I have had good experiences as well.
You need a good rep who has no bad rep. Call in lieu of email. They`ve been good for me over many years.
I quit buying from them when storage is needed, because of repeated mistakes and foul ups with consolidating and shipping (in sum, they repeatedly failed to follow shipping requests, and packages had missing wine on a repeated occasions).
I’ve done quite a bit of retail business with JJB as well, through Cory Gowan and others when he is on vacation, without problems. Of course, those guys are sales.
My impression is that JJB has grown a lot in the last few years. Back-of-the-house operations requires a totally different level of competence and controls as an operation grows, their expanded storage services are relatively new, and the auction side of the business might be a completely different beast. Hopefully, they will identify any issues they might have and fix them.
Unfortunately, I suspect retailers go from small to large based entirely on pricing and sales competence. Most don’t realize their new large size requires their operations to be be wired tight in a way that was not necessary when they were small… until it bites them in the a$$ because they can’t get the wine they sold to the customer reliably. Grow too fast without the processes to manage the minutia and the minutia will kill you.
+1 for Cory Gowan.
I can understand how so many problems can occur in this type of operation, particularly when there’s a move. The inventory alone has to be cluster F to maintain and a POS system may be difficult to incorporate if the warehouse and sales offices are at different locations. We have trouble keeping up with our small inventory and it is not uncommon for us to be a bottle short because we didn’t update inventory on a busy day. To add to JJB’s woes, they need so many employees and the group working in the warehouse filling orders are probably swamped. Look how many people here shop JJB and we’re a drop in the bucket.
As far as futures? That’s equivalent of buying a $1000 worth of lottery tickets for June 12, 2013, today. You may just forget by then and that’s free income that’s already been used to buy more inventory. Another thing about futures. If your name hasn’t been on the top for three years, accompanied by a $10K check, your odds of getting the wine are slim and that goes for all the places offering futures.
I’ve had good and not so good experiences. It’s just easier to deal with WHWC, Vins Rare, Vinopolis, Sec or K&L.
Well, I just bought from them. First time. Will see how it goes.
What did you get, Ramon?
Jamet Cote Rotie 1998
Huh? I’ve bought futures from a variety of retailers in every decent year for decades and with one or two exceptions have always gotten my wine. And as I am sure you’ve figured out by now, I am a purely penny-ante buyer. I don’t know what this is supposed to mean Randy
Three cases landed from jjb today. All good. Fwiw cory told me my two measly bottles of 09 pc shipped today
Guess my brother in law and I have been going through the wrong retailers/wholesalers. Fifty percent success rate buying futures between 2002 and 2008, (all from reputable businesses in NY and NJ). 1 in ten would let us know the wine arrived or was arriving without having to call them and ask. Half our actual purchases were for fewer bottles than we technically paid for. Stories we got were the price came in higher than anticipated or we got fewer bottles than expected so everybody gets “X” percentage of what they ordered. Average time to get our money back, 7 months. We don’t buy futures anymore.
What spoofulated Cali wines need futures randy!? 
I have used JJ Buckley for 4 or 5 years without any problems. I have also received all of my Bordeaux futures. 3 or 4 bottles (non-futures- all winecommune purchases) have gone missing from storage (or were broken) and were replaced with the same or better vintages of the same wine. I work with Alex Lallos and I cannot recommend him highly enough.
oh no you didn’t! ![[gen_fro.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/a/acc371fe8341f433d5c0ed34025c962acc33ad59.gif "fro"){kind=small}
received 4 cases last week. Two mistakes that they say they’ll rectify.
A while back I asked my rep what the cost was to ship a case of mag’s. The answer was that he couldn’t determine that without entering an actual order. I responded, thanks for that info, but I still want my question answered. It then was.
Sorry to hear your problems. Like many others here I have purchased on a number of occasions - perhaps 6 over the last few years and no problems.
I also have shopped with them (through Alex Lallos) for several years, and not a huge customer by any stretch. They haven’t gone way above and beyond, but they have treated me right. I’ve been credited without question for bottles that broke in shipping. When they got stiffed on a futures order (so they said; I suppose it could just be they mis- or over-allocated) they went out and bought the bottles in the open market to make the order good. It does occasionally take a while to get a question answered, but given I have a long-term relationship with them and they seem big enough that they’re not going anywhere, I can afford to be patient.
Getting back to the OP, um, yes, you’re overreacting. It’s frustrating that they messed up the shipment and it’s frustrating they didn’t have immediate satisfaction for you. However, you have a single case of bottles that you want hand-picked with individual bottles apparently coming out of separate auction lots and retail purchases, you want it shipped right at the beginning of October (a very busy time as they are just able to ship out wines that have been held all summer for customers on the East Coast), you ultimately get them to ship your wine overnight delivery even though you are paying for 3-day (so they are eating shipping costs), you beat on them about the shipper’s mistake, and now you are complaining about the condition of auction bottles. Yes, accurate descriptions would be preferable, and yes, a response to questions within a week would be good, but “it’s been 10 days and they’re still looking into the situation” doesn’t seem like “Oh my God, these guys are a menace to society, I’d better post to Wineberserkers” territory.
– Matt
Just wanted to post an update but I haven’t had a chance with the storm. Last week I was contacted by the Operations Manager who apologized for the whole situation. He was very polite and made it clear he wanted to remedy the situation. He then let me know that the shipping charge was already credited to my account (I had not checked my statement at the time of the original posting). He then said they were giving me a $250 gift certificate for the lack of communication and the wine stained bottles I received. Lastly, he said he would track down the bottles for me, even repurchase them if necessary. If the bottles could not be found or purchased then we could work something else out.
Overall, I was very pleased with the result and told them I will continue to do business with them. The only thing I will say is that my sales rep was mentioned by other posters but I think it would be best to not reveal this person’s name. They made everything right by me (although the bottles still needs to get resolved but it sounds like it will) and I’m not trying to personally take money out of anyone’s pocket.
Regards,
Matt