Cellartrade passed the 1,000 auction mark today, less than 6 months after launch. We’re delighted to reach this important early milestone on our journey to becoming the UK’s favourite peer-to-peer wine auction platform.

We now have nearly a hundred registered Sellers and nearly a thousand registered Buyers. Our range of auctions is getting more diverse and more exciting each day. If you’d like to stay informed and join the bidding action, please subscribe to our daily New Auctions email.

We’ve just rolled out a new website feature in response to several requests for it.

All bidders and “watchers” of each auction will now receive a couple of automated email reminders when the auction approaches its close time. The first reminder should arrive in your inbox 6 hours before the auction close. The second & final reminder will arrive about 30 minutes before the auction close.

We’ve also taken the opportunity to make the live auction countdown timer a bit bigger and more obviously animated.

We hope you like these changes!

It’s the 1st October already. Where does the time go? Tomorrow will mark day 50 since we launched Cellartrade, so how are we doing?

We’ve been delighted with all the positive feedback about the look & feel of the new website. There was clearly an appetite for a more fun and modern peer-to-peer wine auction platform. Nearly 40% of our traffic is coming from mobiles & tablets already.

Among the many positive comments, there have also been a few pieces of constructive criticism, and these are just as welcome, if not even more so! Why? Well, it’s truly gratifying that people are excited enough by the new platform that they have chosen to take the time and effort to provide us with helpful feedback. We listen carefully to all such feedback and will work hard to make the platform better so that it realises its full potential. Based on feedback so far, one specific feature that we will be rolling out imminently is ‘closing soon’ email reminders for auction bidders and watchers. Watch this space, and do keep providing more helpful feedback please!

For those that prefer numbers, we can report the following summary stats for the first 7 weeks of operation: 1500 Users; 72 Registered Sellers; 13 Active Sellers so far; 100+ auctions concluded so far; 120+ auctions currently live and accepting bids.

We’ve already handled a truly fascinating mix of fine, mature and rare auction lots. Among the top-end fine wines: La Chapelle 1961, an 1880 Blandys, Chave 89, Hill of Grace 95, Grange 98 and Selosse Rose Champagne. At a much more affordable level, we’ve had a good selection of high quality “drinker’s wines” such as mature Cru Bourgeois Bordeaux, mature 80s Village & 1er Cru Burgundies and even some mature Hunter Valley Semillons. And then we’ve had some real rarities such as a 1988 Oz Pinot Noir, a classed growth Bordeaux ringer from Bel Air LA, some mature examples of Savennieres, Alsace VT, Faugeres and even a 1991 Cremant de Limoux!

We look forward to seeing many more fascinating wines come to market as our recently registered Sellers rummage through their cellars and unearth their excess stock!

Well, it’s been a busy old first week launching Cellartrade! It’s been fun, hectic and occasionally stressful with a couple of little teething-problems that took a while to fathom out and fix.

But, one week in, we’re delighted to report that we have already welcomed on board more than 60 registered Sellers and a similar number of registered Buyers. 5 new Sellers have already dipped their toes in the water and listed their first auctions – and we look forward to seeing many more vinous gems come to market over the next few weeks!

We’ll be starting our regular “Daily Auctions Update” email tomorrow morning (Monday 21st August). We aim to get these in your inbox around 7am, convenient for a quick browse over breakfast or on your morning commute. If you’d like to subscribe, sign up here. We use the Mailchimp service, which means it’s really easy to update your preferences or unsubscribe at any time, using the link provided at the bottom of each email.