Variety Updates/Expansion!

Announcements
1

In response to some of the feedback we’ve received, we’ve update and expanded variety options!

Here is an explanation of some of our improvements:

  1. Variety Attributes
    For variety attributes, we removed Organic varieties and switched them to use the Organic attribute. We also added Cryo, Cold Enrichment, and Isomerized, allowing users to select multiple attributes at a time.
    In addition to this change, users are also able to filter varieties based on these attributes. Example: organic listings.

    Screenshot of the new Create Listing Page:
    firefox_hCOCFl1dMp

  2. Expanded Types
    For Types, we’ve added C0₂ Extracts and create sub-categories of Types. For instance, you’ll find T45 Pellet, T90 Pellet, and BBC Pure Hop Pellet™ under the Pellet type.

    Screenshot of the new Create Listing Page:
    firefox_ZaDeO50wfJ
    firefox_NyoueChSiC

  3. Product Trademarks
    We now show a link and/or more information about the variety based upon your selected combination of Pellet Type, Brand, and Attributes.

    Screenshot of the new Create Listing Page:
    firefox_SgPGKHP9Xe

But we’re not stopping there! If you know of a type, attribute, or trademark that needs added, please let us know in the comments and we’ll add it as soon as we can!

AJ

2

We also sell 150 G 150AA cans.

The updates look great, thank you.

3

Hi Brian, thanks for your request. 150G has been added to the menu at listing. Cheers, Jesse

1 Like
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For a new brewing product we have available for the Craft Brewer market. We would like the following to be enabled for Sellers:

  1. Packaging add 2.5 kilo (5.5 pounds) sealed bag.
  2. Packaging add 5.o kilo (11 pounds) sealed bags case.
  3. Storage Type add Frozen.

Note that this is a new brewing product produced using ‘The Blue Lake Process®’

Under shipping we would like to include some way of indicating the product is shipped frozen and delivery should be anticipated the day of or day before anticipated use in brewing.

There is a whole new learning curve that brewers are experiencing with this hops brewing product.

5

@jschlich,

I don’t know if we can accommodate the only shipped overnight/frozen issue - Unfortunately, we will need some time to look into our options.

Assuming there is a solution for overnight, frozen shipping, we would need some additional information. Please see the listing page dropdowns.

What is the Type of hop product?

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Depending on the answer to that, are there any sub-types or attributes?

6

I guess I’m not understanding what you call, “the only shipped overnight/frozen issue”. We are responsible for the proper handling of our product so we secure the shipping methods, I don’t see hop Lupulin Exchange is involved with shipping. We advise all customers, home and craft, about the product being processed and frozen. We even encourage them to be specific about a brewing date or be prepared to keep frozen until used.

The product is whole cone hops. There is no physical difference between our product and a fresh cone at time of harvest once the package is opened and exposed to air.

I hope this answers the questions you brought up. Let me know about any additional questions.

I understand it may be difficult to grasp what our product is. It is as natural a product as hops off the bine being sold for ‘harvest brewing’… except we have the product available year-round.

Perhaps this will provide you more background:

https://bluelakehops.com/the-blue-lake-process/

7

@jschlich - Shipping is prepaid whenever possible, as this streamlines the process for both buyer & seller and saves buyers a lot of money via accessing our massive shipping volume discounts. Buyers select shipping carrier & speed, then pay for shipping (in a single transaction along with the hops) during checkout. Sellers immediately get a label, slap it on the box, and it’s out the door.

We may be able to turn prepaid shipping off for all of your listings, but then your listings would be at a serious disadvantage since buyers prefer prepaid shipping. I don’t know, but it may be possible to restrict prepaid shipping to overnight for your listings. We’ll have look into some potential workarounds and get back to you with options.

Aside from shipping, which is the biggest issue, it sounds like Type = leaf/cone, you’d need a “frozen” attribute, plus the other changes you requested (package sizes and storage type).

In regards to package sizes, 10lbs is the min order, so 5.5lb bags could only be sold in boxes of 2 or more.

8

OK - Now I’m understanding more. If it helps we have ‘free shipping’ established for all of 2020. We obviously have our overall costs blended into the product costs for this first year. We may just keep that as policy but we’ll see what this first year brings us. Because of the dramatic changes in shipping costs, and the frequency of the changes, more companies have just blended shipping expenses into an overhead figure.

Yes, frozen under leaf/cone would be just fine.

Our packaging for craft brewers is 11 pounds, two of our 2 kilo packs in a single container. We wanted to have 11 pounds as a “professional package” weight but it will be a while before we can justify processing equipment sized for the volume involved in 11 pounds.

I thank you for the follow-through and hope this reply helps.

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@jschlich - We determined that we do not have the ability to limit shipping options during checkout without spending a huge number of dev hours, so the only real option is to turn off prepaid shipping for your Trellis account (all of your listings). You then have the option of not charging shipping or collecting shipping via the reimbursement system. Here are the next steps as I see them:

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This will eat up a half day of dev capacity so please let us know whether or not this is correct/you’d like us to proceed. Thanks, John

10

That will work for us. We have, and will continue with, shipping being a blended cost of our products that are offered through The Lupulin Exchange.

Do you offer some link that can be included in our email and social media that enables a grower to link their product to your site?

Thanks for all of the consideration and effort you have put into this.

11

It would be better to have the shipping termed ‘free shipping’ and drop the ‘overnight’ specific. We do overnight where practical however, based on our experience with shipping to home brewers, some parts of the country are just impractical to do overnight from our single Detroit location. As we expand we expect to have depots in regions of the country for quicker delivery. Our test shows the product can be refrozen without loss of quality and refrigerated unopened upon arrival before use.

12

@jschlich - If you’re not always shipping overnight, then I suggest you reconsider just using our prepaid shipping. Brewers very much prefer this and your listings will look significantly more attractive at price points that don’t have shipping bundled into them. Also, brewers would then benefit from our massive shipping volume discounts. This is why I said before that your listings would be at a serious disadvantage.

To answer your other question, yes - whenever you make a listing, you automatically get a link to use to promote your listings.

13

I guess I’m not understanding your insistence to use your shipping methods. We have a new product and I gather from your comments, about how entrenched brewers are in their usual practices, that we best pioneer this on our own. I guess I don’t want to disrupt whatever your or their business practices are.

Thanks for your effort.

14

@jschlich - It’s about convenience, cost savings, and speed for the buyer. The buyer wants an Amazon-like experience. It’s also about getting your listing views. If your price is inflated because shipping is bundled into it, nobody is ever going to click on it.

If you want to fully control shipping and deal with the hassle of creating your own labels, the best path forward would be for you NOT to bundle shipping into your listed price and use legacy shipping. Again, buyers prefer prepaid shipping (because it’s faster, easier, and saves them money) so you will get fewer sales, but you’ll get a lot more sales vs. bundling shipping into the price. Below are the steps to make that happen - we can touch base after we get through a backlog of time-sensitive dev work to see whether or not you want us to do this for you. Regards, John

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15

I really don’t think you understand our approach to shipping is entirely different than what’s used for peddling hop pellets. While you may have a handle on the world of pellet peddling we have a different commodity. More important, the craft brewers who have an understanding of our product understand that the term “Best Way” is proper and applicable to the shipping of our product to meet their specific brewing needs, brewing dates and storage capability.

Frankly, over the past four years of developing this product we have run into third parties who try and apply their experience in handling and producing of hop pellets to our Process and most of the time it is not applicable. The volume of our brewing product that is consumed is vastly different that for brewing with pellets. The storage requirements are different for the brewer. The desire for Just In Time shipping is rather common. The product profiles and brewing results are vastly different that from pellets.

We are not in competition to claim any market share of the pelleted hops market. I really don’t understand why you think we have to have some pricing structure and shipping standard that is competitive to traditional methods.

Maybe I don’t understand what The Lupulin Exchange was established to achieve. I thought it is a marketplace for hops brewing products used by the Craft Brewing industry.

16

@jschlich - I am a brewer and fully understand what your product is, as well as how it is different from other hop products (none of which are commodities). It is no problem to add your unique hop product to the system; I have made those steps quite clear in my previous responses.

Beyond adding your product, you are also asking us to accommodate bundling shipping cost into the price of the product. This is a completely separate issue with far greater complexity. Lots of different types of hop products trade on The Exchange. In all cases the goal is the same: prepaid shipping. That’s what everyone prefers because it’s better/faster/cheaper/more convenient.

The Lupulin Exchange currently has no straightforward provision for sellers to bundle shipping cost into the price of the hops, and this is the very first such request that I am aware of in more than 5 years and 50 million dollars of trading volume. I’m guessing nobody else has requested bundled shipping because there are too many disadvantages that would accompany it.

For example, If your pricing structure is different than 100% of other listings on the site, then you are not likely to make any sales. Brewers will see your inflated price, not immediately understand that the price includes shipping (nothing else on the site does, so why would they expect your listing to be any different?), balk at the price, and not buy it. That’s assuming the listing actually gets in front of them in the first place, which is far less likely at a higher (bundled) price due to Hop Alert filters. This is only one of many reasons why I think bundled shipping is the wrong approach.

While I have offered various workarounds to accomplish your objective, as I have explained at length, none of them are ideal. If you want to list hops on The Exchange, I suggest you give prepaid a try first. Then, if you still insist that LEx should pursue bundled shipping, I suggest you advocate for that capability via a separate community post; unrelated to this thread/dedicated to the concept of bundled shipping. The Lupulin Exchange is a community of commercial brewers, hop merchants, and hop growers and we make decisions together, as a community. If the community wants bundled shipping, we’ll figure out a way to do bundled shipping.

If you want to try some prepaid (or legacy) listings without bundled pricing, let us know and we’ll squeeze in the changes in the checklist above as soon as we can. If not, no worries. Regards, John

17

Thank you for your time and effort.