Wine.com Online Retailer Sting Operation
Interesting stories today about wine.com doing a "sting" to identify online retailers supposedly not complying with state wine shipment laws.
http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Features/0,1197,4203,00.html
http://www.vinography.com/archives/20...
I know that wine.com must have invested a tremendous amount of money into setting up in-state warehouses everywhere it does business. As a result, in Florida where I live, even before FL relaxed its direct-ship rules, wine.com was able to sell in Fl b/c it had a local warehouse and a local distributor that it went through. Clearly other online retailers aren't doing this, though I have no understanding of whether the way they operate complies w/ local laws or not.
Hope this doesn't screw up the availability of wine through online retailers.
Frodnesor
Jan 09, 2008 07:25AM
I'm sure it won't help. To say nothing of wine.com's business model, it seems like they are desperate enough that they need to take the risk of alienating their own customers in order to remain competitive.
I just found it funny that it was Sherry Lehmann's director who said that the prices of wine.com are tantamount to gouging its customers. There's a pot and kettle joke in there somewhere. To be fair, they have a beautiful store, very helpful staff, and a large selection. But their prices are at times a 50% premium over other stores in NYC, before you even take into account that they do not offer either single or mixed case discounts.
http://www.sherry-lehmann.com
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I've bought from wine.com before (not recently, but there was a time before FL relaxed its laws that they were pretty much the only online game in town) and I actually recall their prices being reasonably competitive. Selection is generally underwhelming usually though.
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