Oh, and 17k users between the two days, Preview Day and BerserkerDay - that’s a lot of eyes.
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I had the opposite, my CC company didn’t block a transaction until my last order. Not sure if I should be mad at them or happy about that. 
100000% this!!! ^^^^
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I love the stories, etc., but after 7 or 8 hours my brain is fried and trying to read through a verbose introduction to get to the offers starts to get old.
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I like the offer up front and the story (particularly if a newbie) afterwards. It allows those who don’t want to read the story quick access to the offer, and others who want the story can keep on reading.
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Bougetz does a great job with the offer:
A few 3-packs
Older vintages
Discount starts at 30% and ramps up to 50% with the purchase of four 3-packs.
Free shipping
Much appreciated Tom!
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Thanks, @Abbie_S!!
We sure do, @James_Todd! https://shop.smokinggoose.com/collections/cheeses
Smoking Goose’s BerserkerDay 15 offers are good thru midnight PT today, Sunday, Jan 28 (check out the discount code for 15% OFF…which you could use for cheeses 
) :
I was looking at these too–surprised at some of the wines that are listed on inventory. @Nicole_Walsh there are some of the Ser Cabernet Pfeffers listed, for instance. I’m a bit wary, concerned about storage conditions for instance. (Not that I need more wine, but I donate wine for fundraising events.)
Great success and I want to thank @ToddFrench , @brigcampbell , @Patrick_Taylor , @Siun_O_Connell et all for making it another amazing event! 
But since we’ve opened the doors, yeah, what worked and what didn’t?
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Speaking for myself, like @J_Patrick_Lynch said, an 11-pack of mostly White Zinfandel is a big bite for someone just passing by curiously. In hindsight I should have made that a smaller package or had them be part of the mixed. As it was now, the mixed case outsold the rosé pack by a big margin, despite being a little higher priced. Numbnut move by myself. Still learning.
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Like @Mikko_Tuomi also mentioned, I think more newbies need to do smaller intro packages that gets us acquainted with the wines. We complained about this already last year. I think most are not looking for specific or vertical stuff when trying a new producer out. We want to get a 10000ft view (that analogy is for you Mikko;).
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And again, like we’ve mentioned many times before, some producers were still a little precious with their stuff, I found. I get not diluting the brand and all that, but it’s 2 days out of the year - blow it out. Not to mention in a month when nobody is buying wine anyway (and your fruit bills are probably still unpaid). And if you can gain 100 new mailing list members then that’s also worth something, right?
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The whole pre-sale day, BD day, MC, BB thing is confusing. People buy on the wrong day etc and Todd gets a stress spike that he doesn’t need. Each year I forget how it works and that’s because it’s just not simple to grasp. I don’t know how to fix it, but would it be an idea to have Newbies only on pre-day and the regulars only on the main day? Or vice versa? I have no idea, just know that a lot of people don’t get it right, including myself.
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And in tight conjunction with this topic, is the use of the wineries own mailing list. Yes, I am going to tell my mailing list customers off to the great BD deal already on the pre-days, anything else would be unacceptable since they’ve supported me since day one (I can’t deny them a deal I’m giving to strangers on a forum, that would be unacceptable to me as a customer). But that also means that a lot of people get access to the deals who are perhaps not MC members, but otherwise board members and the lines blur and confusion ensues. I don’t know how to fix this either. PS. This year I sent a separate email blast out to members with a link to WB on the 26th, because I wanted them to get access to all the great deals from other producers.
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Oh, one more thing: I don’t think Newbies need to move and find a spot elsewhere in the year in either spring or fall - wineries are busy then. Either extend it with one extra day in conjunction with BD - why not have it as 1 day for Newbies and 2-day event for regulars? If it has to move, it should be in the summer when every winery is broke and basically treat it as features - wine will ship in fall. But, of course, then the trust is also lower because paying that far in advance to newbies might feel a little bit uncomfortable for some.
But despite these observations, I thought the whole event was a huge success! 
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I think if we wanted to listen to producers drone on about their wines, we would join a community of wine-obsessed individuals with a hands-off moderation policy.
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My ideal offer is:
Small sales pitch (who, where, what, how)
Shipping info and costs (There’s nothing worse than getting excited for a producer and finding out that can’t ship or it’s cost prohibitive.)
Offers - max 1 sentence about each wine, including vintage, type, AVA, ABV
Longer section with a deep dive about the producer, wines, tasting notes, etc.
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Admittedly, I regret mentioning it now because it didn’t occur to me that some of these wines being sold could have vendors here that were impacted by the bankruptcy itself. I apologize if it came across as insensitive to anyone in that position.
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Agree with moving Newbies to preview day. That is where I did most of my purchasing, and it allows a lot more time to actually read the write ups, go to the winery web site to learn more, etc - than actual BD does. It’s too hectic on BD to do any deeper dive or read a long write up on someone you’ve never heard of.
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And maybe put them in their own category so you can find them easier? Or on Preview Day you can only buy from newbies?
Great stuff, some posts bookmarked by me for BD16 planning.
I’ll try to be clearer in the future about what is happening on Preview Day, but it always comes down to whether anyone READS the instructions in order for them to work, lol
Most likely, Preview Day will have three components now: 1) Early Purchase Offers, 2) Newbies (both of these groups can receive purchases on Preview Day) and 3) a list of non-participating (as sellers) in the ‘preview only’ section, no chance for early buying, but perhaps links to websites for further research.
BerserkerDay will then consist of the ‘regular’ sellers, as it always has, and maybe we’ll throw in the Newbies (or, perhaps even hold a mini-contest, top 5-10 thread clicks from Newbie listings gets to be late in the day of BerserkerDay also - get some competition going early on?
I like the idea of sample packs - again, we tell the Newbies this, some just don’t pay attention.
With pricing, absolutely nailed it, @Adam_Frisch - it’s a unique opportunity. We had one seller who wouldn’t budget at all on pricing (from full retail, mind you) and I politely declined participation as a result.
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Yeah, those are tough conversations because we ALL know the offer will fail. The other conversation that’s even worse is when the wine doesn’t make the grade. It’s like telling someone their kid is ugly. How do you do that and not offend them. You don’t. Just rip the band-aid off and move on.
We also don’t want to look like we’re strong arming sellers to slash their prices to participate or dilute their brand.
When I recruited DiCostenza few years back it was multiple long calls with Erin about what was best for her. Ultimately, she decided on what she thought would work. Then the next year she launched her second label on Berserkerday, that was absolutely brilliant.
There was a producer that did a one and done. Goal was to build up the mailing list. Got very creative. Excellent ROI.
Everyone has to do what’s best for them and the best stories might be the ones that used berserkerday to launch to a new level and don’t need to come back.
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Thank you Mia for bringing this to my attention. I sold some of my wine during the Covid years as my tasting room was shut down and distribution came to a crawl for a couple of years. I am going to order some wine myself to check the quality. I may just need to purchase my inventory back!
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Is there a way to limit suggested posts on Early Purchase posts to only posts in the Early Purchase forum? On Preview Day I found myself following links to Preview Offers (not available for sale) while browsing posts in the Early Purchase Offer forum so it wasn’t quite as clear that they weren’t yet open for sale.
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Yup, I have it all figured out for next year, no worries - that each listing had ‘cannot purchase today’ or something similar in its forum location, right by the title, obviously isn’t enough, nor the huge, bold ‘preview day only - no purchases’ banner at the top of each of the listings, as it’s too easy to just blast past that and get to the meat of the post. Only those offers that will be available to purchase will even be visible. The rest will just be a list and website address for research
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Are you saying you will just list the participant and their website, not any details on the offers?
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