Frequently Asked Questions

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• general
• community membership
• merchants

General

What is Deals.Woot?

An outpost of the Woot retail jungle where savvy, opinionated Wooters can share the latest intel about what's cheap and where. And where retailers can toss their own deals into the fray to see if they're worthy of Wooter gold. Whether you want to discover an amazing deal, tell the world about one you found, or just talk specs and prices with your fellow cheapskates, Deals.Woot is your playground.

What is Woot? What are Wooters?

Woot is the handsomest online store in the world, established in 2004 and now part of Amazon. Wooters are the weirdos who keep us going. Yes, it's as great as it sounds, as you can see from the main Woot FAQ.

What is a deal?

For our purposes here, a "deal" is an offer available online from a reputable retailer at a lower price than usual.

What are Community Deals?

These are the deals scouted far and wide from around the web, and posted by our community members, Woot staff, and the merchants themselves. Think of it as a massive database of every decent discounted product, constantly absorbing the latest deals from the moment their prices are slashed, and then rated by hordes of savvy bargain-hunters so that the very best rise to the top. Whew! Excuse us, we're getting a little hot under the collar just thinking about it.

What am I looking at on the "Top" tab?

These are the hottest community deals by our most trusted advertisers: retailers that Woot has a business relationship with through our affiliate networks. We trust that these are genuine deals from legitimate retailers.

What are the "Popular" and "Fresh" tabs about?

The Popular tab shows the community deals that our all-seeing, all-knowing deal-ranking algorithm says are getting the most positive attention in the form of upvotes, comments, and whatnot. The Fresh tab is where to find the newest deals, and those near-miss deals that never quite hit the big time - and where you can vote and comment on your favorite deals, to help lift them onto the Popular tab. (More about all this below...)

What are Sponsored Deals?

Sponsored Deal slots are paid for by other retailers and manufacturers who want to be featured on Deals.Woot. We don't take just anybody - we have to believe that the deal is compelling enough to our community to merit such a prominent place on the site.

What if I need some help?

If something on the site isn't working, hustle over to our Support page and let us know. If your question is more of a deal-recommendation sort of thing ("what should I look for in a lawnmower?"; "anybody seen a decent Blu-ray player for under $40?"; etc.), you want the Ask the Community section.

What is the "Ask the Community" section?

Funny you should ask. This is the forum for finding solutions to deal problems, and passing deal knowledge on to others. Merchants are discouraged from participating - we want the discussion to be entirely member-driven. And as with the deals, feel free to vote for the discussions that you find the most helpful.

Community Membership

Do I need a special account to use Deals.Woot?

Only if your existing Woot account is special, and they're all special to us. But no, if you're already a Wooter, just sign in with your usual info. If you're not, well, what's the holdup? Once you've signed up for an account, your life will never be the same.

But you should know that only Woot accounts with at least one purchase will be able to vote on deals. We did this to prevent sellers from voting their own deals onto the front page with multiple sock-puppet accounts. We know it might seem like some dastardly scheme to force people to buy stuff from us, but it's just to protect the integrity of the “Popular” and “Top” deal status. If we were that crafty, we wouldn't be peddling obsolete gizmos for your spare change.

OK, I've joined. Now what should I do?

Search for deals that interest you. Post deals that you've found that nobody has posted here yet with the Add a Deal button. Vote for the deals that you like the best. Comment on deals if you have something to say. Deals.Woot is overwhelmingly created by people like you, so the more you play along, the more useful and fun it'll be. And your site reputation will reflect your awesomeness.

How does site reputation work?

As you can see on the Leaderboard, just about everything you do on this site goes into our reputation-calculating machine, which spits out a number representing how well you contribute to Deals.Woot. This lets other users know whether you're a n00b or an old hand, whether you're legit or just a troll. You can improve your rep by posting deals, voting on deals, asking questions, posting comments - all that stuff that makes Deals.Woot go.

What kinds of deals should I post?

Real online deals at great prices. That means reputable retailers. That means the best price anywhere. That means actual quantities are available (20 or more). That means, if there's a coupon, it works. That means no prohibited items (intimate adult products, drug paraphernalia, e-cigarettes, sweepstakes, and most weapons). And that means all of the key information is included and the deal is properly titled and tagged.

How should I title the deals I post?

The title should be as clear and as complete as possible, within about 70 characters. Use the {Manufacturer} {Model Number} {Product Name} format when possible, like Amazon does on their product pages. Avoid garbage like extra punctuation!!!, ALL CAPS, misspelilngs, abbrevs. that ppl can't undrstd. And don't put prices, store names, commentary, promotional text, or other stuff in the title. There are other fields for that information in the deal-posting tool.

How should I tag the deals I post?

This is how people will find this deal, so again, keep it clear and simple. Since the first tag is the most important, start with a top-level Amazon category where possible: automotive, baby, beauty, books, clothing, computer, downloads, electronics, games, garden, grocery, health, home, home-improvement, industrial, jewelry, kids, movies, music, office, outdoors, pets, shoes, sports, tools, toys, video-games.

Beyond that, avoid adjectives (cheap, funny, cool), manufacturer names (put those in the title), store names, prices, tags like "discount", holidays. A few accurate tags is vastly preferable to a ton of irrelevant tags.

Can I post deals for my own store?

Yes, if you're nice about it. See the FAQ section for Merchants.

How should I vote and comment on deals and questions?

If you think your fellow Wooters would like a certain deal or need to see a certain discussion or comment, vote it up. Vote wisely - no take-backs after 15 minutes.

If you have something to add to a discussion, either about a deal or about a question, fire away. Just try to make it worth your fellow Wooters' time to read.

What kinds of questions should I ask?

Anything deal-related is fair game. Wondering how to shop for a certain item? Looking for a great deal on Widget X? Your fellow Wooters probably know the answer. Non-deal related questions will be deleted. If that happens, take a hint and knock it off: persistent pests will get banned from the site.

When should I tattle on deals or questions?

When you see a deal that's been posted already, or is missing information, or has wrong information, or violates the rules of Deals.Woot, please use the tattle function so we can take care of it.

See a question that has nothing to do with deals? Tattle, please. There are lots of places to shoot the BS with your online pals. We stay focused on deals here.

Merchants

I want to post a deal from my own store. How do I get started?

First, create an account by clicking the Start Here button up in the top-right corner of the site. Make your username as close to your store's domain name as possible: if your site is sitethatsellsstuff.com, you should make the username “sitethatsellsstuff”. If your username is taken please let the deals.woot team know.

Please, please do not create multiple accounts to vote for and comment on your deals. Sometimes people try this, they always get busted, and the community thinks they're lame forever. Resist the temptation. It's not worth it.

Anyway, once you've created an account, click Add a Deal and you're off.

What kinds of deals can I post?

Good deals with the best price for that exact item on the web and a quantity of at least 20. Post no more than three deals a day. See COMMUNITY MEMBERSHIP section of this FAQ for more guidelines about posting deals.

I'm interested in posting a Sponsored Deal.
Who can I talk to about that?

Let us know.