Reviewers are now describing a “zombie” site. The CC charges pile up but the actual home deliveries do not.
Time to look up Ponzi…Wine, that is.
I mentioned this in the other thread, but additional warning signs are:
- No big end-of-quarter coupon code push for Q3. The previous 3 quarters have all had massive coupon code campaigns to drive additional user acquisitions and sales. This one was relatively tame by comparison
- Inventory on the site is really lacking in the past month. It’s a struggle to even find something worth buying.
Not so much a fail as an irritation, but I had a cold pack leak and deface a couple of labels in a recent shipment. No big deal–the wines are for personal consumption and about $35 each, but still. I sent the a note alerting them–saying I wasn’t looking for a refund or discount, because I’m really not, but just an fyi that this was unfortunate. No response.
In my opinion, sparse retailer inventory can indicate that unpaid wholesalers are refusing to ship replenishments, in general. That helped bring down Phar-Mor, a textbook case of business fraud.
I suspect they’ve prioritized addressing their recent issues over restocking inventory. I’ve taken delivery of two cases in the past two weeks; everything in perfect order. Placed an order too, despite the concerns raised here. All daily drinkers, so no big exposure. With 50 off 200, +RMN, + raise, it all comes down to about 65% of full ask and some very good deals. These were things I’ve purchased before and thought to be well worth reordering.
Despite the more apocalyptic predictions of some in this thread, they’ll likely right the ship. If the better coupons go away I won’t buy much from them, or reorder the stewardship, but I rather doubt they’re going out of business. It’s almost as if some posters here having nothing better to do than hope for businesses to fail. It seems in very poor taste, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
The inventory on stuff that I like has dwindled to almost nothing. Not even work looking anymore. Not a comment on whether they succeed or fail, just commenting on the value to me as a buyer.
Do you think that you paying 65% “of full ask” is really realistic for long term viability?
And, are you still a customer at 85% “of full ask”?
I’m not. IMO 85% of their list pricing for much of their catalogue is higher than other retailers. (There are probably some exceptions, but in general I think they are significantly overpriced for most of their offerings.)
I do hope they turn things around though. I don’t do all my purchasing through them, but I did order a couple of hundred bottles over the past 2 years. If they fix things, I will start ordering again, assuming I can get fair pricing. (And that can be through sales, discount codes, or a change to their list pricing - doesn’t matter to me.)
As to question #1, I have no idea. Surely not if that discount was offered across the board, but I really doubt most of their buyers are going to that much trouble. I have no idea whether the extent of discounts offered this year is something they ever intended to continue long term or merely something they are doing to generate new business.
As to question #2, the answer is, “it depends.” For some wines I’d be likely be a buyer at 85%, especially considering basically free shipping. There are wines that I’ve bought from them, and really enjoy, where their price was comparable to or better than anyone else. There are also many where they were not competitive without a deep discount. So with stewardship and a lesser discount I’d still consider buying some wines, but not others.
As I detailed in the other thread, I placed an order from the NY warehouse with wine.com last Friday. The order went through with a scheduled ship date of Monday. Based on past experience, this was unusual. In the past, orders for anything other than pre-arrival wines would ship the next day, even on the weekend. When I checked again on Monday, my ship date had been changed to Wednesday. I checked other inventory on their site, and everything now had an available date of Wednesday. I have checked again today, and the available date for everything on the site is now Friday.
As I said before, the obvious inference on Monday was that they had originally frozen all shipping through the weekend to fix their systems issues, things did not go well, and they were forced to push availability out to Wednesday. I think we can infer today that things have gotten no better, and have probably gotten worse. IMO, the other issues regarding the lack of discount codes, stagnant inventory, etc. can all be traced back to the fact that they have had a major systems failure, with no indication as to when, or if, it will be repaired. That’s not a minor issue. It could be a company killer, but I think it’s that simple. They either fix this, and survive (if it’s not already too late) or they don’t and they go under.
Also placed an order last week out of the NY warehouse for a few wines (very new inventory that did not even have a label photo when I ordered) to be delivered today. No shipment yet. Not futures so no charge until shipment so it either comes or it doesn’t, no big deal.
All this could be a systems problem, a shipping logistics problem, an inventory problem, or a cashflow problem,…or all of them.
The company has been so silent.
I have seen this happen in the past (the good old days pre-IT mishaps). They sell inventory out of the NY warehouse that is not yet present there, but on order. I assume that it is being shipped from a distributor or from one of their other warehouses to NY. Most likely they just have some delays in moving around inventory, but it could be a sign of some of the broader dysfunction. Not sure. Were you charged for your order?
I wasn’t charged, there’s just a pending charge that won’t go through until they ship. And this isn’t a matter of some inventory not being present, they’re putting a shipping hold on all inventory. First until Wednesday, now until Friday.
If a retailer has customer cash and still has not delivered the purchased wine, you wonder if the same items have been sold more than once, to generate cash.
Got it. I actually see Monday now for all inventory (my warehouse is NY too). If I switch to CA it’s the same, so it’s not just the NY warehouse. Could be they are trying the Big Red Button approach to un-f*ck their operational issues. I guess we’ll find out soon.
Yup, it’s now pushed to Monday. Apparently this affects the NY and CA warehouses according to this e-mail I got from them last night:
We are very sorry your order is late. Orders coming from our New York and California warehouses are currently experiencing delays. We’re working to get these orders out as quickly as possible and will send you a shipping confirmation email when your order is on its way.
Please note that we will not charge your credit card until your order ships. If you have questions about temporary holds on your credit card, or other billing and delivery questions, please see our FAQs.
If you no longer wish to receive this order due to the delay, we will be happy to cancel it for you. Please send an email to cs@wine.com with your order number in the following subject line: “Delayed Order # - Cancel.” Please be aware that given the volume of inbound emails, we may not be able to process your request until after the order has shipped. If that occurs, we will initiate the return when your request is processed.
Our first priority is to ensure we take care of this order for you – either getting it to you quickly, or canceling it for you. Once we have rectified this situation we would like to make this up to you and will follow-up at that time.
Re their 3rd paragraph, and to Victor’s comment above, they do not have my money. It’s a pending charge, which means it has not gone through and they have not received any cash. In fairness to them, that’s been true of all orders that have been held up during this mess. I have never had a charge go through until the wine was handed off to FedEx.
I’ve got a spreadsheet with a few hundred of their wines compared to WSP over the past year which I’ve used for choosing wines. On average they are about 19% over WSP low price. About 1/3 of the wines are <115% of WSP low. So 85% with free shipping can get some OK deals but not worth re-upping Stewardship for me given their uninspiring inventory of late. There have been some nice deals on Brunello lately, though, which I’ve taken advantage of.
Interesting data. Thanks for sharing.
No prob. These are just wines that I’ve been interested in, not a random sampling, so YMMV. I’m guessing the numbers would be worse doing a random sampling.