All that sparkles...

Has anyone, besides me, been offered items from Amazon's "gold chest?"

It's basically a promotion where, for one hour, you can purchase five pre-selected items at special discounted rates. In the top-right corner of the Amazon homepage, a little illustrated gold chest counts down the minutes remaining before the offer is discontinued (forever!)

I was offered five different cooking products, including a George Foreman mini-grill, some BBQ supplies and a rice cooker.

I turned them all down (forever!)

Now, it appears that either these are completely random items or, the fondue pot on my wish list was weighed really heavy in determining what I'm interested in buying. It's funny that none of these deals were books or dvds -- the items that make up the bulk of my Amazon purchases. Oh Amazon, play your cards right and offer me past purchase-related items and I'll buy the contents of that entire gold chest.

I like things that sparkle.

Apparently, another gold chest with new offers was supposed to appear within 24 hours. It didn't and now I'm starting to think I imagined this whole thing.

Comments

[Adam]

If you imagined the whole thing, then it was some kind of shared hallucination, because I, too, played the gold chest game and turned down five pieces of merchandise (forever!). Of note among my special offers was one for a metal detector--not the find-gold-doubloons-at-the-beach kind, but the airport do-you-have-a-metal-plate-in-your-head wand kind. None of them seemed to be related to anything I'd ever purchased there before or anything on my wishlist (and with almost 300 items in my wishlist, you have to try pretty hard to come up with stuff that doesn't bear at least some indirect relation to something there).

[Jennie]

Oh, so I'm not crazy! This appeared to me yesterday, but when I clicked on it - nothing but blank browser. I thought it was supposed to be something special, so I was miffed when it didn't "open."

Guess I didn't miss much.

[Leia]

I was offered the golden box the other day, and the other three people in the room were not. I felt special, until I realized they were all garden tools. I don't have a garden, I've never ordered gardening tools. The only thing I have resembling garden implements on my wish list is a set of pink lawn flamingos.

[Kat]

someday you might want that George Foreman Grill. according to my friends they Rock! but you will want to super duper King Kong size...not the mini. :[

[Derek]

I saw it too! And I , too, was amazed at how very random the deals were. I think the point is to move some of the slower selling items.

[Cowboy X]

I like the fact that the items are totally random. Amazon's recommendations based on my previous purchases for them seem to be completely redundant and useless.

[adam]

I was offered not one, but TWO George Foreman grills. Similar models, but one was king size, the other the smaller model. Throw in the very nice looking mixer and you've got three things I have absolutely no use for.

Go Amazon! Way to randomize.

[Jeff]

I must be special! I haven't been offered anything golden (or grease producing)! -g

[brian]

Looks like it's been sent back to the drawing board. Maybe so it will be useful next time.

I rather enjoyed the "Let's Make A Deal"-like aspect though..."RAGGEDY ANN, WILL YOU TAKE THE NEW ON-TAP WATER FILTRATION DEVICE, OR WILL YOU SACRIFICE IT FOREVER FOR BOX #2??"

[Sarah]

Amazon offers me that George Foreman Grill every single day, and it was in my chest as well.

[Charlie]

I saw the chest, but mine was filled with similar crap...it's like the Amazon flea market or e-pawn shop, no books or DVDs at all!

And why are they trying to pawn off all the George Foreman grills...I thought those were supposed to be easy to sell...does everyone already have one?

[Daser]

Am I the only one who was snared by this? I ended up buying an electric razor, the last offer.

Amazon just got lucky though. I happened to have a $25 gift certificate that I couldn't decide how to use. It made the cost of the razor with the gold box discount quite low, considering the regular price. So I thought I would try it. It was a true impulse buy. The previous items I was offered before the razor were all pretty irrelevant to me.

[Benjy]

I'd gotten the little Gold Box thing about a week ago, and got it again this morning. Both times, all 5 products were kitchen goods. I looked on Amazon a couple of months ago for a set of kitchen knives, but I can't imagine that were it acutally based on my purchasing habits, wishlist, etc. the choice of products would have been a food processor, KitchenAid mixer, bread maker, etc. I guess they've got a warehouse full of kitchen stuff to dump or something! Kind of novel way to unload excess inventory, rather than just continuing to mark it down further. Create a sense of urgancy and take away the time to think about it too much.

[marrije]

I have never, ever even looked at kitchen stuff at Amazon, since I would be a fool to have it shipped all the way to the Netherlands, but still I was offeren a Cuinsinart this morning.
I think it's totally stupid thing for Amazon to do. Ugh, cheap, awful, not interested. Give me a break on shipping in stead, that would yield purchases for them. Now I just wonder whether I've ended up in Readers Digest Promotion Hell.

[Patty]

strange, I saw the Gold Box this morning and remembered this post about it, and my offerings were VERY similar to yours. I got an array of George Foreman-ia too. And a rice cooker.