I’ve found auction buyers pretty savvy in terms of what they’ll pay for a wine and I assume they’re taking the vig into account when the buy. The first time I sold through Winebid I thought the starting bid was a little low for some things and then realized that taking the vig into account the wines were pretty fairly priced.
Another factor with selling directly to a retailer is the possibility of returns. Different retailers handle them differently. Retailers often want credit for bottles that are returned as corked or, for whatever reason, the customer just didn’t like it. I could see situations where a customer returns an old wine because they really had no idea what to expect and they didn’t like it. When dumping a cellar, it’s nice just to be done with it and not have the retailer coming back and asking for a refund or credit. At auction I believe the onus is on the auction house to verify (as much as is possible w/o opening the wine) that the bottles are sound and it’s caveat emptor from there on out. Perhaps retailers that routinely buy up cellars operate this way but probably those that normally do not traffic in back vintages do not.
Some interesting suggestions here. I’m going with K&L this time around, and will see how it goes. Some of my wines are going up today. Fingers crossed.
Winebid’s seller rates are astronomical. You’ll never pay more than 5% at just about any auction house for even the smallest lot and if you have a decent sized lot, you won’t pay a dime.
That has not been my experience recently with Chicago Wine Co, Acker, HDH, Flickinger they all seem to come in at about the same fee structure for lots in the 10-50k range. Also not case quantity high end stuff you see at HDH so perhaps that is different ?
Winebid picks up for free if the total value is over 10k.
They sellers fee is also based on a rolling average over a period of time. I think it’s two years, or maybe just one. Say you sell 8k worth one time and another shipment within the allowed time frame for 7k, the sellers fee would drop to the next tier for the 7k. But I think for free pick up the value of the individual shipment must be over 10k.
Don’t quote me on any of that but pretty sure I have it right or at least close.
Depending on what you want to do with the money, K&L has no seller’s commission at all if you use the sales proceeds to buy wine from them. In the past I have made purchases with some of my proceeds. Worked out pretty well for me.
Interesting question. I think that is hard to calculate as it really depends on the selection, timing, audience etc. From what I’ve observed, it appears that Winebid at least does not get you the best returns for Northern Rhones for some reason.