I looked through some threads but is anyone else noticing the exponential growth of the cost to ship wine? I have been passing on multiple offers this spring because of the wild costs to ship 3-6 bottles and don’t get me started of a case or two. Just today I saw $70 for 3 bottles of a non-trad American white that was $150 total for the wine.
Maybe it because I am in Kansas City? Is everyone else storing their allocations locally in CA or OR and then driving out once you have a few hundred bottles to make it worth a trip? I calculated the shipping I paid last year and it was almost $3500.
I’m buying less. It doesn’t really impact “expensive” bottles too much on a % basis - but yeah, it kills the idea of any shipment with less than a few hundred $ in wine.
Seems like less buying vs paying for locker fee’s then? Which tracks with current patterns in the industry. I am sure as much as we lament this the smaller producers who do not have the shelf space at Total Wine are 3x more frustrated than we are. Someone should start a wine only shipping company….
I am not sure that the supply chain/commerce companies who are shipping are helping their situation, but they prob need to employ two people to keep up with it and it is a damned if you do or damned if you don’t.
Need the wine version of Starlink to show up and land a couple cases of wine on a platform in the ocean and we would be good.
I think the reality is that wineries and others are no longer able or wanting to help offset the cost of shipping as they have in the past. At the same time, people are getting more and more used to free or discounted shipping for nonalcoholic products and therefore assume the same should be true with Wine.
As I’ve said numerous times, if you are charging $100+’per bottle, you have a lot more leeway in helping to offset these costs and if you’re making less expensive wines.
More and more consumers are choosing to hold orders and combine them to try to take advantage of economies of scale, which are in fact real.
I don’t usually ship next day air, so don’t have a great sense of what it used to cost. But I was just quoted almost $190 to ship a case next day from CA to NY, which seemed really high to me.
I just shipped two cases of wine from GSN (WineBid.come) via Climate Controlled Ground and it only cost me $32/case.
That’s kinda why I am sus when I get quoted shipping to cost me 3x-5x. maybe it’s the shipping companies knowing who and what they are shipping and knowing many consumers of wine DTC are affluent.
That is unfathomably cheap to me even without climate control. They have to be eating costs or negotiating a helluva rate because they are probably the biggest shipper of wine in the U.S.
Just seeing this. Their costs are candidly absurd. Last month I tried to get some Bereche Brut Reserve expedited because it was around $65. All in with tax and shipping pushed the price per bottle to like $100+ if I recall correctly. I said forget it and passed, which is a shame as I do like their shop a lot
maybe it’s the shipping companies knowing who and what they are shipping and knowing many consumers of wine DTC are affluent.
