Sparkfun Free Day

[z.s.tar.gz]

What you don't take into account are the people who don't post on this (and other) threads because they just don't care either way.
Sparkfun is a business, and I don't know enough about how they really run it to make claims and state facts. So, until I can find further evidence, free day was simply an underwhelming event. Nothing more.

[GearMotion]

So, until I can find further evidence, free day was simply an underwhelming event. Nothing more.

I think I'll adopt that stance.

[Admin]

If the free day last year wasn't controversial enough, it's back:
http://www.sparkfun.com/news/487

This year you need to answer electronics trivia questions to get your $100.

[madsci1016]

At least I can buy their whole "give back to our customers" this time. Last year was just complete BS.

[Admin]

Its just a marketing ploy, although a genius one at that. I see nothing wrong with that, and if I had a big company I'd probably do the same.

That said, 'give back to our customers' is BS, as you said. I ran some numbers, and they actually make a huge profit off of this. Nothing wrong with that, and a small minority get free stuff too. But its a bit too non-transparent/dishonest to me to label it as 'giving'.

There is no such thing as free lunch.

[Asellith]

I checked my first order date and I make 4 years on January 11th 2007. So I should get $40 for free. Funny part is I'll probably spend over $150 because of it. Yah they make money and its a good idea. Plus an amazing load test for their new servers.

[Crunchy Theory]

Oh boy... I'm as far as the "Enter Quiz" button... but...can't...get...in....

[BANE]

just clicked on the "loyalty" button because i don't want to be greedy and it crashed.............. sob

Its just a marketing ploy, although a genius one at that. I see nothing wrong with that, and if I had a big company I'd probably do the same.

That said, 'give back to our customers' is BS, as you said. I ran some numbers, and they actually make a huge profit off of this. Nothing wrong with that, and a small minority get free stuff too. But its a bit too non-transparent/dishonest to me to label it as 'giving'.

There is no such thing as free lunch

so true.  It appears i will get $20 free but i will have an order over $160.............

[waltr]

I got past the login but never got the next screen before the money was gone.

Oh well...it was fun trying.

[knossos]

The money isn't gone yet.  Still over $120k to go.

I got past the login but never got the next screen before the money was gone.

Oh well...it was fun trying.

[BANE]

hey guys, i just read you don't need to spend the money and place your order right now.  you just need to copy that promotional code they give you and you have 60 days to spend it.

[knossos]

Heheh, you have to make it to the code first .

[knossos]

Free day is over.  I finally was able to start answering quiz questions, got to #4 and it was over.  Final tally: 3 hrs of refreshing a webpage for 30 seconds of actual quiz time and $30 credit (4th question kept getting a 404).

[madsci1016]

Was an hour late to the party, and also had a 20 minute meeting. So spent most the time refreshing and only got past 2 questions...

Then, something happened at the end and it seems like all the traffic got through. went from 90k to 150k in 4 minutes. During the time I got through 6 question in 60 seconds (missed one) and then the game was over.

So, $67 isn't bad. Though I'm likely giving it to my girlfriend so she has an excuse to start a new project. She was at work today and couldn't do it.

[Hawaii00000]

I just logged on to SoR for the first time in a while and realized that I had missed a free day by mere hours... unbelievable.

[voyager2]

I tried too,
Firefox kept spitting out Problem Loading Page, or Server not Found.
Occasionally it loaded but I never got past the Enter Quiz button.

Never mind , most of what I had in my cart can be got as free samples hehe

[Ro-Bot-X]

I was at work today but took my laptop with me. I did not find any unprotected wireless networks in the building, so I had to head out to a cafe to be able to do something about the event. I managed to get the SF home page to load, clicked on the Go button that took me to the login page, entered my user/pass and waited... after a almost half an hour I managed to get to the choice page. Seeing how long I have to wait for each page to load, I chose to take advantage of my $40 loyalty prize but to get that I had to wait another half hour. At least I got something. Last year I did not get anything. So, after more than an hour, I could get back to my work thinking what I can get from them (I don't need anything at the moment). Oh well. I knew it will be difficult to get the quiz done. Congrats to the ones that had the time, patience and good location to get the quiz all the way through!