Selling bottles at your events

If you pour at tastings, dinners or private events, this is how a bottle sold that night is credited to you -- and how you find out afterwards which events were worth doing again.

Your two QR codes

They live in two different places, because they do two different jobs.

• Trade QR code (DISTRYB) -- on Broker Page. Opens your broker profile, for buyers, venues and suppliers. This is the one that recruits retailers onto the platform.
• Event QR code (Bottl.Service) -- on Events → Your event QR code. Opens the shop with your referral attached. This is the one guests scan.

Each downloads as a print-ready PNG. You can set the colour and the shape, and put your name or business name above the code.

Two kinds of code, and they do different jobs

Easy to mix up, so: the event QR code above is one code for every event you will ever work -- it sells bottles, and the buyer names the night at checkout. Each event ALSO has its own codes, on that event's Photos screen, which open that one night's tickets or photo gallery. Print the first once; print the second per event, per surface.

Adding an event

Open Events in the sidebar and choose Add an event -- the form opens in a window over the page -- then give it:

• a name guests will recognise -- put the venue in it if that is what people will remember
• the venue name (optional)
• the full address: street (optional), city, state and ZIP -- all three of the last are required
• when it starts and ends
• a handling fee, if you want to charge one for bringing bottles to the event

Add it before you work it.

Why the whole address, not just the state

Once a guest collects a bottle at your event instead of having it posted, that address is where the bottle changes hands -- so it decides the tax owed and what may legally be sold there. Local alcohol tax is set per city, not per state: an event in Chicago and one in suburban Cook County owe different money, and a state on its own cannot tell them apart.

It is also checked while you are setting up rather than at the till. If nothing in the catalogue is registered for sale in that state, the event is refused there and then -- better than discovering it in front of a customer on the night.

The handling fee

Optional, set per event, capped at $50. It is what a guest pays for you to bring bottles to the event, and it replaces postage on a collected order rather than adding to it. It is paid to DISTRYB, not to you -- your commission on the bottle is separate and unchanged.

What a guest sees

They scan your code, shop, and at checkout they are asked which of your events they were at. If you have exactly one event running, it is already selected and they can change it. If two of your events overlap, they are asked to choose -- we will not guess, because a sale credited to the wrong night is worse than a question.

Their answer lands on the order, so your events page shows what each night actually sold.

Someone who orders later

A guest who scans on the night and orders on Tuesday can still pick that event. Events stay selectable for 7 days after they end.

Your referral itself lasts 30 days and is first-touch -- if the shopper already followed someone else's link recently, that person keeps the credit. Only their first link counts.

Ending an event early

Close it. A closed event stops being offered immediately, whatever its end time says, and you can reopen it. Closing does not affect sales already credited to it.

Before you print

Finish your payout setup first. Sales are only credited to you once you can actually be paid, so a code handed out beforehand earns nothing -- and it looks exactly like one that works. Your events panel will tell you if this is outstanding. See Broker commissions and payouts.

Who is selling the bottle

Bottles bought at your events are sold by the platform's licensed retail partner. You are fulfilling on their behalf, the same way a brand ambassador works a retailer's table. Your commission is unchanged, and you do not need a retail licence of your own to run an event.

Who sells the bottles

Every event has exactly one seller, decided when you create it -- the event form says which, and why:

Brands working your event

Any brand can bring bottles to pour at any event, from any of its storerooms.

Bottles to sell can only come from the place the event sells from -- a box set aside anywhere else is one no guest could buy. So:

• At a Famous Wine & Spirits event, only bottles in DISTRYB's main storeroom can be set aside to sell. A brand outside that partnership brings bottles to pour; to have its bottles sold there, they have to be in DISTRYB's storeroom first.
• At a venue event, the venue sells from its own shelf. A brand's bottles are poured there; to have them sold, the brand sells them to the venue.
• At an event where nobody sells, bottles are only poured.

Brands can ask to co-host

You do not have to find every brand yourself. Brands you have a partnership with see your published events and can offer to co-host, listing the bottles they would provide. Their offers wait for you on the event's Bar tab -- accept, then pick what to sell and what to pour. See Co-hosting an event.

If you ask a brand for bottles to sell that it could not set aside for your event, the ask is refused straight away and says why -- ask for bottles to pour instead. A brand answering an ask for bottles to sell only sees the storeroom the event sells from.

Ratings at your event

Guests rate each bottle they taste from the event page on their phone: one to five stars, and an optional short note -- a few kind words, what they loved about it.

• No account needed. A guest can rate from their phone without signing up. If they make an account later, every rating that phone made moves to it -- and counts toward their tasting passport.
• Only during the event. Rating opens when the doors do and closes 24 hours after the event ends. Nobody can rate a bottle at an event they were not at.
• One rating per person per bottle per event. Rating again changes it.

Who sees the ratings

Ratings are not public. Guests see only their own stars. The averages, the spread of stars and the notes go to the people who sell each bottle:

• the brand owner,
• the distributor whose catalogue it is in, and
• the brokers approved to sell it.

They read them on Events → Tasting feedback, across every event the bottle was poured at. As the host, your event's Tastings tab shows how many ratings each bottle had; you see the stars and notes only for bottles your own business sells.

A guest with an account can also tick "Share my name and email with the brand" when they rate. Only the brand owner sees those guests, on Tasting feedback -- to say thank you, not to add them to a mailing list.

What counts as attending

On a guest's tasting passport, an event counts as attended when they rated a bottle there, when a ticket they bought or a ticket in their name was scanned at the door (their email has to be verified for that one), or when they collected a pre-ordered bottle there.

Bringing friends

• At a ticketed event, the buyer sends each spare ticket to a friend from My Orders → Tickets → Send to a friend. The friend gets their own ticket email and code, sees the ticket under their own My Orders once their email is verified, and the night counts on their passport when the ticket is scanned.
• At any event, ticketed or not, the event page has Bring a friend: it shares the page from the guest's phone (text, WhatsApp, email -- their choice). A friend who opens it can rate what they taste on the night without an account, and signing up later moves those ratings onto their passport -- which is how a night with no tickets counts for them.

Collecting at the event, or having it sent

At checkout a guest who names your event is asked one more thing: collect it here, or have it shipped?

• Collect -- no postage is charged, because nothing is posted. Your handling fee applies if you set one. They pick it up from you on the night and bring ID.
• Ship -- the ordinary flow, posted to them.

Shipping stays the default even after they choose your event, on purpose: a bottle posted to someone who wanted to collect is an inconvenience, while a bottle held at a venue for someone who is at home is a bottle they never get.

Pre-orders

A guest can pre-order bottles to collect at your event from the moment you publish it -- they do not have to wait for the night. A bottle bought during the night is paid in full on the spot. Anything collected at an event but bought before or after the night is paid in two halves:

• Half now, at checkout, with no tax on it.
• The rest, plus all the sales tax, when they collect -- charged to the same card the moment their code is scanned at the Door (or you tap Hand over). The tax is worked out for the place they actually collect, so it is always right for that venue.

Pre-orders come out of what your suppliers set aside for that night. When a bottle's set-aside runs out, it stops taking orders -- so you can never pre-sell more than you have. The event's Bar tab shows Pre-orders so far, bottle by bottle: set aside, ordered, left. Ask a brand for more before the night if a line is close to zero.

A pre-order they are collecting is never charged postage.

Missed the night?

A guest who paid to collect at your event and did not make it can collect at your next event instead. Their code is recognised at the next night's Door, the order moves to that night, and it is recorded as collected there -- where it really happened. This only works between your own events, in the same state, sold by the same licensed retailer.

Pre-ordering for your next event before it exists

On a finished event's page, guests see Pre-order for the next night. They pay half now. If you already have an upcoming event published, the order is simply a pre-order for it. If not, it waits -- and the moment you publish your next event, every waiting order attaches to it and each guest is emailed when and where to collect. If you do not hold an event within 60 days, their deposit is refunded in full automatically.

This only applies where the platform's licensed retail partner is the seller. A night where a licensed venue sells under its own licence cannot take pre-orders for a future night -- the venue cannot promise one.

Selling tickets

If you run tastings or experiences people pay to attend, you can sell admission as well as bottles. Open an event and choose Tickets.

• Add one or more ticket types -- a name, a price, and a capacity (leave capacity blank for unlimited). Enter 0 as the price for a free RSVP list.
• Share the buy link, or print its QR code. One link sells every ticket type on the event, and adding a type later does not change it.

At the door

Each ticket carries a short code and a QR. Open Door on the event and either point your phone's camera at the guest's QR -- which opens the door screen with their code already in it -- or type the code. There is nothing to install.

The screen tells you which of these it is, because they need different reactions from you:

• Admitted -- let them in.
• Already in -- that code has been used. Usually a double scan or a forwarded screenshot.
• Refunded or Void -- do not admit.
• Wrong event -- a ticket for a different night.
• Couldn't check -- our problem, not theirs. Try again; do not turn them away.

Each code admits one person, so a guest who bought four has four codes.

Who needs an account

Anyone can open the link and see the event, the ticket types and the prices -- no account, no sign-in wall. That is the point of a link you share: it has to work for someone who has never heard of us. Your public events also appear on the Bottl.Service map for people near them.

An account is asked for at the moment they register, in place of the pay button, without leaving the page or losing the ticket type they picked. The ticket is emailed exactly as before, and a copy also sits in their account under My Orders -> Tickets -- so a guest whose email went to spam still has their code.

Capacity and refunds

A capped ticket type stops selling when it is full. Refunding a ticket voids the code and puts the seat back on sale.

If someone pays for the last seat at the same moment as somebody else, only one of them can be issued -- the other is refunded automatically rather than left holding a receipt for a ticket that does not exist.

Photos from the night

Open an event and choose Photos to let guests add their own photographs. They land on a page that links straight back to the event, which is the point: a wall of pictures from a tasting is the most persuasive thing that exists about it, and everyone who looks at it is one tap from the tickets.

• Off by default, and off is the right answer for a private client dinner -- this invites everyone in the room to photograph it and puts the result somewhere anyone can open.
• Guests need an account to add one. Looking needs nothing. Every photo has a person behind it, so you can take one down and it stays down.
• Photos arrive late, and that is normal. The window opens six hours before you start and stays open for a week afterwards, because most people upload the next morning when they go through their camera roll.
• Tick Check each photo before it appears if you would rather see them first. Anything our own check flags waits for you either way.

Your event code, and moving where it points

The same screen carries a short event code and its QR. Print it once -- on a flyer, a table tent, a story, a card by the door. It never changes.

What changes is where it goes, and you move that whenever you like:

• The ticket page -- right before and during the night.
• The photo gallery -- during and after, so a card left on a table keeps earning after everyone has gone home.
• Another website -- paste a full https:// address if you are running the night on another platform. The code still works; it just forwards.

Every card already handed out follows, which is the whole reason the code and the destination are separate things. The screen tells you where scans actually land -- point it at the gallery while the gallery is switched off and scans fall back to the ticket page rather than opening nothing, and it says so rather than letting you find out at the event.

One code per surface, so you can tell which worked

Add a code for each thing you print -- the flyer, the table tents, the Instagram story -- and name it. Each carries its own scan count, and each points wherever you like independently, so the tents can open the gallery while the flyer still sells tickets. Up to twelve per event.

The count is the point: a flyer run and a stack of table tents cost different money, and with one code between them you can never tell which one people used.

Finished with a code? Retire it, don't worry about deleting it -- there is no delete, on purpose. A code printed on five hundred cards cannot be un-printed. Retiring stops it opening anything, gives the cards already out there a page that explains itself, and keeps the scan count so you still know whether that surface was worth the money. You can put it back in service any time.

What this does not do

It does not replace your recruiting link. A retailer who wants a wholesale account should scan your trade code -- see Work with brokers.