Bev Mo called on Carpet over "5 Cent Sale"

Wine Pimps
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Legal Filing Claims BevMo's "Five Cents" Sale Deceives" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Good! I hope the suit is successful.

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I’m glad someone called them on it…

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Reminds me of Tony’s Wine Warehouse here in Dallas. They OVER inflate prices then cut them back during “donated” wine seminars. The wines are old, stored improperly, etc. and the sales pitch is comical. Story here:

http://www.dallassecretwine.com/tonyswinewarehouse.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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This should come as no surprise to anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention.

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I’ve told plenty of non-wine geek friends about this when they bring it up. So sad.

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Next you’ll be telling me there’s no Santa Claus.

Bruce

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At least the tooth fairy is real! [dance-clap.gif]

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Wow, that’s crazy! And they’re still in business?

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they are very much in business … with new locations still popping up. they’re great for beer … bad for wine.

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the amount of people who buy wine there is staggering. All my friends who aren’t really knowledgeable about wine LOVE shopping there for wine… especially during the 5 cent sale. One person in one of my tasting groups always brings a wine from Bev Mo… no longer invited

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Yep, it’s a scam, but occasionally it’s not. They were selling '07 Qupe Central Coast Syrah. 2 btls came to $16.99 + nickel + tax. A bit north of $9/btl after all is said and done. I’m sure it was somewhere between $12-14 normally, but unless it’s on closeout, that wine never hits single digits.

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Actually, and this is one of the rare finds at BevMo, $16.99 is a competitive price for one bottle.

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well, it’s not on closeout, but Vons has it’s 30% sale going now and its a penny short of $10. [welldone.gif]

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Haha BevMo…

Being sued over the gong show of wine sales. [welldone.gif]

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When we had our store we had to deal with a BevMo about 2 miles away. My traffic was always down during their 5-cent sales. To any customers that seemed to care I would explain what I thought their gimmick was and suggest they check prices before buying. Like many other discount sales, you can get a pretty good deal sometimes if you do your homework… sometimes not. I never found an example of a wine whose ‘regular price’ before or after the sale was lower than with the two-for + a nickel deal, but I did find many examples of wines whose quoted ‘regular’ price was way higher than any other retailer I could find. I also found items that were a very good value at the + a nickel price. In general, though, my issue with their nickel sale as a consumer is that they’ll put a couple hundred wines in it and I’m familiar with five or six.

Actually, the pricing example given in the article as being part of the suit doesn’t seem to be a very good one as stated. If the price dropped only after the sale, BevMo could claim it was a markdown due to poor sales. I would think the claimant would have to show a pattern, not only of multiple examples but of prices that were higher both before and AFTER the sale. Just my sidewalk lawyer head talking on that though.

In my early years in department store retail we had strict rules we had to follow regarding pricing for sales. If we got a discounted item in before a sale we had to mark it up to its suggested retail for a specified time before putting in on sale with that comparative value. We could only take the price back up after the sale if we had advertised it as something like a pre-season special. And… we couldn’t claim it’s ‘regular price’ if we’d never sold it at that price. We had to say ‘sold elsewhere at’ or some such language. I don’t know what California law is now, but this should be an interesting suit.