I have a question for those that have wine-searcher pro. I do not have pro. When I look at a wine in cellartracker, the wine-searcher button on the right has a price in it. If I click that button, the lowest price in wine-searcher is typically higher than the price was in the wine-searcher button from cellartracker. This behavior is true the majority of the time. Does anyone know why? Is this because I do not have pro?
A lot of the time that WS price in Cellartracker is the global or European price which can be significantly lower than the US prices.
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Ah, that makes sense. I’m mostly looking at wines from France/Italy/Spain and they’re typically cheaper in their native countries.
I have used Pro for years. While there are some out of date entries, I have found them to be few and far between. I use it in several ways. One is to check the values of offers that I receive in the mail. I am always looking for offers that are below market price from a reputable seller. I use Pro to check market prices. Back in the old days before Covid-19, my wife and I traveled a lot. I have used Pro in countries that we were visiting to find specific wines and prices in local stores. I also use it to periodically reset the value of some wines that I have held for many years. Sometimes I smile and sometimes I frown at the valuation. When I frown, I drink. I insure my wine and current values are important. Because Pro is wider and deeper than the standard version, the information I have is more accurate. Also the Pro version has two more search selectors - Sizes and Pricing window.
Living in Ohio, I rarely find what I want at local retailers. When I’m looking for a specific wine, which is my usual pattern, WSpro is valuable. There will always be out of stock and shipping issues, but usually there are enough listings with pro that I can actually get the wine I want. And if the wine is available from many sires you can comparison shop.
I have been using WS pro for many years, and it has paid for itself many times over. One thing that annoys me: I have to “update” and save my search settings every time I visit the site or click through from CT, so that the search results are from the USA only.
Wishing I hadn’t read this thread as I just signed up for Pro and bought a half case of WS Unoaked Chard for ~$32 bottle!
Bingo.
I guess that is better than if you frown WHEN you drink. Then, you would need to be buying different wines. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
It is an unfortunate problem. Some places are intentional about it to get you in the door, but even when they are not, the lowest prices are the ones most likely to have sold out. So if they arent flawless in updating, your problems will most often occur there. I always call if it seems to be a concern.
I had pro for a few months now. And i will soon switch to paying for a full year. Not only do i save a lot of money, it helps me track down bottles i cannot find in any other manner (without spending hours on Google searches…).
I do live in Europe and can get wines transported from most countries here, so the use might be different in the US/your area.
Hi, Sorry that it appears complex. But we try and cover different alert situations. Let me try and help.
The basics: Active price alerts search for the price you set. Active availability alerts find a product you searched for that no one was selling. When it comes back into stock (ie. newly listed by any store) the alert ‘fires’. PRO subscribers can set up to 250 alerts (of either sort) that keep searching across price lists from stores for up to 1-year. Free subscribers can set up to 5 alerts that last for 3-months.
To answer your specific questions. When the price is found that matches your trigger point, then the alert ‘fires’. Why do you have to reset it? A triggered alert is telling you that the wine, or spirit, is now available to purchase at the price point you set. An auto re-set could soon fill your inbox with emails every day. So we don’t re-set it automatically. If you want to search for a lower price, then please set another alert.
If you are trying to find the lowest price from a shop physically located in your state then select your state in the ‘Shop Location’ filter and check that the 'Ship to State ’ toggle switch is off. This confines the hunt for the lowest price to just your own state. Turning the ‘Ship to state’ on will add shops into search results that are located out of state that say they can ship to you.
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Thank you, Ross!
On the second question, I am confounded by the fact that if you do a search limited to your state (not including sellers that ship to your state) and there is nothing available to show, in my experience the search will automatically be expanded to the entire country. When this happens, you seemingly cannot set an alert price above the lowest price returned even though it is outside of the search criteria. In this case, an “active availability alert” is what is desired but the attempt is thwarted by the automatic expansion of the search. Is there a setting to turn this expansion off?
Can it be made simpler to renew an alert? Oftentimes, the alert fires, I click through to the retailer and the item has sold out. However, the inventory still shows as available on W-S, so in order to renew the alert I need to remember to wait a few days and re-create the alert once the W-S inventory has aligned with the retailer.
Also, the list of states that each retailer will ship to are often out of date. In fact, I rarely create alerts for my state because I would miss out on many deals as certain retailers actually do ship to my state but this is not reflected in Wine-Searcher.
In general, is there a way to submit feature requests and bug reports to W-S and to follow when they are resolved? It seems like there are many issues like this, but it’s rather opaque to know what is being prioritized to fix and when they are fixed.
Or only offers results that ship to your state
Joe, Excellent response. Thanks. Rather than return no result, we auto-expand to a wider geography in order to find the wine. Ultimately we can expand up to a worldwide search for those really-hard-to-finds. But if there is nothing available for sale then it becomes an Avaialibitiy alert. Can you share an example of what you are searching for, and where, and I’ll try and work up a solution?
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It may be that the problem is specific to the iOS app.
When you open the link below on an iPhone, the app launches and the search automatically expands to show an available bottle in Spain and you cannot set an availability alert for anywhere in the US.
If you open it in a browser (which seems not possible on an iPhone with the app installed), the expansion is not automatic.
Hi Brian, Can you please sign in to WS and check that your Search Settings are location is USA and your state. Be sure to click the “SAVE” button at the bottom of the page (can be easy to miss). We remember that setting and your searches should start each session/day with those.
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“It may be that the problem is specific to the iOS app.”
https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/r+lopez+de+heredia+vina+tondonia+grand+rsrv+blanco+doca+rioja+alta+spain/1996/usa-ca
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Hi, If a search finds no stores selling the Grand Reserva in the USA the app will auto-expand to find a store that is selling it. In this case in Barcelona. The app then displays the store name. However, the alert functions remain with your original setting eg. location for alert = USA.
Click the bell-shaped icon to create the alert. You cans also check the alert setting in your account menu (button bottom right of the screen). Under ‘Alerts’ it should say Search Criteria: 1996 | USA (CA) for example | All offers | All Bottle sizes | Any Price. Even though the app is showing a shop in Spain has the item for sale, the alert is focused on the USA. On the WS website, we don’t show the store name straightaway as we do on the app. Instead, we ask you to click on the link ‘Offers for the 1996 vintage are available in other locations’ in order to see the shop in Spain.
I trust this helps.