Zachy's Rip-Off?... or wine searcher glitch

Wine Pimps
1

Pardon the provocative title.

Today I got a bug up my ass to get some Lillian Syrah. After checking my usual Northwest source I searched on Wine Searcher. Seeing it was available at at least one place in New York, I checked my preferred retailer. No luck, so I thought I’d swing by Zachy’s.

Zachy’s is, obviously, a fine shop, lots of selection, with higher than average pricing. Hey, you pay for selection and shopping experience.

$71.20 at Zachy’s via Wine Searcher. I didn’t write down the price but had it roughly in my head. Seemed reasonable - there was a pretty broad spread on prices, both higher and lower. I wasn’t going to save money from someone who was going to charge me shipping. And I was jonesing for the wine, as I quite like Antica Terra and would like like to try Maggie’s Syrah.

(First half-mistake… I thought I hit the link to Zachy’s site because I wanted to make sure the stock was real, but maybe I didn’t look closely at the price.)

So I get there, grab three bottles, and purchase. Total seems high so I inquire. $89/bottle. “I thought they were cheaper than this on Wine Searcher.” So the guy shows me the screen - like I didn’t know they rang up high.

So I was probably going to get them anyway because I’d driven the 45 minutes and wasn’t going to go home, order on-line, pay for shipping, yadda yadda. (Second half-mistake by me.)

I walk to the car and whip out my cell phone and start surfing. And, like I say, $71.20 via Wine Searcher. So I go back in with my phone and my receipt and find somebody who thinks he might no something.

WTF? (In nicer words.) “$89 is the price.” Why is it $71.20 on Wine Searcher? “Wine Searcher isn’t our site, we have no control over what they post on there.” Now I’m starting to get irritated. Well how does your information get there? “I’m not sure.” They got the price from Zachy’s, right? "I don’t know where they get their prices."

Now I’m really getting irritated. This is about the same as bait and switch, no? And the denial of WS getting prices from their own database seems unlikely. “I can refund your purchase.” I don’t want a refund - I want to be charge the price you advertised, which got me to drive 45 minutes to yoru store (and a price which clearly wasn’t a type - it was a reasonable, if good, but certainly not lowest, price for the wine). This guy basically pleaded ignorance one more time, so I told them that I’d keep the wine, but that I’d be on eBob and Berzerkers tonight and would post my experience. Final dumb look from guy at counter.

Okay, so I know some less up-and-up retailers tie their Wine Searcher listings to wholesaler inventories. They suck. But I have never seen a price discrepancy like this. And the absolute intransigence was extremely bad customer service. I guess if I didn’t think they’d honor the $71.20, I at least expected them to throw me a bone. I could have returned the wine, but wanted it. And I’m airing my gripe here.

Thoughts?

Thoughts from retailers? Is there an issue in the Wine Searcher system that could have accounted for this? If this was on sale last week (accounting for the price discrepancy - my theory, not something anyone there said) would you have honored a still advertised price this week?

Once again, the lesson is that if I can’t get it direct, get it from Jay McDonald, or get it from Max, I shouldn’t bother!

2

Did you try clicking through to see if the order would be placed?

3

Did you speak to a manager at Zachys?

It could be that they had it on sale last week and WS hadn’t caught up with the new price.

4

I clicked through to confirm stock, but honestly don’t remember looking at a price. I’d think I would have noticed a discrepancy, but certainly can’t swear to it.

Spoke to someone who most looked like a manager.

I have since been told that there was a 20% off sale through Sunday - it was probably that price. But if every Zachy’s wine has it’s price deflated on WS by 20%, I’d say they need to make sure their data feed is updated.

I get that it is possible that this wasn’t completely their fault… but the response was really bad. Pleading ignorance/impotence.

5

Stores can’t be held responsible for price sites like WS. SOME sites feed WS data - for other sites WS scrapes the data. The data could be out of date by days (WS used to show when each price was updated). I mean, if WS grabs a price and published it on Monday and the price changes on the store Tuesday and WS doesn’t get the updated price until Thursday…

No one’s at fault really but if a merchant sees WS driving significant traffic they should update WS nightly… but even then you could see a price one day, bookmark the page and come back days later when a sale is over… or when it’s on.

6

FWIW - on the Wine Searcher click-through, it gave a date of December 22 for the data receipt from Zachy’s.

7

Hmmm… So it is. So this is either 1) Zachys not updating the list they send to WS 2) bait and switch. I’d need to know more about how data gets to WS to opine much further - it could be that WS pulls a file from a particular location and just consider it a new update even if the file’s not changed, it could be that the file isn’t driven by the same system that drives their other systems (which would be silly), if could be that WS has a newer copy of their price list but didn’t successfully update it on their side or it could be bait and switch.

Of course, given that if you click on the price and land on Zachys site you see the $89 price…

8

This morning it gives a date of receipt of December 23 with an $89 price.

9

Chris

Disclaimer: We have been a sponsor of Wine Searcher since 2001.

I believe Zachys has been a sponsor for 2 or 3 years only.

I am pretty familiar with how Wine Searcher operates.

With permission, Wine Searcher uploads the stores inventory off of the website. Ours gets updated daily. For some reason, at least historically, Zachys did not. I am not sure if that has been corrected since they became a sponsor.

Zachys had a 20% off sale. It expired. Wine Searcher is always 24 hours behind since they update overnight.

Chris, it sucks that they did not honor the price, but this is not Zachys fault that Wine Searcher was not up to date. Nor, is it Wine Searchers fault.

This is just an “internet glitch.”

I am surprised that they did not honor the price, but that being said, they should not feel that they have to either.

You should have had Jeff Leve take care of this for you.

10

As many issues as I have had with Zachys and would love to pile up on them, you screwed up by assuming

  1. Zachys uses WS as advertisement and therefore, you are entitled to the lower price
  2. WS prices are accurate. (Are they ever?)
  3. Zachys cares about someone who buys 15-20 cases off them a year.

Unfortunately, Zachys did nothing wrong here…IMHO

11

Overall, I agree, Ed, but the guy drove 45 minutes. THe sale ended one day earlier. They could have honored it.

Did they have to? Of course not.

Of course, Chris has never been in a good wine store in Westchester. neener

12

There is only one, but Max is so easy to deal with over the net…why take the drive. neener

13

Yeah, Frenchie has had no issues. neener

14

I can’t agree with point 1. Zachys pays to have their wines listed on WS, therefore they should be responsible for any delays that are inherent in the system. I’m not saying they are responsible if WS screws up, but if this is a natural part of the system, they should honor the price.

I will say that if Chris had spoken to Andrew, I can’t believe this would not have been resolved more favorably.

15

[rofl.gif] nothing more needs to be said.

16

Ken

If my understanding is correct, Zachys like many other retailers, sponsors WS. How is a general contribution to a website considered to be advertising? I might be wrong, but that is my view.

17

My understand (and I’m sure Daniel can clarify) is that a “sponsor” means you pay a fee to WS. In turn, they show your wine listings to everyone who looks.

If you do not pay this fee, then your wines only show to searchers who pay for WS Pro.

If my understanding is correct, then it would see that Zachys is paying to make their list available to everyone on WS.

18

I can see it working either way Ken - After all, if a store takes out an ad in a paper that lists a bunch of wines for a sale through, say, the 21st… is the paper responsible for the price if the customer comes in on the 22nd? Is the store? saying “But they should honor it as good service” sounds nice… but hey, what if I come in on the 23rd? A time limited sale is, well, time limited.

Note that if you clicked for 24 hours you’d see the sale price but click through to to higher price - so it feels bait and swtichy… but short of realtime updates, that’s unavoidable when you do daily updates. You could forgo feeding WS sale prices, but that’s one of the reasons you DO sales… to attract customers.

I just don’t think anyone was at fault here - neither Zachys, the customer or WS. It’s one of those things and, face it, it works fine in a very high percentage of cases, esp when you click on the WS price and buy online.

PS: ken’s understanding is correct in that some stores pay a fee to WS. it’s an ad in that sense

19

HaHa HeHe. He said take the drive.

… take the drive to Scarsdale is Zachy’s tag line in their newspaper adverrtising.

20

Ken, Rick, and others,

I have always viewed our annual fee to “sponsor” wine searcher as advertising.

As someone mentioned, I pay them so people can see my inventory.

Again, I think this one sucks both ways. They could have honored the price, but whomever spoke to Chris elected not to. Chris could have paid attention to the actual new price on the click through to the Zachys site, but he did not.