Tweeting as advertising, gone bad?

I don't consider it bait and switchy at all. If a place tweets "we just got in Bourbon County Vanilla Rye, first come first served" you know every monkey and his uncle is going to try and get there. You can't casually wander in 5 hours later thinking you'll get a bottle

 

Point taken. My musing was based on OP saying the consignment was not necessarily more than one customer's worth (hopefully not a hoarder's). Another reason it's worth having the conversation.

 

Because the likelihood that someone will still buy something since they're there already anyway is very high. No store owner/manager in their right mind would do anything to keep an individual from walking in to their shop.

 

I can totally see that side of it, but, on the other hand, if you make a special trip to get there quick, only to find that the guy coming out as you were going in got the last bottle, it might leave you pissed off and not exactly in the mood to buy from that shop or return there in the future. Especially if you have other comparable places to buy from. Customers associating a particular store with frustration probably isn't that good for business. I do expect store managers to see it your way much more often than they see it my way though!

 

That brings up an interesting point of when does twitter and facebook become advertising. That puts them at a much higher bar for compliance. In Delaware there is a law that if you advertise an item you have to have it available or mark it as limited in the advertisement. A few business's have run afoul of the law when they repeatedly used these type of tactics for bait and switch which is harder to prove.

The best point is that if a business is very fast to tweet they have something and then does not let people know it is gone is trying to profit off hype. If I went for a tweeted ,just got in, and it was not there, I would buy nothing else on general principal. I would also probably not make a friend of the manager when I let him know why I was leaving empty handed to go up the street to buy beer.

 

I cant tweet, my legs are too weak!

 

Kinda of a no-win situation. If you post you have something rare, it's a feeding frenzy and your good customers (that support you on a daily/weekly basis) could get shut out. If you don't post, you may not get any 'new' customers that may become good customers. Bottom line--do the best you can!

 

Yeah Im not a fan of people putting sales on twitter or instagram or whatever the heck the kids are using nowadays. I don't even know what most of those things actually do.

 

This is exactly why I don't chase whalez and all of that sort of thing. I'm almost glad I live in Kansas with poor distribution. The money and headaches aren't worth it. We still get good beer here.

 

It's to get you don't go into their store. Once they tell you that it's sold out they hope you buy something while you're there. It happens all the time. The same reason why stores don't keep up with their beermenus list if they put something that's hard to get on there. They'll leave it up there so you come in.

If a certain store does this a lot I would take my business elsewhere.

 

I completely agree with this. I know I hear a lot of complaints on this site about those extremely limited releases from retail shop owners. Definitely a no win. Very little profit and some risk. I have no idea what the answer to this is other than not playing the game.

 

My favorite shop closed about 2 years ago, Wine and Beer Westpark. One reason I loved them was the way they dealt with rare beers. Real simple sign up sheet. No special deals for regulars, as the sheets were on a clipboard plain as day for all to see. No tweets, mules, posts or whatever. Email went out when it arrived and you had "x" days to get it before next up got it (unless you emailed back you were out of town). They closed only because Matt needed more time with family, otherwise he'd still be killing it. Point is, there's old school ways to offer great customer service. Twitter isn't the be all end all, just like Facebook should never be your website as a business.

 

Did you mean twerk?

 

Simple. Because then that traffic would not show up and spend money...

Even if they're out of said beer, 1/2 of the people who showed only to find that beer sold out, will still pick up something to bring home.

 

I'd have missed out on a few special/limited release beers if not for shops posting/tweeting that they have them in stock. I'm perfectly fine with shops doing it.

 

In this day and age, most shops have to use Twitter. While the craft market is growing; all of your local bottleshops are slicing up the same pie (customer base); they are in business to sell beer, not to make sure you get a beer you really want; they just can't operate like that. If a Twitter post gets a dozen people in, then that's a dozen sales, perhaps more. It sucks to arrive seconds too late (I literally watched the guy in front of me pick up the last Bourbon County Rye last year) but the first guy with the money gets the product; someone is always going to lose out. I don't think it's fair to punish the business by purposely not shopping there if you didn't get there in time to get that whale.

I'd be more upset with a place that let "preferred" customers know about a release going on sale ahead of time; and I'm sure that happens in some places; but Twitter is free advertising, and more effective than most.

 

Telephones still work to save you the trip.

 

This is why I don't even bother trying to find "sought after beers".

Guess what, they aren't any better than several beers sitting on the shelves. The only thing different is they are limited, hence highly regarded.

 

If they didn't post it on twitter or any other social media site, you would not even know they had it to begin with, so you can't be mad, others just got there first. You hint at the fact that you are a regular, which is unfortunate, because as a regular at my local bottle shop, even though they just discovered social media to advertise which has boosted their customer base, they still save bottles for me and their other TRUE regulars.

 

recently had a conversation about this at a local shop. they were a store that used to tweet about their whales. they dont anymore. they realized the same thing as someone above mentioned, it spawned no other sales. on top of that, they didnt know/understand the idea of 'notification settings' either and realized many locals were getting the notifications almost instantly via twitter and facebook. they were always the same common folks snagging the whales.