Special events
The site occasionally deviates from the one-product-per-day model for a "Woot-Off". A Woot-Off lasts for an unannounced length, usually 24–72 hours.[7] During a Woot-Off, products usually sell out quickly, and when one product sells out, it is replaced within a minute or two by a new product. A percentage bar shows how much stock of the current product remains. However, Woot never gives the exact quantity available until after the item has sold out.
Beginning with the "gamma" launch of the Neuros MPEG 4 Recorder on February 9, 2005,[8] Woot has occasionally partnered with another company to launch a new product with a one-day exclusive Woot sale.
Starting in August 2004, Woot began occasionally offering a blind grab bag officially called "Random Crap", in lieu of typical product sales.[9] While today its accompanying picture of a paper lunch bag with a question mark has kept its unofficial name "Bag of Crap", (BOC) it was originally dubbed "Bag of Crap" during the early years of the site when a physical bag of some kind (notebook, iomega zipper bags, etc.) was sold with the 1–3 "craps" and was part of what you were buying.[10] Today, the BOC contains at least three "crappy" items and one bag[11] whose value and quality are not guaranteed, but sometimes expensive items are included. The BOC has been known to sell out in a matter of hours.[12] During the January 25, 2011 selling, the website received a record 3.1 million requests, and the product was sold out within eight seconds.
During April Fool's Day 2008, Woot staged a Woot-Off offering the same product repeatedly,[13] except for a few brief periods when Woot sold Bags of Crap instead. Three years later on April Fools' Day, Woot staged a "Bag of Crap" flash game, which users were instructed to play in order to win the privilege of buying Bags of Crap.
On April 1, 2011, eight thousand Bags of Crap were sold. Later in the day, once the Bag of Crap selling period was over, a Woot admin said that there were over seven million attempts to get the Bags of Crap.[14]
Debuting on March 10, 2010, Woot ran limited one-hour versions of the Woot-Off called Happy Hour. These events were promoted solely via Twitter, and did not appear on woot.com's front page.[15] Happy Hour didn't quite work out and was put on an indefinite hold by August 2011.[16]
