Good suggestions in this thread, especially in Patrick’s post. It is a lot, especially for start up or smaller wineries which I feel are the main beneficiaries of BD. And the chaos is a hallmark of my 4 BD’s that I would miss.
A good first step is a common naming convention for the offers. None has to buy a new POS software, automate purchases if they are a one man show, etc., but it will make it easier to find offers at a glance.
Something like “Winery Name, Location, Varietals, Special sauce that makes me great, etc.”. As long as the first 3 are there the rest is gravy.
Or just leave it like it is and revel in the moment because there isn’t anything else like this in the wine industry.
I’ve looked in before, but this is really the first BerserkerDay that I’ve participated in. A few quick thoughts:
I would rather purchase from wineries/vendors who actually participate in the forum throughout the year, not just people looking for an easy buck. So IF space is too tight, and you have to leave some out, I’d suggest making sure that those who participate in the forums get first priority over those that don’t.
It would be nice to make sure that all costs (shipping and tax, if included) were in the offers. One winery I bought from charged me tax, which is not applicable in OR. It didn’t stop me from placing the order, but it should have been mentioned in the offer instead of after the fact. Being an accountant and somewhat knowledgeable about tax laws, I felt this should have been mentioned on the initial offer.
And I agree with the posters who felt it was difficult to track all of the offers with the two different levels. Maybe it wasn’t an issue when there were 40 participants, but with over 100 it does make it more difficult. I’d say just combine them all so we can see all of the newer offers at the top, and have the sponsors with new offers at the top of those but not at the top all of the time.
Well this just about covers it. Aside from technical difficulties registering/processing orders or promo codes, I think a standardized offer format with a defined minimum set of information about each wine/offer is the most important so that readers can easily understand what is being offered and for what cost. Offerors can still elaborate within that structure with as much or as few details and/or personal touches as they wish; the personal touches are nice to read, but will be more valuable if buyers can clearly understand what is being offered and for what price.
I also like the idea of “free” shipping. It may be worth instituting a rule that BD offers for wine orders include shipping fees; obviously this will raise the listed price of the wines being offered but it will allow buyers to compare apples to apples.
Seems we have segments of WBers. Some prefer “systematic shopping” and others prefer “bazaar atmosphere.” I used the GCC preview day to create a spreadsheet and purchase a few offers. On BDday, some of the bazaar fun got to me and the constant moving of the threads actually led me to make some purchases that I wouldn’t have. The chaos is part of the charm.
I do think the offer codes should be tested beforehand, and perhaps BD day volunteers can help.
Wouldn’t it be difficult for sellers to disclose shipping price if it’s not flat rate?
Lots of has already been said, but a few additional ones:
Have a clear “How to Purchase” section. Purchase methods vary widely and sometimes I genuinely struggled to find how I could purchase some offers.
For auctions, consider staggering the lots for greater visibility and higher bidding in each. In other words, having say 10 lots open for 1-2 hours of bidding at a time. You’d likely see more aggressive bidding as a result of both greater visibility to each lot, and if people don’t know what other lots are upcoming there’s desire to win a known offer instead of waiting for the unknown. In a situation like that early preview for all lots as part of the benefits of Grand Cru or Monopole Cru becomes much more attractive in terms of strategising your auction participation.
Love you Patrick, and your first post in this thread is brilliant. But, “I seek out and value small businesses” means that standardization isn’t really realistic. A lot of the BD wineries are really talented, but we’re still “Mom and Pop” by nature. And I’m happy to see Steve and Siun’s responses. I make wine first and the commerce follows. It’s not efficient but wine geeks seem to like the wines and the commerce works itself out.
I posted our offer to the thread at 11:00pm on 1/25 and I could not have gotten it done sooner.
We had an amazing Berserker Day but with Covid, I am always five days further behind than when it was normal and even that was never caught up. I’m not trying to play the saddest song on the smallest violin, just being realistic.
I do think that if you are pushing people to a website you should troubleshoot it ahead of time.
But we lagged WAY behind on keeping up with orders too and mostly just begged pardon and patience.
Why you gotta go and make my year Brig?? Lol. I know I’m outside the box and it’s so kind for you have brought me into fold here and said such kind things about my zany antics!
If it’s important to be able to stagger the offers on BD, then a uniform promo code means that every participant needs to add a start and end time when they set up the discount, or people can get a jump on offers since they know the promo code.
I’m assuming that it’s basic functionality on a commerce platform, but it is one more opportunity for human error.
One locked thread at the top with a list of all participants, grouped in whatever way you want (wine, wine/region, food, wine stuff, etc). If you want, also include a link to the thread containing their offer.
So, you do have too much time on your hands. I had to take these down to just the main topics.
My Thoughts
I agree with #1-#3 pretty much completely.
I really disagree with #4 - it would turn BD into a Walmart. The vast differences in presentation is part of the charm. Making all the offers look similar would make the thread look boring.
On #5 I say maybe / maybe not. I don’t see the value. I had no problem with any promo code or with navigating any offer. Again, if you don’t have to pay attention to what you are buying and what the terms are, what’s the point. Just go to the local wine warehouse. #6 and #7 are good.
Surveys have got to go. IMVHO. If I want to scold you for screwing up, I will. If I think you went above and beyond, I will tell you and everyone else. If you ask me to fill out a survey I will just go away. Online surveys contain some of the most useless information and are the brainchild of a diabolical code writer that just wants to waste everyone’s time. I will not participate, ever, but that is just me and all of the engineers with whom I work.
I’m in the #keepberserkerdaywierd camp! This was my first BD, and I didn’t have any problems spending my money.
That being said, i think there are some great suggestions here that would streamline things a bit without making them too regimented. Standardized topic titles, for instance, mainly to just put the winery name first. That would make it easier to scan down the forum and find the one you’re interested in. I know you can search, but that’s one more step. Offers at the top, story, pictures and details after that. Making sure your links are working properly is also pretty important - again, I didn’t have issues with any of the producers I bought from, but it would have been annoying (mildly annoying, but still) if it had happened.
In the Newbie Feedback thread, Chris C had an idea to create a “cheat sheet” of the participating wineries, listing some basic info for each such as location, general style of their wines, ABV, etc. Is that something that could be done and posted or provided in a downloadable format such as a pdf, so that one could put it up on a second monitor or even (showing my old school roots here) print it out to have as a reference while navigating the crazy? I did make full use of preview day and the newbie previews to make notes of the producers I was interested in, but also bought a couple on the fly on BD, which was part of the fun but necessitated a lot of jumping back and forth between topics to suss out details. I’d be happy to donate my time next year to help put a summary sheet together, if that’s something you’d like to explore.
Lots of great ideas in here, but I’m in the “it sure seems to be working” camp. Not that there isn’t anything worth working on, but making BD completely systematic and Shopified would decrease the vibe and the fun of it all. I bought from 8-10, some were harder to figure out than others but all were able to get my money and I’m pretty sure will be sending me products. Some already received. Good times …
I think BD is great as it is. phpBB has some design limitations and inherent goofiness that make some of the ideas presented good but not easy (if not impossible) to pull off.
Only thing I’d suggest would be for French & Brig to identify a few merry souls that could be BD onboarding specialists for a group of wineries/sellers. Help them brainstorm their offers, write their posts, test links, help spot errors throughout the day, etc. I’m sure each person could handle 4-5 wineries. No need for these two guys to bear the brunt of all this.
To Marcus’ point, he and Megan are running a winery. Let them tell their onboarding berserker (or on-berserker?!?) what level of help they need with their offer a week or two in advance and let them run with it with the winery having final say before it goes live. I’m sure a little vino and a chance to buy the offer early would be sufficient compensation in 99.9% of the cases. I would think helping a winery reduce their time while increasing sales would be worth a few gifted bottles for the winery.
and purchase a few offers. On BDday, some of the bazaar fun got to me and the constant moving of the threads actually led me to make some purchases that I wouldn’t have. The chaos is part of the charm. 
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