Amazon Purchases Woot

[travelin cat]

Woot has signed an agreement with Amazon - yes, the Amazon - to become an independent subsidiary of the ecommerce colossus.

To be uncharacteristically serious for half a nanosecond, yes, Woot has signed an agreement to be acquired by Amazon. It shouldn't change anything much for us or you after the deal closes, we just figured you’d like to know a few details. You see, when two companies meet over drinks and some light jazz and decide they'd like to get to know each other better… You know what? Our CEO said it best in his letter to us employees... [woot.com...]

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 9:13 pm (utc) on Jun 30, 2010]
[edit reason] added larger quote [/edit]

[venice]

Wow, just wow. Heard Woot was doing incredibly well in sales. While I've never bought anything the loyalty to the brand seems really good.

[weeks]

Do NOT miss the letter to employees. Trust me:
[woot.com...]

[ergophobe]

Who knew you got two free downloads when Amazon acquires you? I wonder if Zappos got the same deal.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I couldn't read it, the CEO is a little too unhinged with talk of deities and such. I scanned it and don't see why he is so optimistic about the future of Woot though because Woot just became a widget for Amazon, nothing more and surely nothing requiring a long-term team to run.

Woot could have just signed an agreement with Amazon to display only Amazon related items, instead they sold the farm.
I don't see the plus for Woot.

[travelin cat]

I don't see the plus for Woot.

The plus is the big $$$$ for the previous owners.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

4 millions reasons to sell out, I still don't see the plus for Woot the company though. Time will tell.

[carguy84]

I don't see the plus for Woot.

Aside from the check?

[incrediBILL]

I see more synergy here than the doomed for failure ebay/craigslist deal that never made sense.

Amazon has a ton of stores peddling junk just prime for something cool like woot to get people to unload that stuff faster than 100 old ladies dialing QVC on a saturday night.

Plus, now anything actually warehoused at Amazon can use Amazon Prime shipping (which we have) so it opens up free shipping to lots of people, another enticement to buy crap you don't need.

I think the synergy is there, as long as they don't change woot to be Amazon-like, only merge more junk to sell, offer Amazon Prime and 1-click checkout, and it'll be just fine.

[akmac]

That letter from the CEO was hilarious. I'm still chuckling over the vuvuzelas line...

Haven't bought anything there, but I've read the product descriptions (if they can be called that) a few times and I find them quite funny.

Great place for amazon to dump their slow movers.

[purplecape]

Great place for amazon to dump their slow movers.

Is that why they offered the Kindle Reader there for $149?

[commanderW]

Amazing - Today at my job I ask a guy "Hey, where'd you get the 'monkey king' t-shirt?" "Woot" he says. "They have a different t-shirt everyday". "Oh, I'm glad I never heard of that one!" I say. And I never have heard of Woot. Not until today at work. Then I come home and here it is a Webmaster World news item.

So now I have to wonder - why, why, why was this guy standing there in front of me wearing this so called 'woot' t-shirt?

Something's fishy. I don't think I like this "merge" idea at all.

[Digmen1]

One more nail in the coffin for small websites ?

[tedster]

Check out the rap video that Woot created to announce their acquisition: [youtube.com...]

[ByronM]

hmm.. this is good for woot ownes, but probably bad for woot overall.. i don't think Amazon is going to keep the "woot off" as fun as it was.. I once bought a random bag of crap and got a floor robot, flash light and all sorts of fun stuff. I just don't see amazon doing this close nit community shopping experience and i don't see their customers putting up with the hectic limited availability

[MrHard]

Got a call from Amazon wanting us to offer Amazon checkout whereby customers could use Amazon account to pay for purchases. They would not take 'not interested' as an answer, finally had to hang up on them.