Sixpoint Beer Purchasing App

YOU (cromagnon local brewery running a small operation): Let us hire real, local people in an attempt to distribute our product and serve it on site.

SHANE "KALANICK JAMPAD" WELCH (enlightened): Step aside fools, we made an app

 

I signed up for the beta, would we expect to get confirmation when the app is released?

 

I am just excited for the first bottles from their upstream supply innovation program to finish conditioning.

 

Sixpoint will still need to have employees to handle the beer and run cash registers. They appear to just be making those same number of X employees more effective (from a consumer standpoint) because you are spreading the customer load over a greater time period.

Would you be happy if your local grocery store only sold food at 10am on Saturdays with 5 cash registers, so you had to wait hours to buy your food? No. Instead they staff those same 5 cash registers everyday of the week, and there is never more than 3 people in line because people shop at a time that is personally convenient. If that's how the app works, that makes sense to me.

 

I'm so confused. Why are people upset at this again?

Yes! I read about how it sometimes takes hours for breweries get to everyone in these lines. This make no sense! Prepackage your beer and run the selling and pickup operations in parallel rather than in series. If a lot of a brewery's expenses are fixed, then the faster you sell your beer the more money you make (doubly so if it means your customers spend more time in your taproom after buying the beer instead of drinking in your parking lot). Sounds like you guys are on the right track.

 

@Sixpoint

Question for someone who would come from NJ to pick-up (and tried to sign up for the app but i had trouble).

you mention pick up only on a specific saturday. Will you be extending the window to other days?

More of a question about a sunday pick-up if saturday didn't work..and even more of a week day pick up? (some of us work from the road and a 11am tuesday may be great as opposed to a wednesday 5pm release)

 

The reason the situation exists at the breweries they are comparing themselves too is because of a limited supply. Nobody lines up at grocery stores because grocery stores will not run out of food for the week after 300 people served.

 

But if you can allow those 300 people to pre-purchase and spend less time waiting, isn't that a good thing?

A small brewery here in PA switched to this model. You can pre-pay online and then pickup whenever you want within 7 days with your ID.
http://vaultbrewing.com/news-and-events/double-can-release-129/

 

Did Shane beat you up at high school or something?

 

what is "new and disruptive" about this other than it being an app? Breweries use online sales all the time, and many people still hate it and would rather wait in line (see: those who missed out on ANTEAD or any other Kane offerings, or the hundreds of other online sales that have happened). Threes also does this, and it works well, so what's new? That it's an app instead of their website?

And how does this address demand significantly outstripping supply at places like Other Half? It just turns into a quasi-lottery with people refreshing hoping they get an allocation, only to be angry when they get shutout when it sells out in the first 10 seconds...I get that likely won't be a problem for Sixpoint, but this doesn't really solve any problem given how many people complain about missing out during online sales at any brewery with demand>supply.

 

A lottery makes a lot more sense than allocating beer based on who has nothing to do on Saturday morning.

 

Is demand outstripping supply because of local drinkers - or only because of traders and mules for re-sellers?

Perhaps the answer is using technology to limit the number of beers purchased per month or year by each user or credit card #. If someone is buying 2 cases of $100+/case beer every week, its not because they are drinking it all.

 

Maybe it can check if they're actually driving all the cars they own or really need all their landholdings too? Honestly, was hoping Sixpoint was using this app as a prelude to Big Announcement Number Three: Sixpoint figured out Universal Basic Income and eliminated income inequality and therefore sees no reason to have a positive local impact in our now fully-automated society.

 

if this bothers you so much..why keep posting and trolling?

 

Nice false equivalence. Re-selling of beer is black market and has a negative effect on the average beer consumer. The only reason you'd want it to continue is if you're illegally profiting off it.

 

More power to Sixpoint for trying something new. They might not be the current flavor of the week but they make some damn good beers. Why don’t we wait and see how this actually works before jumping to conclusions?

 

My two cents:

1. If you want to support hyper-local breweries that sell a big chunk / all of their highly limited canned/bottled inventory at the brewery by way of long lines, then there are a plethora of options in NYC and the surrounding area to choose from. If Sixpoint/apps ain't your thing then I don't think there's a need to be upset - you're well catered to.

2. Whether these breweries which are truly more local, are actually better or not for the local community is up for debate - no need to get into the specifics here - we've all seen the arguments made on both sides ad nauseam in the various different brewery threads, but it's more complex than simply where the beer is brewed.

3. While yeah it's harder to romanticize Sixpoint's business model, let's all remember that they started life way before the hyper local movement, and in a much different beer environment. In 2004 how many people (even at the nerd end of the spectrum) would have traveled to Red Hook and then subsequently lined up for several hours for beer? Sixpoint have travelled down a different path. Can't really compare or overly judge their decisions. But I personally am glad that there's going to be a physical space, in Brooklyn, to visit soon.

4. Other Half are Other Half and Sixpoint are Sixpoint, so you can't really compare. But I do agree with the points being made that, taking the brewery out the equation, is a solution like this really going to fix the supply/demand issue for highly sought after, highly limited beer? Probably not. It's just going to transfer the butt hurt from one segment to another. Personally I'd probably prefer to lose out to people with higher speed broadband and faster reaction times, than to people willing to line up at the wee hours on a Saturday. But then again with the OH model (that requires effort from people), I (as someone who will never line up) have good access to most of their beers after the crowd dies down. If that beer was being sold via an app (far less effort) then maybe I'd miss out more. Who knows.

Sorry I guess that was more like 20 cents.

 

My only concern with the online sales in general is if it is going to work like buying tickets to sporting events and concerts. Anything that has a high demand sells out in seconds to scalpers and resellers. I have tried to get a bunch of concert tickets that sell out in less than a minute and then 10 minutes later there are hundreds of listing for tickets on stub hub for 2-3x the face value. People will find a way to beat the system no matter what.

 

Do we really think Sixpoint is going to drive that high of demand? Threes right down the road does the web presale and there is never any danger of missing that. Finback also does a presale and that last for days. I see this as more of a convenience thing for customers.