OMG Mr. Beer is freaking hilarious

[Beer-lord]

Me too but I'm so use to deleting them, it just came naturally.

[The_Professor]

I got the email about the new Mr. Beer "points". Could be interesting for someone interested in brewing with their products. I had been ordering a seasonal or refill on occasion just to make a batch like I used to. For some reason I have zero interest in anything to do with Mr. Beer. It seemed like a good time to unsubscribe from their emails. It is 100% that I will brew an extract batch sometime in the future.

[mashani]

Now that their rewards page is working, it seems they do have some nice rewards. But you'd have to buy a hella lot of Mr. Beer products to get the good ones. IE at their maximum tier (you must spend at least 2k a year!) it would take $7,500 worth of Mr. Beer product to win you a Kegorator if I'm doing the math in my head correctly. That's a spendy Kegorator. Or $1250 to score a American Beer Fest ticket. $56,250 would get you a 3 night trip to Australia. Multiply those numbers by 2 or 4 or more for normal types of people who wouldn't spend $2k per year to get into the max tier.

Are there people who actually spend $2k a year on Mr. Beer product? I find that inconceivable. It would have taken me 15 years to earn that Kegorator back when I was buying their HMEs. Does anyone use Mr. Beer products for 15 years besides the LBCs as small batch fermenters? It would take 125 LBCs to score a GABF ticket LOL. I had 8 of them once. 125 would be a drag.

[The_Professor]

Now that their rewards page is working, it seems they do have some nice rewards. But you'd have to buy a hella lot of Mr. Beer products to get the good ones. IE at their maximum tier (you must spend at least 2k a year!) it would take $7,500 worth of Mr. Beer product to win you a Kegorator if I'm doing the math in my head correctly. That's a spendy Kegorator. Or $1250 to score a American Beer Fest ticket. $56,250 would get you a 3 night trip to Australia. Multiply those numbers by 2 or 4 or more for normal types of people who wouldn't spend $2k per year to get into the max tier.

Are there people who actually spend $2k a year on Mr. Beer product? I find that inconceivable. It would have taken me 15 years to earn that Kegorator back when I was buying their HMEs. Does anyone use Mr. Beer products for 15 years besides the LBCs as small batch fermenters? It would take 125 LBCs to score a GABF ticket LOL. I had 8 of them once. 125 would be a drag.

Don't be silly, you reward killer you, WE CAN CATCH THE CARROT!!!!! RUN LIKE THE WIND!!!!! ymmv...

[Pudge]

Had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn't April 1.

$7500 of MrBeer product!?!?

[RickBeer]

I had to smile when I got the email. First, a basic rule in creating incentive programs is KISS. This isn't. Second, the levels are silly. If someone brews every week they'd spend at most $1,300 (Seasonal brews each time). So why set a level that no one can obtain? Finally, apparently when they got it running they decided to email everyone at the same time (rookie mistake) and crashed their sites. They know (I would hope) enough to send the regular Marketing emails out staggered, but they didn't do that with this email? Or they did, but didn't realize that the click-through rate would be so high? Yikes.

[mashani]

$7500 of MrBeer product!?!?

That's if you spend $2k a year every year until you get there.

If you spend less, it's more like $15,000 or $25,000 or something else stupld like that to earn that kegorator.

There is not a lot of reward to this reward program. It really is "POints-Only Products"

[Dawg LB Steve]

But the thing is your points would revert back to zero in Jan 2017 when I glanced over it.

[RickBeer]

That's exactly my point - too complicated.

Whatever level you earn in 2015 stays with you in 2016. Whatever you earn in 2016, stays with you in 2017. That's LEVEL.

Points that you earn expire in two years. Has nothing to do with levels.

Kegerator is 60,000 points.

So, let's do the math (again, pointing out how poor this program is designed):

I get 100 points to join.
I spend $75, becoming Silver. I now have 175 points and I am NOW earning 2 points per dollar spent.
I spend another $425, becoming Gold. I now have 850 more points, for a total of (425 x 2) + 175 = 1,025 points.
Since I'm now Gold, I'm earning 4 points per dollar. I spend another $1,000 to earn Platinum, so I now have 1,025 + 4,000 = 5,025 points and I'm earning 8 points per dollar spent.
I am only 54,975 points shy of my Kegerator. At 8 points per dollar, I quickly jump in and spend (53,975 / 8) = $6,745.88.

Yipee! I have now reached 60,000 points and only spent $75+ $425 + $1,000 + 6,745.88 = $8,246.88!

Except... If you spend $75.01 or more on an order, you get an extra point per dollar spent. If you spend $150.01 or more you get 2 points per dollar spent.

If you assume my first order was $75.01, and all future orders are $150.01 or more, then...

100 free points
$75.01 = 100 + 75 + 75 = 250 points total
Next order of $425 earns 850 more PLUS another 850 plus the 250 I have = 1,950 points.
Next order of $1,000 earns 4,000 points PLUS 2,000 bonus points PLUS the 1,950 = 7,950 points.

So I am only 52,050 points away, and with 10 points per dollar (8 plus 2 bonus), I only have to spend $5,205 more!

Total spent $6,525.01! Kegerator is MINE!

FYI - 1 point per dollar is a norm among many loyalty programs.

[mashani]

Oooh... I didn't read far enough into it. It sucks even more then I thought.

FWIW, I swear that they didn't have Swenocha and me calculate all their permutations. (that's a joke that only people from the old Mr. Beer forum would get LOL).

[Brewbirds]

They must have replaced Petey with someone from a lottery commission. The next e-mail will be from Mrs. Beer "Hello all my little math geniuses..."

[Dawg LB Steve]

Yep that does suck, cause I bought two used kegerators that hold 3 cornies each for a total of $560.00.

[D_Rabbit]

Rick,

You should send that email to them with those calculations and tell them how rediculous the point system is.

[RickBeer]

I already made some remarks on their forum, not well-received. Then again, I made two purchases from Mr. Beer - August and October 2012, and nothing since (except some thermometer strips added to a defective LBK shipment).

They also brought down all of their websites with the email.

[Pudge]

Here is a thought or two...

Lower your prices a tick.
Show true care for your customers. Don't just phone it in.
Offer some advanced products for brewers who want to go beyond the can opener.

MrBeer's customer base has always been the guy that got it as a gift and that person's first 3-6 months. Beyond that they normally decide either brewing isn't for them or they want to move forward in the hobby. MrBeer really offers nothing (and seems to not care) about the long term MrBeer customer. They are the AOL of home brewing. They need new customers to keep pace with the people that leave MrBeer behind.

MrBeer is a great place to start. I've always said that.
It is a terrible place to stay.