Vinfolio Blog

Many of you gave us feedback on selling fees in the Marketplace. We heard you loud and clear and have changed our selling fee structure, making it even more attractive to sell your wine in the Marketplace. Starting today, two new changes, described below, go into effect to lower your fees.

Permanent reduction of selling fees to 15%
In October, we temporarily (during Q4) reduced all selling fees to 15% from 20% and the minimum per bottle from $8 to $6. Based on your positive response, we’ve already decided to make this change permanent.

Reduce your fees further to 10% by choosing Vinfolio credit
Many of you have asked for an option to get credit for Marketplace sales towards other Marketplace or Vinfolio wine store purchases. With the most recent software release, you can now reduce your selling fees to 10% when you opt for credit in the Vinfolio wine store. To take advantage, simply select the credit option when you accept a bid or if you have wines with Reserve or Buy Now prices, log into VinCellar and go to My Account/Preferences and select “Change payment type” under Marketplace in the right hand column. We anticipate extending the use of credit to all Vinfolio purchases, including the Marketplace, in early Q1.

Many of you have requested wishlist functionality within VinCellar and we’re happy to announce that it's finally here. To get started, click on the "My Wishlist" link on the right side of VinCellar Home. You will be prompted to search and add wines to your list.

Add wine to your wishlist
You can add wines to your wishlist from all VinCellar detail pages as well as from the wishlist itself. Eventually you will be able add wine to your wishlist from mobile devices, Facebook and other integrated platforms.

Access your wishlist
You can access your wishlist at any time from the VinCellar Home page or you can navigate to it directly using your personalized URL http://www.vinfolio.com/wishlist/[your nickname]

Remove wine from your wishlist
You can delete a wine from your wishlist by clicking the trashcan icon next to the wine where it appears in your list.

Other wishlist features

Privacy
By default your wishlist is public. You can make it private by clicking the "Make Wishlist private" link

Commenting
By default you and other VinCellar users are able to comment on individual wines on your public wishlist. You have the option to disable commenting at any time by clicking the "Disable comments" link

Add to cellar
You can quickly launch the VinCellar "Add to cellar" tool for wine on your wishlist

Bid or Buy
When available in the Vinfolio store or Marketplace, Bid or Buy links will be next to individual wines

Share
Tweet your wishlist along with a personalized message up to 140 characters

We are excited to announce the launch of our newest VinCellar feature, WinePosts, for sharing your experiences around wine. Use WinePosts to tell a story; upload images and videos, list your favorite wines, start a dialogue with the community. 

Along with your tasting notes, WinePosts are displayed on your VinCellar public profile page. Most recent community WinePosts are featured on the new VinCellar Community page with a quick link to the WinePosts home page to browse all. Using the personalized, permanent URL you can easily share your WinePosts via links on your own blog or on any social networking platform.

Summary of WinePost features:

• Upload multiple images and videos
• Link up to 25 wines
• Comment at the wine and post level
• Links to Buy or Bid in the Vinfolio Marketplace
• Personalized, permanent URL
• Share via Twitter, Facebook or a variety of other platforms
• WSIWIG editor for your WinePost description

Give it a try and let us know what you think. Get started!

We’ve recently added a new field to our Marketplace listings to help both bidders and sellers set prices.  The field is called Suggested Price and can be found on the far right hand side of the Marketplace listings page.  It is intended to signal to both Bidder and Seller what market pricing for the specific wine might be, and serve as a guide for setting both bid and sell prices.

The Suggested Price field data is derived from multiple sources:

• Marketplace average transactions for that particular wine, vintage and bottle size for the past year.
• Auction data for that particular wine, vintage, and bottle size for the last 24 months as calculated by the auction algorithm’s on WinePrices.com
• Current Retail Pricing for that particular wine, vintage and bottle size from WinePrices.com

If there’s not enough data from all of those sources, the field will be left blank.

Bidders and sellers who use the Suggested Price will find higher bid acceptance and sell rates.  We also use Suggested Price in our Bid Feedback emails, so that sellers are able to signal to bidders the pricing that they are looking to see in order for them to accept a bid. Sellers can elect to send Bid Feedback from within VinCellar.

Bidders receive the email suggesting a price change and can then modify their bid.

When both bidder and seller come to the same market assessment, we find that both consummate the transaction happily.

by Beth Thomas-Kim, Director, Customer Service

Finer service is more than just being responsive, empathetic, and efficient.  It’s how employees view their role in the delivery of that promise.  I asked my team what they thought finer service meant.  Their responses included, “going above and beyond,” “taking the burden off the customer’s shoulders so that doing business with Vinfolio is easy,” and “bending over backwards to ensure the customer’s experience is a positive one, especially when things don’t go as planned.”  I couldn’t agree more.

We provide as many ways as possible for customers to reach us; phone, email, and live chat sessions.  Email, however, outpaces phone calls in terms of the frequency of contact methods.  Phone calls, by their very nature, demand immediate attention.  Unlike many other organizations that rely on automated call handling technology, calls coming into Vinfolio are answered immediately and personally. We have zero hold time before reaching a customer service associate.  Additionally, our response time for email contacts is very impressive given the percent of our total contact volume.  Response time averages 43 minutes for email.  Most companies promise a response within 24 hours.

But, let’s go back to the issue of turning a negative experience into a positive one.  That’s where the rubber meets the road.  Recently, a new customer made a purchase through our online store.  There was a problem with the wine he purchased and when we sent a replacement, it too was unsatisfactory. Complicating things was a misunderstanding regarding a charge.  Things weren’t going so well.  The customer was angry.  It took some time and patient communication, but in the end we resolved the problems and his latest email ended with, “Thanks a ton. You are wonderful.”

I encourage you to share your comments and if there are opportunities for us to improve your experience, don’t hesitate to post them here, contact me personally at beth@vinfolio.com or call us toll free at 800/969-1961.  

The new Vinfolio Marketplace homepage is designed to be your gateway into the Marketplace. In addition to providing relevant Marketplace stats including most traded wines, most recently added and best values, we have also made it simple to search by producer, top vintages and Burghound, Spectator, Parker and IWC picks.

Additionally, each day, we will highlight one wine that offers an exceptional opportunity based on its asking price versus the low retail price. Check the site daily or even better, follow @VinScoop on Twitter or become a Vinfolio fan on Facebook to find out the daily features.

With our last software release, Vinfolio has made several new tools available to sellers in the Marketplace. The ultimate goal is to put more power in the hands of the Seller, which will in turn enable the Bidder to make more realistic bids. Included tools are: BuyNow setting, ability to set a Reserve price, and option to give feedback to the Seller.  

BuyNow
Sellers now have the ability to tell Bidders exactly what they want to sell their wine for with a Buy Now price which is visible to bidders when searching for wine in the Marketplace. When a bidder places a bid at that price that matches the minimum quantity the Seller has set, the bid will be automatically accepted, regardless of storage location. To set a Buy Now price, simply set an Asking price and check the box to “Enable Buy Now”.   Because bids will be automatically accepted for you, we recommend double-checking your inventory before selecting this option. You will be charged a cancellation fee if a bid is accepted and you are not able to fulfill the wine. You may also set an optional minimum quantity for the Buy Now price and an expiration date.

Reserve price
As an option or addition to Buy Now, Sellers can now set a Reserve price. A Reserve price, which is not visible to the bidder, replaces the minimum price. Use this option to indicate the lowest price you are willing to accept for this wine.  Note that a bid at or above your Reserve price will be auto-accepted, regardless if you have set a Buy Now asking price. You have the advanced options of setting a minimum quantity and an expiration date for your Reserve price. Again, because bids will be automatically accepted for you, we recommend double-checking your inventory before selecting this option. You will be charged a cancellation fee if a bid is accepted and you are not able to fulfill the wine.

Bidder feedback
Lastly, Sellers now have the option to give feedback to bidders to improve their bids. On the Marketplace wine detail page, you will see an option for Bid Feedback underneath each wine you own for which there is an open bid. Click on the Feedback button to open the feedback form. This will give you an option to provide the terms to the bidder under which you would accept their bid.

Providing feedback does not obligate you to accept an updated bid nor does it ensure you will have first dibs to accept it. If a bidder changes their bid, a Bid Alert will be sent to all qualified Sellers. First to accept the bid, wins.

If you’ve logged into VinCellar in the last couple of days, you may have noticed the new Marketplace Summary tile on VinCellar home. This tile, also available on the Vinfolio homepage, provides a snapshot of all active bids on your wine in one quick glance. Even if you have not marked wine for sale you can use this snapshot to view, evaluate and accept bids on wine that you own.

To use, simply click the hyperlinked label to navigate to the My Cellar Marketplace tab. From that tab you can view a list of all wines with bids. Click through on the wine name to evaluate individual bids. As of next week, if you’ve marked that wine for sale you will be eligible to provide direct feedback to the bidder on changes requested to accept their bid.

Remember that while you can accept bids on wines owned, explicitly marking them for sale triggers their listing on the Marketplace, qualifies you to receive immediate bid alerts and, as of next week, qualifies you to provide feedback directly to the bidder.

If you haven’t marked your wine for sale or accepted bids in the Vinfolio Marketplace, now is the time to start.  Beginning October 1, we’ve lowered seller fees and cut in-bound shipping costs to make it even more profitable to sell your wine, regardless of location*.

Sell your wine now and enjoy these limited-time benefits:

• FREE in-bound shipping for first-time Marketplace sellers on all bids accepted in October

• 15% fees for ALL Sellers, regardless of storage location until December 31, 2009 (reduced from 20% for off site locations).

• $6 minimum per bottle fee for ALL sellers until December 31, 2009 (reduced from $8)

• All sales still go towards the Marketplace cumulative volume discounts

• Shipping subsidies for bottles sold over $100 are still included

   
Get started

• Mark your wine for sale – learn how

• Set asking prices – learn how

• View open bids on your wines

For questions or to provide feedback, please contact service@vinfolio.com or visit the Vinfolio Forum.

*Please note that location refers to Vinfolio, private or home storage. All wine sold in the Marketplace must still be physically located in the U.S. (excludes MA).

Vinfolio's full-service storage service is currently supported solely by our 17,000 sq. ft. San Francisco facility (which is dedicated to customer storage).  But we're at the point where the San Francisco facility is nearing capacity so we're expanding our customer storage capacity by over 40% by beginning to store customer-owned wine in our Napa facility (located in American Canyon). 

As a reminder, we announced the opening of our 20,000 sq. ft. Napa warehouse in November 2008 (see press release).  Until now, the Napa location has housed our retail inventory and retail fulfillment operations.  As the leased space was sized initially to include room for growth, there is currently 7,000 sq. ft. of unused leased space ready to be occupied.  The Napa facility is occupied by other wine-related businesses and is currently climate-controlled to 58 degrees.  We are in the process of determining whether the landlord and other tenants are willing to lower the temperature a few degrees to 55 which is the temperature of our San Francisco warehouse.

From a customer point of view, there will be no other difference in services regardless of whether wine is stored in San Francisco or Napa.  Wine will continue to be able to be picked up or dropped off at either facility; delivery services have always been agnostic as to the source warehouse.