BeerBorg

"This message is being to sent to all active MR.BEER Brew Club participants.

Effective March 1, 2014 we have discontinued
our continuity program -- "Brew Club".

I know, I know... I can hear the collective sigh of many of you who have grown to rely on the simplicity of getting your orders shipped automatically. However, most participants of the Brew Club were more interested in the discounted shipping and not the automatic shipments.

To solve that problem we will be sending out a FREE SHIPPING coupon every month to current Brew Club members only, at least until we launch our NEW loyalty program. Think frequent flyer miles for airline tickets, but for beer instead! ETA and more details will be available sometime in the early fall."

I am glad they have, because I forgot to reschedule my club order for March. I don't need any more HME.

Monty

Really bad decision for them, since they don't have a program ready to roll out. Let's alienate our best buyers, and then in 6 months try and win them back. As a marketer, I cring at these kind of decisions.

More stupidity from a formerly great company. I can only wonder if it's the Coopers influence that's making them so damn dumb.

However, most participants of the Brew Club were more interested in the discounted shipping and not the automatic shipments.

OK why not MB? Some of us bought a lot from you, and if we could save a few dollars along the way, we'd have more to spend and buy more. I was in the brew club for awhile until the changes, then I put it on hold and never went back. Their marketing is really bad anymore, it was a lot better before.

RickBeer wrote:Really bad decision for them, since they don't have a program ready to roll out. Let's alienate our best buyers, and then in 6 months try and win them back. As a marketer, I cring at these kind of decisions.

Kinda like what they did with their forum

Once again a very poor choice. I wonder how many people are in the club for the simple fact they forget to cancel? If they were going to change it I could *maybe* see changing it so you cant put it on hold as well as having a minimum shipment (maybe they did). But to kill it for people who wanted a supply of their "house beer" on a regular basis is silly. I dunno, maybe there were only 5 people enrolled.

But everything they seem to be doing is to shoot themselves in the foot until there isnt enough of a stump to stand on. Look at BrewDemon. They are looking at coming out with a large batch system. MrB ala Coopers had one from day one, and they are going to let the competition market test, develop, and market a larger system. Coopers already has the first two steps done. All MrB has to do is decide if they want to use their name or the Coopers. The majority of MrB customer imho are lost due to 1) terrible instructions telling people they can have beer in 10 days, and 2) people graduating to larger batches. They can stop the bleeding anytime real easily on both accounts.

Add to that the prices of their products cost as much to make 2 gallons as you can spend and make 5. It just isn't worth it anymore.

Granted the quality of the product has increased I still don't see the value in it.

The only time I buy Mr. Beer products is right after Christmas, when the stores are trying to deplete their overstock from the shelves and sell it for 50% off.

They have definitely alienated their loyal fan base IMO.

HazardousBrewer wrote:Add to that the prices of their products cost as much to make 2 gallons as you can spend and make 5. It just isn't worth it anymore.

Agree, but if you get 20-25% worth of coupons and get stuff on sale for 25% off, or a 2-1 or 3-2 deal and stack them - sometimes it works - then the price becomes competitive, at least with 5 gallon partial grain "kits" vs. buying your own AG stuff in bulk. Especially when compared to the time savings gained if you use them as a base and understand how to use them as a base to build on. That's what I do to keep my shelf stocked with "quick and dirty" beer bases for when I don't have time to brew anything else. I can still make better beer with them then I can buy for the same price retail more often then not, with a bit of doctoring.

So it's all a matter of how you define "worth" and how you are able to coax the ingredients. I've got a Biere de Garde in my pipeline that I made with Mr. Beer ingredients that I got at half price - I bastardized the Saison seasonal by adding a bit of steeping grains and a touch of candy syrup and some noble hops into a Blonde Bier de Garde with T-58 fermented at 57-59 degrees so it remained very clean with just hints of spice and not hyper attenuate like the saison strain would - and saved the Bella Saison yeast for an AG or PM batch I will brew in the summer. If you put up against Castelain blonde it tastes just as good. It's not a clone obviously - but it is of the same quality - And I got 6x as much beer for the price and minimal time invested. So again price is a relative thing - it depends on how creative you can be, and what kinds of beer you like to drink.

I have to ask:

I have seen lots of references over the years to "coupons" and "stacking coupons" with regards to Mr. Beer purchases.

Where does one find/get these coupons?

I get emails from them regarding sales, but I've never been sent any coupon codes. Maybe they just don't like me enough?

They used to send more coupons. Prior to mid-Fall 2012, you could stack multiple coupons on top of each other. I made my first purchase of products and paid 51.6% of the price, plus $7.95 shipping. My second order I couldn't do near that as most of it were the older refills clearing out for $5.00 each, which was a pretty good discount. Then, in Fall of 2012, they figured out how to block the stacking. Now, even when people have coupons (if you register for the free temperature sticker and magnet, you'll get a code), the code sometimes can't be used in addition to a site-wide discount, but sometimes it can be (at least from what I've seen people post, I haven't bought again after my 2 orders).

In short - their Marketing is almost non-existent. And they make changes to their site that make no sense from a marketing perspective, such as recently removing Patriot Ale, thereby destroying any natural search value from those pages. On top of that, you NEVER run out of a core product, especially "for an extended time".

Sometimes they will send you a 10% off for completing a survey after an order as well as "your keg misses you" discounts if you havent ordered in awhile. Not sure if it still works, but there was a trick to stacking. It seems their system is "all or nothing" meaning you can either use a coupon across the board or you cant. So, before getting anything on sale, buy something cheap (or that you need) like a fromunda yeast. Apply the coupon. Then start ordering sale items. Last time I checked it would discount the sale item by the coupon discount.