X

Amazon acquiring eccentric retailer Woot.com

Retail giant Amazon is acquiring the "one deal, one day" retailer Woot.com. According to Woot, the company will remain its own retailer, and not a part of Amazon's own site.

Josh Lowensohn Former Senior Writer
Josh Lowensohn joined CNET in 2006 and now covers Apple. Before that, Josh wrote about everything from new Web start-ups, to remote-controlled robots that watch your house. Prior to joining CNET, Josh covered breaking video game news, as well as reviewing game software. His current console favorite is the Xbox 360.
Josh Lowensohn
2 min read
Woot and Amazon's logos

Amazon is acquiring online retailer Woot.com. The deal was announced Wednesday afternoon on Woot's company blog, though financial details were not disclosed.

According to the post, Woot--like Zappos and Audible before it--will remain an autonomous unit and not part of the main Amazon.com shopping experience.

In a note to Woot employees, founder Matt Rutledge said, "We plan to continue to run Woot the way we have always run Woot--with a wall of ideas and a dartboard. From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are simply adding one person to the organizational hierarchy, except that one person will just happen to be a billion-dollar company that could buy and sell each and every one of you like you were office furniture."

The Texas-based Woot.com was launched in 2004 by Rutledge, and started out by selling just one item per day, beginning at midnight Central Time until it sold out. The items that were sold were mainly tech-related, including computers, digital cameras, and various toys. The company later expanded into other areas, including wine, user-designed T-shirts, and products for children.

Two of Woot's unique spinoffs include Sellout Woot, which is prominently featured on Yahoo's Shopping site, as well as Deals Woot, which launched late last year and aggregates shopping deals from around the Web.

Update at 2:55 p.m. PDT: TechCrunch is reporting that the price of the sale was $110 million, citing its own sources.

Update at 3:13 p.m. PDT: Woot has released a rap video about the acquisition: