FAQs: To-go, future beer sales, and beer releases
Use this doc to answer the questions you have about the new Sell on BeerMenus tools.
If you want a hand getting set up or just want to speak to one of us, please just let us know by scheduling a call, emailing support@beermenus.com, or calling us at 347-927-1574.
General & set-up
What kind of sale should I create? To-go, future beer, or beer release?
Use a to-go sale if you want to set up an ongoing “store” on BeerMenus. Customers will expect that they can buy through BeerMenus and then come pick up their purchase at your business. You can use a to-go sale to sell everything from beer to food to merchandise to physical gift cards. Basically, if people can buy it and then come to your business and pick it up, you can add it to your to-go sale.
Use a future beer sale to sell drinks to your customers now, which they can then redeem once you open your doors again. It’s a lot like a gift card, only it’s more approachable (because it’s not much $. It also provides your customers a way to buy beers for one another, which is something we all need right now.
Use a release if you’re a brewery and you’re releasing a limited beer that isn’t always available (and hence doesn’t belong in a to-go sale) and want to offer your customers a chance to buy it pre-sale. Customers will buy through BeerMenus, receive an email confirmation, and then show that confirmation to your bartenders, who then give them their beer. You set terms for pickup, so you can institute whatever social distancing measures you see fit.
Can I set up >1 kind of sale?
Absolutely. There’s no limit to the number of sales you set up or the kind of sales you set up.
Can I include a way for customers to tip my staff?
Absolutely. You can add a “Tip” product to any sale. You can make the tip any denomination, and people can elect to “buy” any quantity of tips that they’d like.
Does this cost me anything?
No. Creating any kind of sale on BeerMenus is totally free to you. BeerMenus collects a small fee on each product you sell (more on that below).
Getting paid
How do I get my money?
Your money goes straight into your bank account. Like a ton of businesses out there, we partner with Stripe to process credit card payments for sales on BeerMenus.
During the sale setup process, we provide a way for you to create a Stripe account and connect your bank account to your Stripe account. You only connect your bank account to Stripe. You do not connect your bank account to BeerMenus.
It’s possible you already have a Stripe account—if you do, all you need to do is log in to that account.
Once that’s done, the funds from your BeerMenus sales have a route straight into your bank account.
How fast will I get paid?
Sales are totaled and begin making their way to your bank account daily. The first time our payment processor, Stripe, delivers your money it takes 7 days from the date of your first transaction. After that 7 day period, the transactions from 2 business days ago hit your bank account each day. For a fee, stripe offers instant payouts.
What are the fees?
Stripe, our payment processor, charges 2.9% + $0.30 for each transaction by default. Stripe also offers lower rates as your payment volume increases.
Currently, BeerMenus collects fees at the following level:
- If your product costs less than $14, we collect $0.50 per quantity sold
- If your product costs between $14 and $25, we collect $1 per quantity sold
- If your product costs more than $25, we collect a flat 5% fee per quantity sold
What about taxes?
Taxes are not separately collected at checkout. This means you need to build tax into the price of your product (more on pricing your products below).
Your business is the merchant of record for the transactions, and you are responsible for paying taxes on sales. You will receive a 1099 form from Stripe for your sales.
How should I price my items?
The price customers see should be inclusive of all taxes and fees. So, when you price an item, be sure to build tax and fees into the price of the item.
For example, if you sold a six-pack of beer for $10 through a BeerMenus to-go sale, the following would be automatically taken out of the sale:
- Stripe would collect a fee of $0.59
- BeerMenus would collect a fee of $0.50
And then you’d also have to apply a tax to that in your own books. If your tax totaled 10%, that would be an additional hit of $0.89 on your post-fee revenue of $8.91.
So, though you priced your item at $10, your post-tax and post-fee revenue would be $8.02.
However, if you built your fees and taxes into the product and sold it for $12.39 (price adjusted to account for sliding Stripe fees and taxes), you’d still collect an even $10.
Does Stripe and/or BeerMenus collect a fee on Tip products?
Short answer for Stripe: yes. Long answer: Stripe collects fees based on the total transaction price. Since the way “Tips” are currently structured (as products), they’re included in the total purchase price, which means Stripe’s fee applies to them.
On the BeerMenus side, we’re currently working on a way to not apply our fees to Tip products. For the time being, fees will be collected at our standard rate, but we will refund these fees to your account so that you can give them directly to your staff.
Marketing
Will people know about my sale(s)?
Definitely. Here are all the places/ways your sale will be automatically promoted on BeerMenus.
On your BeerMenus page:
On the BeerMenus homepage:
On BeerMenus beer pages (our most highly trafficked pages):
In the daily and weekly digest emails that BeerMenus users receive:
In addition, when folks buy from you, they're presented with the opportunity to share the to-go sale, future beer sale, or beer release with others on social media or email:
Can I promote my sale on my own?
Absolutely. Your sale will have its own unique URL, meaning you can (and should!) share it on social media, in emails you send to customers, and on your website.
Here's how one business is promoting their "future beer" sale on Instagram:
Can you give me some marketing pointers?
Absolutely. Please reach out to us (support@beermenus.com) and we’ll pass along some strategies that will help you make the most out of your BeerMenus sale.
To-go orders
How will I know when someone has placed a to-go order?
As soon as someone places a to-go order you’ll receive an email that tells you who the customer is and what they ordered.
How does fulfillment work?
When you set up your sale, you also set up pickup instructions. That means you get to decide how folks pick up their to-go order at your business (which allows you to establish social-distance-approved measures).
When folks arrive to pick up their order, make sure you check their ID. It must match the name on the email you received about the order (and on your Orders page on BeerMenus) in order for you to fulfill the order.
Future beers
Why do this instead of gift cards?
A few reasons.
First, a beer is a small denomination. Gift cards scare some folks off because they can be so highly priced. Of course, you can offer gift cards in any denomination. But perception still holds that gift cards are expensive. A beer is a beer. And it’s not very much, relatively.
Second, when you buy a gift card, its use feels abstract. But if you buy a future beer, you have a concrete feeling about the thing you’re going to get once you redeem it: a beer. That feels extremely tangible.
Third, there’s some inherent camaraderie to it. You can buy a future beer for a friend. You could buy 5 future beers and then forward your confirmation email to your friends, saying “I just bought a round!”
This will drive some sales on its own, which is great, but perhaps more important is its inherent potential for widespread adoption: I buy a beer for my friend and let him know, who then buys a beer for his friends, who then buy beers for their friends...and so on. You can see how it could go.
Can I only do future beers? Can I do future other stuff too?
Absolutely. You can include any products you’d like. Future wines, future cocktails, future shots, future anything.
When can people redeem their future beers?
That’s totally up to you. When you set up a future beers sale, you’ll fill out a section called “terms.” Use that section to tell customers when they can redeem their future beers.
Of course, we’re in a very fluid situation right now, so giving a precise redemption date is difficult. That’s ok. Your customers are buying future beers to support you, not because they want to know exactly when they can redeem them. The best policy is to just be transparent with your customers and let them know that they’ll be able to redeem their future beers when you reopen.
Will I be able to notify people when they can come in to redeem their future beers?
We’re still working on how best to do this, but yes, we’ll help you notify folks when they can redeem their future beers.
How does redemption work?
When they buy a future beer (or a lot of future beers), customers will receive a confirmation email. That email will include their order number and other information relevant to the order (e.g. redemption instructions).
When they come in to redeem, they’ll acknowledge that they purchased a future beer to the bartender. The bartender should pull out the future beer order list (either hard copy or digital, on your BeerMenus page), check their ID against the order list, and then mark them off.
If they purchased multiple future beers, your bartender can simply check one off from the total number of future beers that person ordered.
(Pro tip: you could avoid this multiple redemption problem by including something like this in the redemption instructions: “all future beers in an order must be redeemed at the same time.”)