Wine-Searcher solicits user feedback on Vinfolio's Markeplace listing

WINE TALK
1

Wine-Searcher has approved the listing of Vinfolio’s Marketplace wine auction items on our site. As an independent search engine for wine, Wine-Searcher’s aim is to provide our users extensive list of wines from multiple sources. Traditionally these lists have come for wine retailers, merchants, wineries and auction houses.

We recognise the fact that Vinfolio’s Marketplace model is somewhat new when compared with the traditional auction or broker models. In approving Vinfolio’s list, I have considered initial feedback from the user community and discussed the best way forward with Vinfolio’s CEO Stephen Bachmann.

I believe that Vinfolio’s Marketplace listings on Wine-Searcher are transparent in the way the prices are now displayed. Vinfolio’s Marketplace terms and conditions are also made more explicit by some precise accompanying text in the search results. The user/buyer can then make informed choices.

Wine-Searcher recognises a key difference in Vinfolio’s Marketplace model where the Sellers Asking Price or the buyers Highest Bid Price where shown in our search results, may not translate to an eventual buy/sell transaction, nor does the listing have an end date. What the model does support is to make known the availability of that wine to those who come to find the wine at Wine-Searcher.

I must now revert back to Wine-Searcher’s user community for your feedback on the pros of cons of accommodating Vinfolio’s Marketplace model on our site.

I look forward to your input.

Adon Kumar
General Manager
Wine-Searcher.com

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Hi Adon, great to see you here!

I think the ‘debate’ on this point seems to have run its course in Steve’s thread, but I can’t believe that people aren’t jumping all over you for general feedback on Wine-Searcher.

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Hi Eric

Yes I have been monitoring the feedback on Steve’s thread. I wanted to state Wine-Searcher’s position independently of Steve and get some feedback.

Yes, ProVersion users can block out any merchant or auction houses from their searches. As you highlighted, Vinfolio’s Marketplace model is new and the reactions to it are also valid. Users will note that we changed the the way Vinfolio’s prices were originally shown. This was based on the intial reaction and feedback we received from Wine-Searcher’s user community.

Wine-Searcher has very clear guidelines on listing with us and we do actively monitor listings, user feedback and conduct our own “mystery” or “phantom” shopping. You will note that we now rate all our merchants so our users know who they are buying from and the quality of their listing and services.

We will continue to listen to user feedback and find the best ways to accommodate their needs. So I look forward to more feedback, ideas and suggestions as we incorporate new paradigms of finding wines on Wine-Searcher - the search engine for wines.

Adon

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Adon

Thanks for posting here. You need to banish a few more retailers, or give me more than 50 ignores… [whistle.gif]

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BANISH IT.

That, or create a " maybe, maybe not" category and put them in that. In fact, add merchants with three-day checks for availability in that category.

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My other, non-related suggestion for improving hte site would be to incease the number of searches to at least 500. Help out your customers. No-one buys another subscription for more numbers, its an annoyance to your cutomers to be so limited, and the added amount would not be a burden to you.

cheers!

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Hi Eric

You mentioned that Wine-Searcher should have received direct feedback from our users outside this forum. In fact we have received very little. It is still early days but for those who want to contact me directly they can send me a note to feedback@wine-searcher.com

Adon Kumar
General Manager
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Adon,

A general comment from a WS-Pro subscriber:

WS / WS Pro are great. For me, the reason they are great is because they are simple and they just work. Anytime I see a listing that isn’t an actual offer that I can click on and buy the wine at the price right away is, to me, kind of a hindrance / interference. I understand searching for old bottles and what not but most of the time I’m looking for current release wines and these wines are rarely cheaper at auction and so far, never cheaper at Vinfolio than other sources. Just my thought on the issue. You can justify all the listings you have now, one by one, but be ware of a page full of wine that you can’t actually just go buy, because that will be the point at which everyone will start using another tool to buy wine.

Cheers!

Josh