Economy Impacts Woot?

Ok, I have no proof, no numbers, no evidence, but based upon my observations of the woot off today it seemed like items moved r..e..a..l….s..l..o..w.

Usually I try to put my Firefox tab on auto 15 second refresh (via some plug in I have) and I leave it up on a second screen while I go about my business.  When I can’t do that, like I couldn’t today, I check woot as often as I can and hit the forums to see what I missed.  This usually results in me becoming annoyed because I missed a cool item and motivates me to check woot more often for the rest of the day.

Well today I would bounce back to check woot only to discover it was still on the same item!  Or when the item did change, I would discover the last item I saw was the last item offered!  Looking at some of the “speed to first woot” and “order pace” numbers it seems wooters are slowing down.

Could this be due to the tightening wallets of even the crap collectors?  In the past you could put anything out there for $1.99 + shipping and it would be gone before the first refresh.  (For those who don’t know, woot lets you order a max quanity of 3 and shipping is always $5 so maxing out a $1.99 item would cost $10.97.)  Today even descent resale items took minutes to sell out.

Also, when I first started following woot the longest woot off I ever saw was hours.  I think the last one lasted 3 days!  What is happening here?  Is there nothing the crappy economy can’t ruin?  Of course I have no proof, it’s not like I have a XLS file somewhere tracking woot times, but I know someone out there does.  So?  Comments?  Anyone else seeing this?