Shirt.Woot : One Shirt, No Shoes, No Service (SM)

About the Site

What is Shirt.Woot.Com?

America’s most sensational fashion sensation! Oh, wait, we were thinking of those rubber wiffle-slippers everybody wears now. Shirt.Woot, on the other hand, is a web site that applies the Woot model to selling t-shirts: a new one every day at midnight Central time, sold cheap. The difference is, these aren’t somebody else’s leftovers. Woot tees feature exclusive, original designs that you can’t get anywhere else (hence the terms “exclusive” and “original”).

So, are these going to be Woot t-shirts?

If you mean “shirts with Woot logos on them,” then no. If you mean “shirts exclusively about Woot lore like the Bag O’ Crap or LeakFrog,” then no. If you mean “shirts produced and sold by Woot featuring a wide variety of design styles and subject matter”, then yes, in that sense, you might call these “Woot shirts.” But the vast, vast majority will not be Woot marketing souvenirs. Believe it or not, the general public’s appetite for Woot-logo merchandise is limited.

Can I use my existing Woot account at Shirt.Woot?

Yes. Not only is this easier for you users, but it allows us to say that Shirt.Woot has over a million registered members. Ah, the magic of statistics!

Is the shirt on the front page the only shirt for sale?

No. But it is the only shirt for sale at that price. Once a shirt's day in the Woot sun is over, we keep it around as long as it sells well. How do you know which shirts are still selling well? You look at our Reckoning page. And what's the Reckoning? We'll get to that later in this FAQ. Are you quite finished? May we go on? Please? Thank you, your highness.

Design & Production

Who’s making these t-shirts?

Woot Tees are 100% cotton blank shirts. The designs are printed at Woot’s own printing facility in our Carrollton, Texas headquarters. Although the people who make them do sweat occasionally, Woot Tees are produced in sweatshop-free conditions. And they’re made in the USA, from the first stitch to the last drop of ink.

Who’s designing these t-shirts?

We’re constantly recruiting experienced, talented designers who don’t mind ruining their good name by being associated with us. Each day’s shirt description includes a little bit about that day’s artist, including links to their other work. If you like their stuff, you can check out what else they’re up to. Otherwise, some of our shirts will be designed by our in-house staff. Also, each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we’ll sell the winning t-shirts from our weekly design Derby (more about that below).

Can I design a t-shirt for Shirt.Woot?

If you’re one of those experienced, talented t-shirt designers we were talking about, contact us at artists@woot.com. Tell us about your previous design experience, and include some samples of your work. We will look at every submission, but unfortunately, we might not be able to respond to everyone. Your chances are much, much better if you don’t act like a total jerk.

How do I get paid?

In blood and agony. Or, if you prefer, in dollars. Whether you choose our exclusive or less-exclusive contract, you’ll be paid a flat fee for the featured day and a commission for sales after that. We send checks to US residents and use Paypal for International artists. If that’s a problem, let us know at derby@woot.com.

Before we can pay you, we’ll need you to do some paperwork, and we’re not talking about origami. If you’re a U.S. citizen, we’ll need a W9 so we can rat you out to the Feds. If you’re from the rest of the world we’ll need a W8 to let the feds know you’re not required to pay US income tax . Either way, we’re not withholding any tax, so it’s up to you stay square with Uncle Sam, or Johnny Canuck, or Vladimir Putin, or whoever the mythical embodiment of your country is. Read the instructions if you think that will help for both the W8 or W9.

When do I get paid?

Jeez, you get right to the point, don’t you? Checks are distributed by the 15th of each month for any sales occurring in the previous month. In other words, if your shirt sold in January, we’ll send a check by the 15th of February. We’ll combine first-day and commission payments when possible, so don’t freak out if the amount you receive doesn’t match the number of shirts you’ve sold on the day you get the check.

Why do I get paid?

Um…because you designed a shirt we sold.

Who do I get paid?

Now you’re just being annoying. Next question.

How does copyright work?

You always own the copyright on the design, but in some cases of an exclusive design, we’ll decided to file a formal copyright to protect your design from all those intellectual property pirates (and ninjas) that are lurking around the Internet. Don’t worry, our filing this copyright doesn’t in any way alter your ownership of the design. You’ll hear from us if we decide to file formally, but even if we don’t you’re protected. Be sure to let us know at shirtlegal@woot.com if you see an instance of somebody ripping off your Shirt.Woot design. We relish the opportunity to pursue anyone who infringes on your intellectual property. Give us an excuse, scumbags. Just give us an excuse.

The Derby

What if I have an idea for a t-shirt, but no previous design experience?

The Derby is calling your name. That’s our weekly design competition, where users submit their own design ideas to a public vote, and we produce and sell the three most popular designs.

So how does the Derby work?

Every Thursday at noon, we’ll announce the theme. On Friday at noon, we'll open the floor for submissions. Woot users will vote for the shirts they’d like to see sold on Shirt.Woot. Be prepared for fierce campaigning. Mud will be slung. Skeletons will be dragged out from your closet. The weak will wither under the strain. The following Wednesday at noon, we'll stop accepting new submissions; the following Thursday at noon, we’ll close the voting and tally up the results. The winning shirt design will be sold on the site the very next day, while the second- and third-place finishers will be sold on Saturday and Sunday (except in certain cases, see below). In one week, your design could go from idle pixels on your screen to a full-fledged, real-life Shirt.Woot tee. We hope you can handle the psychological and physical demands of your whirlwind fame. Our advice: stay away from the cocaine. It’ll ruin your career.

Who can vote in the Derby?

Woot users who have previously made at least one purchase at any Woot site. See, we don't want people to create multiple accounts and stuff the ballot box. And we also want to make sure the winning designs are actually ones that our regular users would like to see. This restriction might seem anti-democratic, but voter fraud and prank voting are worse. And like we said - all you need to vote is one purchase on your account record, ever, at any Woot site. Even Bags O' Crap and LeakFrogs qualify.

How many times can I vote in the Derby?

Qualified Woot users can click the "I'd Want One" button for as many designs as they want, but only once per design. And you can revoke your votes at any time by clicking "Take It Back" in the same location where you previously clicked "I'd Want One". Wait, does that make sense? OK, yeah, we think it makes sense. We think.

What's this "Fog of War" nonsense? Why can't I see the vote totals for the top four entries?

In the heat of battle, the vote totals of the nine leading vote-getters are hidden in a cloud of dust, smoke, and blood. We expect this to make the whole race more dramatic, and to keep prankstas from trying to game the vote. But more importantly, since we're going to sell the top 3 vote-getting shirts (first place on Friday, second place on Saturday, third place on Sunday), letting you see the winners would mean 3 shirts of every 7 we sell would be known in advance. And that wouldn't be much fun, would it?

Will Shirt.Woot really produce and sell the three designs that get the most votes in a given week?

Generally, yes. Unless:

• We determine that the design contains elements created and/or owned by someone other than the designer or Woot, or that would otherwise infringe on the intellectual property rights of third parties;
• We determine that the design's content is offensive or obscene;
• We determine that our staff and equipment cannot produce the design due to technical or physical limitations;
• We determine that the designer, or someone else, cheated to rig the vote in this design's favor;
• We determine that design is not exclusive to Woot - i.e., the designer (or a designate) has previously produced and distributed this design, or one substantially similar;
• We determine that the entry does not fulfill that week's Derby theme;
• We determine that the design involves Woot logos, lore, inside jokes, etc.;
• The design requires printing on the front and back of each shirt;
• We determine that the design is in violation of Woot's policies and practices in some way other than those specified here.

Entries that run afoul of these guidelines may be deleted, if we feel like it. Additionally, we reserve the right to make changes to any design for production purposes - for instance, reducing 7 colors to 6, or changing the shirt color if it's one that we don't have access to. If you're a designer who'd be offended by us fiddling with your submission, make sure it follows our technical requirements.

OK, fine, but where can I find those technical requirements?

The Derby submission page will tell you all about colors, resolutions, file types, and other Derby arcana. The designer who reads carefully now avoids heartbreak later.

Let's get to the important part: do the winners get paid?

Of course. What kind of deadbeats do you think we are? The designers of the entries that we sell will receive $1,000 each, plus $2 for every shirt sold after the first day.

Someone appears to be breaking the rules of the derby. How do I rat them out?

If you spot a derby entry that appears to have been borrowed / creatively acquired / shamelessly stolen from some other source, you can report it to your friendly derby-meisters by going to the offending derby's entry page (by clicking on the design image) and clicking the red "TATTLE ON THIS" button in the upper right corner. When tattling, don't forget to provide specific examples or links to the original work.

How do I delete my entry?

We all make mistakes, especially you. So we’ll give you 24 hours from the time of entry to remove it from consideration. After that, it’s all ours. We do this so our voters can be reasonably sure their votes and attention won’t be wasted on shirts that vanish at the last minute. We know, it sounds weird, but you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff we’ve seen in this job. We’ve aged like twenty years since the first Derby. The things people are capable of…

I was honored with an Honorable Mention…now what?

“Now what?” “Now what?” Now you’ve got a new lease on life, that’s “now what”. We’ll automatically enter your design in our quarterly Double-Take Derby, where our favorite non-winning Derby entries vie for redemption from the public that rejected them the first time. Unless you don’t want us to. If you’d rather take your design and go home after the allotted 60 days is up, please do. We didn’t like it that much anyway. Just let us know at derby@woot.com so we don’t put it up for voting and have to reject our own Honorable Mention. We don’t appreciate being made to appear foolish.

Ordering & Shipping

Why are the shirts so cheap? Aren’t all-cotton, sweatshop-free tees usually more expensive?

Yes, we do pay more to have Woot Tees made in the USA without sweatshop labor. No, they’re not refurbished (good idea though, we’ll look into that.) We simply have this compulsive need to sell cool stuff cheap. Much to our economic professors’ chagrin, Woot staff still can’t figure out this whole supply-and-demand thing.

What size should I buy?

Before you give us your credit card number, you really, really need to consult this sizing chart. And then maybe go another size higher than that. They tend to run smaller than the typical shirts, with that streamlined cut that looks so good on 19-year-old hipsters. If you prefer the tentlike, billowing t-shirts so common these days, you’d better overestimate the hell out of your size.

Can I buy shirts of different sizes in the same order?

Yes. After you take the plunge and click ‘I Want One,’ do some quick math to figure out the total number of shirts you’ll be ordering. Then specify how many you want of which sizes. If you want one large, one medium and one small, click ‘I Want Three’ and then select the sizes. But remember, you can still only place one order per day, for a total of three shirts, so choose wisely.

What’s the deal with shipping?

In the lower 48 states, slow shipping is on us, via FedEx SmartPost. That’s our ”$0 shipping” option. If you’re cheap and patient, just let SmartPost do its thing, and your shirt should be in your hand in 5-100 business days. If you’re wealthy and impatient, we’ll ship your order FedEx overnight for our normal $5 shipping cost. Orders in by noon will be shipped that day. Orders placed after noon will be shipped the next business day. Choose your option on shirt.woot, and the site will tell you when you can expect your shirt to arrive. All orders to Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico will be shipped SmartPost for free. Foreign orders will always be shipped via the local equivalent of SmartPost for $5. Got it? Don’t blame us if you’re one of those people who don’t bother to read things.

Did you say foreign orders?

Yes. Well, technically, we wrote it. But yeah, Shirt.Woot is the only Woot site that accepts and fulfills orders to Canada and the other far-flung chunks of the planet listed in this blog post. We can't offer the same options as we offer to our Stateside customers. All orders ship via the local version of SmartPost, FedEx International Mail Service, and we have to charge you $5 for it. FIMS will hand the package off to your local postal service, who will complete the delivery. Unfortunately, this service does not offer a tracking number. Which is too bad. But at least we pass the savings on to you.

How long do foreign orders take to arrive?

We expect most international shipments to take from 3-4 weeks, with many arriving sooner. If you haven’t received your order within 5 weeks, please contact us at service@woot.com. And if you want to pop down to the local tobacconist, pick up a couple of Cuban cigars, and send them to us in a plain brown package, we won't tell U.S. Customs.

What if my overnight order doesn’t arrive on time?

Not even we can control everything: volcanic eruptions, military uprisings, highway banditry, and simple mistakes can keep your shirt from getting to you on the promised day. Delivery attempts count – if we try to deliver your shirt and you’re not there, that’s on you. Contact us at service@woot.com, and if we determine that you’re right, we’ll refund your shipping charge. Woot regrets that we cannot go back in time and make things happen differently.

I don’t like my shirt. Will you buy it back from me?

If your shirt is defective, or if we sent you the wrong size, or we sent you some other shirt by mistake, let us know at service@woot.com. If you just realized you don’t look good in orange, or you decided not to check the sizing chart before you placed your order, well, our impulse is to say that you got yourself a new washrag.

I missed a shirt I wanted to buy. Can I still buy it?

You can, assuming you can find one at a garage sale. Or on eBay. Or probably dozens of other places. You all are a resourceful lot.

What’s this Reckoning?

As we said above, we continue to make some of our shirts available on their own pages after their feature day has passed. But our crew can't possibly keep hundreds of shirt designs in print. So every Monday, we figure out which of our past shirts are selling the least (measured by post-launch sales per day over the last four weeks) and euthanize them, for their own good and ours. You can follow along each week on the Reckoning page. Or just listen for the sound of bells tolling...they toll for tees...

What are Shirt.Woot Classics? And assuming they’re something I’d want, where can I buy them?

Every Monday, the moldering corpse of a bygone Shirt.Woot favorite stirs from its mortal slumber, claws its way out of the grave, and stalks the Earth again as a Shirt.Woot Classic. You can always find the latest one at http://shirt.woot.com/classics. Sometimes it’ll be a Redux sale, where the original shirt is presented the same way it originally appeared, with the addition of a special Shirt.Woot Classics inside tag. Other times, it’ll be a Remix version, with the original design tweaked in some way. Unlike our regular old non-Classic shirts, Shirt.Woot Classics will not remain for sale once the next Shirt.Woot Classic sale launches, so if you see one you like, make like a hyperactive thespian and act fast. There’s more detail than you could possibly want in the Shirt.Woot Classics announcement on our blog.