Would you buy "Box Subscription" for homebrewing?

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rtwcoastie

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Hi Everyone,

I'm a home brewer who also happens to be an MBA student... maybe the other way around? :) Anyway one of my classes is a consumer behavior course and we're doing a project trying to create a pitch for a home brewing "batch of the month" club or "subscription box" for a scheduled mailing of a new kit. If you would take a minute or two to leave your general feedback on such an idea, I would really appreciate it! Below is an initial outline of what it may include/look like, please feel free to criticize, agree, whatever!

Initial Signup:
*Choose All Grain, Partial Mash, Extract w/specialty grains, or Extract only. (check box for able to lager, or ale only)

*Choose: Receive kit Monthly, quarterly, semi-annually

Recipes would be automatically chosen for you. They would be seasonal in nature, ie you would receive ingredients for a pumpkin ale in August, winter warmer ingredients in September/October etc...

Cost would be comparable with ordering the ingredients online/in store, and would fluctuate w/the recipe ie) the imperial IPA recipe w/10oz of hops would cost you more than say the summer wheat.

We're playing with the idea of being able to opt out any time, or choosing to skip a kit if you haven't gotten to brewing the last one.

We would NOT be a home brew supply shop, simply ingredients for the beer of the month club.

Alright, you're feedback is greatly appreciated! Ready, go!
 
Hi Everyone,

I'm a home brewer who also happens to be an MBA student... maybe the other way around? :) Anyway one of my classes is a consumer behavior course and we're doing a project trying to create a pitch for a home brewing "batch of the month" club or "subscription box" for a scheduled mailing of a new kit. If you would take a minute or two to leave your general feedback on such an idea, I would really appreciate it! Below is an initial outline of what it may include/look like, please feel free to criticize, agree, whatever!

Initial Signup:
*Choose All Grain, Partial Mash, Extract w/specialty grains, or Extract only. (check box for able to lager, or ale only)

*Choose: Receive kit Monthly, quarterly, semi-annually

Recipes would be automatically chosen for you. They would be seasonal in nature, ie you would receive ingredients for a pumpkin ale in August, winter warmer ingredients in September/October etc...

Cost would be comparable with ordering the ingredients online/in store, and would fluctuate w/the recipe ie) the imperial IPA recipe w/10oz of hops would cost you more than say the summer wheat.

We're playing with the idea of being able to opt out any time, or choosing to skip a kit if you haven't gotten to brewing the last one.

We would NOT be a home brew supply shop, simply ingredients for the beer of the month club.

Alright, you're feedback is greatly appreciated! Ready, go!


I've run across several other people who also tried to start this up and had a very difficult time.

1. You will have a difficult time as most people have an irregularly irregular brewing schedule (they brew when they can and have the energy) and don't have a strict schedule for when the brew.

2. Advanced brewers will sometimes wash or yeast bank and getting them to pay for a subscription service that includes these is just a waste for them

3. shipping costs are going to be insane for grains or extract only, especially if you have to cool the yeasts in order to get them to the customer on time. Most of these services break even after like ~3-4 months of renewal, I haven't done the math but I expect this to be much longer as other subscription services are not either as heavy or have perishable materials. You also say you would send out something not monthly but maybe even quarterly, so your break even point would be >1 year per customer.


Good luck if you decide to go forward and keep us updated
 
I'm usually unwilling to tell people with new and different ideas that I don't think they'll work, because....well, you never know. Sometimes ideas succeed for reasons other than the ones we thought would be important.

Here's my 2 cents: I would not be interested, personally. If the price is comparable to what I might purchase from online or my LHBS, then...why would I do it? If I wanted to brew a pumpkin beer, I'd go to an online store and buy a kit. Or in my case, the ingredients.

There may be some small value in reminding people "hey, it's time for a pumpkin beer" weeks before they'd want it on tap or in bottles, but for anyone really tuned into brewing beer seasonally, my guess is...they're already tuned in.

I brew all-grain, and have in stock a lot of different grain and hops and some yeast. I crush my own grain. Maybe I'm an outlier, who knows?

Now, all that said, maybe such a service would be more appealing to new brewers, extract brewers perhaps, and the like--those who don't have a lot of equipment and getting it delivered, all ready to go, might be appealing.

**********************

Many years ago I ran across a case study of a magazine publisher. Rather than engage in time-consuming and sometimes costly market research to determine if a new magazine had enough potential, they just....published it. Is there a market demand for a magazine for left-handed canoeists? Rather than researching it they simply published several issues. If a demand was indicated, they put more resources into it. If not, they cut their losses and looked for something else to try.

I've always been struck by this--if the startup costs are minimal, rather than researching it, JUST DO IT. Advertise the idea properly but the market will tell you, soon enough, if your idea has merit.
 
Personally I like to brew what I want, when I want, and not when someone decides for me. I like designing my own recipes, then changing them and seeing what that does. I could be wrong, but I think the majority of home brewers are the same way.
 
I'm not a huge fan of these "of the month" deals because I prefer to just buy the items I want without having to worry about getting something I won't like.

Since this is just for a class and you can probably pitch anything you want I will throw some ideas your way. Some of these "of the month" deals bank on exclusivity. Maybe you can add that the recipes will be clones of beers given to you by famous breweries that aren't public knowledge. That way people can't just go out and buy the ingredients on their own and rely on your service for something unique. You might also add small items to the kit like an interview with the brewer, a sticker from the brewery, etc. Sweeten the deal.
 
I personally wouldn't.

One reason I like brewing is that I get to make a recipe, manipulate it, and customize it to what I feel like doing. So I'd have two problems: not choosing the type of beer, and not being able to make my own recipe for it.
 
This wouldn't work for me unfortunately because of the following reasons:

1. I brew 8 times a year in a good year...

2. When I do brew its, usually something I have to plan weeks in advance because of the craziness of the family schedule.

3. I do appreciate the idea of seasonal brews what happens if I want to brew a stout or porter in the summer?

4. My LHBS has a crazy deal on grain mixes where they cost 1.60/pound. Why would I want to spend the extra money on a subscription when I get a great deal closer to home?

Again, this is why it wouldn't work for me...as others have said it could work but you are looking at what I believe is a very small number of homebrewers who could/would want this type of subscription.
 
There really isn't a lot of added value to this product and I think most home brewers like myself don't want to be constrained by a specific beer or time to brew. Most XXXX of the month clubs are offering something you cannot normally get locally or are seasonal in nature. Perhaps if you could offer malts from small craft maltsters, or specialty yeasts, etc...
 
Thanks for the candid feedback, everyone! Not far off from what I expected, but definitely gives us some data/talking points for our presentation. Thanks again!
Ryan
 
There's probably more educational value in a classroom project in explaining why this idea will fail, and why you shouldn't go ahead with it, than in a saying it will be successful when most new business ideas aren't.

Similarly, often the best science experiments are those that fail in interesting ways. Of course, there's a rather different situation in engineering, where failing in interesting ways isn't so desirable. ;)
 
I think the point's been made overall, but you're trying to sell an "easy way" idea to people that have already chosen to do things the hard way, whether that's an extract brewer who wants something better/different than what's on the shelf all the way to all grain brewers making beers that can exceed the quality of commercial brew. We've chosen the long, hard road...and we like it. :mug:
 
Why not embrace the homogeneity of your product (everyone gets the same thing at the same time) by selling with a different approach that takes advantage of some of those unique characteristics? For example, here are two thoughts I had:

1. Partner with someone like Brulosophy or ExperimentalBrew (or some other blog that experiments with brewing techniques) to make sure that everyone brewing an experimental brew gets the same ingredients from the same supplier at the same time.

2. Curate a series of brews (or pairs of brews) that teaches beginning and intermediate brewers different nuances of the ingredients we use (e.g. a SMaSH series, a hop combination series, split batch yeast variations, etc.). Follow up with a discussion on HBT for everyone that brewed the beer within the month.
 
My two cents:

I would subscribe to something that is every other month, as like others have said, I don't have a dedicated brewing schedule and I like to throw together recipes when the inspiration strikes.

I would subscribe if I could pick the recipes that are being delivered. I don't really brew with the seasons, and every time I've been ready to pull the trigger on something like you're describing, it's always been like "Oh, great. A pumpkin hard root beer. No thanks." or "A SMASH recipe that I could put together for $15 at the LHBS. Pass." So if I could pick between a Honey Porter and a Smoked Porter or an DIPA and an Imperial Stout, I'd be more likely to commit. Heck, let me pick which kit I'm getting and when I'm getting it.

Make yeast, priming sugar, caps, sanitizer... optional (and reduce costs for those who don't want it.)
 
I think it COULd work, depending on your target audience, and if you offered some options other than seasonal brews - many people don't like those at all.
We here on HBF are not really your target - I think that would be the casual brewer, who gets the pre-made kits anyways. Obviously most of us here prefer building our own recipes, or at the least tweaking existing ones, putting our own signature on the beer. Some of the parts of your plan are good - allowing opt-outs, quit any time etc, but I don't know about that seasonal thing necessarily.
 
Short answer : Nope, not going to buy it;
Longer answer: don't buy kits anyway, not interested in someone else choosing my recipes and individual grains. There's room in the marketplace for more on line brew shops. All you need to do is have good service, great selection and lower prices than the big on line brew shops. No need to reinvent the wheel, just offer what is already being offered, just do it better.
 
The only way I would buy this would be semi-annually, and it would have to be so dirt cheap that I couldn't pass it up. For example, I would be willing to spend $20 a year to get two kits.

I would try to get my homebrew club involved so that several of us would brew the same recipe and change a single variable to study affects. But as others have stated, that's easy to do on our own, so the only benefit would be if the price was extremely low.
 
I'm definitely in the minority here, I think it is a good idea. I wouldn't subscribe for a monthly, but would like an every other plan. Ive been brewing for 25+ years and like to make my standby beers over and over. It would be fun to get some encouragement to try different styles or do small brewery clone beers. You would have to stay unique and keep your customers intrigued.
 
What everyone else has already said. For me, I like finding my next brew.
 
Not interested, too many seasonals I am not interested in. For me one of my greatest joys in brewing is creating and adjusting recipes, I have only done 1 kit in 6 years.
 
I think the concept could be cool, but implementation could be tricky. As others have mentioned, I think you need something more. Something easy enough to allow novice brewers to participate, but interesting enough to attract people with some experience. I also think at best this could be every 2-3 months. If you figure an average batch of beer takes 4-6 weeks grain to glass, you'd want to give people enough time to evaluate before deciding to commit to the next month/installment.

Perhaps you could feature a unique or experimental ingredient per quarter, or partner with a yeast lab to feature one of their special releases. Perhaps you could build a community around the service, with the idea that experiments or modifications can be shared.

I also believe you need to stick to a price. Varying installment to installment would be confusing. You'd probably need to offer 5 gal normal batches, and maybe 3gal for high gravity/expensive recipes. If you were going to do this for real, having them available for stand alone purchase with a reduced price for subscription based service would probably be the best.
 
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