Shirt.Woot

So I decided to put my two cents in after reading this post and relising that I'm not the only person having these issues.

I used to by Woot shirts all the time, I have a whole closet full. I was always happy with the sizing, the quality and the designs.

Then I ordered my last shirt, I ordered the same size that I always had previously which was a WXL, they had just recently changed to a new sizing chart, but according to the chart this was still the correct size.

When I received it was apparent that it was the wrong size. It was a men's size not a women's size. The thing was huge, I would have fit three of me in it. I contacted Woot, and they claimed it was their new sizing chart that it wasn't wrong. The size on an WXL is a 24" chest, this thing was large enough that I ended up giving to my friend who is 200lbs, and it fit her.

Woot refused to admit that they may have messed up, and wouldn't give me a refund. Now I'm looking at the shirt today, which I would love to order, but how can I when I have no idea what size to order, and if it is wrong they won't do anything about it.

Woot has to relise that they won't have their customer's forever if they keep treating them this way.

BTW my best friend ordered a shirt not long after me and her order of a WXL was right.

Did anyone else buy Nocturnowl and have an odd blotch in the moon when looking at it glow in the dark? I can't even take a picture, but it looks so uniform (like an oval with two eyes and a mouth/nose in the middle) that I'm not sure if it's even supposed to be there.

ETA: Finagled my camera to take pictures in the dark, here's what I got:

Sigh again ... and I really don't understand what's going on there ...

Color comparison against last time ... where's the brightness in the frosting? It's so ... dull.


Registration problems ... again ...


More registration ...


... and to add extra insult ...

The thread isn't loose - it's that it got serged without the sleeve overlapping. Not Woot's fault here, though.

FWIW, a replacement shirt is NOT going to change the colors or registration issues. I'm pretty sure that much like last time, the entire run got affected.

I also received my Fresh Cake shirt order in the mail with issues. I have emailed support (with pictures) and am hoping for a replacement which will be presentable enough to give as a gift. The registration was also off on mine, as it was on Narfcakes, but also the print size is enormous. The print is twice the size as it is on all of my other Fresh Cake shirts. I would venture to guess that they used the size for the back of the LW Hoodies for the front of my woman’s shirt. I did order 2 of the hoodies as well, they have not arrived yet. Hopefully they don’t have registration issues as well. I have had minor print issues with woot shirts in the past and have not bothered to post or even email support, but I just can’t let something this erroneous slide. It really ruins one of the most beloved designs this site has to offer.

What a coincidence. Mine had registration issues, dark ink, and I'm pretty sure that giant print on the WXL AA shirt will sit in my armpits.

*sigh* I guess I should email support, but I'm just having a hard time making myself care that much.

On a side note, I know that they did change the print size for the WXL shirts to be the same as the print size on the ML shirts, because the Anvil WXL shirts are the same size as a ML. Perhaps they used that rule on this run for the AA WXL's as well.

And now my copy of Winter Has Come has arrived, and the GITD ink is visible from across the room, completely ruining the surprise effect of the shirt.
For some reason, the camera is having a difficult time picking up what the eye easily spots. My husband walked out of his office and immediately said, "Why can I see the walkers?"




So, I finally cracked and ordered some Anvil shirts, in the hopes that the print will be worth the terrible fit. Well, the print ruined it too. I've received 3 shirts in the last week, only one of them was printed properly. There's one more on the way now and it's the last I'll be ordering unless there's a major change.

thumperchick wrote:And now my copy of Winter Has Come has arrived, and the GITD ink is visible from across the room, completely ruining the surprise effect of the shirt.
For some reason, the camera is having a difficult time picking up was the eye easily spots. My husband walked out of his office and immediately said, "Why can I see the walkers?"

What kind of lights do you have in your house? Fluorescent, incandescent, LED?

j5 wrote:What kind of lights do you have in your house? Fluorescent, incandescent, LED?

Black Light.

j5 wrote:What kind of lights do you have in your house? Fluorescent, incandescent, LED?

Everything is CFL. But it was daytime, with the shades open, too. Now I'm going to google the effect of different lighting on GITD.


Update: Woot refunded me for Winter Has Come. They offered either a replacement or refund - the last time I had an ink issue, it affected the entire run, and each shirt they sent to replace was no better than the original. So, I figured I'd save the hassle this time.

I'm not sure if this is really the right thread for this--it might be more of a policy question than quality, but I've been a bit miffed lately as a lot of my shirt orders have come arrived with DTG printing rather than screen printing.

I was under the impression that we'd only get DTG prints if we ordered $18 catalog shirts, not reckoning or plus-sale shirts.

kevlar51 wrote:I'm not sure if this is really the right thread for this--it might be more of a policy question than quality, but I've been a bit miffed lately as a lot of my shirt orders have come arrived with DTG printing rather than screen printing.

I was under the impression that we'd only get DTG prints if we ordered $18 catalog shirts, not reckoning or plus-sale shirts.

I would call that a legitimate quality control concern. The side sale shirts are advertised as screen printed - so they should be screen printed.

kevlar51 wrote:... I was under the impression that we'd only get DTG prints if we ordered $18 catalog shirts, not reckoning or plus-sale shirts.

Given some of their printing issues (hence, this thread!), you might just be better off with the DTG print.

From my outside perspective, it seems that they are having inventory issues - again. I'm sensing that from the color limitations in recent derbies and still having so many random t-shirts to sell despite last week being the third multi-day random event in three months; in the past years, multiple sizes would regularly sell out before the day was even over.

As sales have continued to decline, I'm guessing that they have lowered the estimated shelf stock for reckoning sales too. That could mean that they'll be sold out sooner in some sizes; in such cases, instead of setting up the automatic press just because they're a few shirts shy in one size, they'll DTG those instead until there's more demand in additional sizes to setup/run the press.

Given the pair of recent polls, along with an random invite only poll, I won't be surprised if a change is in store for them and what they're doing now is balancing what they have left, to minimize the transition mishaps of last year.

Narfcake wrote:Given some of their printing issues (hence, this thread!), you might just be better off with the DTG print.

From my outside perspective, it seems that they are having inventory issues - again. I'm sensing that from the color limitations in recent derbies and still having so many random t-shirts to sell despite last week being the third multi-day random event in three months; in the past years, multiple sizes would regularly sell out before the day was even over.

As sales have continued to decline, I'm guessing that they have lowered the estimated shelf stock for reckoning sales too. That could mean that they'll be sold out sooner in some sizes; in such cases, instead of setting up the automatic press just because they're a few shirts shy in one size, they'll DTG those instead until there's more demand in additional sizes to setup/run the press.

Given the pair of recent polls, along with an random invite only poll, I won't be surprised if a change is in store for them and what they're doing now is balancing what they have left, to minimize the transition mishaps of last year.

QFT. Interesting developments are indeed afoot.

One can hope they're doing something, and making a positive change for once. I've almost completely stopped buying shirts since November (gave in for That's No Moon).

goldenthorn wrote:
I think Joel may have just addressed your concerns in another thread

Indeed! Thanks!

Since it makes more sense to continue on Joel's post here instead of in the side sale thread ...

joelterrific wrote:... Don't get me wrong, I would love to have the volume to promise a screenprint every time, ...

You folks know what needs to be done to bring volume back up. Even so, it's not going to be automatic, as those who have left may never come back, as they've moved onto other sites.

For every complaint in this or other threads, there are plenty more who didn't speak up and simply chalked it up to "I'm not coming back." I'm basing that on thrift store racks - Woot shirts, less than a year old, cast away already, typically in a stretched and shrunken mess. That suggests me there was enough disinterest in the product, so much so that they were "disposable". In some cases, the shirts were recent enough to still be available in the reckoning (excluding the two mainstays).

Anecdotal? Perhaps, but looking at the extreme drop in derby votes, sale figures, and community participation (that doesn't involve complaints), it's truly sad how far it's fallen here. With less traffic, I won't be surprised if ad revenue has dropped too, hurting Woot even more.

And the misprint strikes again.
My copy of State of Denial has arrived... and the smaller font with its "distressing" is unreadable.
When I first looked at it - I cleaned my glasses, but no go. It's not a good look.


ETA - this is what it's supposed to look like:

So, I seem to have inherited J5's luck. I've ordered 6 shirt.woot products so far in 2013. 3 have been misprinted and 1 has been lost in shipping and a month later, I'm still waiting for that to be resolved (though, I've been told a replacement is on the way.) 2 have arrived on time, and in the condition they should be.

HALF of them are misprints. This means either: a) I am overly picky or b) There is a serious Quality Control issue in shirt.woot land. I'm thinking it's more B. Ramped up output requires ramping up staff...

The awesome option of AA for $1 more doesn't do a thing for me if I can't get a shirt printed right.

Super frustrating.

thumperchick wrote:And the misprint strikes again.
My copy of State of Denial has arrived...

For comparison, my size ML copy arrived looking like this ...

I really think that the problems with State of Denial are the artist's responsibility, not woot's. "Distressed" fonts don't work well, especially when sized-down for the women's shirts. (Thumperchick, does yours have a smaller-sized screen? If not, I'll dig mine up and post a picture, but I feel like I've spent enough time doing that this year and I don't really feel like doing it!)

Once again: AFAIC, when a shirt arrives that differs remarkably in quality from the picture that Woot! showed of what is purported to be the shirt in question, I think the problem ain't with the artist; it's with Woot! If Woot! has to impose standards on fonts, colors & sizes of words to ensure that shirts are as legible as the pictures we're ordering from, they should do so.

As it is, Woot has my money & I have a shirt that ain't what I ordered because it ain't as pictured.

I think I've now been officially cured of ordering shirts from Woot!

neuropsychosocial wrote:... especially when sized-down for the women's shirts. (Thumperchick, does yours have a smaller-sized screen? If not, I'll dig mine up and post a picture, but I feel like I've spent enough time doing that this year and I don't really feel like doing it!)

I bought a ML on AA. (BTW - the WXL is now the same print size as ML, unless they made an adjustment for AA.)

I really think that at the end of the day, the print quality and printibility (?) of the design comes down to woot. If you have to squint to make out text, adjust something. In this case - the original design may have some flaws, but the printing issues seem to go beyond that - just look at the now darkened background and the sad, dark hill.

thumperchick wrote:I bought a ML on AA. (BTW - the WXL is now the same print size as ML, unless they made an adjustment for AA.)

I really think that at the end of the day, the print quality and printibility (?) of the design comes down to woot. If you have to squint to make out text, adjust something. In this case - the original design may have some flaws, but the printing issues seem to go beyond that - just look at the now darkened background and the sad, dark hill.

The darkened background is weird. I noticed that on mine. The artist's mock-up actually shows the pantone color that's listed as the one they used for printing, so... weird. It almost looks like there should be a white underbase behind the background that wasn't put in (the rays of the sun are muted, too), but I really don't know enough about screen printing to say, "this is how it should be done!" Someone can come along and tell me I'm just talking out of my ass.

They're sending me a replacement, but I'm concerned that it'll be from the same run... oh well, at least customer service is still cool.

It sounds like there are definitely some problems with the printing that I hadn't noticed and I appreciate folks pointing them out. However, screen printing, no matter how well-done or how fancy the press, has limitations that aren't always obvious in computer-rendered electronic images. The King and Queen font in size 8 is not going to be legible on a shirt, no matter what poor Flipit does to the screens.