It was a most interesting promotion that they planned. Usually when I'm buying electronic parts I just like to know that I'm going to be able to order and receive what I want. Competing with thousands of other people wouldn't fit my style too well, especially if it takes time out of my day. But this is a nice gesture to the customer, for certain, and I hope that the loosers (lack of a better word) don't overshadow a good effort from SFE. It was an innovative and well-intentioned effort, and they also deserve recognition for keeping the small-company atmosphere.
I mostly hope that a lot of the people who did get their free stuff are people who really needed that deal (you know, high school students, college students, etc.). I'm sure the Parallax people have seen my name on enough orders to know that I can afford to blow $100 of my own on this stuff fairly often (heck, I spent $140 for two bottles of Cabarnet yesterday). When I was a high school student, though, this deal would have seemed pure magic, and failing to get in on it would have felt like a great tragedy. I hope a lot of it went to beginners and the needy.
Right. I concur - it would be best if the free stuff deals went to people who really need it and will derive the most benefit. That's the part I couldn't quite put my finger on, but you're right.
Ken Gracey (Parallax) said...
Right. I concur - it would be best if the free stuff deals went to people who really need it and will derive the most benefit. That's the part I couldn't quite put my finger on, but you're right.
Ken Gracey
It's like Christmas - when you're a little kid, the $20 toy your parents buy you is the greatest thing that ever happened to you. When you're an adult, there's nothing anyone is likely to buy for you that is going to really make you happy (well, other than a $75 bottle of Cabernet). In my family, we've taken to exchanging joke gifts, mostly, because we get a lot more pleasure out of laughing than out of having yet one more thing to sit around the house. They could give me $100 worth of stuff, but frankly, what makes me a lot happier is having good documentation and support forums. I can't just buy that for myself. Folks here like Tracy Allen and Mike Green (and several others) gave me something worth far more than $100 worth of free toys this year. The Sparkfun tutorials on running Eagle and ordering boards from BatchPCB were worth also far more than $100 worth of gadgets.
Any regular customer over at Sparkfun or here at Parallax·who didn't get WAY more than $100 worth of free stuff this year just wasn't trying very hard.
I put stuff in my cart last night, then sitting at work today the closest I got to ordering was the cart, after that it just would time out. Between that and watching to see if anyone at my company was getting laid off it was a pretty unproductive day
It's hard to tell if the promotion was a success or not. From the public comments on their site, the responses were about 10:1 against·saying: "This sucks", and worse, compared to a very few "Thank you, I got my free stuff!". I guess it comes down to how Sparkfun wants to measure success. They succeeded in giving away $100,000 in merchandise to 1,000 people, but it remains to be seen what the effect of thousands and thousands of disappoined potential customers will be in the long run.
Can you guess? I was one of the "losers". I would have been less disappointed if I had been customer # 1,001 than with just not having a chance.
I can afford·to miss out on getting $100 off a $180 order (I just spent $700+ on Parallax gear last week), but buying (or attempting to buy), should not be a disappointing experience (I was well pleased with my buying experience at Parallax). Successfully dealing with the retail public is never a piece of cake, so I guess we'll have to see·which side·Sparkfun's customers come down on; Success or Fiasco (a word used ALOT in the comments ).
Here is my take on the Sparkfun free day:
(meaning only 1 person out of 110 after spending almost 2 hours was able to achieve the 'gift')
Great idea - poor implementation.
Several things learned from a sys-admin side.
1: If you are expecting high-volumes, do not use imaged based buttons. They tend to 'disappear' during high-loads, and your customers will not be able to click on the 'next' button if it is not visible!
2: Don't let people 'assemble' a cart and then go purchase to find out if they won. That's just too many steps! Instead have some sort of coupon generator that requires human intervention so script-kiddies can't go nuts. Maybe only issue out so many tickets a day - drag the event out. Say 100 tickets a day. I dunno - might cause too much stress.
3: have these coupons 'activate' in some form of waiting period. If you issue out 1000 "Gold Tickets" have 100 work per day as well. "Congrats! You won a golden ticket worth up to 100$! - please come back and shop on saturday for your ticket to work!" Brings more traffic to the site on other days.
I would have prefered a simple answer to whether I won versus being stuck hitting f5 for almost 2 hours on different steps of the check-out process. I was never able to actually perform a 'purchase' and at the end of it I certanly didn't want to continue with what I had in my queue. If I had a straight answer and it was 'no' I would still have been inclined to purchase and say 'oh well', but being stuck in check-out limbo was just plain silly. (And silly on my part for not giving up) (my fault for playing along) But hey - if you want to stress test your system and make the first 'manual' denial of service that I ever heard of, there is nothing like enticing 110,000+ of your closest geeky friends to try to grab some techno-bits on the cheap.
Post Edited (OakGraphics) : 1/8/2010 5:54:22 AM GMT
Anybody here receive their orders yet? If you did get an order thru that bottleneck I'm curious what u got? I was one of those excited about it, but ended up a no-show
And here is cool video of that day in Sparkfun HQ. There is some serious boozers over there!
·· I ordered some items that day (not freebies) and noticed they were offering a choice of either a Stepper Motor Controller Board or SparkFun beer glass as consolation prizes.· I requested the stepper board in the ordering instructions box but did not receive one.· Did anyone here get one?
Duffer said...
It's hard to tell if the promotion was a success or not. From the public comments on their site, the responses were about 10:1 against·saying: "This sucks", and worse, compared to a very few "Thank you, I got my free stuff!". I guess it comes down to how Sparkfun wants to measure success. They succeeded in giving away $100,000 in merchandise to 1,000 people, but it remains to be seen what the effect of thousands and thousands of disappoined potential customers will be in the long run.
I couldn't get the site to move days before the offer.
On Black Friday, there was a laptop on sale at a major retailer and I had to get to the store at 6AM.· I got there and the line wrapped around the store.· I found out while I was in line that the store opened the door two hours before the advertised time and I wasted a lot of time in line because the store just wanted people to come out and by making me come out it didn't make me buy anything but it makes people feel used.· When you draw hundreds or thousands of people out when there are like 20 in stock then it is bad advertising.· As a result, I couldn't get the product from them so I went to their competitor and bought what I wanted.· In the same way, Sparkfun has to fill 1,000 orders so I figure that if they have 10 workers then they each·have to fill 100 orders and I don't know how many orders they can process or fill in a day or how many workers they have.· While I don't know how their business works, I am shying away because the normal customers may have to wait or deal with shortages and I would rather wait until the dust settles before I order from them.
I have never won anything in my life so I know that deals like this are too good to be true because supply is limited and there is too much demand.· Normal people have to work and can't spend two hours behind a browser and it isn't everybody's style to fight for a product.
I placed an order at Sparkfun for some parts a couple of days after "Free Day", and it shipped, and is due to arrive with today's mail (that per the USPS, not just Sparkfun).
I imagine that some things will be out of stock briefly, but then, that has always been the case.
Comments
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.
Ken Gracey
Oh well, maybe next time.
Dave E
Any regular customer over at Sparkfun or here at Parallax·who didn't get WAY more than $100 worth of free stuff this year just wasn't trying very hard.
Can you guess? I was one of the "losers".
I can afford·to miss out on getting $100 off a $180 order (I just spent $700+ on Parallax gear last week), but buying (or attempting to buy), should not be a disappointing experience (I was well pleased with my buying experience at Parallax). Successfully dealing with the retail public is never a piece of cake, so I guess we'll have to see·which side·Sparkfun's customers come down on; Success or Fiasco (a word used ALOT in the comments
Duffer
(meaning only 1 person out of 110 after spending almost 2 hours was able to achieve the 'gift')
Great idea - poor implementation.
Several things learned from a sys-admin side.
1: If you are expecting high-volumes, do not use imaged based buttons. They tend to 'disappear' during high-loads, and your customers will not be able to click on the 'next' button if it is not visible!
2: Don't let people 'assemble' a cart and then go purchase to find out if they won. That's just too many steps! Instead have some sort of coupon generator that requires human intervention so script-kiddies can't go nuts. Maybe only issue out so many tickets a day - drag the event out. Say 100 tickets a day. I dunno - might cause too much stress.
3: have these coupons 'activate' in some form of waiting period. If you issue out 1000 "Gold Tickets" have 100 work per day as well. "Congrats! You won a golden ticket worth up to 100$! - please come back and shop on saturday for your ticket to work!" Brings more traffic to the site on other days.
I would have prefered a simple answer to whether I won versus being stuck hitting f5 for almost 2 hours on different steps of the check-out process. I was never able to actually perform a 'purchase' and at the end of it I certanly didn't want to continue with what I had in my queue. If I had a straight answer and it was 'no' I would still have been inclined to purchase and say 'oh well', but being stuck in check-out limbo was just plain silly. (And silly on my part for not giving up) (my fault for playing along) But hey - if you want to stress test your system and make the first 'manual' denial of service that I ever heard of, there is nothing like enticing 110,000+ of your closest geeky friends to try to grab some techno-bits on the cheap.
Post Edited (OakGraphics) : 1/8/2010 5:54:22 AM GMT
And here is cool video of that day in Sparkfun HQ. There is some serious boozers over there!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgFayRF4M2c&feature=player_embedded
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"A complex design is the sign of an inferior designer."
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- Stephen
For those that managed to get their order through the clusterbum, yes.
(hmmm, where's the sour-grapes emoticon) [noparse];)[/noparse]
On Black Friday, there was a laptop on sale at a major retailer and I had to get to the store at 6AM.· I got there and the line wrapped around the store.· I found out while I was in line that the store opened the door two hours before the advertised time and I wasted a lot of time in line because the store just wanted people to come out and by making me come out it didn't make me buy anything but it makes people feel used.· When you draw hundreds or thousands of people out when there are like 20 in stock then it is bad advertising.· As a result, I couldn't get the product from them so I went to their competitor and bought what I wanted.· In the same way, Sparkfun has to fill 1,000 orders so I figure that if they have 10 workers then they each·have to fill 100 orders and I don't know how many orders they can process or fill in a day or how many workers they have.· While I don't know how their business works, I am shying away because the normal customers may have to wait or deal with shortages and I would rather wait until the dust settles before I order from them.
I have never won anything in my life so I know that deals like this are too good to be true because supply is limited and there is too much demand.· Normal people have to work and can't spend two hours behind a browser and it isn't everybody's style to fight for a product.
·
I imagine that some things will be out of stock briefly, but then, that has always been the case.