Thresher's 40% discount for all

An electronic version of the card, which was originally intended for suppliers and their friends', ended up on the Stormhoek website - a blog set up by the South African brand that receives 400,000 hits a month - and was quickly passed between web bloggers.

Thresher's chief executive Roger Whiteside told Harpers: It's been a hell of a weekend! We're doing more than 60% in sales on wine, although the discount is heftier than normal. We've sold more bottles, which is good for us and good for customers.

There are literally dozens of coupons out there, but we've had reports of thousands of downloads from the website. Although the margins were thin, they were still positive, so it was never going to be another Hoover.'

Newspaper reports have intimated that the move was carefully stage-managed by Thresher, and Harpers understands that the coupon appeared on the Stormhoek website directly as a result of talks between Thresher and Stormhoek. But Whiteside was adamant that the coupon merely found its way' on to the Stormhoek blog, and that the company didn't set out to make front-page news'.

He added that despite the card's success, stores had ample supplies of wine, as most had increased stocks due to Christmas anyway.

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