black friday 80% off jip

[zxcvbnm]

Before 5am I could see the 50% off prices but as soon as 80% off came the site slowed down and the order page stopped working. I'm not convinced the prices changed properly on the page for baby host plans either, but I clicked on order three years anyway and the site could not cope. I made it to ordering and saw the 80% coupon in the order form but the images never loaded on the page and when I tried to get to page two using my return key the site crashed again.

So all in all there was never any realistic possibility of my getting an 80% off account and moving form dreamhost. I feel distinctly tricked.

Still to those feeling bad because it did not apply to new customers, don't be, it wasn't really there for most new customers either.

[GatorJoshL]

Unfortunately, all of these were used up quite quickly as it was a limited quantity offer. We are a world wide company and due to the high demand, these were used up within minutes. This sale was just like a door buster at any retail store.... First come first serve. You are welcome to use the 50% off which we are still running.

[virtvir5]

As an existing customer I'll happily pay the full agreed price and I've no objection at all to "door buster" sales that help to expand the business, so long as HG doesn't compensate for the mad rush by overloading its shared servers. That would be grossly unfair to existing customers IMO.

[GatorJoshL]

Richard,

I assure you we will not be overloading servers We had a huge amount of new servers provisioned yesterday just to handle our sales today.

Have a great Holiday, and as always if you need anything you can PM me and I believe you have my email.

Thanks,

[virtvir5]

Yup, thanks Josh. No problem. HG has always made an honest effort to excel in my own experience. Just a cautionary flag for any of those overly ambitious "sales experts" that seem to find their way into most growing businesses at some point.

[allenc]

Josh, if you intended it to be like any other Black Friday doorbuster sale you should not have included the 4-hour time window in the promotion. A local store only has so many square feet in front of its doors and its sale targets the local market only. While supplies may be very limited an early riser has decent odds of snagging a bargain.

HostGator only allotted 100 80% off accounts total. This 80% off offer was heavily promoted to a worldwide market. The ratio of available accounts to customers was so skewed that realistically no one had a real chance at obtaining the bargain. Your marketing department would have know this limited supply would only last seconds and would bring down your billing system.

The HostGator Black Friday 80% off promotion was deceptive. Why not offer a more realistic number on the 80% off accounts? Why did @hostgator delete the tweet stating the limit was 100? Why, include the 5am-9am time frame? Why even offer 80% off? Its only purpose was to generate hype. Many would have been pleased with the 50% off. People do not, however, appreciate being misled.

[iChaitanya]

Originally Posted by allenc

Josh, if you intended it to be like any other Black Friday doorbuster sale you should not have included the 4-hour time window in the promotion. A local store only has so many square feet in front of its doors and its sale targets the local market only. While supplies may be very limited an early riser has decent odds of snagging a bargain.

HostGator only allotted 100 80% off accounts total. This 80% off offer was heavily promoted to a worldwide market. The ratio of available accounts to customers was so skewed that realistically no one had a real chance at obtaining the bargain. Your marketing department would have know this limited supply would only last seconds and would bring down your billing system.

The HostGator Black Friday 80% off promotion was deceptive. Why not offer a more realistic number on the 80% off accounts? Why did @hostgator delete the tweet stating the limit was 100? Why, include the 5am-9am time frame? Why even offer 80% off? Its only purpose was to generate hype. Many would have been pleased with the 50% off. People do not, however, appreciate being misled.

Couldn't agree more.

[cor3ys]

Originally Posted by allenc

Josh, if you intended it to be like any other Black Friday doorbuster sale you should not have included the 4-hour time window in the promotion. A local store only has so many square feet in front of its doors and its sale targets the local market only. While supplies may be very limited an early riser has decent odds of snagging a bargain.

HostGator only allotted 100 80% off accounts total. This 80% off offer was heavily promoted to a worldwide market. The ratio of available accounts to customers was so skewed that realistically no one had a real chance at obtaining the bargain. Your marketing department would have know this limited supply would only last seconds and would bring down your billing system.

The HostGator Black Friday 80% off promotion was deceptive. Why not offer a more realistic number on the 80% off accounts? Why did @hostgator delete the tweet stating the limit was 100? Why, include the 5am-9am time frame? Why even offer 80% off? Its only purpose was to generate hype. Many would have been pleased with the 50% off. People do not, however, appreciate being misled.

Spot on

I understand that people are frustrated but I want to clear up one fact that seems to be getting tossed around incorrectly.

The email we sent to our affiliates specifically included this line.

We're offering 80% OFF EVERYTHING From 5AM – 9AM CST WHILE SUPPLIES LAST (first come, first receive; so definitely don't miss out!)

I am honestly not sure how much more clear we could have been there. And while I definitely understand that the sale went quickly, we didn't have any idea that it would do so. Over 3,000 users tried to checkout at nearly the same exact time for this promotion. Even if we had offered 1000 accounts at 80% thousands of people would still not have gotten this sale in the first 5 minutes we put it up.

Please understand that at 80% we basically take a loss on every customer, be it shared or dedicated. And that loss is for 2-3 years for nearly all of these sales. The 80% off promotion was for generating hype for our all day black friday deal, and while many did not get that better promotion we certainly believe that 50% off is a great sale on its own.

[EarlyOut]

Lesson learned - you probably shouldn't do that again!

It's a little like advertising round-trip airfare from NY to LA for $49, but having only two seats available at that price. Guaranteed to overload the reservation lines, and tick off a lot of people in the process.

Except in this scenario the customers were told that there was a chance that deal would not be available, and that if they were not able to get on that flight we would be offering round trips the entire day at $80 dollars, enough round trips so that every single person at the airport can get to LA and back without a single delay or piece of luggage lost.

It is like we have been giving away gold the entire day, but because we handed out a few diamonds to draw a bigger crowd, everyone is angry that they are only getting gold.

We certainly didn't expect the promotion to blow up like it did, and this was the first year we've ever tried something like this. Up until the 80% off promotion we had only receive a few dozen signups and we had no data that would ready us for this kind of traffic. We'll be revising and changing the way we handle the promotion next year and hopefully this upcoming cyber monday will go much smoother based on what we learned today.

[kmaw]

I got a Home Depot flyer in the mail the other day which sounds as if it went to the whole county of 100,000 people advising many deals, including the best which was a $600 bbq for $150... the flyer mentioned 'limited, while supplies last, etc'... my neighbour was in line first thing and he was one of the first six people that got a BBQ... anyone else looking for one in the line was out of luck.

We don't hear about those kind of things generally, because Home Depot doesn't have a forum in their website for people to voice those opinions... I'm sure it's a common occurrence at many retail stores often...

[allenc]

GatorJay,

No one disputes that the offer stated supplies were limited. It is the inclusion of the misleading 4-hr window that is upsetting. Including this time frame in the promotion led many to believe that more than a few accounts would be available. The number was not stated in the promotion.

You could have made it more clear by explicitly stating that such a minuscule number of 80% off accounts were being offered. But, this would have killed the hype. Trying to suggest that HostGator could not anticipate that a 100 accounts would go quickly is disingenuous.

The 80% off accounts are a marketing expense not an outright loss. You are correct that the 50% off is still a good deal. People are not upset about not getting your "diamonds" but rather about the misleading disclaimer. Many in the US west coast woke up before 3:00 am to try and purchase the special. If we had known we were playing the lottery most would not have bothered.

If HostGator didn't think that the limit was ridiculously small then why did HostGator delete the twitter tweet regarding the 100 number? It is always disturbing to see a company try and cover something up. HostGator must realize that many customers did not expect such deceptive marketing practices by a respected company.

[iChaitanya]

Originally Posted by GatorJay

It is like we have been giving away gold the entire day, but because we handed out a few diamonds to draw a bigger crowd, everyone is angry that they are only getting gold.

True, but...

Originally Posted by GatorJay

We certainly didn't expect the promotion to blow up like it did, and this was the first year we've ever tried something like this. Up until the 80% off promotion we had only receive a few dozen signups and we had no data that would ready us for this kind of traffic. We'll be revising and changing the way we handle the promotion next year and hopefully this upcoming cyber monday will go much smoother based on what we learned today.

Appreciated that you have taken a note. Please see to it that site doesn't crash (like it did this morning) in the future. I was shocked when the site went down @ exactly 5AM CST. Site was virtually inaccessible for the next 30 mins. I don't think 3k users trying to checkout at the same time is that much of a big deal for HG. I mean if you add some more servers I'm sure this can be taken care of. What I'm trying to say is: Everyone should be able to try for it. I still don't understand how those 100 lucky people were able to signup @ 5AM CST even though the site was crawling and throwing up errors. I tried from the first second but still couldn't signup!

Anyway, what kinda promo can we expect for Cyber Monday?

[tcremer]

Originally Posted by allenc

Josh, if you intended it to be like any other Black Friday doorbuster sale you should not have included the 4-hour time window in the promotion. A local store only has so many square feet in front of its doors and its sale targets the local market only. While supplies may be very limited an early riser has decent odds of snagging a bargain.

HostGator only allotted 100 80% off accounts total. This 80% off offer was heavily promoted to a worldwide market. The ratio of available accounts to customers was so skewed that realistically no one had a real chance at obtaining the bargain. Your marketing department would have know this limited supply would only last seconds and would bring down your billing system.

The HostGator Black Friday 80% off promotion was deceptive. Why not offer a more realistic number on the 80% off accounts? Why did @hostgator delete the tweet stating the limit was 100? Why, include the 5am-9am time frame? Why even offer 80% off? Its only purpose was to generate hype. Many would have been pleased with the 50% off. People do not, however, appreciate being misled.

Very well said.

I think in the end Hostgator lost a lot of potential sales due to what happened. People did not mind paying 50% off, but they were frustrated about the 80% off deal and decided not to purchase.

So its a joke that they are honoring the 80% off to the people who purchased between 5 and 8 am since they were most likely not the ones who intended to get the 80% off...

[striddy]

Originally Posted by tcremer

I think in the end Hostgator lost a lot of potential sales due to what happened. People did not mind paying 50% off, but they were frustrated about the 80% off deal and decided not to purchase.

So its a joke that they are honoring the 80% off to the people who purchased between 5 and 8 am since they were most likely not the ones who intended to get the 80% off...

And some people are impossible to please.....

[doulos]

Unbelievable thread .

Cheers to HG, GatorJosh, and GatorJay, and everyone else there, too - 4 1/2 years of great service and wonderful helpful people. I only got the 50% off the first month I am still happy.

[chaloupe]

For me, having the first month at 80 or 50% doesn't matter at all the way the promotion was done.

You buy it now because it's 80 or 50% off, but will you be ready to pay it 100% next month? Will you have the money for it? 2$ off the entire life of the account... why would I be aggrevated about it. No reason for me to even move of my sofa.

If I buy a deal, it's for it's life-time, not only for the first month. Even if you didn't had a chance for the 80%, you should not be that angry. It's only a single month in the end!

As HostGator said, it was a first by having this black friday deal and be aware about the size of the company and it's advertising world-wide. They did good.

I still back HostGator 110% on this black friday promotion.

As the twitter being deleted, it's their own right to delete it or not. They have an 'X' (delete) and they can use it at anytime.

Always use the Website in question and not 3rd party website to have your information right.

GatorJay and GatorJoshL, I'm buying you coffee!

Anyway, enough blah blah for me.

[tcremer]

I still love Hostgator

They are the best hosting company out there with amazing support and quality hosting. I just think they made a mistake on the sale, and hopefully they'll learn from it and people won't judge them because of that.

I still signed up with the 50% off deal even though 80% would have been nice

Oh and many people in the forums are upset about the whole thing because they normally could not afford hosting and the 80% off deal would have given them a chance to finally buy it...

[eurgbp]

every day IT hardware & software get cheaper and cheaper, every day Internet and IT industry become more efficient and more affordable. I hope HG does BF every week soon

[EarlyOut]

Originally Posted by eurgbp

I hope HG does BF every week soon

I hope not. That would push them into bankruptcy, and I'd have to find a new host again.

Some things, like storage, do get cheaper every day, but the people needed to make it all work do NOT get cheaper. You can't get good support personnel by picking up day laborers down at the 7-11 every morning.

[virtvir5]

Good grief! Some people just don't seem to understand the fundamentals of the service that they're paying for. If it were merely a pipeline to the internet backbone and some boxes full of hardware, anyone could do it for half the price or even less. And some do.

[EarlyOut]

Originally Posted by virtvir5

And some do.

Indeed. And when you call their support line, you get Peggy.

[chaloupe]

Originally Posted by EarlyOut

Indeed. And when you call their support line, you get Peggy.

LOL, that is priceless to this post!

[striddy]

Originally Posted by virtvir5

Good grief! Some people just don't seem to understand the fundamentals of the service that they're paying for. If it were merely a pipeline to the internet backbone and some boxes full of hardware, anyone could do it for half the price or even less. And some do.

And there is a key difference between a business person and a consumer.