I think a lot of a shop’s decision whether or not to refund comes from their knowledge of the customer. I’ve purchased about $40,000 worth of wine from my local shop in the last 3 years. I had one bottle, a 2003 Casanova di Neri, that was corked when I opened it. I generally accept the risks that will happen, but when I was in the store and mentioned it, the owner walked over to the shelf, grabbed a 2004 La Spinetta Vigna Valeriano and gave it to me as a “make up” bottle, asking only that if I still had it, I bring the Casanova bottle in next time so he could get credit from his wholesaler. That’s why I spend so much there.
I realize in the initial scenarios, the stores probably aren’t dealing with known customers, rather one-offs … or people who walked in off the street. It’s a tough call there, but I will say that some stores (CostCo comes to mind) have done phenomenally well with a “no questions asked” returns policy. Because I know I can return anything at any time to Costco, I positively impulse buy every time I’m there. In the long run, they’ve sold a lot more stuff I probably didn’t really need because of the assurance I have that I can always bring it back if I don’t want it.
Costco, though is a volume place. Easier to eat some cost when the margin on the odd bottle is trivial to your balance sheet. However, yes, knowing a store cares about its customers and won’t balk at legti returns is nice. I think the issue for some wine stores is that people try to return things not when the’re bad, but when they just don’t like them. WE forget this, but there are people out there who think Zin is pink (true story… ), don’t realize that Port is a sweet wine, etc. YOu could bend over backward for some of those people but ultimately, unless that policy brings you more than enough business to offset the costs, it’s not the right thing for the store to do.
My point, though, was that you’re making a judgement call on ‘too old’. Is the wine too old? Has it been too long in my possession? What if you know I store at a professional, offsite place? What if it’s 2 years, not 4? Etc…
I wouldn’t expect you to refund a wine I’ve had for a long time - but the issue for me is that it’s always a judgement call.
I think the best thing to do is give everyone the benefit of the doubt…to begin with. Even if this is a customer you have never dealt with before, they could end up being one of your best, particularly if you handle a bad situation well. Some stores take the trouble to figure out the average lifetime value of a customer, then train their employees to keep that in mind when dealing with someone who has an issue. Easier to think about it terms of $10,000 you’re pushing out of your store then focusing on the one transaction at hand.
Of course, you also have to consider the amount of money you’re putting on the line, it’s real easy to be generous when you’re talking about $50, but when it’s hundreds or thousands, the solution is probably going to have be different and maybe showing them the door like Roberto’s Barolo guy.
This isn’t from the wine retail business, but we had someone leave three messages on our machine over the course of an evening (we’re basically a 9-5 M-F operation if you want to talk to someone) demanding to know where his subscription was, then sent an e-mail the next morning accusing us of ignoring him. It was a pretty epic setup: his e-mail claimed that he had sent us a $59 money order three months earlier that had been cashed, called us six times in the previous month and three times in the current month (the messages I had, I suppose). So I called him of course, and explained that we had only the three messages and this was the first we had heard of it (we had no record of him in our database nor any record of a cashed money order).
This is course where it helps to only be giving out $59 worth of stuff, I told him we’d honor his subscription even though I was pretty sure he was making the whole thing up, that we just needed his address and if he could send me some more information on his end so I could figure out what happened with our bank. He agreed, and of course, sent me nothing. A week later I e-mailed him back and he claimed to have already sent the bank info, then refused to send it again because we were being difficult and hiding behind “communication issues” (somehow we were receiving some of his communications and all of everyone else’s) and decided he was probably just going to have to ask for his money back with the money order issuer. After assuring him that he was going to get his subscription, I never heard from him again. I did Google him and he was a wine guy in the industry. I never was completely sure if he was just incredibly forgetful and thought he had done stuff he hadn’t or was mixing us up with someone else (the generous interpretation) or was trying to either screw us out of a free subscription or $59. Even though I leaned toward the latter, we dutifully signed him up for a free 1 year subscription. Not surprisingly he didn’t renew when it came up…
I understand your point Rick - and it really is a catch 22 - this is how I frankly handled the situation when it happened -
If a good, loyal customer brought me a bottle back that he had bought from me 2-3 or more years ago - I would credit him for it - no questions asked - even if I couldn’t get a credit from the supplier - and regardless of his storage conditions -
If a cherry picker brings a bottle back after 2-3 or more years - I would accept the bottle, tell him I have to check with the supplier first before I can get them credit - regardless of storage conditions - if I couldn’t get credit on the item - then I would tell the customer that while I can’t credit that particular bottle - I will work with him on the $60 cost of the bottle that was bad - making it up in deeper discounts (cutting the items to cost for example) - as long as you don’t lose money on the deal -