I just got a call from the rep of an import company telling me I should hurry up and buy a bunch of stuff I don’t need because the price of EVERYTHING in their book goes up $3 a case on Jan 1st.
I expect the pricing of each item to reflect:
How big a position the guy took and what sort of a deal he negotiated ON THAT ITEM
Currency conversion or hedging to offset that ON THAT ITEM reflecting when it was landed.
Transportation & storage costs ON THAT ITEM
Instead he wants to put this arbitrary increase into effect which will make his low end stuff much less competitive: On a $50 case of Spanish white that is 6% but on a $600 case of Champagne that is 0.5%.
I told the rep in polite but firm terms that it doesn’t work that way and, since they were marginal to us anyway, to tell her boss not to bother me till he came to his senses.
Rant over…
As W C Fields might say…“go away little girl, you bother me…”
Nothing unusual about that and $3.00 is no biggie. I like the “pre-release” pricing scam on some popular mid to high end wines from several distributors, that will save us $60 to $100 a case. Two to six months after the wine shows up and doesn’t move, we find it in floor stacks at Costco or on Wine Access for $5 less a bottle than we paid “pre-release” wholesale.
Sounds like a strategy to get the distributor out of the lower end market.
If it’s the bank that owns the inventory - I can understand the small yearly increases in price - usually that is how the wine distributor sells his program to the bank to get cash - you and I know that this means nothing in California in regards to net prices -
If it’s the bank that owns the inventory - I can understand the small yearly increases in price - usually that is how the wine distributor sells his program to the bank to get cash - you and I know that this means nothing in California in regards to net prices -
Who buys from distributors anymore really?
Almost all retailers, in almost all states. Really.
But you knew that.