Is it just me, but seems that being 1st, 2nd or 3rd in a derby does not mean being the 3 most popular shirts for buyers. I have a feeling that voters are artists (voting for each others shirts) and not buyers voting for which shirts they want to buy.
Without naming any designs in particular, I’ve been surprised at the choice of winners more than a few times, and my surprise has been confirmed when seeing the (sometimes VERY) low numbers of sales those shirts then had on their debut. Of course at other times a shirt impresses the voters and buyers equally and they ship thousands.
But shouldn’t we as a rule be trying to get the thousands of Woot shoppers to vote (and maybe get a notification when their choice becomes available) rather than the same group of us voting for each other each week and potentially missing the mark on what the REAL customers want?
Votes didn’t correlate to sales since the beginning of shirt.woot. The voting block has always been a limited subset of all Wooters, and what wins cannot account for everyone’s taste.
One example I can think of is an editor’s choice print for a 30th place design that wasn’t the usual cutesy, swirly, and/or pop-culture inspired design that the artist was known for. It sold the most that week. And outsold all the others from the double-take derby. And outsold the ones from its originating derby.
The derby is still generally indicative of what Wooters trend towards.
This is a great reply, thanks. I’d be interested to see how some of the others from a derby would fare, given the same spotlight as the derby winners. Obviously there’s no way to test that, because there aren’t enough days in a week for all the entries.
Maybe there should be two voting buttons: “This made me giggle for a moment” and “I really think this shirt is of such a high standard that it would sell really well.”
when woot runs a “vote-and-get-a-prize” derby, the vote counts are usually much, much higher. it’s admittedly a rather small sample size, but do these derbies have a better correlation between votes and sales?
I don’t recall it having so – not that I was the one running correlation stats either.
I think the “like and share this for a chance for free shirts” social media aspects has helped other daily shirt sites grow, but it ultimately came with the expense of the audience here.
Would things be different if shirt.woot was stronger in social media back then? Perhaps. There’s also the aspect that when shirt.woot started 9-1/2 years ago, there wasn’t much competition. Over the years, there has been multitudes of daily crowdsourced shirt sites, nevermind that artists can easily go direct now with POD sites also.
The questions are great, but I would urge you to hang around a bit, take it all in and learn.
There are not any easy paths, or predictable algorithms to this site. We may have 4 shirts in the top 9 every week as CAT shirts; but they don’t print as frequently as they FOG.
What was HUGE one year, may harbor no votes the next. It’s hard to predict. I think the ones that are here for fun and to grow will be less frustrated than those that come here as a study source of income…
Absolutely. In the past era of 3k sellouts, the #1 volume artist here wrote “People seem to have the impression that cute animals are a ticket to success, but they really are not, and are in fact no easier to complete as designs than any other style.”
+1, +1, and +1.
Yes, there’s been a few instant successes (the top selling design was the artist’s first week in the derby), but in the grand scheme of things, it’s slow-and-steady that has worked for the majority of the artists here.
Let me also add, “consistent”. I found that I fared better, in general, when I was participating regularly. It’s important to be involved and try to submit weekly. I can’t say that I have been able to follow my own advice. I’m absent for weeks and then have to claw my way back into the good graces of my fellow wooters when I finally have time/inspiration to participate. Be such is life. I’m still unable to join in regularly - but if you can, I recommend you do.
This. And it’s a numbers game. I’ve stopped long ago trying to predict what will be successful. I’ve spent hours making designs I thought would a hit (spoiler, it wasn’t) and others simply as a goofy afterthought that took minutes, and managed to place somehow. Of course, most fall somewhere in between.
At the end of the day, I make things that I’d like to wear or make me laugh. The rest sorts itself out. Usually.
