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September 21, 2007

humor

Woot drops Zune price $20, offers $10 credit

Posted Sep. 21, ’07, 4:57 PM PT by Dan Pourhadi
Category | Apple » Humor

zune.jpgWoot is a website that every day takes one product and sells it at an incredibly low price. Today’s gem? A 30GB Zune for $130 (it’s sold out — probably Microsoft’s biggest sales day ever). Well last month Woot also offered a cheapo Zune (repetitive?), but then for $150, $20 more than today’s price.

That’s more than a 13% decrease in one month. As you can probably imagine, customers of the original deal aren’t pleased. From “An Emergency Open Letter” to Woot customers on the company’s website (worth reading), Woot’s Larry Stalin claims to have received more than three emails complaining about the price drop, and offers some “observations and conclusions”:

First, I need to make a better effort to hide my email address…. Second, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 30GB Zune from $149.99 to $129.99. This confidence is based on more than the holy doctrine of corporate infallibility…the Zune is a breakthrough product…. Third, being in technology for 1+ years, give or take a year, I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always some idiot changing lanes without signaling, and the potholes never seem to get fixed…. Third-and-a-half, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of the Zune, and even though the technology road is, like, this total Deathrace 2000-type scene, we need to do a better job taking care of our early Zune customers.

So how does Woot plan to remedy this highly publicized blunder?

…We have decided to offer every Woot customer who purchased a Zune from us on August 22, 2007 (or in the last Woot-Off) a $10 Woot credit towards any Woot order of $40 or more.

While they aren’t giving their customers the $20 they fully and rightly deserve even though they made a conscious decision to purchase the product at the time and obviously could’ve expected price cuts in the future, it’s good to see companies strive to make the customer happy, even when the customer is being a childish cry-baby.

But if Woot wants to make its customers happy, why oh why would it be selling Zunes?

It benefits both Woot and every Zune user (but especially Woot) to drag as many new victims as possible into the Zune “dungeon”. We strongly believe that misery loves company this holiday season.

Oh. How thoughtful.


6 Comments

Moe Author Profile Page said:

Personally, I think they were making a mockery of what Apple just did with the iPhone. "feel" the language.

Nevertheless, the Zune population grew a 1000th of a precent. Boo-hoo!!

September 21, 2007 7:05 PM
wesg Author Profile Page said:

I saw my first ever Zune out in the wild today! I guess that means the real world is far removed from the "social" we were promised.

September 21, 2007 7:56 PM
fjord said:

Yeah, i'm pretty sure Moe is spot on and you read it completely wrong, it was quite clearly mocking Apple:
"We want to convincingly pretend to do the right thing for our valued Zune customers... We will continue to do our best to trick you into having high expectations of Woot."

September 21, 2007 9:22 PM
Dan Pourhadi said:

Guys, I didn't misread their post -- I think you misread mine. I know exactly what they were doing with that "letter."

That's why I wrote my post like that; I mimicked their mockery. I was being facetious, intentionally dense. I wrote the story as if the Apple thing never happened -- but if you checked the links in my post, you'll see I knew exactly what they were referring to.

September 21, 2007 9:29 PM
tayker Author Profile Page said:

IRT the "social" comment, I think people conveniently forget embarrassing slogans. Sure, the Zune's first might sound weird to some, but we're living in an age where everything has some social aspect, hence the existence of sites from flickr to myspace. At least these gems aren't associated with the Zune: "Life is random!", "Which iPod are you?", and, my favorite, "Give chance a chance." There are embarrassing Mac ones too, so I think the Zune can live with 1.

September 22, 2007 4:26 AM
Dave-O said:

@Dan, aren't you glad you asked for more comments? You'll just have to accept that some people actually are dense and the rest of us were laughing too hard to comment.

September 22, 2007 1:06 PM

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