The site kept hanging / stalling last night… At first I thought it was just too many people trying to access the website. But, when I switched from Firefox to IE the pages loaded considerably faster.
It was hanging for me in IE as well. The site was definetly crashing.
Yeah, tough crowd. But WineBid could have saved themselves a number of headaches if they read the feedback on GrapeStories.
So whats your plan with cellar tracker “classic” any chance you will keep that running?
I miss having my favorite searches linked on every page, without having to access the dropdown menu.
You can “pin” them
Thanks. That helps a lot. I wonder why that isn’t the default?
Just to be clear, it was a perfectly polite response, but I interpreted the gist essentially as we really don’t care what you think 
Here is what I wrote, and the response:
Dear Alan,
Thank you for your comments. We made the enhancements to our new site based on customer feedback we have received over the years. Some of the new enhancements are:
- Better and larger photos
- Improved bidding accessibility
- Advanced browsing and search filters
- Account management: such as buying history since your first purchase on 9/18/2005, shipping information about wine you have picked up and wine that is pending pick up
The current site has been in place since 2003 and we felt it was time to enhance the look and feel of the site. We hope that after you have used some of these enhancements you will become more comfortable with the new look.
We strive to make our website as easy to use, fast and reliable as possible. We are constantly making technological improvements and building new systems to ensure that we have the best possible technological infrastructure.
Thank you for your business.
Jennifer Sugden
WineBid.com
Customer Service Department
info@winebid.com
In the U.S. (888) 638 8968
International 001 (707) 226 5893
WineBid.com
The Premier Internet Wine Auction
-----Original Message-----
From: alan.rath
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 16:59:33 -0700
To: “info@winebid.com” <info@winebid.com>
Subject: beta site
Hi,
I thought I would tell you how disappointed I am in your new site. I have to say that for my use, I don’t find anything to be better about the site. I visit winebid.com often, do a lot of searching and reasonable buying. Just taking a quick tour through the new site, virtually every task I perform is less convenient than the existing site. The look and feel, colors, overall appearance are all weaker and less professional looking to my eye. I’m sure there are improvements you would like to make, and there are probably some nice features incorporated into the new design. I think you would be much better served simply to take those improvements and build them into your existing site. Obviously I’m just one opinion, but the new site does not make me want to spend more time on winebid.com.
Thanks for your attention,
Alan Rath
Over the long haul, no chance, I will converge to one site. However I will only do it once I have really had a chance to iterate, listen and respond to the feedback. My new site is just not there yet, and I will be the first one to tell you that. But it will be.
I find the new site much harder to navigate. All the pretty background pictures are a waste on me, but I still like the bottle pictures and the easy way to enlarge them. I guess I will adapt. One thing for sure, it has not slowed me down one bit. ![[drinkers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/82916bed5ad74ac8470bc04089d9758b0c80c9fa.gif "drinkers"){kind=small}
+1.
Another negative is that you used to be able to sort prior weeks auctions Lot Trackers by status (won/partially won/lost). That doesn’t appear to be there any more.
Are you going to keep the cellartracker name? My unsolocited marketing adivce is that “cellartraker” has goodwill and market name recognition while grapestories is a very awkward name and doesnt have the name recognition.