Recently won a bid on Sotheby’s lot and I’m waiting for them to send the invoice over. This is my first time dealing with them, anyone has any guide as to what the next steps are?
I’m on the West Coast and plan to fly over to New York to pick it up (since they don’t ship and I haven’t been back to NYC for some time now). Any guides appreciated.
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You should certainly have received an invoice by email the night the auction ended, worst case next day. If you haven’t, reach out to them at the phone number in the catalog or online. It’s possible you think that you were the high bidder but that another earlier bidder made an identical bid and were given the lot based on time priority.
I am also confused by your statement that they won’t ship the wine. Auction houses will all either provide shipping in house or help you arrange shipment through third parties. You shouldn’t ever need to travel, certainly not across the country, to pick up the wine.
Hope it works out for you.
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Yeah sounds like you didn’t win.
I received 2 emails from them after the auction ended (this morning).
One saying i won the lot and the next one providing the details of the lot auction and there was a line in there stating it might take a few days to send the invoice.
I guess I’ll wait a few days and see what happens, maybe they’ll provide details on the shipping options.
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I have not bought from Sotheby’s in some time. It wasn’t the wine department that was the problem, it was the fulfillment that was. At one stage, they required three different faxed pieces of paperwork to pick up- my warehouse guy begged me to try and avoid them. Don’t know if it is still that bad; I didn’t want the hassle of finding out.
Just an update, received my invoice via email today.
It also stated to contact them about delivery options once payment is finalized. I’ll update here once i decide on what to do next.
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Your guy was right, the follow up is horrendous.
Here’s my current timeline:
Invoice received on 8/21, payment made the same day.
Crickets ever since then and i don’t even see the purchase details even on my online account.
Called them today (9/13) after 22 business days and I’m finally getting some traction. The wine dept will send me an email with the shipping options, let’s see how this goes but easy to say I won’t be buying from them anymore after this experience.
It strikes me as extremely strange. Your hassle equals their time. It has been several years since I had my problems, and they have not learned much.
Also a good percentage of wine buyers are also clients of theirs for other departments (I once heard the figure was just over 10%, but that was several years ago). They also hoped that people who started by buying wine might also cross over and become clients. So for reasons of their time and their marketing efforts, I cannot understand why they have not upgraded the experience.
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You would think that after paying a buyer’s premium of 25% over hammer price that there would be at least some level of ‘premium’ service. The only thing that i would say that is above expectation is that they picked up the phone right away. Maybe a 4 digit purchase is chump change to them compared to their other auctions.
Buying from Ebay is a much better experience.
I’ve never had trouble buying from Sothebys. They do ship (albeit indirectly, but you just fill out a form and they handle the logistics). What sticks in my craw is the very high 25% BP + NYC sales tax if you want to have a storage company pick up from them. So HDH has 19% and 0% sales tax and Sotheby’s has 25% and another ~9% NYC sales tax — or a +15% delta vs hammer price if you have your storage pick up.
From what i understand there’s no way to escape paying the NYC sales tax no matter what method used to ‘collect’ the item. Fully with you there, just feeling disappointed that after paying so much i need to chase them for it.
I did get the email a couple of minutes after my call with them, for my shipping options, I just went with Fedex and due to the “rules”, i generated a return label and sent it back to them as if i’m shipping it back to myself.
There should be? I get charged FL tax when I get it shipped to FL. If you ship to a non-sales tax state, there should be 0% sales tax.
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I live in CA where the sales tax is 7.75%, but i’m charged the NYC sales tax of 8.75%. Maybe auctions are considered an in person sale? who knows.
Did you buy spirits?
If so, the options are more limited.
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New York requires sales tax even if you ship. California if you pick up in person.
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Fedex works best for me, also helps that i get a discount through work.
Update from Sotheby’s, got an email from the person i spoke to on the phone, they’ll ship it out on Monday.
Regarding ny sale tax, my experience with Acker auction is that they make you receiving the delivery in Delaware warehouse (about $1 / bottle storage fees), hence no sale tax there. Then simply arrange delivery from Delaware to nyc, no sale tax too. All can be arranged by Acker.
In my case, I paid for NYC sales tax but the bottles are stored in New Jersey and can be collected or shipped from NJ. No idea why NYC sales tax was imposed though.