Three orders placed with three different retailers over the past six months. Orders confirmed by email and then told not available or wrong item sent. Should I call the retailer first, ask them to take a photo of the item and send it to me before placing the order? How about a topic for tracking retailers with fufillment issues.http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/posting.php?mode=post&f=15#
Was it all for the same wine? That is really bad luck
It was three different wines. Although frustrated by the most recent order falling through I am not surprised. These were instances of “If it sounds to good to be true it probably is”. I realise that real time inventory tracking is beyond the budgets of 99% of the retailers with on-line presence and that data entry errors are bound to happen but it begs the question what obligation do retailers have to fulfill orders? At what point does the web site listing take on the aspect of the Bait & Switch advertising circulars?
There are a lot of online retailers who don’t stock most of what they offer. I DO know that some online shopping carts work in such a way that the retailer has to upload data to the cart provider showing they have at least one in stock for it to show up on line, but that doesn’t necessarily show as “in stock” depending on how the cart works. They get an order and then contact their supplier for the immediate availability status. I don’t find them to be particularly up front about that practice, but I know it happens a lot. In the wine biz you can place an order with a supplier today and often have it delivered to you tomorrow, so it works reasonably well if they can stay on top of what their suppliers’ inventories are.
This subject has been discussed a lot here. My advice is to call them to check availability before you place the order and just be matter-of-fact with your question. I’ve worked in two different retail shops that function that way and customers DO call to check. So long as we are open about it, and follow through with communication, it can work to the benefit of both sides. Just sayin’.
Leave the last 10% on the table, deal with fewer but better retailers so that your business matters to them.
As a retailer, I get furious about retailers in certain areas undercutting prices on wines we sell and find quite often, they don’t have the wine. It is a ploy to sell you something else. BUT, as a retailer, I have found we too will occasionally run out of a wine and not remove it from our website. Most websites have an automatic confirmation, even if the wine isn’t in stock. Ours is no different, so confirmations went out on orders for 20 cases of KB Sonoma Coast P/R after it was named number one wine of the year by WS. The website cleared showed, “One bottle available.” People threatened to sue because they got a confirmation.
There are also some large retailers that can’t keep up with inventory or have incompetent employees in the lowest paying job, fulfilment.
I am curious about where the retailers are located, what the wine was and the size of their operation. For one individual to have three bad experiences defies laws of probability. Were the wines searched for on the web? Located by Google?, Wine - Searcher?, Wine - Zap?
More info please.
Randy, can u elaborate how the ploys works to sell me something else?
like i want a 2007 JJ Prum WS Spatlese say… bam ordered in for 3 pack
what are they really trying to sell me? a different vintage? a different riesling (like SA Prum?) or just something altogether different?
Assuming it’s not incompetence/database out of date, some online retailers will get back to you and say “sorry, we’re all out of X, would you like Y?” Or, at the very least, they’ve gotten you to look at their website when you otherwise would not have seen it, and thus they hope that you’ll take the initiative to order something else.
Bruce
That pretty much explains it. Another thing I see in on line searches are the listing of a specific wine. When you click on the link, it sends you to the retailers home page and you have to search for the wine you just hit the link to. This too can be an error in the search engine’s data mining or can be done intentionally by the retailer.
That is a sorta kinda bait and switch scheme. Possibly illegal.
As said above there are many online retailers that don’t stock what they have listed on their websites, that way they don’t have their money tied up in inventory waiting to sell it, then when it’s ordered they try to order from a distributor or source what they need after the fact. We had ONE incident where a rep said “please put this wine on your website and when you get an order then I’ll get it delivered”… I put the wine on our website against my better judgement and 2 weeks later got an order,I called my rep right away to order the wine and she said “I’m sorry it’s sold out.” Needless to say if she was in our store my broom would have been shoved where the sun don’t shine but I learned my lesson, if we don’t have the wine in inventory then it doesn’t go on our website.
I don’t understand why retailers continue to list wines or any product they don’t have or can guarantee, it seems like bad business practice to me.
As far as the confirmation, almost all retailers ( wine or otherwise) have an auto-generated confirmation of some kind, that is not a guarantee, and most will also say someplace in fine print “We will confirm the product is actually in stock.”
Yep. Concentrate on a small handful of 3-5 retailers. It’s trite, but if they know that they matter to you, then likely you will matter to them.
Ummm… for some I think it’s called just trying to make a living. On line sales can be a significant profit generator for struggling retailers, as I know you know. Personally, I don’t think it’s all that bad if the retailer stays on top of what they offer (in terms of reasonableness of availability) and is not using it as bait and switch. One I know of is totally on top of what he lists, quickly establishing availability, and getting back to the customer. His site does not show inventory position and has a disclaimer on it. That’s not to say people don’t make a presumption of ‘in stock’ condition, and some DO get upset… but really very few it seems.
If a retailer doesn’t have a wine they list, the they should at least call it a “pre-arrival”. That is often a code word for a wine that they’ll get if people order it. Also most honest retailers won’t charge you until they know they can (or are willing to) get the wine.
It may be just me, but I refuse to deal with “Brokers.” That is really all a shop is if it is selling product it neither has in stock nor already on order. These are not retailers in this instance.
It is a fine business model, and I am sure it helps many shops stay in business. It just doesn’t work for me. If I want a shop to order something special, I realise what I am asking before I order the product, but it better be listed as a special order if it is lised on their website.
If dealing with brokers works for you, don’t let my opinion get in your way, but it doesn’t work for me.