We sign up for their 1 year free shipping program called Stewardship. $59.
That is a great deal. Where are they shipping out of?
Tiffany S. at WDC is a horrible rep.
I am trying to use a $50 off code and she insists that it wont apply on 2016 Beausejour duffau lagarrosse then tells me that just because I was able to “take advantage of lesser trained associates it doesnt make it true”.
Depends on where you live. NY, FL and CA is all I am aware of. Others can add to the information if I am missing another warehouse.
It’s also worth noting that your warehouse is assigned based on your shipping address, and your warehouse assignment may or may not make geographical sense. In any case, you are restricted to what is available in that warehouse, and pricing and availability vary greatly between warehouses, with possible further variances based on the state you live in. NY and CA are by far the best, with (IMO) NY being the better of the two but that depends to some degree on what you’re looking for.
How do these coupons work? If I buy $600 and use a coupon pricing is not good. Can you do the $50 purchase and use a coupon over and over? If so then it is attractive to buy from them especially with the shipping YLee talked about.
There’s also an Ohio one, so they can get around our attorney general’s onerous restrictions on a fair marketplace for capitalism (though no coupon code beyond 10% for a minimum of 6 bottles works here anymore
Most of the coupons you can only use once. So if you have 50 off 200, your best bet is to limit the purchase to just over 200. But I’m afraid that you missed the glory days when 100 off 300 and 50 off 150 codes were abundant. Still deals to be found, but a couple of years ago it was like shooting fish in a barrel compared to now.
Escalated to a supervisor after I found out Tiffany had me blocked from future chats.
Supervisor confirmed Tiffany was incorrect and gave me $50 gift card.
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As noted by others above, the glory days seem to have passed us by but enough deals are still out there to make it worth it. But if you’re going to use wine dot com, you will want to a) sign up for StewardShip so you pay once for unlimited shipping for a year; b) only buy with a good coupon (15% or 20% should be your minimum IMO); c) try to order just over the minimum for the coupon to maximize savings, so place a $51-$52 order when you have a 20 off 500, place a $205 order when you have a 50 off 200, etc.; d) stack your savings with one of the cash back portals (trying to place most of your orders when they are offering 10% to 20% cash back), and e) consider stacking further by paying with discounted gift cards.
There are rules/limits/tricks/traps to all of this, and I tried to capture most of them in my “tutorial” post earlier in this thread:
https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3246063#p3246063
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Yeah I recently gave in and jumped on the WDC bandwagon - using the coupons and cashback plus Raise (thanks for the tutorial Dave!) can get you some very good deals even if the glory days have apparently passed by. Seems the best deals / inventory at least in the NY area are with Bordeaux along with some Brunellos and Rioja. Would be curious if others have found lots of compelling value elsewhere on WDC. A lot of the other deal sites can get you great deals on domestic wines and some Italian, but I find you rarely get big discounts on quality Bordeaux so that’s the big draw for me with WDC.
Some examples (factoring in cash back and/or Raise): Domaine de Chevalier or 2016 or 2018 or Chateau la Gaffeliere 2018 for ~$60 or Chateau Prieure-Lichine 2015 or Chateau Gloria 2016 for <$35. Rioja: buying 1x Vina Ardanza 2012 and 1x Alberdi for <$35 combined which is ridiculous, or El Puntido 2007 for <$35. Brunello: Castello Romitorio or Altesino 2016 Brunello for <$35.
To answer your Q John, you just place separate orders at reasonably close to the coupon threshold to maximize the discounts, and WDC ships them all separately. I honestly don’t get why but not complaining! The other nice benefit is it’s sort of the inverse of other sites where you often need to buy a whole case of something to get the best price, whereas here you can do a lot of 1-3x lots.
Given how this thread has developed, I feel like the end is near re WDC
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Maybe…but I think as long as the almighty top line revenue is driving their strategy, we should be good. The flood of year end codes suggests they’re trying to hit a number, margin be damned…
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Has there been any more talk of a WDC IPO? There was some thought that they were eating losses to drive revenue for an IPO, but they apparently have not gone public yet, and that talk seems to have died down.
They just raised $40 mill in a private equity sale this year: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1088182/000108818221000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml
IPO is probably still coming at some point, but they should be well-capitalized for now.
Nice, $40m more coupon codes coming
Recent podcast from WDC marketing director, where she discusses their couponing strategy
Curiously - for an e-commerce company - she states that their physical mailers are highly effective.
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40M is a drop in the bucket for anyone looking to achieve scale. Plus, 2.5M of that goes to commissions, and 7.5M is devoted to lining the pockets of select executives.
It’s unfortunate. They seem to have gone a long way towards solving the sourcing and sales issues endemic to the US market, but their IT is a joke, especially for a company based in SF. I wouldn’t invest a dime in this company, but I will be glad to help them in their effort to lose money while making it up in volume. Well, that’s not quite fair, I really don’t think they lose as much money as it appears, but they surely don’t have the kind of margins that you want from an e-commerce company, and I don’t see any clear path for them getting there.
I’m assuming that Plan A is to eventually sell to AMZN, and Plan B is to sell to Total Wine or the like. I would be shocked if they manage an IPO with their current management. Heck, if they were really serious about that they probably could have done it given the ongoing SPAC craze.
Hopefully next year better codes as many have said. Some nice deals overall but nothing said buy now.
Code trend over 2021 is unmistakably toward lower percentages, less frequency. Similarly, RMN and Rakuten have fewer instances of double digit cashback.