Thursday, July 01, 2010

Amazon Acquires Woot.com

ZippyCart reports that Amazon.com will acquire popular daily discount deal site Woot.com. "Woot has had a loyal underground following, as people flock to the site every morning to see a new deal. As an example, the deal for today at Woot is an Apple iPod Nano 8GB, 5th Generation (Latest Version) for only $99.99 with $5 in shipping.

"Woot is based out of Carrollton, Texas, and founder and CEO Matt Rutledge says that operations will continue as normal from their headquarters. Therefore Woot will be managed completely independent from Amazon.com, but now will have the support of a multi-billion dollar online retail juggernaut.

"In addition to the core Woot.com site, there are also a variety of other online retail sites that Woot operates. The additional Woot online retail properties include deals.woot.com, shirt.woot.com, wine.woot.com, and kids.woot.com. All sites operate on the same business model, and have a great deal on a particular item each day."

Concludes ZippyCart, "Amazon has been making smart acquisitions over the last couple years, most recently buying Zappos.com for $847 million, and in January 2008 purchasing Audible.com for $300 million. Sites like Woot and the entire social shopping niche are getting bigger everyday, as new sites jump into the mix and old sites improve their strategy. The acquisition of Woot.com makes a lot of sense for Amazon, who offers something similar each day via their gold box and lighting deals. However it is still unclear if Woot will get any coverage within the gold box or lighting deals section of Amazon. So far it sounds like this acquisition was just a smart way for Amazon to diversify their online portfolio of properties, with a company who knows how to operate profitably."

The CEO of Woot.com has a very funny take on the acquisition....

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