Thanks much to Todd and the committee for putting on another GREAT event. I’m a fly by Berzerker Day poster, but appreciate the effort and time required to do something like this, particularly as each year it gets bigger and more complicated.
I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the Saturday notice to Donors via spreadsheet. The Excel worked fine for me once I downloaded it, then I highlighted the half dozen or so offers of most interest to me, deleted the rest (sorry, can’t buy them all) and had a short “hit list” to work from. This allowed me to key in on some offers that might have gotten lost or missed otherwise, and I actaully had a stress-free Sunday, because I ordered everything I wanted before the official starting gun.
If I get a vote, I definitely vote for the weekend prior to Super Bowl as the permanent calendar date(s). Sure I’d rather do this at work, but with Donor status, an hour or so on Saturday evening while drinking a glass or 4 of wine was the perfect set-up.
Loved the excitement and special shout out to Nicholas Elliot of Nicora. His enthusiam as a newbie winemaker shown through in his comments and in his offer. I am very excited to try his wines (since I snagged them first thing), and I hope to visit Nic in Paso soon.
I’ve also been a member for three years, but came out of the lurker closet to participate for the first time. I only purchased from two wineries: one because it was not a big commitment (two bottles of Buttonwood Cab Franc for $49 + free shipping, essentially a no-brainer) and the other (Calluna four-pack) because winemaker David Jeffrey has been very kind and gracious, tasting with me twice and inviting me into his home. I loved his wines when I tasted them in April and September 2012, but had been waiting for the right deal/moment and yesterday was it. Being on the East Coast, I am a huge fan of free or reduced shipping, as shipping costs usually equal a bottle or two or three of wine. I’d rather pay a little more for the wine. Thank you to everyone who put this together. Cheers!
I thought it was great and spent extra time and money on the newest, smallest labels (when I could - Nicora sold out in a heart beat!). I thought the variety was very good (agree on the pinot centric comment but not complaining) and would encourage even greater focus on variety if possible. So much happening in the US with vermentino, ribolla gialla, aglianico, tempranillo and the like…this seems like a great venue to find and experiment with those folks…
My 2nd Berserker Day, and this time I was in India on business. Got the donor spreadsheet, but didn’t make any purchases based on that. By the time I was awake Monday morning, half of the Day was over, but I was still able to snag two great offers and PMed for a third (still waiting for a response).
Great opportunity to try some wines that I haven’t at a discounted/introductory price.
Thanks for the great day of sales! My first BD, but I enjoyed it a lot and picked up a mixed case of intriguing wines I’ve been wanting to try, as well as learned of a promising retailer who was new to me, and scribbled down some wineries to check out.
The Excel spreadsheet was hard for me to read as well - imagine having to use it as your input tool for BerserkerDay! The problem is that wineries often have, as you saw, lengthy descriptions, and spreadsheets really aren’t meant for lengthy text. Anybody know of a solution? I’m happy to hear it for next year!
As for the date of BerserkerDay, I have my own observations. While it seemed to be good to have on a Sunday, without conflict, the possibility was raised that with one’s spouse easily watching over, spending might have been curbed, as opposed to being at work. Also, at work, I think there’s more urgency, so it has a bit more of a madness feel to it, as you never know when you’ll be hit with a task or called into a meeting or receive a phone call. I missed people complaining about being at work, actually - it was funny to see, and I don’t think the sales suffered at all by it! I’ll put up a poll for the next one, today so it is fresh, and find out what the preference is. I’d love to expand upon the offline events if possible - but I’ve yet to hear much from those who held them (Seattle, San Fran, NYC). I would love to figure out a completely new method of delivering BerserkerDay as well, if anyone has ideas that can capture the fever that we always have, but turn it into something even more exciting. Any TV producers here???
For those who are upset that they spent too much money, I can tell you the only way to avoid doing it - be the one posting the offers! You see a great offer go by (because you posted it) and before you can react and buy it, you have to post another one! It helps the wedding budget!
PLEASE, participants and ITB’ers, please please keep using this thread to give your notes and feedback - positive or negative - so we can continue to make this bigger and better each year. Next year is our 5th anniversary!!!
My second berserker day – first as a donor. I really liked the sample packs from some of the wineries I was not so familiar with. I think a win/win for winery and berserker.
This being my third year, I was able to approach with a plan and stick to it! The spreadsheet worked well on the iPad when I expanded the offers so I could read them. Year one was massive buying of new to me winery samplers. Year two was to buy from those impressive year one offerings and adding a couple of potential new wineries. Year three was to replenish some daily drinkers, as I am working through the year one and two wines. I love the Holdredge, Cabot and Dacalier. This year only bought some Dacalier for myself and friends, and Rascal PG for TW. There are a couple I would like to try, that is what BD5 is for!
Well def. not a computer guru, but how about next year have a set up where there would be a place for ITB’s / wineries / to paste their info in a table format. Same thing, but maybe tables are a little easier to manipulate than a spreadsheet.
Winery ---- Donation / Offer ----- Detailes of offer ------ Max # of bottles in offer ----- Link to website
I really enjoyed the day and found it fun to watch all of the offering pop up unexpectedly. One thing I found difficult was seeing all the offers - as the threads move around from posting, it can get hard to see the newest offers (something I also struggled with last year). Perhaps the offer threads could all start with a number so one could find them quickly? Or maybe give each new offer a ten minute stickie?
Yes - that’s what I was trying to get at too. Most forums have a feature where you can sort by “original / first post date/time” but couldn’t find that - then you could keep them in order nicely and see the new offerings.
I’m receiving some feedback from veteran ITB’ers that their order count was down from last year, some significantly. Others are experiencing much higher results, but still, to have some of the stalwart offers that are ALWAYS popular see a reduction in orders makes me think that we might have gone too far, and had too many offers.
I’m considering next year doing a ‘top 50’ offers, and that only the best 50 will make the cut. Thoughts?
This is what I was thinking might happen when I saw the date posted, especially the spousal awareness factor (certainly in my case it applied). Having it during a work day also makes it more likely that more people are “legitimately” stuck at their computer all day wearing out the F5 key on the Beserker Day forum. Tough to resist those incredible deals as they pop up in front of you. Harder to do that on a weekend day at home with family, etc. trying to sneak peeks at your iPhone, so you are going to miss some of those deals you might hit while at your desk. I only went for 2 deals this year, Cabot and Sojourn, which is by far my lowest total dollar outlay of any Berserker Day. That said, I had vowed to only look, not buy this year since I already have way too much wine (and am selling a big chunk of it), but couldn’t resist those old standbys.
I kind of like the idea of making it a competition of sorts, though, where we have a wide variety of offers, but only the X number of best ones make the cut and get to be listed. We’ll see - I’m happy to take feedback from everyone.
By the server statistics, our traffic was indeed lower this year, so the weekend was bad news in that regard. I guess work day is the way to go!
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