Shirt.Woot

Big fan - over 50 shirts (way over 50) - but then Amazon bought you and WA sales tax; suck! So I moved to Oregon - no sales tax! Now this! I will have to curb the addiction. I think the "it's only $10, I don't drink coffee - go for it" is gone ... Inflation has finally hit us... boo!

this is disappointing
i'd be lying if i said i wouldn't buy any more of your shirts
but i can definitely say i'll be buying fewer

i'm at 60 now...

I also was very upset at first. I mean, I actually checked the forum, and I never do that. Really though, $2 isn't going to make that much of a difference, even to a poor college student (which I am).

Are you kidding me? I used to pick up these shirts for my for my kiddies- no more.

Shouldn't the prices go down with the increase in buyers? are there no economies of scale?

Sounds like another Amazon tax.

Amazon is all for taxing the Internet once they found out they could sell their tax collecting services to smaller web stores.

This is no message of love- or hope.

Oh- another wootoff. I used to stay up to the wee hours snagging bargains- no more. now it's the 'Land for Misfit Toys'

/sigh, everything is going up, up, up.

I'll think twice, but still love you guys! /hug

I will probably only buy half of what I was... I needed to rein myself in, anyway.

I am too not happy about price increase

For those who say $2 isn't money/significant let's take a look: it's 20%. What would you say if your utility bill went up 20%. Is it gonna be what you said here: if you can't afford another 20% then maybe you should move out?

For those like me here's one way to feel less pain: instead of buying that 6th shirt forget about it since you would be out $60 already

life goes on..

elankat wrote:
For some people, I'd guess it's also the principle of the matter. Look at Netflix. Most people could afford their fall price hike and even though the streaming + 1 dvd was almost doubling, it was still a good deal. Less than $10 per month increase wasn't going to break people. But, they lost a lot of business when they did it.

Difference with Netflix was they lied about it while completely getting rid of any sort of bundle package. They tried to make it out like they were giving people some special deal, whereas Shirt.woot is coming right out and saying "Yeah sorry, things are expensive." So the "principle" of the matter is not really the same.

elankat wrote: I do find myself less willing to overlook the fit issues on women's shirt sizing at that price.

Here, here! And while we're at it, how about getting a women's 2X? Those postage-sized baby doll tees get kinda ridiculous to justify when the average American woman is a 14-16 (my size), but has to order a men's M. I have to tailor mine, because the fit on the sleeves and hem is all off for a girl. Not to mention that some of the designs are placed wrong to complement our "assets."

Le sigh.

In the past years you could hear the rooster call from every computer in the house. Staying up into the wee hours definitely doesn't happen here anymore. That's well gone too. The derby voting is way down, and the daily woot items as well as shirt's content is such crap now. Who's counting anyway. If you can add a $2 tax then so be it.

I'm quite okay with my 2008-current 41 woot shirt collection ending at 41.

My .02

kattotang wrote:Difference with Netflix was they lied about it while completely getting rid of any sort of bundle package. They tried to make it out like they were giving people some special deal, whereas Shirt.woot is coming right out and saying "Yeah sorry, things are expensive." So the "principle" of the matter is not really the same.

Agreed, HUGE difference. Woot, before increasing the prices, gave us extra services / options. We are now browsing long sleeve Ts, hoodies, and reckoned Ts. Netflix just upped the price, saying they wanted to encourage people to drop the DVD plan... But then only offered parts of Shows on instant streaming, forcing you to add the DVD option if you wanted to watch a whole season or series. Which then doubled your bill. Again, HUGE difference.

12$ is still a good deal when shipping is included.

I cant wait to see what is in store for 2012 but if I see stuff like:
magazine.woot
vacation.woot
ebook.woot or book.woot

Im done.

:-P

casemanion wrote:Big fan - over 50 shirts (way over 50) - but then Amazon bought you and WA sales tax; suck! So I moved to Oregon - no sales tax! Now this! I will have to curb the addiction. I think the "it's only $10, I don't drink coffee - go for it" is gone ... Inflation has finally hit us... boo!

You moved to Oregon to get away from paying Washington sales tax for your woot shirts?

Your full of it buddy, I usually don't call people out like this but your being silly.

Everyone knows its a better plan to live in Washington.

Washington does not have state income tax.

You can drive into Oregon and buy almost anything tax free.

You can live nearly tax free living in Washington and shopping in Oregon. (Not including property taxes of course: still Washington's is cheaper)

(Even if you work in Washington but live in Oregon you still pay Oregon state income tax)

Think about it if you make 50,000 a year: That's 4,500 in Oregon state income taxes.(No Sales Tax in Oregon)

Vancouver Sales Tax is: .082, lets just say you spent 50,000 and it was all taxable: You would have spent 3,280 in Vancouver, WA sales tax.(No State Income Tax in Washington)

So assuming you did make around 50K in a year: if you moved back to Washington and shopped in Oregon -- in a year -- you would have saved enough to be able to buy 101 woot shirts at the new price.

Beckybeq wrote:Material prices increase, eh, it happens. With cotton prices skyrocketing like they did last year, I'm surprised it wasn't sooner. But a big thank you for simply raising the price rather than acting like an orange juice company and shrinking the size by a few ounces. That would be awkward!

I noticed this too, and that walmart sells OJ for $3 for 59 oz, so I go to Kroger, get Kroger brand which is "still 64 oz" and costs $2.59 usually.

Also, why no shopping cart for reckoning shirts?

This is disappointing. As long as price includes standard shipping I will still buy here. I can still complain because I am the consumer, but I would rather pay $2 extra than shipping every time I buy.

Woot, raising the price to keep up with costs is understandable. as for me, like many many others on this forum, I will not be buying shirts for a while since $12 is not as captivating and tempting as $10.

But whatever you do, please don't pull a Netflix move on your customers. Don't hitch it up $2 this year and then another $2 next year. Netflix gave us the "Prices for licensing went up" excuse, but after a while, customers caught on that it was all a lot of smoke, so millions of customers left. Be careful not to treat your customers like how Netflix treated theirs.

Well, I guess they had to find a way to pay for all the totes and sweatshirts nobody is buying. Should have stuck with just t-shirts.

That's not to say I won't pay 2 bucks more for the next clever Monty Python or Star Wars reference, but...

Definitely an understandable increase, but I must admit it will affect my impulse buying in the future. It's going to be harder to justify spending $12 on a tee here when I can spend the same amount at a different website and get a shirt I like more.

Because I enjoy Freakonimics, let's do the shirtonomics numbers:

Annual cost of shirt.wootery
Shirts/week........$10..........$12..........$15............Diff @12......Diff @15

1.0................$521.........$626.........$782...........$104..........$261.
1.5................$782.........$939.........$1,173.........$156..........$391.
2.0................$1,043.......$1,251.......$1,564.........$209..........$521.
2.5................$1,304.......$1,564.......$1,955.........$261..........$652.
3.0................$1,564.......$1,877.......$2,346.........$313..........$782.
3.5................$1,825.......$2,190.......$2,738.........$365..........$913.
4.0................$2,086.......$2,503.......$3,129.........$417..........$1,043.
4.5................$2,346.......$2,816.......$3,520.........$469..........$1,173.
5.0................$2,607.......$3,129.......$3,911.........$521..........$1,304.
5.5................$2,868.......$3,441.......$4,302.........$574..........$1,434.
6.0................$3,129.......$3,754.......$4,693.........$626..........$1,564.
6.5................$3,389.......$4,067.......$5,084.........$678..........$1,695.
7.0................$3,650.......$4,380.......$5,475.........$730..........$1,825.


Monthly cost of shirt.wootery
Shirts/week........$10..........$12..........$15..........Diff @12.....Diff @15

1.0................$43..........$52..........$65..........$9...........$22.
1.5................$65..........$78..........$98..........$13..........$33.
2.0................$87..........$104.........$130.........$17..........$43.
2.5................$109.........$130.........$163.........$22..........$54.
3.0................$130.........$156.........$196.........$26..........$65.
3.5................$152.........$183.........$228.........$30..........$76.
4.0................$174.........$209.........$261.........$35..........$87.
4.5................$196.........$235.........$293.........$39..........$98.
5.0................$217.........$261.........$326.........$43..........$109.
5.5................$239.........$287.........$358.........$48..........$119.
6.0................$261.........$313.........$391.........$52..........$130.
6.5................$282.........$339.........$424.........$56..........$141.
7.0................$304.........$365.........$456.........$61..........$152.


I sure wish Woot would enable the [code] BB tag..formatting is hell.

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ugrasse2 wrote:Now you have to split mediocre quality over a disinterested, shrinking fan-base, and you're still trying to sell 1,000+ shirts per day. The market simply doesn't bear that out.

I disagree with this statement. The fanbase is increasing, and they are more mainstream than before.

To quote Arrested Development (the group, not the TV show) in the song "Mr. Wendal":

"Two dollars means a snack for me,
but it means a big deal to you"

Two dollars really is a big deal to some of you.

I'm buying today's shirt in support of the price hike. $12 with free shipping for a quality graphic tee is still a good deal.

(Also because the shirt is awesome).

The fact remains, you are selling good quality shirts with good designs for cheaper than a lot of competition. I think two dollars is reasonable. I still think you should increase the artist payout a bit to go with this though, right? They're the core of the success it seems... some talented people around here.

yni wrote:I am too not happy about price increase

For those who say $2 isn't money/significant let's take a look: it's 20%. What would you say if your utility bill went up 20%. Is it gonna be what you said here: if you can't afford another 20% then maybe you should move out?

For those like me here's one way to feel less pain: instead of buying that 6th shirt forget about it since you would be out $60 already

life goes on..

$2 as a value isn't significant. Casting it as a percentage is a red herring, unless you've got such a T-shirt habit that you regularly buy "that 6th shirt" in a short enough period of time for $12 to break you. $2 is a little over half a gallon of gasoline. How far are you going on that?

And if my power bill went up 20%, it'd be a heckuva lot more than $2. I might not move out, but I might have to decide that I can wear jogging shorts and t-shirts around the house and be comfortable at 78 degrees indoors in the summer instead of 74 degrees.

In the end, you are going to do what you're going to do. If woot sees a drastic enough loss of business, they may end up making adjustments of their own. But I still maintain that despite all the gretching, the good designs are going to sell about what they always did on Day 1, because in the grand scheme of things, $12 for a good t-shirt is still pretty cheap.

yankeebird wrote:Two dollars really is a big deal to some of you.

I feel it is the appropriate time for this.

Boo.

Still a fan tho.

I will still buy @ $15 the next day or so. More money for the artists.

I'm not knocking Woot for raising prices. The price is still a great price for an AA shirt.

But I think the reasons are less about rising costs then they are about maximizing revenue where it matters.

As Woot has shown with their plans to drive first-day capacity towards infinity, most of their sales happen on the first day. Up until now, they got their volume in one place and their profits in another. So they want to maximize profits where the volume is. It makes perfect business sense.

If the art is amazing I'll pay the $12. I have more shirts in my closet that are more miss than hit that were bought because I could justify $10. This will no longer be the case. So instead of me buying a hit shirt for $10 and a miss shirt or 2 for $10-$20. This is my cycle of shirt buying. For a total of $20-$30 from my pocket, you'll be getting $12.

You should now focus more on providing shirts worth $12 not the crap I see 90% of the time if you want to make up that extra $10-$20 from my wallet. Or double the number of shirts you produce a day so that 10% I do consider buying comes up more often. Either way I'm already having an increasingly hard time visiting daily because of that fact. I may give this up until things change.

Some of the comments here are hilarious.

kattotang wrote:Difference with Netflix was they lied about it while completely getting rid of any sort of bundle package. They tried to make it out like they were giving people some special deal, whereas Shirt.woot is coming right out and saying "Yeah sorry, things are expensive." So the "principle" of the matter is not really the same.

How exactly did they lie about it? They were pretty clear that the price was going up and why. They didn't "spin" it anymore than Woot is spinning this with talking of increasing costs and being able to offer more things in the future.

I know a lot of people who canceled Netflix service because the principal of the percent of the increase or because they didn't feel the streaming offered the value at the a la carte price. I don't know anyone who canceled because they intended to separate the services at first. What I'm seeing here is people not agreeing with the principle of a 20% increase or deciding that $12 doesn't have the same value.

My point. It stands.

j5 wrote:I feel it is the appropriate time for this.

J5...I love you.

from Futuresmag.com today Cotton: March cotton closed at 95.47c per pound, down 22 points as estimates of just how much impact Chinese buying will have in the face of global economic concerns. We continue to suggest cotton may have bottomed after last years devastating price declines. We would only use call options from here.

from this, it seems that cotton plummeted in price last year, suggesting no long term issue with the cost of the fabric.

so, we really have little justification for the price increase except that they want more money for the same product, which is gonna be less costly, or at worst, the same cost. This is where inflation starts.

kllangellier wrote:Agreed, HUGE difference. Woot, before increasing the prices, gave us extra services / options. We are now browsing long sleeve Ts, hoodies, and reckoned Ts. Netflix just upped the price, saying they wanted to encourage people to drop the DVD plan... But then only offered parts of Shows on instant streaming, forcing you to add the DVD option if you wanted to watch a whole season or series. Which then doubled your bill. Again, HUGE difference.

lol @ extra services

If you want that analogy, Netflix increased it's streaming catalog significantly in the year between first offering and the separation. Also, Netflix wasn't the one responsible for "forcing" you to add the DVD option to watch a whole series. That would be the company who owned the rights to the content. Netflix actually went to bat for the customer base, which is why they're losing the Starz contract.

But this is off topic, so I'll stop. Point is, people didn't want to pay a few buck more per month. Oh My Gookie! IT DOUBLED THE BILL! It was only a few bucks. Wouldn't break anyone. Still a great value and on par with competitors. But people didn't find it a value for them or didn't like the principle of the matter.

Same goes here. Two bucks won't make or break anyone, but it will impact the buying decisions and it has nothing to do with whether or not they can afford $2, as some implied.

I understand it had to be done with other costs involved but it will affect my decision whether to buy or not to buy a shirt.

Many of my purchases on this site are whim-based, now that I own... waaay too many shirts from this site as well as other daily design sites coupled with a higher cost to own one I have to re-examine what's worth it.


You post an amazing shirt design that I just can't pass up, I'll buy it; you buy a decent design that might've grabbed me before, I'll probably skip it this time around. Hopefully the artists submitting to this site (not to mention the voters voting) will step up to the challenge of convincing those with shallow pockets.

ugrasse2 wrote:Per the CPI inflation calculator, we've actually seen the value of our money increase in the last four years. $10 from 2007 are now worth $10.91. So a $2 on top of that, is actually a 29% price increase over the 2007 price.

Actually the inflation calculator is indicating that what you could buy for $10 in 2007 costs $10.91 today. Think about costs of soda or candy or newspapers 20 years ago compared to today. So actually they're raising their prices almost exactly 10% adjusted for inflation.

Now for someone who paid $10 for a shirt a week ago, this still kinda sucks. However I often buy from other sites and woot is still much cheaper. The only one of those sites comparable to woot in terms of price raised their prices from 11 to 12.50 (after shipping) about a year ago.

I actually think $12 is a better daily price with respect to other woot prices.
Reckoning shirts are only $3 more.
Randoms are about half price.
Wootoff sale is the same as first day prices.
A hoodie only costs about twice of a shirt.

However, I do agree with you on issues of quality. Despite a large salary increase, I have not bought as many new shirts recently. Note that excludes purchases of designs that were resurrected after being dead for years.

The psychological aspect of price is interesting. For instance, I have a relative that usually loves my designs, but only buys them if I tell her in time for her to catch the $10 price. Last time she bought 3 at $10, and was frustrated she couldn't get more at that price because she wanted them for gifts.

However, if she misses the first day - she won't buy even one shirt for $15. She just doesn't think that extra $5 is worth it for a t-shirt.
At $12... I'm wondering what her reaction will be.

The only way that we can show shirt.woot that we're opposed to the prices is through an economic impact.

If shirt sales drop significantly this week, then they'll know that something is definitely up.

alephnull2k1 wrote:$2 as a value isn't significant. Casting it as a percentage is a red herring, unless you've got such a T-shirt habit that you regularly buy "that 6th shirt" in a short enough period of time for $12 to break you. $2 is a little over half a gallon of gasoline. How far are you going on that?

And if my power bill went up 20%, it'd be a heckuva lot more than $2. I might not move out, but I might have to decide that I can wear jogging shorts and t-shirts around the house and be comfortable at 78 degrees indoors in the summer instead of 74 degrees.

In the end, you are going to do what you're going to do. If woot sees a drastic enough loss of business, they may end up making adjustments of their own. But I still maintain that despite all the gretching, the good designs are going to sell about what they always did on Day 1, because in the grand scheme of things, $12 for a good t-shirt is still pretty cheap.

Once again for some $2 bucks isn't money..
Point is (made by many in here) almost all of us can afford price hike but it doesn't mean it's nothing. You won't have a 100 without that "worthless" $2 and now-days some vehicles can go as far as 15 miles per half gallon so there you go or would you rather stay in woods?

As for shirts being worth the price since they are original everyone will have to decide for him/herself