Woot Services LLC is a large E-retailer that is generally considered the pioneer of the “one day, one item” sale. Their roots were in selling discounted technology products, they have since branched out to offer products from other categories. In order to keep up with other Internet giants who have mimicked their business model, such as Groupon, they have increased their number of products offered on a daily basis.

History:

Woot was founded in July 12, 2004 by Matt Rutledge in Carrolton, Texas. He owned his own electronics distribution business and decided to sell his surplus inventory online. Rutledge is famous for creating Woot’s signature business model of selling only one discounted product.

2 years after their initial launch, Woot began launching spin-off sites to sell other products using their same business model. In 2006, Wine.Woot was launched, closely followed by the now-famous Shirt.Woot in July of 2007. In September of that year, Woot partnered with Yahoo to create Sellout.woot.com. The partnership with Yahoo has since ended, but the Sellout site is still running daily deals.  Some of other spin-off sites include Kids.Woot (2009), Moofi.Woot (2010), Deals.Woot (2011), Home.Woot (2011), Sport.Woot (2012), and Tech.Woot (2012).

In 2008, Woot was announced to be the #1 fastest-growing retailer and the #25 fastest growing company in the United States, according to Inc.com. These rankings were based on 3 year revenue growth, where the company grew from $2.7 million (2004) to $117.4 million (2007).

In a move announced by their rapping monkey puppet, Woot was acquired by Amazon in 2010 for $110 million. Woot functions as an independent subsidiary and maintains their previous humor, irreverence, and business model.

Features:

Every day, at midnight Central time, Woot offers a new deal that lasts for the day or until it sells out. Woot never reveals how many units are left, but the “I Want One” button will start pulsing when a sellout is approaching.

Woot occasionally uses other sales gimmicks, such as Bags o’ Crap, where they sell a bag with random products in it. They do not guarantee the quality of the products, but they often include expensive items. Another feature they employ is called a Woot-Off. During a Woot-Off, orange flashing lights appear on the main page. These immediately follow the sellout of another item and they do not announce the quantity or sequence of items offered during a Woot-Off.

One of Woot’s most defining characteristics is their unreserved humor and sarcasm. They write unique product descriptions for each day’s deal that usually pokes a little fun at the product, Woot itself, or even the consumers who buy it. For example, they list the “First Sucker” (the first buyer) for each Woot deal offered.

At first, Woot stuck with their one-deal-per-day business model, but they have more recently added Woot Plus. Located just below the Woot of the day, Woot Plus offers categories of products for sale. Even though this doesn’t mesh with their normal model, they claim that they are exploring new ways to “bring you more cool stuff.”

Woot is also well known for its community environment. For each product, they feature the best comments made from consumers and display those alongside the product itself. They encourage their users to be funny, and sometimes a little off-color (they say to keep comments PG-13).  Furthermore, their sites Local.Woot and Deals.Woot feature deals (either locally or nationally) brought in by the community. Even these deals aren’t free of the snarky comments characteristic of Woot’s persona.