Webware 100 winner: Woot

Site: Woot.com
Category: Commerce

Woot is an online retailer of goods. Most of the items sold are electronics, although you never know what will be next. The site sells a new product every night at midnight Central time and will keep it available until the next night or until it sells out.

Unsold goods are then later sold (usually at a discount) in what's called a Woot-off, where the retailer continues to sell new or previously listed goods until it runs out of stock, replacing it with other items. Woot-offs are well known for ending with the notorious "bag of crap," which contains a random grouping of items that are undisclosed to the buyer until it arrives in the mail. Bags of crap have been known to randomly contain high value items such as big-screen TVs and popular electronics.

Besides its standard store, Woot has three other variants that use the same, or a similar sales model. Wine.woot.com sells a new selection of wine or alcoholic items each week, while Shirt.woot.com sells a new user-created T-shirt every day. Woot's other site, Sellout.woot.com, is a partnership with Yahoo's Shopping site, and usually sells the second string items from Woot.com.

(Credit: CNET)