Online shopping is a way of life for most of us. With gas prices skyrocketing, the convenience of shopping online with a small shipping charge often out weighs driving to a store, trying to find something, waiting in line to check out and then driving home. Granted, some things need to be bought in person, such as most food, certain pieces of clothing, etc., but this article is more about the new wave of online storefronts. They offer one product, that’s it! No catalog, no option to look around, just one product, and that product is usually heavily discounted. There is usually no preview of what the next product will be, making people come back often and refreshing the screen an insane amount of times.

Woot.com is the grandfather of this pricing model. They offer one product for a 24-hour period. If the product sells out in the first minute, you must wait until the following day. Products tend to be more on the tech side of things, computer related and home stuff, but anything and everything shows up. One of their most famous and anxiously anticipated offerings is the $1 back of crap, where they offer you a grab bag of an item for $1 + $5 shipping. Each order has a brown paper bag included, but buyers have reported receiving everything from a pair of socks to plasma televisions. This one usually sells out in less than 30 seconds.

Chainlove.com was suggested to me from a thread over at iPhotoForum.com. They offer one product at a time until it sells out, when it does, the next one is listed. Unlike Woot, they show you exactly how many of any given product is left. This site is for bicycling enthusiast and offers everything bicycle related.

WhiskeyMilitia.com is nearly the exact same layout and feel as Chainlove, but offers products related to outdoors and outdoor sports. Snowboards, hoodies, and other stuff can be found on the site. When one product sells out, the next one is started. Again, deep discounts are found here.

SteepAndCheap.com offers a wider gamut of products; as of late I’ve been seeing a fair amount of clothing. It’s similar to, but slightly different to Chainlove and WhiskyMilitia, but a cleaner, more grown-up feel to the site. They sell one product until it’s gone and then move onto the next one.

These four sites offer what could very well be the next big explosion in online ordering. Some of the larger online only retailers, like Amazon.com are so big now, they are too big. It can often take very long to find specific items and in some cases, one item will be listed twice, each at a different price, thus confusing us, the buyers.

I like this concept, it gives me something to look forward too and I’ve been somewhat addicted to Chainlove, spending almost two hours on it last night refreshing, watching for deals, and seeing what’s selling and how fast.

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