I am hoping to understand why pricing can vary so much from one retailer to another. This involves an '09 Bordeaux. Retailers in the same state 50 miles apart. Price difference $40 vs. $85. On the face of it it would seem that the higher priced retailer believes his customers either don’t care or are too dumb to notice. When I asked the higher priced retailer they said it was due to futures vs release pricing.
Having said that, since I started using WineSearcher I have noticed that a 2X range of prices is not uncommon. Are the high end retailers simply gouging their customers, distributors gouging retailers, large retailer vs. small?
It’s not so much a matter of gouging but there are retailers that buy futures or from importers that give better pricing than others and then there’s are the distributors that gouge the retailers … We see it all the time and have paid a higher price to have certain wines, then we see them offered at various places for what we buy them for wholesale. It’s the nature of the beast.
Particularly with Bordeaux, prices can be all over the place, independent of the location of the stores for the reasons listed above. For wines other than Bordeaux, Intrastate price fluctuations to that degree usually indicate someone got a good deal/closeout price.
Interstate price comparison is really apples vs. oranges, which can make it very frustrating for retailers in states which have more control over pricing at the import/wholesale level.
That’s a big difference, but as has been said, I’d bet it has more to do with the difference in cost to the retailers than it has to do with the difference in markup. The Bordeaux trade itself involves such complicated chains that I would imagine the differences seen with other categories might be intensified. Even within one state, though, I have seen other retailers selling wines for what we paid at wholesale, and I know they’re still making money. I see stuff in other states sometimes selling for significantly less than our wholesale cost.
