What do you think of a wine store that questions a return?

[Robert.Fleming]

@Corey Miller

Rick, of course most retailers won’t give you a refund without bringing the product in,…

My understanding - which is sure to be promptly corrected if wrong - is that’s because they have to have the goods to pass the liability back up the supply chain.

[NickC]

seems to me that buying a corked bottle should be factored into the cost of doing business for the consumer. any retailer or winery who is willing to replace or refund the cost of a corked bottle should be given extra kudos for good customer service, as opposed to that being the baseline as to what’s minimally acceptable to earn any business from me.

[Mark.Ricca]

@Robert.Fleming

@Corey Miller

Rick, of course most retailers won’t give you a refund without bringing the product in,…

My understanding - which is sure to be promptly corrected if wrong - is that’s because they have to have the goods to pass the liability back up the supply chain.

That is correct Mr. Fleming. Most wholesalers will credit bad/broken bottles removing any risk to the retailer.
So again I say what’s the expense of 1 bottle vs. what the customer spends over the course of a lifetime as a satisfied patron?

[Travis_Fantz]

Are there some states in which a distributor doesn’t take back a corked bottle? I would figure that could have a greater effect on the distributor/retailer relationship than the retailer/client relationship.

[John_Osburn]

I would also be somewhat concerned that retailer #2 either (1) didn’t know the wine was corked when he smelled it, or (2) was inexperienced enough not to know, but acted as though he did anyway.

[Randy_Sloan]

Seems like as good a place as any to ask this question:

In the past, I have offered to immediately ship a replacement bottle to direct customers, no questions asked, or provide a full refund including shipping (or portion thereof). This is obviously an expensive policy as I am out the cost of shipping a single bottle replacement. Do you think it unreasonable to offer either an immediate refund or store credit to be used in the future instead? The replacement bottle could either be part of a future shipment or the customer could just get their money back.

[DougS]

@Corey Miller

I’m curious about stores that require you to bring the wine back to the shop to get a refund for a flawed bottle. I understand stores want to do this as a protection against both fraud and people who don’t know what cork taint or oxidation really is. But there are lots of situations where it’s totally impractical to do this. I brought a bottle to a restaurant once, where it was decanted and then served to four or five people. It was lightly corked, not enough to make it totally undrinkable, but enough to the point where it wasn’t what it should have been (I’d had the wine multiple times before). By the time I figured out it was corked, the rest of the group (not wine geeks) were already well on their way to finishing the bottle. Was I supposed to have everyone pour their glasses back in the decanter, then have the restaurant decant the wine back into the bottle, then carry around the bottle for the rest of the night if we didn’t go directly home from the restaurant?

And what if you can’t get back to the wine shop the same day or the next day after opening the corked bottle? What good is a sample if it’s been sitting on the counter for a week? And that’s assuming I live near the shop. What if I bought the wine from a shop in California but I opened the wine in New York? Etc.

So you think you should be able to get a refund for a bottle that’s been consumed? That seems very odd to me. Would you do that with food? “That fish wasn’t quite right, but we still ate it (or most of it). Can I have my money back?”

[DougS]

@Randy Sloan

Seems like as good a place as any to ask this question:

In the past, I have offered to immediately ship a replacement bottle to direct customers, no questions asked, or provide a full refund including shipping (or portion thereof). This is obviously an expensive policy as I am out the cost of shipping a single bottle replacement. Do you think it unreasonable to offer either an immediate refund or store credit to be used in the future instead? The replacement bottle could either be part of a future shipment or the customer could just get their money back.

Randy, I think the offer of a refund or credit towards future order would be absolutely reasonable, and I would think any reasonable person would be happy with that.

[Jim_V_a_n_P_e_l_t]

@Rick Gregory

And what you outline is probably what I’d actually do as a retailer if I were ITB, but my point was that I, as the customer, wouldn’t be offended and outraged if a staffer decided to check a bottle and was polite about it.

I agree with this completely. In fact, to expand on this a bit…I only buy locally in order to chat with the staff, try to convey what I’m looking for in terms of type and style of wine, and get their recommendations. If a wine store has a staff of 5, there’s probably one or two of them that I seek out. I would return the wine during a time of day / week that I know my “advisor” was going to be in. And I would want him or her to taste the wine. If they agree with me, that’d be another data point on the road to them becoming a “trusted advisor”. If not, I would need to rethink my relationship with them, and in particular the value of their recommendations. Point being, I would value their tasting of the wine as opposed to being offended by it.

Oddly, I respect the retailer who with me examines the bottle I return. If I tell him/her the bottle is “cooked”, and he/she doesn’t examine it, I wonder how much they care. Does it matter to them that they might have a systemic issue? Or are they just wanting to deal with me as a one-off issue?

In several instances, usually at a favorite restaurant, I’ve had the person behind the counter say “I’m not smelling / tasting that” when I suggest a wine is flawed. I’ll generally respond “it’s there, it’s flawed…do what you have to do, but in the meantime, bring me something different”. Almost invariably, they do the right thing and the bad glass or bottle is credited on my bill. I’m not offended by this situation either, but rather hope that it’s something they can learn from so maybe they’re in a better position to recognize the flaw the next time around.

[Dav_d_Parta_n]

We replace bottles or provide a full refund for those that come back as “flawed”, “turned”, “corked”, “spoiled” etc, without question. The distributors credit our account. Sometimes we have to remind them over and over and over…