Webkinz World Sells Out
Webkinz World has always been a commercial environment. The right hand side of the Webkinz World screen displays Webkinz-related advertisements and the site pushes Webkinz products on the user. One of the benefits, however, was the lack of external advertising. Unfortunately, Webkinz World has literally sold out and is now displaying external advertisements. I stumbled across an ad for the upcoming Chimpmunks movie while I was online.
There are other websites geared towards children that display advertisements, but most of those have free access. Webkinz World requires the purchase of a Webkinz stuffed animal for access, so the addition of outside advertising comes as a surprise. To add insult to injury, the change took place with no notification to parents.
I have updated the Webkinz World review to reflect the change.
Comments
Well the cost of operating the site must be catching up with them. Ganz is a small company and the Webkinz pets are relatively inexpensive at around $12 a piece. When the prices go up for retired Webkinz they don’t themselves profit from that speculation. The alternative to advertising is for them to start increasing the prices of the pets.
My biggest complaint is that parents were not informed. If Ganz needed to add outside advertising, they should have been open about it, rather than sneaking ads into the site after parents have checked it out for their kids. Given the volume of sales they have for pets, charms and accessories, it’s only the right thing to do.