What is Woot?

I am trying to get some shopping done before leaving for India and was on the lookout for a good mp3 player. During my search, I chanced upon this website www.woot.com
This is not a traditional website like Amazon or buy.com. You can't search for products to buy here, you buy what they give you. They usually have a deal once every day some of which are pretty good and some ordinary stuff, based on what I have seen till now. And during the course of the day, they introduce items in really small quantity, so the first ones who get to the site are the big winners while the rest of them wait and watch for the next big deal. And true to its quirky nature and the way they operate, they actually have a 'Bag O'Crap' sale which sells for a buck plus 5$ shipping. It can contain total random stuff but has been rumoured to contain expensive electronic items as well.
It seems to be a pretty good strategy creating a sense of artificial scarcity and selling stuff that people would rather think about for a long time to buy. Since you don't have much time to think you are basically put into a situation where you buy stuff that you actually don't need, just because it's a good deal.

I think the classes at the U are beginning to pay off, I can relate to some of the stuff that they teach, to what these guys at woot.com are doing and to some of the business scenarios taking place in the real world. Although most of the strategies and techniques used by this businesses don't look standard, they are definitely variations of things that have already been done and I guess that's how you create a killer business or product by constantly innovating and doing something which other's have not.
In the meanwhile, waiting for the next deal to appear on Woot!!!


-Muthu...