I know that WineSearcher is discussed on this board from time to time. I don’t have the Pro version, and am considering subscribing. I managed to find one thread specifically on the advantages of Pro vs the regular version, but its 4 years old, and I though that there have been major changes since then.
So, is it still worth it. Are there additional bottles listed on the Pro version? What other advantages are there, and do you have any tips to get the most out the service.
Yes, I think there is a lot better selection available with the Pro version.
It’s likely you’ll recoup the cost of the Pro version in your first order or two. It’s always seemed like a no-brainer for anyone who wants to shop online for wine with any moderate or greater frequency.
If there is any downside, it’s the same one as BerserkerDay, Winebid, Wine Berserkers, Amazon Prime – it will probably encourage you to buy and to spend more. You’ll have better selection and get better deals, but that can also mean more spending.
I need someone to explain how best to use the WSpro alerts. They have a lot of weird rules.
Like, once an alert fires why do you have to reset it? (Or do you?)
Or, if you are trying to find a bottle in your state but there’s one in another state, it won’t seem to let you set a minimum price for the alert in your state that is above the offering in the other state? (Or can you?)
Sure, occasionally I’ll click on something and the wine isn’t in stock, or that retailer doesn’t ship out of state, or something, but most of the time, and especially if you look at the major retailers and the bolded ones, you can get the things you want.
In other words, I find that is at most a minor annoyance, and not a significant problem using WSPro.
I think you should get it, as it sounds like you are in the buying phase of this crazy hobby. Save save you hundreds, but you’ll spend thousands more so… your call.
I have the pro version and find it useful when I want to quickly search for an item and also for purchasing out of state. One negative is that sometimes the data they pull is not the most up to date and the item is sold out in the store (this happens more for scotch and whiskies). Also the shipping info can be incorrect. I do miss the classified section they use to have.
You can also check out 1000corks.com - that site is free.
It depends entirely on what you buy and how often. If 90% of your purchases are from mailing lists, obviously the extra cost of ws pro would be a questionable expense. But the results of a pro search are much, much deeper for pro than standard, and I would absolutely say that pro easily pays for itself early in the subscription year. Well worth it to me, even though I buy far less than I used to
Depends on the volume of your purchasing and indeed how you purchase. e.g. if you typically buy a full case of the same wine, it’s likely to pay for itself very quickly. If however you tend to buy mixed dozens with say max 3 of any wine, then the value of WS becomes a little more questionable, as that latter approach can be more around finding a retailer with interesting wines alongside the wine or wines that prompted the purchase… and that’s best done by browsing their site.
I would tweak this to say that even with mixed cases, if you are searching something expensive, W-S can still help you find the store with the best price on the expensive wine, and maybe it’s best to build the mixed case around that store (assuming the rest of their selection isn’t horrible).
I had a WS Pro subscription for 3 years. Occasionally, WS Pro found this one retailer that had the product at a significantly lower price. For the wine I was after these outliers were small shops on East Coast, usually MA or NY. When contacted, the product was often out of stock or inventory couldn’t be confirmed because they didn’t bother replying to calls or emails. Shipping was often inflated. After a number of these experiences, I decided the counterparty risk wasn’t worth it.
In addition to the above, I found WS web interface absolutely terrible for a paid product. It was bad to begin with. After they updated it last year or so, they made it even worse. Multiple clicks to get something done, menus that pop out and cover the entire screen, weird color scheme and fonts, bizarre choices of showing or not showing something, poorly implemented auto-complete on wine names, cumbersome flow to add an alert and more. Perhaps these issues are cosmetic to many of you but I found it tiresome to pay for what (in my opinion) is a subpar product.
After I cancelled the subscription, a “please renew” banner showed up. It temporarily goes away if you close it but then it reappears. For every sickness there’s a cure! The name of medication in this case is uBlock Origin(uBO). Now on their free product, I removed the banner and the ads with uBO and I am happy.