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!

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.

It's been two weeks since the launch of Marketplace and in that time we've received lots of great feedback in the Marketplace Forum as well as via various online bulletin boards. Earlier this week we held a multi-hour planning meeting to discuss software enhancements to respond to the feedback. The result of this meeting was development of a "product road map" to take us through the next 4-6 weeks.

Here is an excerpt from Steve Bachmann's more detailed Marketplace Forum post on this topic. 

1. "Bidder education" (Timing: Within next 1-2 weeks)

A number of bids have been placed which are unrealistically low. While we are not going to impose a required minimum bid, we want to ensure bidders are consciously entering a bid price that reflects objective market pricing data

Step 1 of the bidding wizard will be revised to include market data pricing points (when available) and we will implement helpful rules-based messaging on pricing and quantity values entered during this step.

The initial design of Marketplace assumes that each bid would only ever be fulfilled by a single seller. Therefore, if the seller doesn't have the required quantity (in a single location) to supply the full quantity in the bid, the seller is not able to accept the bid.

In the future we will be adopting more of an "open to buy" approach where the bid quantity is really a maximum only and not also the minimum. For example, if the bidder wants to purchase 60 bottles of a given wine for a particular price, we will notify any and all sellers (even those with 1-2 bottles) and permit them to accept bids for lesser quantities. This "open to buy" method will become the default approach soon (with an option of invoking the single supplier method).

In general, bidders have expressed the desire for more responsiveness from sellers and advance knowledge of whether an asking price is "firm". Moreover, with or without an asking price, we know many trade sellers (and others) wish to "automate" the process of accepting a bid (to reduce labor costs to administer their participation) and also to gain an edge in accepting bids versus competing sellers. We call this generic capability "Auto-accept."

The first (and easiest) step for us to take in enabling this capability is to implement it for wine being sold from Vinfolio storage. After that phase is implemented, we will expand the concept's application.

4. Wine Watcher(TM) alerts (Timing: Mid-to-late August)

Marketplace users have asked for tools which support more, timely interaction. While we already have bid alerts to notify sellers when a new bid is made on wine that is marked for sale, we do not currently have a means of notifying bidders (or just "watchers") of various forms of activity relating to a specific wine. Therefore, we've decided to implement a capability we're naming Wine Watcher alerts.

Any Vinfolio user will be able to configure Wine Watcher alerts to monitor one or more pre-defined activities on a daily or immediate notification basis. A Wine Watcher "Active Bids" alert will be automatically created for bidders and be comprised of the list of wines with active bids.  By default, the Active Bids alert will be configured to deliver an immediate notification whenever a new low asking price is entered by a seller or a new bid is placed by someone else on the same wine.

5. "Quantity caps" (Timing: Mid-to-late August)

To avoid having large quantities of individual items available that may distort the intended business positioning of the Marketplace and skew sorting/filtering by quantity, we will implement a maximum displayed quantity per item of 120 bottles for all users. 

6. Detailed retail market pricing pop-up (Timing: Mid-to-late August)

We currently provide various market pricing data to both buyers and sellers based on the belief that market price transparency encourages convergence between buyers on sellers on a "fair market value price" needed to complete a Marketplace transaction. In addition to the following data currently available on wine detail pages, this project will integrate individual retail price istings:

• Marketplace transaction history (very limited now but will grow over time)
• Major auction house results from WinePrices.com (both averages and details of individual lots sold)
• U.S. retail average pricing
• Active bid prices

7. Bidder-requested deferred inbound shipping (Timing: Fall 2009)

We already take steps to ensure sellers' wine is protected during its inbound shipment by increasing shipping speeds during periods of adverse weather. However, some buyers and sellers would prefer to eliminate all risk (including unforeseen events that could create delays).  This project will enable bidders to specify that their bid should only be accepted by a seller whose wine will be sent either after a certain date or when the weather check which Vinfolio performs between the originating Zip code and our warehouse's Zip code satisfies the requested conditions.  As this project could not be implemented in time for the summer months, we have deferred it until the Fall.

Other ideas

If you have other suggestions not addressed by the above plans, please add a comment to this blog or create a new topic in the Marketplace Forum.

You’ve probably heard by now that the Vinfolio Marketplace launches in July, but that doesn’t mean you should wait to start putting your wine up for sale. In fact, if you mark wine for sale before June 15th, you can earn up to 100 free storage units in Vinfolio’s temperature controlled full-service storage facility.

Storing wine that you plan to sell in Vinfolio’s storage facility gives you the added advantage of lower transaction fees – 15% vs the normal 20%. Plus there is no need to worry about transferring bottles to Vinfolio after your wine is sold. It’s already here so you get paid even faster. More money and faster payment!

Here are a few tips we recommend before you get started:

• Make sure your VinCellar account is updated
• Determine which wines you want to sell and ensure they meet the Marketplace’s inspection guidelines
• Research your asking price using pricing date from Vinfolio’s wineprices.com
• When you’re ready to start marking your wine for sale, just log in to your VinCellar account and follow a few simple steps. Click here to learn more.

Follow the Vinfolio Blog for more helpful Marketplace tips on how to do everything from updating your VinCellar account to accepting bids for your wine.

But again, there’s no need to wait. Make sure your wine is already marked for sale by July so buyers can place bids the moment Marketplace is live.

Happy selling!

It’s been an exciting week at Vinfolio. If you haven’t heard yet, we’ve announced the Vinfolio Marketplace as an easy way for VinCellar users to sell their wine anonymously. Bidding starts when we launch in early July.

Now’s the time to go through your cellar and start marking your wine for sale. Selling is passive so once your wine’s been marked for sale, just sit back, pour yourself a glass of wine and let the bidding begin.

Improve your chances

• Set an optional asking price on your wine. Your asking price is public and informs bidders of the price you are willing to accept for your wine. This will help bidders set a reasonable bid. Enter an asking price when you mark wine for sale or from the Marketplace tab on the wine detail page.

• You can also set an optional minimum price. Your minimum price is private and represents the lowest price you would accept for this wine.  Your minimum price can be used to auto-accept bids on wine stored at Vinfolio (more about auto-accept in a future blog post).
• Upload a label image for your wine. Read Amy's blog post to learn how.  

What happens next?
We’re building robust tools to simplify the process of accepting bids and shipping your wine to us including:

• Custom bid alerts which notify you immediately (or less frequently, you choose) on bids which meet your specific criteria.
• Simple, guided bid acceptance process.
• Easy, visual steps for preparing wine for shipping.  We’ll tell you what to ship, when to ship and how to ship.

We'll be walking through the specifics over the next few weeks. Check back here frequently and you'll be ready to sell in July!

In February we announced a number of new social features in VinCellar. Since that time the average number of new tasting notes has increased by over 60% while the average number of individuals entering notes each day has increased by 40%.

That release also rounded out our blogger-specific platform. Like your wine blog, VinCellar is targeted toward wine lovers and enthusiasts and our platform now makes it easier than ever for you to promote your reviews and scores to our growing community of cellar management users. Take advantage of these features:

• Free, web-based tasting note management.
  
• Mobile optimized site for accessing wines and reviews from your iPhone.
  
• Easy batch upload of tasting notes via our Excel-based import tool.
  
• Support for multiple scoring systems.
  
• Ability to upload your own label images.
  
• Individual RSS feed of your tasting notes.
  
• Ability to create a VinCellar Badge for display on your Blog/Website.
  
• Integration with Facebook and Twitter.
  
• Linking to your individual, blogger-designated VinCellar public profile page.
  

• Promotion of your blog and authored content on all individual notes.
  

We’re excited by all of your positive feedback in response to our recent VinCellar enhancements. Many users have uploaded photos and updated their public profiles. It's fun to finally put names with faces. We've seen an increase in the daily tasting notes count as well as prolific reviewers such as Conrad K, JMC22, MJM, Adriel L and dougwilder. Hopefully you're finding notes on your favorite wines or have found some new wines to explore.

Also check out tasting notes written by members of the Vinfolio team.

Launched this week you can now enter your tasting notes in your preferred scoring scale. Choose to enter scores based on 100 point, 20 point, 10 point, 5 star or 3 star scales. Scores entered in your preferred scale will be displayed in that system. Community scores are calculated and displayed in the 100 point scale. For the purpose of deriving a VinCellar community score, individual scores are normalized to the 100 point scale.

The default VinCellar scoring scale is the 100 point scale. To override this default with your preferred scoring scale go to My Account -> Preferences. Choose your default scale under ‘Scoring Preferences’. Your default will display in all places with your tasting note. This default can be overridden for an individual note at any time. 

Last night we launched some exciting new features.  Check out the details below.

CELLAR SHARING
Share your cellar with Everyone, VinCellar users, Facebook friends (friends who have added the My VinCellar application) or choose to keep it private. 

FRIENDING
Bring Facebook friending into VinCellar.  Share your profile, cellar and recent activity with  Facebook friends who have added the My VinCellar application.

INDIVIDUAL RSS FEEDS
Subscribe to a VinCellar user’s RSS feed of their public tasting notes. 

PUBLIC PROFILE PAGE
Upload a profile picture, designate yourself as a blogger, winery designate, member of the trade or Master of Wine.  Your profile picture and designation will display everywhere your public tasting notes do as well as on your public profile page. 

Easily access the enhanced VinCellar public profile via the VinCellar Home page.  View your own or search for others using their VinCellar nickname. 

The public profile now displays your profile image, designation, recent tasting notes and recent cellar activity (if public).  From this page users can subscribe to your individual tasting note RSS feed and browse your public notes and cellar. 

WINE DETAIL PAGE
Other users who own this wine
People who own this wine also own
 
HOME PAGE
Access recent activity of you AND your Facebook friends.  Note: to see Facebook friend activity your Facebook friends must first update their privacy setting in VinCellar My Account.

We're bigger and better than ever. Now, in addition to sharing our perspective on wine related stuff, we'll also keep you posted on new product and website features, tech updates and VinCellar "How Tos". There are lots of things happening at Vinfolio. Come by often and let us know what you think.

Also note that we do daily releases (every morning around 6 to 6:30am PST expect a little slowness from the site) so we'll be posting about those as well.