FYI: $15 for $30 credit at Bishop's Cellar

[TimG]

http://www.teambuy.ca/halifax/28131191

Half price beers, seems like a good deal

[JEH]

Anyone have any idea if its possible to buy from a blackberry? I have never used teambuy but am assuming it gives me a coupon to print out? I wouldn't mind getting this today and picking up some beer for the hockey game tonight on my way home from work. Any ideas?

[mr x]

The pickup rate on this has been exponential. I'm sure it was around 250 when Tim first posted this, now it's up over 750. At $15 per, that's over $11,000. I'd be surprised if this isn't cut off.

[BobbyOK]

The pickup rate on this has been exponential. I'm sure it was around 250 when Tim first posted this, now it's up over 750. At $15 per, that's over $11,000. I'd be surprised if this isn't cut off.

It specifies limited quantities - but I suspect it doesn't let anyone know what the limit is until time has expired.

Anyone have any idea if its possible to buy from a blackberry? I have never used teambuy but am assuming it gives me a coupon to print out? I wouldn't mind getting this today and picking up some beer for the hockey game tonight on my way home from work. Any ideas?

You can't actually purchase until the time has expired, which isn't until tomorrow sometime. So even if you click to buy it now, you can't access it right away. They do that more to ensure the minimum number is hit, but in this case I suspect they've hit the maximum long ago. If there are only 100 or 200 credits available, this is going to backfire for Bishop's because they're going to have hundreds of people pissed off.

And is this even legal? Not that it shouldn't be, but when Hart & Thistle had their deal it was food only, liquor excluded. Does NSLC allow coupons of any kind?

[mr x]

If they are deliberately overselling without letting people know, that's a sure way to turn some people off this system. Me for one. More at Group Buys for their mystery system than at Bishop's.

The legal angle is interesting...

[Seanstoppable]

Bishop's keeps promoting the deal via Twitter (they just passed 1000 'Buys'). So either they are planning to honor them all or they don't know the limit on the quantities themselves and are about to get quite a bit of egg on their face.

[BobbyOK]

Bishop's keeps promoting the deal via Twitter (they just passed 1000 'Buys'). So either they are planning to honor them all or they don't know the limit on the quantities themselves and are about to get quite a bit of egg on their face.

Just saw that too - they even claimed they've extended it so clearly they're intending to honour the deals. Must be something in the Teambuy model that sees them absorb the discount, because otherwise I can't see Bishop's being all that excited about this.

[mr x]

All I can think is that their mark-up must be off the scale.

[vgoreham]

Well, they're giving up a lot of profit but it's not all a loss (accounting wise) though, I'm sure some of this. Though, in any case 1100 buys means ($16 500 in "free" stuff).

I think they're banking on this:
Getting people to spend more than the credit when they're at the store (say you spend $60 and have a credit for 30).
Develop new customers (some people are scared to go in there, some people have never heard of it). What's the value of a new customer? I think it's a lot.
They're also going to clearly win The Coast survey for best wine store again (since it just came out), haha.

There is no way they won't honour those who have bought.

[derek]

"Loss leaders" always work on the principle that you can sell someone more and better stuff when you actually get them in the store - and it's sure to work for me (of course, we make a fairly regular trip to Bishop's anyway...). I am surprised that they can do it though - the puritans in our government and incivil service really hate actually doing anything that might encourage drinking, though they do allow some pretty crazy happy hour deals. As for the markup - it's not actually Bishop's markup that's off the scale: the NSLC tells them what their minimum markup is, and yes, it's off the scale...

Also, remember you're *buying* a coupon. Somebody (I'm not sure whether it's Team Buy or Bishop's), makes interest on that money in the time between purchasing and using the coupon. Additionally, some percentage will never be redeemed - free money!

[mr x]

Well, they are pushing $20,000 now. The mark-up I'm talking about is their maximum, because that will determine the amount of lost profit here.

[TimG]

Well I bought one, their plan worked by bringing in a new customer (never been). Do they ever get in different beers (like Premier)?

[vgoreham]

Well I bought one, their plan worked by bringing in a new customer (never been). Do they ever get in different beers (like Premier)?

Nowhere near the selection. Pretty decent selection of local stuff - including Sea Level!

[LiverDance]

I was talking to Randy from Sea Level on the weekend and he mentioned that the new ipa he has should be at bishops next week.

[John G]

Looks like it's sold out now at 1750 buys.

[chalmers]

Insider information on how these group buys work (TeamBuy, Groupon, Dealfind, etc): The voucher-selling company charges the companies ~30% of the sale price of the ticket.
Assuming that is correct: TeamBuy made $7875 on this buy.
Bishop's will get the rest ($18375), but needs to deliver $52500 (retail) worth of product. I don't think their markup is quite that high (285%). Companies will call this advertising/promotion, loss leaders.

The voucher company will try to give a 30-day invoice so they can keep all $26250 as long as possible (interest on that is not insignificant), and then pay Bishop's what they owe, instead of the other way around.

[derek]

Thanks Chris - if I'd had to guess, I would have figured the process was something like that. I'm a bit surprised TeamBuy's cut is quite that large, but I guess the market can bear it! If you figure a 100% markup (it's probably a bit more, on average), then with Bishop's getting back ~$10 of every $30 voucher, they need to sell an extra $40 of wine to everybody who brings in a coupon - and who wouldn't have spent that $40 there in the first place. I think I'd take that gamble, but it is definitely a gamble.

[derek]

LOL. Today's XKCD webcomic seems to explain this process almost as well as Chris did: http://xkcd.com/870/

[chalmers]

Update: So, I have some insider info (albeit third hand) on this voucher. This "buy" was supposed to stop at 50. Teambuy screwed this one up. They (BC) decided to let it go for a while longer. By noon, it had hit 2000, and they had to shut it down, and scale back to 1750. Not sure how TeamBuy will deal with the oversells. And hopefully BC doesn't go broke. Dealing with an extra 1700 $30 vouchers will put a major strain on them.

[derek]

Dealing with an extra 1700 $30 vouchers will put a major strain on them.

John Stuart has deep pockets. Heck, his hobby is breeding cows... [I'm not quite sure what that makes Bishop's Cellar] I met him at a wine-tasting about a year ago, and I don't know why he picked on me - maybe I was the only person there who hadn't previously heard it all - but I learned far more than I ever wanted to about prize cattle.

[BobbyOK]

Update: So, I have some insider info (albeit third hand) on this voucher. This "buy" was supposed to stop at 50. Teambuy screwed this one up. They (BC) decided to let it go for a while longer. By noon, it had hit 2000, and they had to shut it down, and scale back to 1750. Not sure how TeamBuy will deal with the oversells. And hopefully BC doesn't go broke. Dealing with an extra 1700 $30 vouchers will put a major strain on them.

This seems odd. Why would Bishop's have been cheering it on if it was a mistake? Unless they knew Teambuy would be eating the extra cost. But I can't see them accepting that. Mind you, I haven't seen any sign/notice of my credit...

EDIT - scratch that, it arrived this morning. Yay half price beer.

[Jimmy]

NOW HERE'S A DEAL:
WINE SO CHEAP, IT'S ILLEGAL
By Paul McLeod

An innocent attempt to provide some discounted booze had one local wine store discovering it could be breaking the law.~

Bishop's Cellar in Halifax used the online coupon site Teambuy yesterday to offer customers $30 vouchers for a half-off price of $15.

In what would turn out to be a wild underestimation of Nova Scotians' appetite for cheap liquor, Bishop's set the deal to be posted for two days.

Wine-lovers raced for their credit cards and within hours Bishop's had hit its cap of 1,750 vouchers sold.

But among the people following the deal website were employees at the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation's head office, who quickly realized there was a problem.

In Nova Scotia it is illegal to sell liquor below a benchmark known as the "social reference price." For a 750 ml bottle of wine, that price is $9.49.

So if a customer used their gift card to buy two $15 bottles of wine, their purchase would technically be illegal as the cost is below the social reference price.

NSLC communications vp Rick Perkins said there is no formal policy on such discounts because it's never come up before.

Perkins said the Bishop's Cellar deal is allowed to stand while they sort things out in the future.

"We're not putting the toothpaste back in the tube on this one," he said.

"Obviously it's something we're going to have to talk with the private wine stores, about what's sort of the acceptable way so that we're all respecting the social reference price."

Perkins said future liquor discounts wouldn't necessarily be banned. He said the fix could simply be including a clause that the actual sale can't dip below the social reference price.

"It's a great initiative. It's a smart thing for them to offer. We just need to work some bugs out in the future," he said.

Perkins is a deal website-watcher himself, but did not get a half-off voucher, as the offer had sold out by the time he found out about it.

allnovascotia.com

[mr x]

I'd like to take the term 'social reference price', have it cast in sharp edged metal, and drive it up Perkin's ass.

[Jimmy]

I'd like to take the term 'social reference price', have it cast in sharp edged metal, and drive it up Perkin's ass.

It's basically the same as price fixing, only it's legal for them

[mr x]

Fucking sad, isn't it....