Michael, John and a healthy number of Chambers St. customers appreciate their sales of “rare” and “limited” bottles. My understanding is that most customers get what they order and that Mr. Wang’s problem is an exception…especially compounded by concerns about fakery, which is rare for CSW.
If you knew the owners, David and Jamie, I believe you’d stop your speculations, especially about willingly disappointing “hundreds of others”. There are incredibly few wine shops with their level of experience, knowledge, passion and desire to “do right” by their customers. Their shop thrives in Tribeca…where both owners are still “hands on”. The store probably deals with a handful of annoying customers every day of the week. Ideally they’d handle them all flawlessly…but I’d be fed up in a couple of days!
We know exactly one side of this story, from which it can be gleaned that CSW made mistakes. Based on my knowledge of Jamie and CSW, I’m a little skeptical that Mr. Wang was a purely innocent victim throughout and did nothing to aggravate the situation.
I have no dog in the hunt in regard to Chambers. All my comments are about retailing in general. The only thing teasing (intended or not) accomplishes with me is to do business elsewhere.
One would have to be a moron to want to receive an offer on something which there was no chance of obtaining.
It absolutely makes sense to tease them. That’s what advertising is all about. The disappointment is also part of that game. It’s called playing hard to get. When they do finally score, they feel awesome.[/quote][/quote]
Beavis - “It’s called playing hard to get. When they do finally score, they feel awesome.”
Butthead - “scoree… yah… scoree…”
I’ll preface by saying I’ve only had great experiences with Chambers St., both as a buyer and a seller. Jamie specifically has always been great to deal with - he was the primary contact when a sold a lot of bottles a couple of years ago
That said, i think it’s legit to wonder at getting your CC charged and then having volume pulled back - twice. Once I could understand, but the 2nd time would probably get me upset. And any personal attacks behind my back would definitely do the trick. Of course, I’m “shy” about public forums, so probably wouldn’t bring the discussion to a message board, especially as a newbie
Re: CSW w/ allocated items, I’ve been offered at least once a new offer of old Barolo before they’ve gone to the public via email - so they, like most retailers, do value relationships (as they should). Guessing that w/ Chartreuse they don’t exactly have a standing list of long-term customers who are looking for it, so were probably shocked at the demand they received and adjusted accordingly (although as mentioned maybe not in the best way). It’s definitely news to me that you could sell more than two bottles of the stuff
When flash sales appear it is not just speed that gets the worm as there are usually many others even faster. I have seen that with the bin sales offered by Benchmark where at least the inventory can be counted on as near accurate but there have been instances where I was dissapointed. It happen and I move on.
You registered yesterday and you already have 41 posts so congratulations!! You can now sell Chartreuse here on Commerce Corner!
At the risk of spending a little time in what feels like some pre-April 1 tomfoolery, I think the math needs to be thought about a bit in order to perhaps make Mr. Wang feel a little better about supposedly unequal treatment.
Mr. Wang believes there were originally 34 bottles.
Mr. Wang believes others had higher allocations than him.
Because we have to be dealing in whole numbers (bottles), does that not mean that Mr. Wang ordered 10? And if others ordered more, there could be no more than two others, at some combination of 11, 12 or 13 bottles? That would mean that 3 people bought at least 32 of the 34 bottle lot, if not all of it. (I see the yellow 1970s boxing out of stock at $209.99 per bottle on the website.)
Mr. Wang says, “I am no math genius, # is diff from %”
In this case, I’m not sure that numbers are different from percentages, practically speaking, since you can’t remove a fractional bottle. If all of this is true, I suspect the treatment wasn’t so disparate.
After all this, I hope that Le is inclined to give Jamie and Chambers another shot. No one is perfect and folks have bad days and make silly mistakes. Hopefully the testimony to the quality and integrity of both CSW and Jamie of this board leads you to take another look. Perhaps you judged with a bit of haste and can reconsider.
I do believe they are one of the best wine shops in the country.
I wish I had more money to spend at Chambers (or anywhere for that matter).
Seems like a better way to handle such a sale (if you do not have a specific list of Chartreuse customers) would be to put in the email “Orders will be collected and quantities will be allocated based on demand, we cannot guarantee your order at the time you submit it” - something to that effect anyway. Then you don’t have to backtrack.
You have only the OP’s word that this was “ridicule”.
I am a long-time customer of Chambers Street Wines and frequently recommend it to others. They do deal in rarities and have an excellent reputation for the quality of their wines, so it is not that uncommon that there is a feeding frenzy response to many of their offers. In fact, on March 17th, the day before this saga started, Jamie sent out an offer of old Nebbiolo with this caveat at the top (the photo was of British Bobbies holding back young women as the Beatles passed by):
Demand for these may not be quite as intense as shown in the photo, but please don’t wait too long! Unlike missing a glimpse of the Beatles, you can confirm that a wine is still available by clicking-through to our website. However, we sometimes get a flood of orders; we process them in the order received, but since this can take a little while, it’s possible that a bottle that has already been requested is still showing-up on the website. Nonetheless, we really do promise first-come, first-served. And unlike the poor Bobbies, we guarantee that all of the bottles are in good condition. Jamie Wolff
I am a good customer of Chambers. Not their best, I’m sure, but I do buy a lot there. Yet I am often shut out of wines that someone else gets to before I do. Note that the services that send out mass emails cannot send them all out at the same time, so even if you respond quickly, someone else may have gotten theirs a little earlier.
Finally, I have to say that since shopping at Chambers, I have gotten to know Jamie Wolff quite well. I have no doubt that he is an honorable man running a very competitive business that is trying all the time to do right by his customers and still make a profit. No one is perfect, but Jamie is close.
Well, Mr. W could let us know what he is talking about, but he refuses to do so, never telling us a simple bottle amount. I think this whole thread is bogus made-up shenanigans. What wine buyer ever speaks in %'s? “Oh yes, I purchased .002% of the production of Bereche.”
Sorry I missed your question. My ccard was charged for nine bottles, reduced to three and then zero. If CSW confirmed that all bottles were reduced the same percentage with exception that they have to round fractional bottle percentages, I would have been okay with that answer. But they never confirmed that.
CSW told me that all bottles are shipping the day after card was charged 3/19/16. I told CSW to hold my shipment since I was traveling abroad and there is no one to sign for the order at the address, they said no problem. Then 6 days later when I was abroad, I get the email saying that they found inauthentic bottles that doesn’t fit the email description.
Thank you. Just trying to get an idea of the quantity involved. That is bizarre - usually they will not charge your card until adjustments have been made already.
Thanks for the post. I am open to discussions. Infact, 1.5 day before I posted this, I sent David the owner of CSW an email explaining what events have happened hoping he could help resolve the differences between me and Jamie. The only message i got after that was from Jamie saying all my ccard have been refunded since he cancelled all my bottles.
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