eCommerce in India - A blog by Darpan Munjal

When I first heard about Woot.com a few years ago, I couldn’t quite understand what’s all the fuss about. Since then I have been following this phenomenon closely, and have learnt quite a few things from this small retailer which now enjoys almost a cult like following from millions across the US. Woot is one of the very few sites that has a rare combination of simplicity and innovation – and yes, a great sense of humor!!. Here is an excerpt of a few questions from the FAQ section of Woot.com


“What is Woot and who is behind it?
Woot.com is an online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap. It started as an employee-store slash market-testing type of place for an electronics distributor, but it’s taken on a life of its own. We anticipate profitability by 2043 – by then we should be retired; someone smarter might take over and jack up the prices. Until then, we’re still the lovable scamps we’ve always been.

Will I receive customer support like I’m used to?
No. Well, not really. If you buy something you don’t end up liking or you have what marketing people call “buyer’s remorse,” sell it on eBay. It’s likely you’ll make money doing this and save everyone a hassle. If the item doesn’t work, find out what you’re doing wrong. Yes, we know you think the item is bad, but it’s probably your fault. Google your problem, or come back to that product discussion in our community and ask other people if they know.

What are my shipping options?
Currently, your shipping options are limited. An item can ship if you order it, or not ship if you don’t. We will ship by common carrier and try to stick with the same service for most items.”


I am sure that reading above FAQs probably doesn’t give you a warm and fuzzy feeling about doing some serious shopping from this online retailer. But, it gets better. The site only sells one product a day. That’s right. The product changes every night, and there is only one product available for purchase at any given time. Products are never announced beforehand and can easily sell out in a few hours or even minutes of hyperactive buying and then the users have to wait till the next midnight for the next product to be listed – unless there is a woot-off which I will save for another discussion. The Woot model relies on the elements of simplicity and surprise – unlike the traditional online environment which is focused on expanding the product assortment. It is fun to read the product descriptions, which often mock the product being sold, and the community is encouraged to write negative posts to highlight the flaws in the products being sold.


It takes courage and leadership for an online retailer to be as transparent as Woot in educating the customers about the good things and not so good things about the product being sold. But more than this transparency and sense of humor, Woot has been able to do something that no other retailer has been able to effectively. Woot has literally turned the world of web analytics upside down, and made this analytics information available back to its own customers. Take is a look below at a typical product page, the page contains a sea of analytics information – enough to make the likes of Amazon and Overstock.com turn green with envy and more than enough to turn a casual browser into a well informed buyer.

I have looked at analytics for a number of online retailers and have been in meetings where I have heard people make statements like “We have 10 Gazillion page views” or “Today we got 3000 visits from Who-Knows-Where-Ville”. Some retailers who claim to have a strong focus on analytics actually have managers responsible for collecting this information. There are regular meetings where information collected from these web analytics is presented to the management team. Then there is a lot of debate around the definition of visits vs. unique visits or where these numbers come from or how they are not consistent with the MIS systems but there is rarely any debate about what to do with this information.

The first step in achieving maturity related to web analytics is to build targets for few meaningful metrics and then creating an action plan around how to act on the insights collected from these metrics. Web Analytics should not be a separate function within the company – rather it should be part of everyone’s job profile – whether it is the category managers or the technology team or the operations team, all decisions should be made based upon the insights from these metrics. Analytics can provide a gold mine of information, but without any actions, analytics is nothing more than interesting trivia about the web site. Woot has actually taken the world of analytics to the next level – it exposes a number of these analytics to its customers so that they can make their own purchase decisions based upon this information. Not only that, Woot purposely uses terms like “seniority level” or “purchaser experience” in these analytics to make its customers feel part of this community where they are able to achieve a higher social status by purchasing more often from Woot.

So the question is why are other online retailers not doing this? Why don’t we see this kind of analytical information on the product pages across all eCommerce sites? The answer is very simple in my opinion. Retailers are very protective of this kind of information. They are concerned that by opening up this information, other competitors may be able to access information about their operations- information that is only meant for the eyes of internal management. I respectfully disagree with this thought process. Infact, this leads me back to my previous point – companies aren’t doing much to act on their own analytics – let alone acting based upon analytics collected from their competitors. Now I don’t want to imply that companies shouldn’t be protective of their confidential information – especially if that information is helping them differentiate from their competitors. But let’s be honest – disclosing basic analytics information such as page views or aggregated information on sales rank is not going to bring a company down. We are living in a digital world where information is easily available. My opinion is that online retailers should focus more on doing what is right for their customers. If this information helps customers make better purchase decision, it should be made available to the customers. So what, if other retailers find out? If the company is truly focused on delighting its customers and has differentiated itself based upon price, service or assortment, there is not much a competitor can do with this kind of information. Especially in the Indian context, where there is a lack of trust between customers and the online retailers, this kind of information can be extremely powerful in helping customers connect better with the online retailer.

In today’s world, we have the capability to learn so much, so fast from our customers. Sharing these learnings back with your customers is like giving back to the community you live in – it can only make you a more respected citizen in the society.