I have a retailer willing to buy a substancial amount of wine from me, close to 100 bottles. I know he is going to sell most of it for 2-3X more than retail. He has quoted me an offer that is a little on the light side. My question is whether it is kosher to negotiate; meaning i dont want to piss the guy off but I also want to do well in this transaction. Havent sold a ton of wine, never in this quantity. Just want to make sure I’m being fair and not getting screwed at the same time. Thanks for any advice.
of course you can negotiate the sale price.
Don’t be shy
Everything is negotiable. Have some fun with it. Just ask if that is his best offer.
You’re in the drivers seat - he wants the wine…and you have the wine…
I’ll echo others; it’s YOUR wine so YOU need to make sure YOU sell at a price that YOU are happy with.
I’d NEVER sell a wine under retail if I knew the buyer could sell them for 2-3x retail (i.e. I’m not selling a wine to someone for $70 if I know that the buyer can turn them for $200-$300). That’s silly. He might have to take a haircut under what the buyer could get those for from a distributor… but there’s no way in hell he should sell them for 20% of the eventual sale price or something.
I’d look at what the bottles are going for on Wine Searcher. Assume you’ll be able to get something like 20% off the low retail price (exclude auctions) - so if retail is $100 you should be looking in the $75-80 range as a start. Assume you’ll need to discount further to get rid of them all at once… but don’t cheat yourself.
Or you could just sell it to me 
Yeah, I thought about the bulk sale aspect and its benefit. I don’t have the time or patience to sell individuals. I also know because of that I’m not going to make a ton of cash, I was really more concerned about offending by counter offering. I think its awesome he is taking the whole lot and if he doesn’t come up too much I’m still going to sell. I don’t want the wines anymore but also know their relative value and want to make the most that I can.
Thanks for the input guys
Just thought of something, what about asking for store credit on top of the original offer? That way he is guaranteeing the money is coming back to his establishment. Does this make sense/sound reasonable?
makes sense to me.
If you ask for store credit, take the $$$ amount you were thinking of, and add 10-15%. Don’t be shy at all about store credit.
I was discounting the restaurant scenario (OK, I’d not thought of it…) and was thinking of people who flip wines. IF there’s a wine is limited release at, say, $50 and sells in the secondary market for $150 there’s no way in hell I’mm selling it to the broker at, say, $45. Screw that. If the guy owns a store and can put it on the shelf at $X I’ll take .7X… but not .2X, even if that was original price. So, yes, I do care what he’s selling it for since, restuarant issue aside, I want a substantial chunk of that final sales price. Neither I nor Michael is a charity. It’s a business transaction and both sides have valid interests.