BerserkerDay VIII planning discussion (Jan 27, 2017)

EDITING FIRST POST TO REFLECT SOME CHANGES BASED ON COMMUNITY DISCUSSION

Hey Berserkers! It’s time to start the discussion about BerserkerDay, this one being the EIGHTH! [wow.gif] I’m going to open up discussion with this post, and try to update all pertinent information submitted in the thread into this first post, so it’s not necessary to read each question and answer within the thread, and to hopefully prevent multiple questions being asked. When live, BerserkerDay will be on its own forum, as always.

As always, it’s held on Jan 27th, and luckily this year, that’s a Friday, and since most people don’t get squat done at work on Friday anyway…no excuses!

Last year (and the year before, actually) over $200k was spent (each year) based on the polling I did of the participants, and that’s truly amazing. It’s become so big that it is hard to handle, and the ‘free-for-all’ setup has to be amended slightly, as well as limiting the number of participants. My notes - taken when they were still fresh, immediately after last BerserkerDay - are below (most of them, anyway) and open for discussion. Many of you have participated in each BerserkerDay since the very first, so I value your opinions. I also value opinions from those who have only participated in the most recent ones, the madhouse, action-packed overwhelming big BerserkerDays, as you don’t know what it was like when it was ‘easy’, with 20-25 offers, max.

Some notes, and likely plans for BerserkerDay VIII:

One of the principal issues now that it is so big is that offers fall by the wayside, quickly buried under dozens of other offers, and without folks actively posting about the new offers, they can get buried so fast they get almost no traction at all, and never do. I have ideas on how to fix this, and make BerserkerDay more efficient for ALL.

Newbies: This year, Newbies will have a little special treatment, to encourage participation and hopefully discover NEW ‘board darlings’, as so many have started as relatively unknowns on prior BerserkerDays and have become such board darlings. To encourage participation with the new wineries (not retailers, only wineries) we will have a feature on each of them - written by them - about a week before BerserkerDay, to introduce themselves, their making styles, personal stuff - allowing the community to get to know them a bit prior to the offering when it’s difficult to sort through. Each listing for Newbies will have the topic icon signifying that they are a Newbie (as I’ve abandoned the categorical topic icons based on responses in this thread, my original idea)

No Thread/Offer Bumping: Massive change to what was previously here as a concept, I’ve figured out how to keep offers in the order of launch - any discussion, any replies will not bump them on the top, so each offer gets equal amount of time in the first spot, then moving down one at a time while new offers are made. I want to be sure the popular ones don’t bury some of our other valuable offers, based solely on number of posts. Also, in the past, a few folks who were making the offers would ‘bump’ their own threads/offers, which is unfair for those who don’t have the time to play on WB all day (shame on them for not playing here all day and making wine instead!!!). This way, it’s all equal in terms of exposure.

Limited Number of Offers: This one is not for certain, as I feel it’s an attempt to fix some of the same issues the above WILL fix, but it might wean out a few of the offers that aren’t legitimate enough to get traction, so we’ll see. The idea is to make sure every offer is excellent in its own way, to keep the madness of BerserkerDay intact. The better the offers, the more activity and discussion, and the faster ordering occurs.

Yes, we’ll still have the auction, yes, there will still be Subscribers ‘Early Purchase’ Day, and yes, Subscribers will have some sort of preview options, but it will be more carefully submitted thanks to the organizational changes mentioned above.

I definitely want to have this shared with as many folks as possible, to get word out to the wine world beyond our 25,000 registered members and 8000 or so visitors daily, so if any of you has a blog, knows a blogger, or has connections with any sort of press, please contact me so we can put something together.

So excited to participate in my first BerserkerDay!

So is your credit card company!!!

I am not really a fan of any of the changes. I think Berserker Day works well. Since the primary issue is that some offers get buried (or buried too quickly), I honestly believe the issue is the responsibility of the vendor. If the offer is good enough, then Berserkers will find it and purchase it. There is a lot of competition for Berseker dollars on that day. Even if a certain vendor does not sell much that day, each business gets exposure to the community. I think the focus should continue to be on growing the number of offers and growing the Berserker and Berseker Day community.

I do think that there should be some consideration for the vendors in terms of the timing of the offers. I have no idea what the ideal time is to be listed. I am not sure if anyone knows. How the offers are presented in terms of timing seems to be the main issue for both vendors and buyers. I think there could be some improvement there, but I unfortunately do not have a solution.

+100

I’m in for the Dujac mixed case again!

Steaks must be aging as we speak.

Confused about the “Group” Idea. If I’m in a work meeting or don’t have Internet access, there are offers that will come and go, and I might not see them? That doesn’t make sense to me. I do realize that offers may sell out in that same time frame, but at least I can see them.

Am I missing something?

I do appreciate the effort; sure it can’t be easy.

If you haven’t started planning for a sick day, you might be.

A few thoughts…

First, I think BerserkerDay has been a smashing success and thanks to everyone involved. My suggestions/comments are intended to address Todd’s post above, and should not be looked at as a criticism of an event that I have enjoyed for several years.

I think putting offers into groups is an interesting idea, but I think it’s going to do a disservice to several established participants. In the past, we’ve had many vendors make multiple deals – a Pinot pack, a whites pack, a mixed pack, etc. Would a vendor offering a Pinot pack and a mixed pack get split into two different groupings? Listed twice? I think it adds to a certain amount of confusion either way. If you are wedded to the group idea, perhaps split the wineries up geographically (e.g., Napa, Sonoma, Rest of Cali, Oregon, Old World).

Also, if you’re worried about offers getting buried, a simple “fix” would be to get the preview out as soon as possible, perhaps 3-7 days before for subscribers, a day before for contributors, an hour for members. If someone is aware of the offer beforehand, they can seek out the offer. I really don’t care if I get an earlier preview than anyone else, but I understand wanting to keep some level of exclusivity. Perhaps if there are offers with limited quantities (I’ve seen any number of "I only have 10 6-packs available), you can open those sales to subscribers first and/or encourage wineries to incentivize subscribers (extra $5 off or something of the sort…of course, this might be difficult for wineries).

Re: time limits…I’m not sure I understand the concept. Are you suggesting allowing people to buy from only one group at a time? Again, this gets hard if winemakers fall into multiple categories. Personally, I like having the free for all. Plus, I’m sometimes buried in work (and I know I’m not alone) so forcing me to buy in a 2-hour window is difficult.

I don’t think prizes adds much, but I don’t necessarily think it detracts either. Still, I think the “prize” should be the good deal that you get on the wine, not a free corkscrew or the like.

Again, thanks to all who participate for making this a great event.

I don’t think most understand just how many offers got COMPLETELY buried, immediately, and not simply because they weren’t ‘great’ offers, but because there are so many offers. Categorizing them in blocks will likely solve the issue, as then we have offers in manageable blocks rather than one after another, 150 in all, so those that aren’t ‘forum favorites’ will instantly get buried.

I want to capture some of the original scope of BerserkerDay, in discovering new, small wineries while preserving the madness that it has been lately, with literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of transactions. Know that the backend is a different point of view, and please understand the feedback that I get from wineries on both sides of the plate in an effort to figure out a viable alternative.

I don’t see how a preview would help whatsoever, as when they are submitted en masse as they have been, those that are not forum favorites WILL get buried. There’s little discussion because there’s so much data - so many offers pouring out - and this isn’t supposed to be a Black Friday at Wal-Mart, rather, a community of wine lovers, thus we should probably embrace that aspect of it most of all, and have a way to fully communicate with those making the offers. To do so, we need to make it manageable, and to simply show preview days far ahead of time doesn’t change the ‘en masse’ delivery of those offers, so the buried offers would still occur. To isolate them into groups (and yes, those with multiple offers would be present in multiple categories, i.e a Pinot Pack in the Pinot group, a Cab offer in the Cab group, etc) narrows the focus just a bit, and the time limits create a sense of urgency. Once the day is over, I’ll re-open ALL the categories and it will be the ‘en masse’ listing, with stuff buried throughout and the need to dig through three pages of 50 offers each in order to find something (though I might figure out how to put each in a subforum so those who want to buy white wines know they only have to check that one forum, just as every online shopping portal has categories that allow the shopper to isolate what they are LOOKING to buy), thus giving each offer another chance, albeit a low-urgency, trickle in opportunity to make a few more sales. The madness occurs in their own group, during their assigned time.

Thanks for the info on the prizes, too - I figured that might spice things up, but if others feel it isn’t needed, sure makes it easier for me! I can definitely see how it’s not exactly an incentive - the incentive is the great offers themselves, as they’ve always been! I do, however, want some prizes for social media sharing, as I want to get the word out as much as possible.

I’m receiving a few PMs, primarily from winery participants, but I STRONGLY encourage you all to post in here, as the discussion is meant to benefit all. Don’t be afraid to post in here, particularly those wineries who HAVE participated in the past, as your input is valuable.

One complaint received - addressed in the original post, with potential solutions offered - is that the wineries who get the late times are stuck with empty wallets. If you are launched late in the day, the money is gone.

A potential solution is to launch everything at once. The obvious problem with that is that BerserkerDay is over in an hour, and all the fun is gone. That’s why I have to figure out a way to compartmentalize the offers, and have suggested a compromise of listing them in ‘bulk’ within their categories, which allows folks to target wineries they want to see (preview day, for Subscribers, will be modified, but will allow all offers to be shown so planning can be done) and save money for the later groupings - what should happen (as I know this has happened to me, many times) is folks will jump in before their targeted offers because those shown are simply too hard to resist…thus they’ll overspend, as is typical :slight_smile:

If anyone has a potential solution to the MAIN problem (too many offers, thus newbies get buried, forum favorites get much more discussion, and late-listed offers get little traction simply because they got a short straw in the random drawing) I’m all ears. My best case scenario is the categorization listed above, as I haven’t seen/heard/thought of a solution that captures the craziness of BerserkerDay but SOLVES the issues of buried or ‘I have no more money’ listings.

Being one on the “Offering” side, I thought I’d provide some food for thought. One of the biggest limitations, with so many offers last year, is if you are one of the late offers, a very high percentage of subscribers are already tired and done looking at offers. So, for me, a way to get more offers earlier in the day, so all the offers are out there in a more timely fashion, would be great. I believe this is what Todd is attempting to address with the concept of groups.

Another approach is what if instead of groups, we split the thread into separate threads, along the same lines. Say we have a set of threads like: Imported wines, Northern California, Rest of California, Pacific Northwest Wines, Non-wine offers, etc.
This way a new offer in each thread can be released much in the same way as it always has worked. The BIG difference is all offers are out to the community much earlier, say before noon, and they are easier to weed through, as they have been categorized along the thread. We already have a forum Category for the Beserkers Day VIII. We could have these threads exist in this category.

I would love to see all of them at once.

Michael, I addressed this above:

Can you imagine if 150 offers were posted all at once, three pages of 50 threads each, and then trying to wade through them to find out what you want? Then, one hour later, it’s over…

Sounds awesome. Like Christmas morning. [snort.gif]

If you want to highlight the “newbies”, maybe they should all have their own threads. The berserker favorites (returning wineries) can go into the different category threads.

Just so I understand, a mixed offering of 3 bottles Pinot, 3 bottles Syrah and 3 bottles Chardonnay would get a listing under each “heading”?

Something like that likely would be in ‘everything else’ I guess? Not sure yet…haven’t seen offers to know how to categorize them

In the past, what is/are the determining factors of what offers were released in what order??

Also, by putting the offers in groups, I think it makes more work and people would be less likely to go digging into each group . I know I will be more likely to scroll pages in 1 forum than go into multiple Groups.

But if you are locked into using Groups, maybe just do it alphabetically regardless of type of merchant . Maybe there will be hunting? I won’t go into a non-wine group, but if I came across an enticing offer in a group labeled “A-D” (or made a bit more exciting ) perhaps I would buy it.