lots of low-repeat customers vs a smaller number of highly repeat customers.
Replace "low-repeat" with "no-repeat". 2 weeks ago, I ordered 3 shirts, promised to arrive by July 4. It's July 1, and only 1 has moved.
My guaranteed by the 4th shirt didn't make it either. : (
@ceegee - check the forums and your email about that.
@Thumperchick : Thanks for the reminder. No emails but my tracking says it's in PA. I am not.
@ceagee - :( They are making good, though. FWIW, my 3 did arrive yesterday, 1 being an uninitiated replacement order, much to my surprise.
I actually just bought something today from woot, a rug. That said my last woot purchase was August of last year so I guess that says it all.
I can speak to why it's been a while since I purchased through them...
The prices are too high. Seriously. I get aggravated googling the item and finding it elsewhere cheaper or close to the same price. Woot always had the best price. No more.
Because they now offer SO many items I can't even keep up because I feel like I now have to price check everything.
Customer service started sliding ages ago.
They even managed to take most of the fun out of the BOCs
Anyway, I do check in there from time to time but making only one purchase a year seems like maybe I'm kind of over woot.
I don't mind the additional avenues to score BOCs, but no one gets letters anymore. That was the best part!
I just saw that they are running a BOC special tomorrow at 10:10 CST. 500 bags on the main page. They are trying so hard, it's embarrassing. Almost like that nerdy kind that is trying to act cool, but instead you just get douche chills from watching him.....
So, no BOCs means they suck. Having BOCs means they're trying too hard. I'm confused.
I think it would be really nifty is Snapster snagged one of the BOCs.
I think it sounds like they are trying too hard because they announced the BOC rather than just having it appear. Like "see guys, I'm cool."
It was very weird to know the exact date and time a BOC was going to show up. The whole point of a BOC is that it was random.
pretty sure it was announced as a server test for next week.
For the first few (?) years of Woot, BOCs were random days but always at midnight CST. East Coasters all stayed up till 1 a.m.
Having a watered down product and web site is what sucks...
Armed with the knowledge that a BOC was going to show up exactly at 10:10am CDT on July 3rd, I was able to score a BOC today. I even survived the Antechamber of Doom.
So now I'm awaiting a BOC AND a Fukubukuro Bag. I feel like I'm being embarrassed with riches of crap.
Me too! and I have a kid on the way at end of month ... so more crap(py) diapers!
I figured I'd give it a shot since by random luck I saw the announcement and I didn't have an 11am meeting. Still missed it.
the 10:10 BOC was great - i joined woot in january of 2005 and this was my first BOC...somehow i'm more excited about learning about meh...
Why don't they create a random deal picker?
They could have different levels of deals -- Good, Better, Best, and Crap.
Make some silly slot machine page, and have an advertisement load on each spin. Give everyone unlimited spins, and it'll pay for itself.
Now that sounds like old school Woot action if ever I heard it.
Businesses keep customers that like their business model. It took many years, for the old Woot to attract a lot of people who liked the way the old Woot worked. The customers weren't just randomly selected customers, they were customers that liked to shop in a particular way. New Woot management did not understand that business model, so they could not keep operating the business that way.
The new management thrashed about trying to find something that would work as well as the old style. Employees didn't like the thrashing and customers didn't like the thrashing.
I liked the old Woot so much that I continue to frequently visit the new Woot out of habit. The new Woot doesn't mesh well with my interests, so I rarely buy anything.
I agree, I find myself checking ever day or so. I even bought something today that was actually good,
knowing the time of the BOC was like going out with that easy girl in high school.....
You were embarrassed to let your friends know that you were excited about it anyway?
So you tried and struck out, while still listening to other people say how easy it was?
You scored, and immediately regretted it afterwards?
I've got to admit... I'm way behind on my wooting. That is where my friends live. We all need to move here.
OK, where did my K go? Wasn't that the kickstarter icon? Now I'm just a vmp?
@smilingjack k is on meh, unless you kickstarted mediocre too and if so that's pretty impressive.
Am typing this on my Belkin Bluetooth keyboard (Surface RT) which arrived yesterday. $5 from meh.com. 1st purchase and am quite pleased. Will be looking for more good deals.
@imadrone