Another SparkFun Cyber Monday has come and gone, and we want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all our customers who participated in the madness! We hope you enjoyed your Cyber Monday and were able to grab the parts you need to make your next project amazing!
On Cyber Monday (12/1/14) everything in our Actobotics category is 20% off.
That means everything from Actobotics Kits to DC Motors is marked down. If you're looking to start exploring the world of robotics, or stock up for your next build, this is a killer chance to do so.
On Monday only, we are offering hourly flash sales from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, with 30-50% off on some of our most popular products.
These items have been hand-selected by our employees and are some of our favorite designs!
Here's the low-down on important details for the day:
- Flash Sales are ONLY valid during their time window. If an item is sitting in your cart and the flash sale for it ends, the price will go back up!
- There is no combining flash sale orders throughout the day.
- Flash sales are a "while supplies last" sort of deal (which means no backorders!) - so get 'em while the getting is good.
Please note: We'll be working hard to get as many orders out today, but we can't guarantee our same-day shipping promise.
There really should be a way to combine shipping for all items bought in a day, especially if they all ship in a single box.
Without that, most of these deals don't end up being that great, unless you buy multiples.
Their sale their rules. Also they want to get them packed up as soon as possible. They would have to wait until the end of the day to pack anything. I think it took them 3 or 4 days to get everything out the door last year.
Worked the same way last year. Last year I found stuff I wanted this year not so much.
At least they let you see whats coming up and you can plan accordingly.
Yes, agree to all of that - but being able to (optionally) defer shipping to the end of the day, or even possibly to tomorrow seems like a win-win-win to me:
I pay less for shipping
Sparkfun sells more, and only pays for minimal shipping.
As a trade, my shipping expectations can be pushed back a day or so, which eases the burden on the shipping dept.
I'm not complaining - it's a nice sale, but I won't likely participate, because I would end up padding my car too much.
As the head of the dev team here I agree with you. There should be a way to defer / combine orders for shipping.
The trouble is that our system isn't really built out that way. While we have tools and an internal API for splitting/combining orders, it would take some work to build out the customer-facing UI for deferring orders that isn't confusing (and that trickiness should not be underestimated - complicating the checkout process can have a measurable negative impact on sales in the aggregate). We're also talking about a nontrivial feature that would really only be useful on days like today, which don't happen often.
In a nutshell: such a feature would be high complexity and high risk with low return (high return today but low return the other 364 days of the year). Thus it falls down the dev priority list, but is never taken completely out of consideration.
Thanks for clearing that up.
I (as a web developer, and someone who has done a fair bit of user research) agree that it's a difficult problem with potential impacts on the checkout process.
Amazon does transparent packing optimization, but now that I think of it, that does not seem to affect the cost.
Anyway it's good to get a nice reason why, its easy to forget that features have to be implemented even when it's what I do.
I can understand the trouble it would create to implement this, so why not eliminate the "sales throughout the day" format, and just put everything up at once? I'm local and will be picking my stuff up in person, but I can totally understand the frustration others feel about paying multiple shipping charges.
you should have a clock in your website :)
Suggested it last year and this year and I thought they were going to look into it.
We did look into it, but just had too much on our plate.
This is the earliests post I've ever seen from you guys! EST here, I'm used to having to wait until NOON for more sparkfun goodness!
EDIT: Holy cow great deals!
I'm sorry to say that I decided not to participate in this sale. There were several items that I would have been interested in, if the sale wasn't so artificially difficult. In the end, I decided to buy from another electronics place that has a more reasonable and a customer friendly format sale (that is, I can buy at all one time, when it is convenient for me; which is important because I have a day job).
I do a lot of shipping and trust me, it would be easier for them to combine shipments. If 10 people order something every hour that is 120 shipping labels vs just 10 - waste of paper, waste of boxes, waste of money and a waste of their time.
How about some play-by-play commentary? Will the RedBot mainboard sell out in the first round? It's soooo close! How long until all of the Acotobotics micro-gearmotors are gone?
I really enjoy the crazy structure of this sale. Next year can you integrate betting? :)
Monster Moto and OpenLog turn in impressive performances during their respective rounds, but can the multi-chassis rescue platform save itself from a sellout?
And there is a Yellow Flag on the field! Whats this? The refs are in conference... "10 Yard Penalty for listing a sold out Makey Makey kit (WIG-11511) in the sale before it has gone on sale!"... ;)
Don't worry - there will be stock!
Wait! Wait! There is a Replay call on the field!... Up in the booth MountainMateo is pouring over the video..... and YES! The yellow flag is waved off! No penalty. I just purchased a Makey Makey on sale. It's a TOUCHDOWN! And the extra point (free shipping over $75) is GOOD!
It's one heck of a game and the fans are going wild! Keep tuned in!
Time to go back to the video replay. I think you'll find that call was made in error. :)
MaKeys are back in stock!
Maybe a live youtube video cast with updates and commentary like for football.
AAAANNNNDD.... in round 2, the SparkPunk sound kit is looking like a sellout, possibly before the halfway point!
Sparkfun time
Note as of right now, 10:00 AM eastern, its 8:00 AM in Boulder.
Ive got my list all ready to go!