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Interesting writeup James, thanks for sharing. The point about talking to salespeople being "part of the fun" is interesting - it's counter-intuitive to my engineer's mind, but I can see how the sales process is actually part of the value they are paying for.

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Agreed. It's an interesting lesson for tech focused people.

I think you can get around this by introducing social or gaming elements to the product. We didn't have the resources or the time to try that (and the size of the opportunity/market didn't justify the investment required).

Social, perhaps. Showing off your collection could be a motivating factor. But gamification I'm not so sure about. IMHO the typical wine collector will not be impressed by a "bought 10 bottles" badge, or something along those lines. Keep in mind I know nothing about the wine industry though, maybe the big collectors are all big kids at heart!

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