Woot!, with annual revenues of $117.4 million (2007), has been designated by Inc. Magazine as the fastest growing private retail company.
Woot! founder Matt Rutledge took the opportunity to reveal his secrets to success (“How I did it”):
"As a wholesaler, I saw a niche. The product life cycle is so short today. Every six to eight months, new merchandise comes out, and manufacturers have to get rid of the old stuff as quickly as possible. Everybody's chasing that leading edge, but there's an awful lot of opportunity in the trailing edge."
And with a sideswipe to traditional retailing:
"We aren't trying to be hucksters. We never try to sell to the dumb consumer. We always try to sell to the smart consumer. My lead writer likes to tell a story about his first day on the job: I made him rewrite a blurb because it didn't say enough bad things about the product.
We feel that if we don't do a good job describing what's wrong with a product, people will assume we just don't know. That's where most retailers fail. To them, every product is perfect. It gets to be implausible."
Related posts:
- Woot! Boss To Start Blogging (This Time It’s Official!)
- How Woot! Pushes Itself to the Limit
- Woot! Gives Homepage(s) A Fresh Makeover
Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.
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