Introducing the Pepper Expert Program (updated 9/8/2021 - scheme to end on 31 Dec)
Update 1
Hey all
We wanted to let you know that we will end the Pepper Expert program on 31.12.2021.
Before I briefly go into the background, we would first like to thank all active and no longer active Pepper Experts. The effort put in has been incredible, and the Experts have shared loads of fantastic deals with the whole community. In terms of heat and other engagement metrics, Experts are often right near the top of all users, and they have been generous in sharing expertise in comment threads all around the site.
So ending the program (with the longest Beta phase in known history ) has been a really tricky decision, and not one we have taken lightly. We definitely see big benefits of having this group of dedicated, knowledgeable deal hunters, especially where offers have been found that wouldn't otherwise have been.
However, we have seen clearly that the program was not remotely as scalable as we had originally hoped. We hoped to expand it to 50, 100 or even more participants at some point - but the rewards that we feel are required to compensate for the huge amounts of time and effort Experts put in, would have meant this made no sense from a resource point of view. We also really understand the feedback we have received about this being a closed group and the impact that has on the wider community.
To make it crystal clear, these challenges are entirely of our (Pepper's) making and I don't think there is anything the Experts could have done differently to overcome them. But they certainly made future development of the programme seem increasingly unrealistic to us.
Therefore, in the future we would like to focus more on things that benefit a larger part of our community. For example, some of you have been contacted by us in recent months and received a small Amazon gift card for posting the hottest deal of the day in a category. We think that such an approach might be the more appropriate way to thank a larger part of our community for their help - so we will pursue this again and further.
Nevertheless, we would like to take this opportunity to thank Pepper Experts once again! And for the time being it continues through Black Friday and to the end of the year...
We wanted to let you know that we will end the Pepper Expert program on 31.12.2021.
Before I briefly go into the background, we would first like to thank all active and no longer active Pepper Experts. The effort put in has been incredible, and the Experts have shared loads of fantastic deals with the whole community. In terms of heat and other engagement metrics, Experts are often right near the top of all users, and they have been generous in sharing expertise in comment threads all around the site.
So ending the program (with the longest Beta phase in known history ) has been a really tricky decision, and not one we have taken lightly. We definitely see big benefits of having this group of dedicated, knowledgeable deal hunters, especially where offers have been found that wouldn't otherwise have been.
However, we have seen clearly that the program was not remotely as scalable as we had originally hoped. We hoped to expand it to 50, 100 or even more participants at some point - but the rewards that we feel are required to compensate for the huge amounts of time and effort Experts put in, would have meant this made no sense from a resource point of view. We also really understand the feedback we have received about this being a closed group and the impact that has on the wider community.
To make it crystal clear, these challenges are entirely of our (Pepper's) making and I don't think there is anything the Experts could have done differently to overcome them. But they certainly made future development of the programme seem increasingly unrealistic to us.
Therefore, in the future we would like to focus more on things that benefit a larger part of our community. For example, some of you have been contacted by us in recent months and received a small Amazon gift card for posting the hottest deal of the day in a category. We think that such an approach might be the more appropriate way to thank a larger part of our community for their help - so we will pursue this again and further.
Nevertheless, we would like to take this opportunity to thank Pepper Experts once again! And for the time being it continues through Black Friday and to the end of the year...
Black Friday is just around the corner, so what better time than now to test what might just be the biggest change on hotukdeals in its 14 yr history?! On Monday we’ll be launching the …
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