We make over 20 wines. Our shipment is four wines. We were planning on setting the default shipment of four wines and listing six additional options of our most popular wines. Is this too many? enough? How many does everyone else offer?
I offer all current releases, but using outside fulfillment makes that easier since I don’t pack boxes. Depends on your situation and your club really. Are they choosers that always their favorites?
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We self-fulfill and are hoping with this club to make things a little easier at club processing. I worry that if we have all wines there that we won’t actually be saving any time. Maybe I’m worrying too much? We have people who want white wine only and many club members who want one certain wine in all of their shipments.
So you still take care of old friends and big customers who want their favorites, and limit choices to what you can handle. Then think about how you’ll pack the choices - how many helpers, how many tables, how much pizza 
- that might be the best was to decide how many choices.
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So I’m thinking now… if I list all of the whites and select reds then I am not allowing for a few wines that are higher price point. Not much more work for me to reach one cubby over and grab a Syrah rather than a Chardonnay? Is there a simple report that can be run that says how much of each wine was used for that particular shipment overall? So then I can pull X# cases of each and have it all in one spot? Or am I printing 600 invoices and looking one by one?
I think there’s another thread here that just answered that.
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We have a similar situation with lots of SKUs and have been doing User Choice for about 2 years now. I actually have 3 different User Choice clubs set-up. I have Reds, Mixed and Whites. This way I can set the default case to the members preference of Reds, Mixed, and Whites. From there I give them their selections based on the club they are in. The number of wines listed in each varies from shipment to shipment based on how many wines we have available. Reds and Whites usually have the fewest choices (3-6 wines) and then Mixed will have the most (6-10).
After the choose their 6 wines they can then add on whatever they would like. They have to email me with additions that are not listed. This adds extra work, but in reality it is only about 25% of my members and since they are spending more money I don’t mind. The other 75% take the default case. The custom orders that I get I process right away (through club processing) and either put them in a separate folder or ship out right away.
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I’ll look for it! Thanks!!
Brilliant. We’ve always lumped the “white only” people in with our red club specials because they are on the same schedule, but it would be easier to probably just put them in their own club. Thank you for your input!
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I do too - I call them the Blancos for obvious reasons
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I only recently added a whites as have a few people who were requesting whites only and signing up for mixed. It was easier to set up a club for them than remember to change their orders every shipment.
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I had a lot of legacy clubs from an old system (all prepaid annually, 6 shipments a year) so for simplicity’s sake - for new signups I just made one user choice club and offer 6 wines in each season. There are two default wines, which are the same as the wines that the legacy clubs are receiving (prepaid legacy clubs don’t get choices). Naturally I make sure that the user choice wine options cover the ability to make your club shipment all reds, all whites, etc. This I like because I can sell the flexibility of this club and have been mostly successful in training our members to log in and make their choices.
Can anybody make a compelling argument that I should offer 12 choices? Or more? At any time we have ~20 current releases and another 20 in warehouse that are different vintages or limited releases. We self fulfill all shipments.
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- The max to offer is the max you can handle fulfilling without becoming a babbling idiot.
- Offer the choices you think most likely. I’d favor new releases myself.
- If people want something else they will email you. Pack these orders as dailies.
- Answer my Paypal question if you know the answer.
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Hi there! Just curious - how do the members know to e-mail you if they want to make a customization other than what you have made available as part of the user choice selection? Do you relay this information in an e-mail communication?
I am a new WD user and have never set up the user choice option for clubs before. In the past I have manually entered any customization and have not put any limitations on them. I am thinking of only offering a few customization, but those that have completely customized their order in the past will likely request this option.
Any insight is much appreciated!
I just include a line in the club email saying that if there is something not listed that they want to add (in addition) to their shipment they can email me.
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Hi Leah!
Prior to switching to the user choice clubs we had separate clubs for folks who customized. So we had a couple user choice clubs but did it manually. In converting all of our clubs to user choice these “special” people are now lumped into our regular clubs (part of the switch to use choice was to consolidate our clubs) so I just personally emailed each of those “special” people and let them know about the change. I included that they can always email myself or our club administrator if they would like a wine included that isn’t offered as a shipment choice. Our format is a four bottle recommended shipment, then we list 4-6 additional wines for them to choose from to customize. Since it sounds like you know who the people are who have special needs, I would reach out to them and let them know some changes are coming and that they can always reach out to you if they want wines not included in the offering. Hope this helps!
Jewelie Jukich
Tasting Room Manager
Milliaire Winery
276 Main Street, Murphys
(209) 728-1658
Celebrate summer with us July 14th at our CRUSH PAD PARTY!
Visit MilliaireWinery.com for tickets
Thank you for the response, Jewelie! It is much appreciated! In your user choice clubs do you allow your members to fully customize their shipment? Or, are there limitations you place on how much they can pick and choose their allocation (i.e. they are required to take a bottle or two from the stock shipment)? Trying to figure out from an inventory standpoint how user choice will affect our planning in advance for club shipments.
Yes we let them fully customize. The only limitation we use is that we have a $10 White Zin so if that is allowed in the shipment we set a max of 1 bottle for obvious reasons. We require a minimum of four bottles but have found that people are happier if they get to pick all four. Usually they only swap one or two though. We only set aside the wines in the recommended shipment. As for the wines they can customize with we don’t set any aside because we don’t end up even using a full case of any one “bonus” wine. If that doesn’t make sense I can elaborate! J
Jewelie Jukich
Tasting Room Manager
Milliaire Winery
276 Main Street, Murphys
(209) 728-1658
Celebrate summer with us July 14th at our CRUSH PAD PARTY!
Visit MilliaireWinery.com for tickets
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Makes complete sense, thank you so much! Do you ever receive any push back from members who want more than one bottle of White Zin (i.e. someone wants four bottles)? Thinking about limiting the quantity of our Pinot Grigio which is at a lower price point than all our other wines.
Not yet! But my plan has been that if they were to ask for all White Zin I would first suggest they choose a shipment and just add the desired bottles of white zin to the order (only $8/btl for wine club). I don’t see that happening, though, as when people sign up we tell them the projected shipment costs (we average out the shipments for this figure) so it won’t be a total surprise that they can’t satisfy their shipment requirement with a $32 order. I think it is always best to have a prepared response for these types of situations but you likely won’t have to worry about it.
Jewelie Jukich
Tasting Room Manager
Milliaire Winery
276 Main Street, Murphys
(209) 728-1658
Celebrate summer with us July 14th at our CRUSH PAD PARTY!
Visit MilliaireWinery.com for tickets
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