cmaldoon wrote:
One thing further: put up some more wines with very small lot sizes (10) that benefit those people who jump in quickly. I think that kind of thing improves the woot-off atmosphere.

+1.

cmaldoon wrote:One thing further: put up some more wines with very small lot sizes (10) that benefit those people who jump in quickly. I think that kind of thing improves the woot-off atmosphere.

Agreed! I think that's part of the fun of woot-offs - the immediacy of needing to make a decision NOW. wine.woot-offs seem to move at a glacial pace.

10 might be a little extreme for being "small lot", but those could be reserved for the extreme Black Tie types (like the Kronos) - but keep in mind, a lot size of 10 could potentially be doled out to only 4 people, if the first three go in for 3. 20-30 might be a better "extreme small lot" size, with 30-50 for a "small lot" for regular black ties, then 50-100 for standard offers, and 100-200 for "cheap" offers (ones that will move quickly simply due to their price point). I don't think any wine.woot-off offer should have a lot size > 200.

Edit: Numbers edited based on today's history.

cheron98 wrote:

10 might be a little extreme for being "small lot", but those could be reserved for the extreme Black Tie types (like the Kronos) - but keep in mind, a lot size of 10 could potentially be doled out to only 4 people, if the first three go in for 3.

Remember that our beneficent woot masters can alter not only the number of total spots available but also the max per wooter. To slightly extend a small but very nice offering they could limit it to 1 per wooter.

cheron98 wrote:Agreed! I think that's part of the fun of woot-offs - the immediacy of needing to make a decision NOW. wine.woot-offs seem to move at a glacial pace.

10 might be a little extreme for being "small lot", but those could be reserved for the extreme Black Tie types (like the Kronos) - but keep in mind, a lot size of 10 could potentially be doled out to only 4 people, if the first three go in for 3. 20-30 might be a better "extreme small lot" size, with 30-50 for a "small lot" for regular black ties, then 50-100 for standard offers, and 100-200 for "cheap" offers (ones that will move quickly simply due to their price point). I don't think any wine.woot-off offer should have a lot size > 200.

Edit: Numbers edited based on today's history.

+1

cheron98 wrote:Agreed! I think that's part of the fun of woot-offs - the immediacy of needing to make a decision NOW. wine.woot-offs seem to move at a glacial pace.

I second or third this.

I kind of agree to the black tie buys but wish there was a little more notice on them or the wine woots. I have a hobby budget and wine is included in that. Now I want to try Kronos. 85.00 for 4 glasses eeek!

Still interested in the beer woot or maybe you could try beer week or something the Mr. Beer kits seem to sale well.

cheron98 wrote:+3

I always look forward to the wine.woot-offs as a chance to get my hands on some Kronos. While it is arguably some of the priciest stuff woot sells (~ $85/bottle), it's also REALLY hard to come by. But there's no way Cathy would be able to do a full offer of just Kronos these days, I'm sure. Woot-offs are perfect for that.

I also like the idea of variety packs. Part of what I love about wine.woot is the ability to try new wineries. Getting 4 bottles of the same thing from a new-to-me winery is chancy, but give me a pack showing their breadth and it's much more tantalizing. Helps me get familiar with the winery.

Ugh, I shouldn't have eaten that Paczki.

NJ's law passed, let NJ order!

I agree with those that say more variety. As a wine novice, I have no idea what I like, and sometimes buying 4-6 bottles of the same thing is kind of daunting. I like to be able to try several wines from the same winemaker to find out what I like. (Then I wish I could have more of the one I like... which turns out to be a problem.)

Also - more variety between reds and whites!!! you still have hardly sold any whites during the month of February, and I have plenty of reds right now, and am waiting for that perfect white offer to come along.

I also think the vertical offerings are cool, although I haven't tried one yet. And I dislike the wine gifts and glasses and all that crap.

Wine, with a little bit of food, is great. (In life, and on wine.woot!)

I ent back and looked at what was offered last woot off and must say that they did a good job of having mixed sets with about half of the offers being so.

Overall, I agree with MOAR WINES!, but let's make it a Malbec? Yes, I think Malbec would do nicely.

misguidedsoul wrote:NJ's law passed, let NJ order!

Doesn't go into effect until May, and then you have to wait for each winery to apply for licenses to ship to NJ.

I'd love to see:

* Less expensive wines (like maybe 2 bottles for $20 instead of 4 for $50).

* Variety packs instead of multiple bottles of the same thing (since I haven't tasted most of the wines I've seen on woot, I won't know what I'm getting...and what if I don't like it?)

* More cheese-making kits!

mellowknees wrote:I'd love to see:

* Less expensive wines (like maybe 2 bottles for $20 instead of 4 for $50).

This won't happen. WD's business model relies on a portion of the money we pay going to shipping costs (you don't really think the
"$5 shipping" covers it, do you?) and with an offer price at low as $20 there'd be no money left for WD, Ali, Neil, Drew, or Woot Overlords...let alone the winery. I don't think you'll ever see an offer here much under $35 for that reason.

As for other ideas, I'm happy with how things are. This all-wine woot-off is interesting, rather than the wine/non-wine alternating strategy we've seen for the last couple years. I think the biggest change for the positive ww can make would be to figure out a way past any restrictions on the labrat program. That would also likely result in a negative change for my pocketbook...

The thing I like best about wine.woot is that I can evaluate a wine before buying. I can Google it, and read Woot customer comments. It's about experimentation with wines I don't know. Doing that is a bit of a crapshoot in a brick & mortar store.

I would like to see Woot explore more of the De Long's grape table. Branch out in varietals. This is a great way to broaden my horizons. Give me options. Let's get off the freeway and have some fun.

Need more:

Maison de Monaco French Inspired Preserves - 3 Pack

Nom!
Edit: Or at least the "Apricot & Hibiscus Preserves" flavor.

cheron98 wrote:Doesn't go into effect until May, and then you have to wait for each winery to apply for licenses to ship to NJ.

RATS, there is always someone to payoff in Jersey. I'll be long dead before a winery pays the vig, eh, I mean, license.

bleekii wrote:Why is it all wine? I drink beer.

Don't get me wrong, I love beer too, but ya might want to check the URL...pretty certain it says WINE.woot.com

You should offer a Port once in a while. Or perhaps some liquor. Absinthe maybe. ;-)
There we go! A new sub-site!!!

*** Absinthe.Woot.com ***

:-D

Or at very least:
*** Liquor.Woot.com ***

I'd like to see more higher-end wines at Wine Woot. How about a Buccella, Silver Oak, Marcassin and so forth? Or dare I say a Petit Cheval?

How about some geographically variety? Do 5 of the 7 deals each week really need to be California wines?

I like being able to stop by wineries as I travel, and would like some inspiration that doesn't involve a cross country trip.

This doesn't just go for "woot-offs". It's more aimed at the regular daily deal.

schmuck18 wrote:How about some geographically variety? Do 5 of the 7 deals each week really need to be California wines?

I like being able to stop by wineries as I travel, and would like some inspiration that doesn't involve a cross country trip.

This doesn't just go for "woot-offs". It's more aimed at the regular daily deal.

I think that a major reason why we have the range of wines that we do is because those are the wines that WD being in the Sacramento area has best access to. He started there and has had word of mouth and developed connections there. Given that we now have weekly foreign offerings they have certainly tried to branch out but branching out too quickly will mean not giving us wooters as high quality of deals as we are used to. I'd rather have a great deal on a good California wine than a so-so deal on something from Washington or New York or France.

This was brought up in one of the Wine Woot-off threads yesterday: foodie.woot or gourmet.woot. I truly understand that, yes, this is Wine Woot, not cheese woot or toffee woot. However, until a different woot site takes over selling Beehive Cheese and Brandini Toffee, those of us with a hankering for items of that ilk are coming to Wine Woot to have that need filled. A Wine Woot-off with none of those items is fine, once in a while, IMHO (please see the whole, "It's WINE Woot," so I get it), but lots of people come to the Woot-offs for the foodie items as much as for the wine. If you live in one of the unlucky states where you can't receive wine via Wine Woot shipments, it's pretty much the only reason you're coming to Wine Woot, other than the ability to discuss wine with fellow Wooters.

All of that having been said, I like having the food, aerators, etc. on Wine Woot, however I'd buy them at a gourmet.woot, too (or instead). That way the purists could have Wine Woot to themselves, without the rest of us risking running out of Brandini Toffee. But until a split of that sort happens (or they start offering those items on regular Woot or possibly Home Woot), I like seeing them in the mix during a Wine Woot-off.

klezman wrote:This won't happen. WD's business model relies on a portion of the money we pay going to shipping costs (you don't really think the
"$5 shipping" covers it, do you?) and with an offer price at low as $20 there'd be no money left for WD, Ali, Neil, Drew, or Woot Overlords...let alone the winery. I don't think you'll ever see an offer here much under $35 for that reason.

As for other ideas, I'm happy with how things are. This all-wine woot-off is interesting, rather than the wine/non-wine alternating strategy we've seen for the last couple years. I think the biggest change for the positive ww can make would be to figure out a way past any restrictions on the labrat program. That would also likely result in a negative change for my pocketbook...

You never know, they may come up with some balsamic at some point

FredFairOaks wrote:Woot buyers;
How about a quality Burr Grinder with a mix of coffees......

I think the thread is supposed to be about wine woot-offs.....but I'll second wine.woot selling in a daily offer a quality burr grinder at a very sharp price. But make it a model that's been highly rated by consumer reports or a four-star or higher Amazon customer rating. Why not target a highly praised model that is being phased out to be replaced by a new model which is essentially the same thing?

Uhh, ask and ye shall receive?



http://wine.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=22118

Given that it is wine.woot for daily offerings, keep it wine. Not wine related, but wine. Thats why I am here. To buy new and interesting wines and a great price.

Bring back the Rats in some fashion - I know you guys don't get deals last minute so you know whats going up ahead of time. So have rat's sign a non-disclosure , taste and post on the offering date. Helps immensely, especially when the wine is unknown to most.

Bring back the spreadsheets. I know I can calculate how much I can save on a buy, however looking over the spreadsheet, I tend to say, hey I can get a better savings, and bump up from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3.

On wine.woot-off's certainly throw in some chocolate or cheese etc I won't buy it, but if it's up for an hour or less then thats okay. Gives those who look for that stuff a place to buy. Otherwise you have woot.com and home.woot for all non wine things.

Beer etc - yes they are alcohol related, but they are NOT wine. Make a liquor/alchohol woot (I know! sauced.woot ) for everything not wine.

Overall you mix it up well, thanks for a great site!

outdoorslife wrote:
Bring back the spreadsheets. I know I can calculate how much I can save on a buy, however looking over the spreadsheet, I tend to say, hey I can get a better savings, and bump up from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3.

The spreadsheets were never handled by Woot - user jwhite6114 started them up. When he left the forums, I took them over. However, due to lack of time, I had to stop, and I apologize greatly for this. I do appreciate knowing that people used the spreadsheets.

They are not automated to the deals in any way - it takes manual effort to figure out the numbers on the sheets, including going out to the winery website, and in many cases, having to create an account with the winery and actually go through the purchasing process on the winery website in order to determine shipping costs so they can be calculated in the sheet. I've also had to go as far as spoofing a CC number just to get to the final cost page of a winery's order system. I'd say on average, it takes approximately half an hour to put together a spreadsheet. More if there are more than 2 different wines included in the offer. I think the worst was a mixed case offer where there were 6 different wines - took about an hour.

I can make an attempt at getting the spreadsheets together again for regular offers, but there's no way I can do it for woot-offs. Also please bear in mind, I am on east coast time, which means offers go up at 1am for me. I typically am in bed and sleeping around 11pm and will not see the offer until I do my morning check-in from work, but I don't have time at work to be able to do the spreadsheets. This means spreadsheets, if they come, will be in the evening, if I am able.

If I were to get the offer details ahead of time, I could have the spreadsheets ready to go, but I don't see that happening

cheron98 wrote:Agreed! I think that's part of the fun of woot-offs - the immediacy of needing to make a decision NOW. wine.woot-offs seem to move at a glacial pace.

10 might be a little extreme for being "small lot", but those could be reserved for the extreme Black Tie types (like the Kronos) - but keep in mind, a lot size of 10 could potentially be doled out to only 4 people, if the first three go in for 3. 20-30 might be a better "extreme small lot" size, with 30-50 for a "small lot" for regular black ties, then 50-100 for standard offers, and 100-200 for "cheap" offers (ones that will move quickly simply due to their price point). I don't think any wine.woot-off offer should have a lot size > 200.

Edit: Numbers edited based on today's history.

They can limit small-quantity woots to one woot per person, to keep the eclusivity but to stop the lucky very-first-comers from hogging the lot!

richardhod wrote:They can limit small-quantity woots to one woot per person, to keep the eclusivity but to stop the lucky very-first-comers from hogging the lot!

Thanks for reiterating that Richard ;-P

(See 2/21/12 12:01 PM PST)

cmaldoon wrote:Thanks for reiterating that Richard ;-P

(See 2/21/12 12:01 PM PST)

You're welcome. The original was such an excellent post it just needed reiterating ;)

For all of the beer lovers, i.e. those that want beer.woot, there is beer up right now on deals.woot.

Before the wootoff select some people who ordered it the first time and offer them a coupon or something for a review. Then when the wine pops up post their review.

I've read some really excellent and logical suggestions here. Do you think they'll actually use any of them? We still haven't seen the return of the Lab Rats program and there was some inference earlier this year of it re-occurring this quarter. That would be a good start. No?

Maryland just started allowing wine shipping last year, so just having a wine woot-off is still a novelty for me. I have gone for the cheeses in the past, so as stated earlier they are important to people in some states. I would leave them in the mix.
And that mix seems good,some verticals,some large lots, some black tie. I would like a it more Washington nd Oregon in the mix, but understand the key role that proximity plays in the selections. Quicker turnover would be my only wish. Once you have made a decision to pass (or had it made for you by the state rules) it seems like a long wait for the next pick.
Bottom line is well done, woot.