For The Love Of Port

I've been working on the next great buyer's opportunity for newsletter subscribers. This will be the first of a few for 2010, more focused than during my 2009 experimentation and learning what works and what doesn't.

One of the main issues I found last year was people's expectations of pricing. Winesearcher.com is the issue. They provide a great service but also provide, at times, dubious information including absolute "bait and switch" --- out of stock (permanently) --- bought inventory 8 years ago, like 20 year old Tawnies or Colheitas which are no longer fresh and need to dump them at any cost -- saying "in transit" when questioned, which attracts people to their retail site -- ALL OF WHICH HAPPEN ... and Port seems to happen at least as often as other regions, because of Port's ability to hold up on the shelves well. Of course, this is not winesearcher "doing this" but unscrupulous retailers or savvy sharks that take advantage of winesearcher's system of listing ... or in many cases, sheer innocent negligence or laziness by (the small minority of) retailers too.

Importers express this dynamic as their reason for being apprehensive, in pricing Ports for FTLOP subscribers. They know that often times people see the prices but do not investigate the realities of what is shown on the screen. For example, last year Kopke's importer ... sole importer for the USA, was amazed to see old Tawnies being sold at prices 30% below THEIR cost. They contacted the retailer, only to find out that the stuff had been purchased from them, nearly a decade earlier. Not good for consumers who are unaware ... regardless of how great the price is. You may be willing to take that savings and eat the bottle age of a Tawny with indication of age, but an importer HATES to see that old stock still lying around unsold ... knowing that the Euro and buy-in price were very different back then, plus the freshness issue. This almost prevented the Tawny Port from being included, but we came up with something creative, so that you could have a greater offering in your hands. But that is just one of the many issues that Winesearcher creates. As mentioned above, there are a number of others.

You must come across this type of frustration when wine buying in general and finding winesearcher's info not up to date or a retailer's inventory totally out of whack or wrong listings etc. Heck, I have seen Madeiras listed as Port about a hundred times now. Scary!

Your thoughts?

A. winesearcher.com is a great tool. I am sure I would have spent significantly more on Port and other wines without it.
B. Like any tool, it can be used well, and it can be misused and abused. There are plenty of examples of abuse that Roy alludes to, and that I've found as well.

Here are some situations I've been frustrated by:
1. Retailer doesn't ship
2. Retailer information is out-of-date. I actually don't think I see this one as much as Roy suggests.
3. Listing is incorrect. This one is huge and happens all the time.
a. Winesearcher reports a full bottle, and it is a half.
b. Pricing mistake
c. Product is different, like an LBV instead of a VP, or listed as a Taylor VVV but it is just a Taylor QdV.

This last one nearly got me on the Portal offering. I didn't realize the difference between the Portal and the Portal Plus until Glenn pointed it out. I'm glad he did; otherwise I would have missed out. I think this is one of the keys for the FTLOPortunities. These things should be explained. WRT this, in most cases I don't think the retailer is trying to pull a fast one, but they really don't know. I bet 8 out of 10 retailers couldn't tell you the difference between a Portal and Portal Plus. Now there are some very good retailers that do know, but that's another thread, which I might just start soon.

Use winesearcher judiciously.

I also think some FTLOPortunities are better than others, and that is to be expected as there are different companies involved in each case. Keep them coming.

Roy, you and Eric M. bring up some good points. I don't really use wine searcher a lot, but the issues you've seen with it I've seen with most other price search engines (such as pricewatch, and even google). My biggest fear when buying wine is that it's been stored properly, which is why I don't buy much if any older wines. I've seen where newer wines taste fairly different depending on which store it came from. So when I see stores that have ports from 2000 and even older sitting on the shelves at room temperature, I steer clear. I'd rather spend a little extra, if necessary, to buy from a known good merchant to have the piece of mind that the wine I'm buying will be good in years to come when I want to drink them. Caveat emptor.

I didn't have problems with the prices in the offerings last year, other than I couldn't afford more. Some prices were better than others, but I took advantage of most of the offers. I would have guessed that the biggest complaint would have been shipping to where people live. I have my fingers crossed for a Madeira opportunity this year. I can't wait for the next offer!

I use Winesearcher.com all the time and I have encountered virtually all of the situations that Roy and Eric mention. Another issue you'll see is vendors who have listings that need 3-5 days to be confirmed... because they don't actually have the stock on hand, they've simply listed everything that their distributor has in their catalog. I see that a LOT with East Coast vendors, especially those in New Jersey.

Then there was my epic battle with a New York retailer who couldn't tell the difference between Quinta do Noval and Quinta do Portal. It worked out in my favor - the ended up shipping me 4 bottles (2 mis-shipments of 2 bottles each) of the 2003 Noval for a total payment of about $75 - but I really did want the 2003 Portal so it was still frustrating.

I don't think that the importers need to worry, though. After all, we here at FTLOP understand the advantage of buying directly from the importer, and in cases like the Kopke example Roy used he can provide us with the story behind the bizarre pricing. I'd have been happy purchasing the Colheita in question from the importer given the story behind it, but I was also happy with the alternative that they offered.

So I guess I'm just saying that I hope the importers will understand that we're pretty savvy here, and we realize that they're giving us something - provenance - that an internet retail store can't. If there's a weird listing on Winesearcher.com... they shouldn't sweat it. Though we'd certainly love to hear the story behind the listing if they can figure out what's going on!

Just like when they list it as VVV and it's just VV when you call them

Glenn E. wrote:I use Winesearcher.com all the time and I have encountered virtually all of the situations that Roy and Eric mention. Another issue you'll see is vendors who have listings that need 3-5 days to be confirmed... because they don't actually have the stock on hand, they've simply listed everything that their distributor has in their catalog. I see that a LOT with East Coast vendors, especially those in New Jersey.

One place north or Boston is notorious for this. They'll list '85 Graham for $60 and say you have to pay for it ahead then tell you few days later that it is not available. No sh** it's not at $60. I refuse to deposit money on something they do not have.

Well the Seattle Wine Company came up this evening with a double strike. wine-searcher.com search for 2003 Quinta do Crasto came up with two listings at SWC, the first for $31.95, the second for $62.95. The first presumably is a half bottle (or overpriced LBV?), but nowhere on wine-searcher or seattlewineco.com does it tell me that. I tried to add it to my cart - out of stock. Tried the more expensive bottle - out of stock. Maybe that's three strikes.

On the other hand, wine-searcher previously led me to Cabrini Wines where I bought 750s of this for $26.87 each. I think I got some of their last bottles shortly before this wine was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal.

It's really not WS fault since they just tie into the data a store has. The bad part is many stores on-line inventory systems don't drop the product from public view once a wine is sold out, so WS still hits on it. I've seen this countless times and I wish these retailers would change their on-line inventory systems so that won't happen.

Of course, then there are the ones already mentioned. The ones that list everything in there distributors catalog, yet they carry almost nothing in the store. 99% of the time the wine you want, and the one they list having (or tell you they can get in "2 or 3 days") is now unavailable. Drives me nuts.

Andy Velebil wrote:It's really not WS fault since they just tie into the data a store has.

Strictly speaking in this case it is not their fault. The SWC clearly has problems when their own website had ambiguous listings, multiple listings which appear to be for the same product at different prices, and only tells you something is out-of-stock after you try to purchase it.

But in a general sense, this is wine-searcher's problem, and they could do things to make it better. In some cases I see listings for full bottles in the price section, but the text in the wine detail section indicates a 375. The data from the merchant was bad, but the detailed information could have been scanned to flag this. WS could either correct it directly, mark it, or work with the merchant to fix the problem. Another thing WS could do it take feedback, perhaps from everyone, or at least paying subscribers. See a bad listing? Flag it for WS, possibly indicating why. If they get enough flags, the listing is removed. If a merchant gets too many flags, they are removed or WS works with the merchant to fix the problem.

At a guess, the WS business model doesn't work if they have to do anything beyond automatic compilation. Asking them to correct listings, or work with (or delist) particular merchants, would probably make them unprofitable.

It's like spam. If sending an email cost even one cent, spammers wouldn't exist. (Serious scamming/con games might still be profitable.) If WS had to think about each listing, or even respond in any way to complaints about individual listings, it couldn't exist.

Moses Botbol wrote:

Glenn E. wrote:I use Winesearcher.com all the time and I have encountered virtually all of the situations that Roy and Eric mention. Another issue you'll see is vendors who have listings that need 3-5 days to be confirmed... because they don't actually have the stock on hand, they've simply listed everything that their distributor has in their catalog. I see that a LOT with East Coast vendors, especially those in New Jersey.

One place north or Boston is notorious for this. They'll list '85 Graham for $60 and say you have to pay for it ahead then tell you few days later that it is not available. No sh** it's not at $60. I refuse to deposit money on something they do not have.

Tell them you'll be glad to put down the $60 IF they give you double your money back if they can't complete the sale.

Peter W. Meek wrote:
Tell them you'll be glad to put down the $60 IF they give you double your money back if they can't complete the sale.

No kidding. How about "just call me back and let me know if you have it" would be good enough.

The worst part is they don't even sell you now that they got in the store or on the phone. A good retailer would say, "I don't have that Grahams at $60, but I do have ___ which is a good price". "What other vintages and houses are you intersted in?" "Is $60 your limit for 80's vintages?"

So many opportunities to sell, perhaps even more than the original enquiry, but they just sit on the rears and want spoon fed sales.

Peter W. Meek wrote:At a guess, the WS business model doesn't work if they have to do anything beyond automatic compilation. Asking them to correct listings, or work with (or delist) particular merchants, would probably make them unprofitable.

craigslist.org has something like I describe in place, and I'm not paying them for a subscription, nor are the bulk of the people selling stuff there.

I've scored many incredible port deals on Craigslist over the years.

Moses Botbol wrote:I've scored many incredible port deals on Craigslist over the years.

Hardly any wine comes up in the Denver area. I contacted one guy who was selling off a cellar with a bit of Port, and then he decided he wanted to keep the Ports.

Eric Menchen wrote:

Peter W. Meek wrote:At a guess, the WS business model doesn't work if they have to do anything beyond automatic compilation. Asking them to correct listings, or work with (or delist) particular merchants, would probably make them unprofitable.

craigslist.org has something like I describe in place, and I'm not paying them for a subscription, nor are the bulk of the people selling stuff there.

Here's how their business model works: http://www.craigslist.org/about/factsheet

The do charge for certain categories, and also do apartment brokerage. It was started as a hobby, became a registered non-profit organization.

Winesearcher is something else. They are a for-profit company (New Zealand based) and have a Fee-based tier (Pro). Apparently, if you have a Pro account, you CAN make complaints about individual merchants:

Based on the feedback we get, we remove from the site any wine merchant with a poor service history. If you are a Pro Version user, please let us know about problems by using Contact Tracking. We record all such responses and use the information to improve the site for all.

They profit from on-site ads and from user fees for Pro accounts, but not from a cut on individual sales.

I am a Pro subscriber. Perhaps I should tell them about some bad listings, but there should just be a button on the page. I haven't seen that. And this isn't really a merchant with a poor service history, but bad listings. Those are different things.

I'm a Pro subscriber also, but have never bothered to report any problems. Truth be told I've only ever had one real issue with a Winesearcher.com merchant, and that problem resolved so dramatically in my favor that I have a hard time reporting the merchant for their errors.

Eric Menchen wrote:... but there should just be a button on the page....

It isn't FaceBook or some social network. You have to find the proper contact and make a reasoned complaint. And I do think that 'vaporwine' is a legitimate complaint.

Peter W. Meek wrote:It isn't FaceBook or some social network. You have to find the proper contact and make a reasoned complaint. And I do think that 'vaporwine' is a legitimate complaint.

But putting a button on the page, ala craigslist, would be much easier in the medium and long run. Then it is all automatic. Set it up. 10 people complain about a listing, yank it.