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Free Day is January 7th, 2010!by Nate |
November 23, 2009 |
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You can blame it on Chris Anderson's book Free. After reading his book, I started kicking around the idea of what we can do that's 'free'. Sure, we have free bits (open-source hardware designs, available code, etc.), but we don't have free physical widgets. Now combine that with our love of creating shear havoc (AVC, C&D letter, Portable Rotary Phone), and you get Free Day.
Nobody gives away a free physical thing. There's always a catch. So up front: you have to pay shipping. Other than that, it's open season.
- $100 max per household
- You pay shipping
- Limit of $100,000 in giveaways for the
day
- Starts 9AM MST January 7th, 2010
- Ends 11PM MST January 7th, 2010 (or when we hit $100k, whichever comes first)
- Rainchecks for popular items will be allowed
First and foremost, we want to give back. We've had a stellar year in 2009, and it's all because of you. So please, have a beer (or a Stepper Motor Driver) on us.
Second: We wish we could sponsor more groups but we don't have a sound way of selecting appropriate projects. Because we can't afford to say yes to everyone, we have to say no to everyone. It pains us every time we have to do it. So this is a way for us to evenly enable all the students and great minds of the world to pickup a $100 worth of free gear. Go for it!
Third: Free Day will possibly create a maelstrom of site traffic, the likes of which our servers have not seen. At the beginning of December, 2009, SparkFun will be graduating out of its high-chair and moving into a server cluster. We are excited to have the breathing room, and Free Day will help us evaluate just how much breathing room we're getting. We'll do everything in our power to keep the site up but please understand that the site may go down.
Fourth: We turn 7 years old! SparkFun is now over 70 employees and is the ripe old age of 49 (in business and dog years). We'd like to celebrate our birthday with a party.
More nitty gritty details:
- There is no special code to type in. But you get only one order on Free Day, so spend it well!
- Only one $100 credit per household. We ask that you respect this limit and don't try to abuse this gift.
- There is no minimum or maximum order. You can spend more than $100, the balance of which will be charged to your method of payment.
- Only Credit Card and Paypal orders will be eligible for the $100 credit. We don't want to have people tying up inventory with POs, wire transfers, checks in the mail, or lost faxes.
- You will see whether or not your order qualifies for a credit in the checkout process.
- Free Day does not apply to our distributors. Sorry!
- Gift Cards cannot be bought on Free Day.
- Any returns from Free Day will be exchanged for the same item.
- Every order isn't going to ship on Free Day, or for a few days after. We've got extra tape guns on hand, but please be patient and give us some time to catch up!
- We are ratcheting up inventory for Free Day, but backorders (a.k.a. rainchecks) are allowed on most items (some items we simply can't get anymore). We'll get you your goodies just as soon as we can get them back in stock.
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That's enough of a credit to do something really cool.
Whoa, this is awesome. Wait, no, you're awesome.
I spent the last two weeks deciding what to get, and finally placed an order last night. A months heads-up and a $100 credit will really spiff up my projects!
Oh, and happy Turkey day. Cheers, SF.
For example, I've had my eye on one of these: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9294 and I'm wondering if I can get the ~$180 supply for $80+S/H.
Even if I spaz out on the critical day and miss out on the amazing bonus, you have my respect and sincere appreciation!
you guys rock bu you better stock up
Thank you for being such a generous company. I hope you continue to be successful.
Nevertheless, this move is one more reason to become a SFE regular :)
Thank you sparkfun. I have never seen anything like that anywhere. You guys are awesome.
-BG
are also international orders possible? I normally order my stuff at your german distributor, but for saving 100$ I will pay the german duty by myself. ;)
kind regards
...fabi
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/current_time_in_US-CO.aspx
to make sure that you get a chance to participate.
now i can't wait :D
u guys either 1)good at pretending to care
or
2) you guys are ALSOME
(i hope num2 :D)
MEERRRRRYYY CHRISTMAS!
I think it's ok to come out with the truth now... You've teamed up with the north pole and Santa has promised to buy 40% of your stock when you go public in exchange for a free day.
On January 7th, 2010, Sparkfun, the worlds premier geek supplier, performed auto-DDOS on themselves. By offering $100 of merchandise free to the first 1000 customers on that day, their internet presence totally vanished as the gears of industry ground to a halt. It is not known if they will ever be the same again.
Could we use the local pickup option for shipping and just set the pickup date a week or 2 out?
Neat idea guys, hope some cool projects come of it.
I AM AWAITING TO GET OUT OF COLLEGE TO APPLY FOR A JOB HERE!!!!!!!!!!!! (IM IN HIGHSCHOOL!)
That sound like great plan, I have just re-arranged my day to get online at 4:00 GMT. Second christmas! :D
Mowcius
I probably wont be taking the chance for this free day ; but want to take this chance to thank to you all and to "P.C." especially, for being awesome. really very awesome...awesome (:
SparkFun never ceases to amaze!
OTOH, I live close enough to pick up in person and say thanks if I achieve shopping ninja and get in on the deal!
(...and the bus pirate should arrive by then... a ninja with a pirate! Now I know how I want to start the year!)
He must not have every bought anything from you guys. THANK YOU SPARKFUN!!!!
Second thought: Y'know, I have a good job and I can afford to buy my own SparkFun gear. I think I'll leave the free stuff for the people who'll appreciate it even more than I would.
Third thought, carrying #2 a step further: Nate, if you wanna make a product code that costs $100 and sponsors another seat in the giveaway (obviously not tax deductible for the contributor), heck yeah, I'll buy one. I expect it would add complications you don't care to deal with, but it's worth offering.
Can be taken a step further and have a product of $1 value per quantity (54 quantity is $54). Then, either give a fixed amount, or random amount, to individuals who enter a specific listing (those who to participate in receiving).
Maybe you guys could have a sort of "roundup for education" program where we round our order totals up to the nearest $1 or $5 and you put the difference into a pot that goes to provide kids (high school age?) with some of your stuff.
That being said, I'd be happy to give you my address and a wish list under $100 if you want to make my Christmas so much better than any of my luddite relatives ever could :D. Then I wouldn't have to worry about being up at 9:00am during winter vacation.
What exactly does this mean?
This is why SFE is THE place to let your Geek shine.
Muchas Gracias!
see you all on RED Thursday!!!
(btw, you guys should do lots of mini promotions here and there, like Think Geek's Geek point system. You spend more money, and get little trinkets free with a purchase of $x or more.)
And its a Thursday.
However, this does create a somewhat interesting problem in selecting the items. There are many possible solutions for $100, and determining the technical value of each item for future projects is difficult.
Should I hook something up to the internet, add wireless ZigBee (did you see the 40 mi transmitter?), cell phone, huge lcd display (not as useful, but hey, pretty screen), get the SPI button for blinken lights( a necessary item for every major electronics project), get GPS, get some sweet sensors, RFID, Fingerprint Scanner, FPGA, etc.
I have about 30 product tabs open right now, and I have no clue which will be finally selected. Yeah, gift cards immediately came to my head. Let me know if that's cheating or not, cause otherwise I'll probably just get one of them and wait until I know for sure what I want to do before getting anything.
My hs senior engineering project is about to get amazing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP
You guys and gals rock.
Will itens 'out of stock' (backorder) be in the game?
[]'s
You rock!
Your competitors
The person who guest to the minute ( or second ) wins 100$ :P
loll
January 7th, I will be in a university competition... I will find time to TRY to order.
Thanks!
Lefty
I will work for free that day at no cost to my client.
I will donate the earnings I would have made that day to you guys.
What I ask from you, is that you use the money to support your enthusiastic customers. Especially the newbies and collage students. I might even be able to talk some people I know to do the same thing. That would be cool.
I have lived with geek passion all of my life. It has served me well. It is time to share it around.
I challenge all of our community to join you.
Sparkfun rocks. I just hope your shiny new servers don't melt down on the 7'th because of all the traffic this will generate.
It is going to be tight, but I hope to get one of those fantastic $100 orders.
Keep on going SFE, you are just a great company.
I predict 90% or more
On woot the "bags of crap" usually go to those with the best scripts. It'd be nice if some protection was put in to prevent "cheaters".
Nate, I am impressed at your generosity and hard work. Sparkfun is THE industry leader in terms of getting products and knowledge to hobbyists. You've just turned a semi-loyal customer into a very loyal one.
How many AVR's and PIC's and LED's would you have to sell to make back the money from a super cheap programmer and soldering iron combination? Is under $10-from-grandma's-Christmas-card possible? After those two items, the consumables are often in the "starbucks" price range, much easier to talk a parent into buying. What's the magic price point where suddenly microcontrollers can compete with nofriendo for geeky kid mindshare?
Alternatively, how many chips would a 4-H club have to buy to get the programmer for free? Would that make an acceptable "group sponsorship" method?
I think these could really let new people, particularly young people, get into the hobby.
long life to sparcfun!
Now, this is Sparkfun, not SPARC, right?
Thank you Nate. You deserve every bit of your success. (byte?)
I highly encourage everyone here to leave this offer to the ones who really cannot afford to get such toys.
I am really impressed with Sparkfun for doing this, though. I normally get my electronic bits and bobs through a different distributor, but I think I'll start shopping here, instead.
1. Build a House-Wide network of uControllers
2. Weather Station
3. Twittering, Facebooking Smarthome
and much more...
@trevor
"Partly because it's close to the anniversary of when SparkFun began in 2003." is that when you first when online or when the idea was created?
@nate On the 7th, how about a live stream of the chaos/havoc? that might be fun to watch or even a live order counter?
Thanks!
Matthew
cheers
It's already been hack-a-dayed.
I don't think there's any server cluster, save google, that can survive a full onslaught slashdotting crowd hungry for $100 bucks of free geek lootz. I'm guessing the 1000 orders will be completed in about an hour, because there will be so much lag and people trying to DoS their way through the ordering page that it'll take that long for the first 1000 orders to actually complete.
But my original statement holds true, this is the best 100k you can spend on advertising on the internet. There are comments on hack-a-day of people who are already to buy stuff from sparkfun when before they'd have never given it a second look.
I'm currently in the middle area between school and a "good" job...so I have some money to burn on this passion, but not a ton. So maybe I will try for one or two of the things I'd love to tinker with, but wouldn't normally purchase out of financial prudence. Or perhaps I'll just get some SparkFun merch (I could replace my old SF hoodie) and pay back Sparkfun's generosity by bringing them new customers via advertising.
In any case this is a wonderfully accurate (even scientific) way to load test your new servers. That alone might be worth $100k to you (and your server's host).
I'm sure that I'm not the only one who will pay you guys back with as much business as possible.
Please stock up on those DIY oscilloscope kits before Jan. ok? ;)
(Happy Holidays, to everyone at SparkFun.)
But it is also valid for people living outside the U.S. ?
You should also provide the reverse option, allow people to put money INTO the pool so the fun lasts a little longer.
I think that having everyone fill their cart at/after 9AM will cause people to order one pricey thing and then nothing else or something goofy like 20000 LED's... not saying I would :P
However if us friendly hackers were given the opportunity to hand pick what we actually need to complete our long suffering projects in advance then it would be a lot more useful than getting whatever random crap we can click on in 30 seconds.
Let us know Nate!
PS,
SPARKFUN FTW!
Very cool though.
What exactly does this mean?
I agree, it should be clear. Not that I finish the checkout process waiting to see if I was qualified or not and then I end up paying $100+ in "toys", as my family calls them.
Zach
I'm just floored that in this day and age a company would do that for its customers.
thanks for the great gift !!! :) The server will explode !
My cart have now $99.85.
HOWEVER: I am SURE the 1000 orders will disappear in a matter of seconds. This is a fantastic gesture, but it would have been much more fair at 10$ for the first 10000 orders.
Sorry, couldn't resist :p
SparkFun is the best company ever!
If I place an order right after your 100 000 limit is blown, will I get notified in some way and possibly be able to change my mind?
If some of my items are backordered, will you send two shipments and charge me for both of them, or will you wait and ship it together?
Anyway, this is awesome!
Yes, if you like you will be able to cancel the order, no problem.
If some of my items are backordered, will you send two shipments and charge me for both of them, or will you wait and ship it together?
If some of the items are backordered, then the items in stock are shipped right away and the back ordered items are shipped after they arrive at SparkFun. The Free Day credit applies to the entire order, and each shipment incurs it's own shipping cost.
Anyway, this is awesome!
Thanks!
Sparkfun you're the best!
I was scrutinizing an order for a robot I am making with my friend, and everything we could get out of scrap we would, and I live in Sao Paulo Brazil so the customs really bothered me.
Now I will be able to buy some stuff to play with, really cool.
Thank you sparkfun, really thanks a lot, this will not be forgotten.
I just have a quick question though, how will the information on the package be presented regarding the prices? I mean, will it say the real value of the order and a discount or will it say only the price of the shipment?
That can save me from customs, they are incredibly 60% of the package price, but I believe in no time I will be ordering from you with no worries about it.
Again, Thanks : )
I hate to say it, though, but there is potential to abuse this, especially if it hits the major news sites. Maybe it should be limited to existing customers?
Hey SparkFun, how about 500 orders on the 7th and the rest on Saturday or Sunday, or something similar to that. It would allow those people who are students at school to be able to participate.
I am excited to get some stuff, even if i miss it i need to start building stuff again.
Thanks Sparkfunians!
I'm wondering if you shouldn't try limiting by unique credit card number instead of per household (e.g. shipping address)... if that wasn't already the plan.
It seems to me that it would be easier to abuse your generosity by having multiple friends receive packages, while it would be more difficult to locate/use multiple credit cards...
I hope that your day goes over well (and that it doesn't attract "leechers"). Thanks again for being so great!
Congratulations, and thanks for sharing your good time.
I'm not quite sure I understand how anybody can really complain. How many times have you been to a store that will just give away $100 without asking for anything in return? I know I haven't.
Why don't those of us planning on ordering on free day limit ourselves to $75, or even $50. If we don't go over $75, we can still get great stuff, and over 300 more people have a lucky day. If we keep it under $50, 1000 more people can have $50 of free electronics goodness!
So I ask you for this: please consider sacrificing that extra GPS module so that more people can share the joy of Free Day. It's a simple proposal. Think about it!
this is such a great thing, if you don't get to "win" oh well, Nothing lost.
Great job SparkFun!!
If they used an AM radio driving audio into a sound card, ntpd can sync probably within a millisecond of the correct time. But there's probably a ton of time geeks in the area with stratum-1 ntp servers, too.
Almost 8:15 PST and no discount is showing.
I keep backing up to the Cart and then running up to confirmation but nothing changes.
Chris
Chris
d'oh.
I wonder if they upgraded to their new servers yet?
See you all Jan 07!!
Ps. Major Kudos for doing what you're doing btw, if you guys want a short term (for the event) UK mirror / CDN for SF's flat files you have my email on file ;)
Xbees, AVR's (not arduino programmed since thats $1something I can save) resonators, and other random parts I cant get off ebay from HK. Will kickstart a couple of projects that have been awaiting more money.
Gotta spend all the xmas cash on something better than socks and underwear ;)
btw.. THANKS
Gift Cards cannot be bought on Free Day.
Is this really true....?! or some of sort laygh and gags play out there from SFE...8-0
Could we place our orders to one of ur distributors and still get the free day offer or should it be done exclusively on ur website.
Is this really true....?! or some sort of laughs and gags play out there from SFE...8-0
Could we place our orders to one of ur distributors and still get the free day offer or should it be done exclusively on ur website.
brb quad monitors.
I'm going to need them with all the product tabs i'll have open.
Unfortunately, I'll be in school when it starts, so I can only make it to a computer when lunch starts, 15 minutes in. Unless the server's internet hideously slows down (and all the people with stuff in their carts don't snipe), I'll almost definitely miss out :(
SparkFun is definitely the best online electronics store - I just wish I had discovered them sooner!
lol
Can someone help?
i don't get the thing about the time conversion
i live in Greece
The date is 7(or if there is big time difference will be , lets say 6 or 8 of January)
And what time starts for me?
Thnx a lot!!!
Whether or not I make the cut on the seventh, it's the thought that counts. Thanks, sparkfun!
if all goes well, jan 7 can then be celebrated as the "Electronics Hobbyist Day"!!!
Cheers to SparkFun!! Hats off to u guys...
It's amaziiing! I can't believe it!! :o
Anything? Or do we have a preset spending limit? Obviously the site claims that we have (access)to "
# There is no special code to type in. But you get only one order on Free Day, so spend it well!
# Only one $100 credit per household. We ask that you respect this limit and don't try to abuse this gift.
# There is no minimum or maximum order. You can spend more than $100, the balance of which will be charged to your method of payment.
# Only Credit Card and Paypal orders will be eligible for the $100 credit. We don't want to have people tying up inventory with POs, wire transfers, checks in the mail, or lost faxes.
# You will see whether or not your order qualifies for a credit in the checkout process."
So I can select some of my favorite items, some of my probably expensive items, one or two say, and then I'll know?
Point of fact I have selected about six.
Anything? Or do we have a preset spending limit? Obviously the site claims that we have (access)to "
So I can select some of my favorite items, some of my probably expensive items, one or two say, and then I'll know?
Point of fact I have selected about six.
Anything. Buy as much as you'd like, you'll get $100 off. So, if you buy 2 $150 logic analyzers and a $60 soldering iron, you'd get charged $260 plus shipping.
anyone have any idea how long the frenzy will last?
Sam R.
or is there gonna be a fourth button, after the submit order, where it will say if it qualified or not and give the option to continue anyway or back out.
Can we have an official answer please. I tried asking via the feedback box (right panel) but got no reply.
<3 Sparkfun! I'm a extrem newbie and starting out....this offer is giving me all i need electronic-wise to get started! even though what i've brought many would consider OTT but its my 1st project and i'll make sure to get the Sparkfun logo somewhere on there 2! I would explain my project but then that would spoil it lol
and am diving into the world of ,duino
with a dumilanove
Happy New year!!
Second... totally flabberguested!
trevor: Partly because it's close to the anniversary of when SparkFun began in 2003.
It is close to my anniversary too :) Funny.
But I have 2 questions:
What about import taxes ? Do you also ship it as "free gift"?
(I know I still have to pay shipping)
trevor: The IT Department is currently working on the details of implementation but we will announce those details in plenty of time before Free Day. I can say that it will be very clear during checkout whether or not an order has received the Free Day credit, and for those who have missed the window of opportunity they can choose whether or not to continue with their order.
If I understand correctly that is before payment?
Dear SparkFun,
First off, you are awesome. Secondly, I would like to thank you for giving me, a high school senior who just spent a ridiculous amount of money on applying to colleges a chance to satiate my electronics desires. Once again, here's a HUGE thank you to all of you who made this possible!
Sincerely,
y2kkmac
So will this $100 off will apply on that item also which are not in stock ??? the item cost is 150.
Namely the motor driver,ardunio(instead of a pure analog circuit).
It will also allow me to put the LDRs at the corners and use 2 for each side of the comparison.
time-a.nist.gov
time.nist.gov
time.windows.com (probably not)
or something else?
One question though: I live in an apartment. With 3 other engineers. Are we considered a "household?" Or does "household" translate to "postal address?"
Looking forward to seeing some stats afterwards.
have a look at the blip on the graph, i wonder where that is coming from ...? :-)
http://www.google.com.au/trends?q=%22free+day%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0
Love Google Trend almost as much as Free Day at SparkFun
Alarm is set for 2am ... can't wait
TZ=GMT+10
kudos folks on your wonderfully altruistic endeavor. hope the new cluster stays up for the twenty-eight seconds required.
i love you spark fun this is a great opportunity for us to grow up of course i will buy the rest of my project from you :)
Best wishes for the future.
Thanks Sparkfun.
p.s.:
I don't see my comments that I posted before. In good faith, I am assuming there would have been some Server Issue rather than a human "check" at the sparkfun server side to ensure only POSITIVE comments get posted. Won't try again, if this doesn't show up (that will confirm to me that there is indeed a biased coverage of comments)
Not the best thought out promo if you ask me.
http://tinyurl.com/lsp6c3
Nothing more than great advertising
Sure a few people got a free $100 Dollars off an inflated price.
But in the end we all fell for it.
All of you screaming bloody murder out there - The SF servers are only part of the equation. Your ISP and router path to SF play in this drama too. Do a trace route to see how many boxes you have to go through to get to Sparkfun, you'll be amazed. Your session can go bad at any one of those stops depending upon the traffic load.
It'll be fun to see the traffic reports on the event!
DLC
Good luck with the handling & shipping of all this stuff !
Eventually gave up and came back on at 6:30am but its all over. Perhaps you can come up with a better approach maybe a random 5 minutes an hour over a week etc.
Dissapointed but mice to see someone giving something back to their customers!
Congratulations to those who got it, and at some point I'll be able to save up enough to actually buy what I was looking forward to. At least the rest of my day worked out for the better :)
I got all the way to paypal confirmation. When it finally dropped me back to the order page to hit the final submit, it was all over.
I'm not really complaining, but once I confirmed the order at paypal, it should have placed my order.
Oh well.