I agree with Yaacov. Wine Searcher allows numerous retailers to list “phantom” stock. The difference is that they are retailers.
Wine Searcher also allows auction houses to list their RESERVE prices on its site.
Under Vinfolio’s current stance, VF Marketplace is doing neither. They are listing wines for sale at an arbitrary min price of $8 that 99% of the time ( I assume, otherwise less people would be complaining) is absolutely useless.
Current auction houses have a reserve price and use that for guidance. Marketplace should come up with a reserve price as well, otherwise it is pretty useless for many consumers, IMO.
I am not flaming anyone, nor amI bashing a retail competitor. I have great respect for Steve, Eric L and others involved on this project. I only wish it success, but I am glad that wine searcher has set some sort of guidelines for VF Market to improve upon.
Dan, you didn’t read my initial post in this thread. We’re not listing wines at $8 on Winesearcher. Winesearcher voluntarily originally agreed to the $8 default price as that is the minimum selling fee per bottle. They later changed their mind and now any “for sale” wine without a bid or ask is not listed on Winesearcher at all. So that is why only 10% of “for sale” wines are there and the other 90% are not currently showing (a mistake in my view, hence this thread).
The $8 is arbitrary, just as every other auction starting price is that is listed on Winesearcher. That’s exactly why I said in a prior post that any auction listing is really just a notice of a possible buying opportunity just as all “for sale” listings in Marketplace are possible buying opportunities (the price shown is not relevant).
By the way, the “type” of price shown by WS varies between auction houses – in our case, WS told us what they were willing to do so I presume they dictate it in other cases too. It is high bid for WineCommune but initial reserve for WineBid. It is low estimates for offline auction houses.
The Marketplace is delivering an unparalleled level of access to wine. The pricing guidance to buyers and sellers is based on market pricing (transaction history in the Marketplace as it grows, retail pricing and auction pricing data from WinePrices.com, plus current bid/ask pricing activity at any moment in time). Sellers who wish to declare publicly the price at which they would firmly commit to selling will be able to do so within a few weeks but that will be an option not a requirement (one which I suspect many choose to use to gain an edge having their wine sold ahead of others). Sellers who elect this option will still be able to accept bids at below their “buy it now” price.
Again, the Vinfolio Marketplace is about creating options for all parties using it. The tools exist from us and from Winesearcher to manage the data any way a user wants to do so. Given that, I find it hard to believe that users would not prefer more choices (i.e., seeing all “for sale” listings) over less choices.
“The $8 is arbitrary, just as every other auction starting price is that is listed on Winesearcher. That’s exactly why I said in a prior post that any auction listing is really just a notice of a possible buying opportunity just as all “for sale” listings in Marketplace are possible buying opportunities (the price shown is not relevant).”
Steve this is just not the case. The other auction reserve prices listed on Winesearcher are binding. The reserves there are set a best attempt to determine a market floor for a wine prices. $8 accomplishes neither of these things. The price that is listed for an auctioned item on WS is either the reserve or the current bid, whichever is higher. In the auction case this represents a very good approximation of what I would have to pay to get that wine. Sure there’s a chance I get outbid but generally the probability that I get the wine for the price listed on WS is very high. From personal experience I would say more than 70% of the time. My offers on wines that don’t have an asking price on the Marketplace have a much, much lower probability of resulting in my receiving the wine and I don’t think anyone can seriously say these two things are comparable.
It sounds like the Winesearcher team reached a similar conclusion and are doing the ask / bid whichever is higher approach which is the best option for now I think.
I would also think a positive byproduct of that change would be to motivate sellers to take the time to set asking prices (so you show up on W-S) and perhaps to set aggressive asking prices to attract Winesearcher buyers. A lot of the asking prices I see are set to Retail averages or higher. If I’m a Winesearcher user you can bet my goal is not to pay retail average for a wine, it’s to pay lowest retail. I think showing users the retail average for their wine is not the best coaching. You will rarely find buyers at that price.
Steve:
You asked for opinions, and I gave you mine, which I stand by - I wasn’t aware you would attempt a point-by-point refutation if it wasn’t the opinion you wanted to hear. You basically asked people to describe what information they want and what information they don’t want, and people responded. But rather than come up with a way to deliver only the information people want, you’re instead trying to convince us that we really should want the information most of us told you we don’t want.
the original format of vf listings on WS was spam in my opinion. the fact that every possible wine was listed at the lowest price, only supports the unreality of the listings. a bid price should not be listed, only an ask. the site is called wine searcher, not buyer searcher. if someone wants to find a buyer go to vf.
mktplace has great potential, but defending spam/garbage data is no way to get ahead
It may be that the other auction prices on Winesearcher present a useful approximation in many cases, but as pointed out before, there are plenty of examples of $2-5 prices on wines which will ultimately sell for $100. So for any given auction price, one doesn’t really know if it is “realistic” or not (or perhaps the issue is limited to certain auction houses such as WineCommune who have no reserve auctions).
I would agree that a bid on a wine without an asking price has a lower probability of a positive outcome (note our model as offsetting elements as mentioned in a prior post yesterday such as potentially multiple sellers which increases odds). Keep in mind that the very fact an offer is made sends an email notification to all sellers which is part of what gives the seller the motivation to set an asking price. So it’s a bit of the “chicken and the egg” problem.
We are working on ways to make it easier for sellers to set asking prices although we want to maintain the principle that they consciously set a price which represents the actual price they would sell for (or something close enough to negotiate from). Sellers already have the ability using filtering rules to screen out notifications on low ball bids so should not be using the asking price to set a minimum threshold for considering bids.
I happen to agree with you that a retail average is not a realistic selling price for people to assume. Certainly auction averages are an excellent representation of arms length, actual transactions and those are made available on the Marketplace wine detail page on our site (and WinePrices.com). The Marketplace itself will create pricing comparables over time too. Currently, showing a low retail price is fraught with issues of outliers and potential data mismatching that we are working on. There will be a new all-encompassing price reference “widget” within another 6 weeks or so which puts all of this info at both bidders and sellers fingertips to create equal access to the same info.
If I didn’t want to hear opinions, I would have never have initiated the post (or invited some of the most vocal people on this issue from the Squires board to join in the debate which I did). The feedback on this board and other boards on Marketplace issues has been an invaluable source of input into our product and model design. In fact, as a direct result of the past few weeks of debate, we are working on putting defining a customer advisory board (name TBD) to be in a better position to systematically gather just this sort of input.
My point-by-point response is partly a function of my personal style to ensure I don’t let issues slip through the cracks (as a former investment banker, I was trained to note all details). But part of my response was to correct some items which were factually inaccurate (not opinions) that I would not want people to retain as correct (when they weren’t).
And “yes”, I have an opinion too and want to ensure all of my arguments supporting it are heard. If they don’t convince you or others, then so be it. We’ll adapt (as we’re in business to satisfy our customers). Our own WinePrices.com site (where we haven’t yet added Marketplace listings) will likely offer the alternative to see all Marketplace “for sale” wine along with third-party retail listings for those that care to see them together.
There were no factual inaccuracies in what I said. The fact that some other types of listings may be governed by principles similar to the principles you are urging for Vinfolio listings doesn’t change the fact that applying those principles to Vinfolio listings would yield a ton of garbage data. Also, I don’t accept your premise that there’s no material difference between a Vinfolio listing and a true auction.
Err, are you reading? Steve has already pointed here (and a few weeks ago on eBob) that the “Vinfolio Marketplace” is listed as a separate merchant from “Vinfolio”. If you are a Wine-Searcher Pro user you can block any merchant you wish to.
I will be the first to point out that Steve is a vigorous debater, but he and his team ARE LISTENING. And he is here to solicit feedback. Please also keep in mind that the Marketplace is all of 4 weeks old and is being actively improved on a daily basis to try and tighten the loop between buyers and sellers. So all we can ever ask for is your patience and firm guidance. It really, really is helpful and greatly appreciated!
Marc, I am not defending garbage data. Remember, Winesearcher sets the rules for how wines are listed on their site and they willingly agreed to the original approach which you’re defining as spam, probably because they were already providing listings to some parties on a similar basis (which everyone seems to be ignoring). E.g., view this listing of Winecommune - Wine Auction prices on Winesearcher now. Is this garbage data or spam? Or does that fact that you know it will be sold (they’re “no reserve” auctions) change your view? It sure seems inconsistent to me to condone the WineCommune listings and to complain about the Marketplace listings as having misleading pricing.
My bottom line is we can live with how Marketplace is being handled by Winesearcher now and will work towards helping sellers set realistic asking prices so listings can appear on their site.
Sorry Peter. I guess I didn’t understand your comment. You said you look forward to blocking this when you can. Well you CAN. And you can separately block the Marketplace without blocking Vinfolio Retail listings.
I think a lot of good feedback has been given. I would so far to say that this thread has run its course and everyone who participated should be banned.
Seriously, what more could Steve want? 70+% voted in a certain way.
Many disagree with Steve’s assertion that VFM lists like an auction house. It most certainly does not. When it corrects that, then we can move into phase II. Till then…
One more point Steve - I imagine you’ll be the first to agree that Vinfolio has invented a completely new way of selling wine (and the potential of that innovation is immense!). But because it’s something new and different, that means the rules wine-searcher applies to other methods of sale might not be good to apply to Vinfolio.
Yes but working within existing rules in the short term is better than being excluded. Also, legally, the Marketplace operates under CA auction house rules. Arguably all auction listings and alternative selling channels might be handled in some different manner than how it is done today on Winesearcher (to avoid co-mingling with fixed retail prices) but that is a site design issue which takes time (and probably from Winesearcher’s point of view, doesn’t justify the investment given relatively few players to charge).