I read recently an article that indicated Webkinz was in the top ten of keywords being search on search engines in the last 30 to 60 days. Why you ask? Well Webkinz is the newest young craze these days and the people behind Webkinz is a company called Ganz. What is Webkinz you ask? Well it is a safe virtual world for young children from the ages of about 6 and up. Essentially this company has done a great job marketing to our younger generation, everyone who is anyone wants to purchase a Webkinz which comes with a unique “secret code” in which you can access their website in order for you to “take care of” your newly adopted pet.
Well it is Christmas Day and of course I bought my 9 year old daughter two of these so called Webkinz, the Webkinz Pinto Horse and a Webkinz limited edition Reindeer! Her face just lit up finding those under the Christmas Tree. With all the excitement in her little body she ran upstairs to log on to Webkinz world – mind you she had lost a previous “secret code” to another one of her pets and thought she would NEVER get in again – she gets the site up and proceeds to sign up her new pet and all she got was “I’m sorry all servers are busy right now,” fast forward and try to actually log in and she got “500 Internet Server Error”. WHAT??? Are you kidding me????
My kid is now devastated – Webkinz did an excellent job letting all these children know that they would have some “special” offerings on Christmas Day and now you cannot even get in to the site? Did they not plan for all this traffic? They sure marketed it well enough to boost their sales in the stores. So what do I now tell my 9 year who has tried ALL DAY to simply register her pet and get online with the most popular virtual world for kids under 12? Sorry honey their servers cannot support the overwhelming amount of traffic to their website and maybe their server administrators are all on holiday, try again tomorrow when ALL OF THEIR PROMOS are over and done with!
OMG did they not think about this? I guess not, we are very disappointed in how Ganz and the people at Webkinz world have handled the planning of this Christmas rush, they sure had no problem pushing their toys but they obviously could not support the website well enough so the children could enjoy their toys and that is just sad. The fun of having the pet is taking care of it online not that it sits on your dresser to collect dust! To make matters even worse there is no forum or blog of record to even be able to discuss the problems directly with their staff.
This really is good marketing gone BAD!!! Thumbs down for Webkinz and Ganz! I told my daughter to go back to Club Penguin at least they can support the traffic!!
3 comments:
Hi, thank you for this wonderful entry! I agree wholeheartedly for I have been having the same problems! Why wouldn't they plan for this traffic!!
There is definitely power in the internet. Thank goodness my daughter can FINALLY get on to Webkinz but I have to say the Webkinz problems caused much grief and I found out that we were not the only ones who suffered.
It's not only the traffic problems, it's the lack of customer support. The company is at a crossroads with the pending onslaught of competitors online. Setting themselves apart is imperative, regrettably they're are doing so in the wrong manner. Being known for site problems and poor service aren't good for the bottom line.
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