Hello Neatoramanauts! It's been a while since our last Neatorama State of the Blog post, so I'd like to take a minute to update everyone.
Mystery Sale - July 2009
Thank you to everybody who participated! We truly appreciate your business
and support. It took us a few days longer than I had initially expected
to gear up to ship out orders, but the warehouse has started to ship out
- we shipped the first batch two days ago and it'll probably take us another
full week or so to complete every order.
Usually, we ship out your NeatoShop order within 1 business day or so, but the volume of shipment for the Mystery Sale is (like last time) extraordinarily high. We're working hard to continually improve this process and thank everybody for being patient :)
If you ordered from outside of the United States, please be extra patient - shipments can take up to 14 to 21 business days due to customs clearance (those guys can really take their time though they're usually much, much quicker). I'll do another round of update when we've finished shipping out.
Twitter Only Contest
We're going to post a Twitter-only contest where you can win cool stuff
from the NeatoShop soon. It won't be announced on the blog, so you have
to follow @neatorama on Twitter
(we won't overload you with tweets, I promise!) to find out. Perhaps if
it's a success, we can do the same thing on Neatorama's
Facebook Fan Page ... what do you think?
Upcoming Queue Top Submitter Prize
Love it or not, I think the Upcoming
Queue is one of the neatest feature of Neatorama. For those of you
who are not familiar with the UQ, it is a way for the blog's readers to
write a blog post. Submissions are voted up or down by other viewers and
good posts are promoted to Neatorama's front page (details at the Upcoming
Queue FAQ).
For the coming month of August, we're going to have a neat prize for the top 5 submitters: the number 1 submitter (based on frontpaged posts) will get an iPod Nano, whereas the rest will get some extra neat stuff from the NeatoShop.
Remember that quality, not quantity of submissions will be the key - please read the Formatting Tip first.
Neat Stories You May Have Missed
We posted a lot of neat stories on Neatorama in July, so be sure to check
these out (in case you missed them):
What
'Chu Know 'Bout Wombats? (Photo: Shami Chatterjee) |
||
Wonderful
World of Big Science |
Thank you for reading Neatorama! Please tell your friends about the blog!
I call shenanigans!
I know that mystery box sales are really just a way for a company to get rid of things others wont buy. And this is exactly what it was. I have seen other mystery sales from companies, but was too scared to participate for that reason. I thought with neatorama's originality I would get something practical yet sarcastic (home item, shirt, stationary) and worth 10 dollars.
I do not like my item at all. It is just a waste of space and I will probably end up throwing it out. I would have paid maybe 2 dollars for the item (a rubber duck celebriduck?). I was hoping to get something more practical/neatoramary/sarcastic like the titanic ice cube trays or a fun science doll. I can't even find an item like the one I got in their store.
But I think I have a suggestion to make it more successful. Like other stores I've seen; if they had not only a choice of t-shirt size, but a choice of (kitchen accessories, fashion, office, total surprise, etc.) just like in their store section, I would have been more confident.
I won't purchase a mystery sale again from any company. I'm sure some people got exactly what they wanted. Thanks anyway :-)