Wine Sales Dodgys

Hi all,
As an online wine buyer I’ve noticed increasingly no vintage is shown in the description, or if it does, it comes with a caveat such as this from First Choice…
”* Wine vintages can vary when delivered or collected from your chosen Click & Collect store.”…

How if this legal? They cant simply swap one vintage for the one ordered, as that is then a different product from that I havent ordered!

Would love to know Choice’s opinion.

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I think you, have in some ways, found the answer to your question. If it is clear at the point of sale that it is the case, there is nothing wrong with this approach. As, for example, the T&Cs on the First Choice website. If one continues to make a purchase, one accepts the T&Cs.

A similar situation is product substitution when buying products online at a supermarket. Their T&Cs allow them to provide a comparable product, if the selected product is unavailable at the time it was packed. It also allows them to refund monies for produdts should an order not be fulfilled.

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Dan Murphy and every other high volume retail shop (eg. all of those in Coles and Endeavour Groups) sell wine the same way. OTOH outlets like WineDirect and similar sell a particular vintage and if they run out will contact the buyer to seek guidance if they want another vintage, another product, or to cancel.

First Choice, Dans, and so on might have different vintages at different shops, as well as insufficient stock of one vintage at any particular shop (click and collect) or warehouse. The flexibility they build in re vintage substitution is partly responsible for their ability to price sharply.

Since vintage is important to you, you might be best placed to join amenable wine clubs. Many routinely give 20% or even 30% discounts for members, and 5% to 10% for those on their email marketing lists. Based on your post I suspect you are well aware of that :wink: Others reading the topic might not be.

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Or one only to buy in person, in store.

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That being the gold standard :smiley:

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Yes, and that is often what I end up doing, as I simply cant trust an online order that they will actually supply what Ive ordered. A different vintage is a different wine.

The other thing Ive started doing is if a website has no vintage listed, using the ‘contact us’ ask them the vintage.
Making them provide a reply, and makes the point vintage should be listed.

If enough of us do this they may stop doing it, and we can shape their behaviour.

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On the subject of dodgy wine sales, when we received the pack of NexGard Spectra that I ordered online, there was a “free” $100 dollar voucher for Naked Wines, whch I disgarded.

Naked Wines advertises on SBS TV and the ads offer $100 off the first order.

A “free” $100 voucher or just another shonky?

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Just another iteration of their established marketing program, disseminated through every outlet they have been able to queue up. Over time hasn’t the voucher gone from $25 to $100? Many report it is not bad and sometimes quite good wine so getting the customer in the door the first time can have many variations.

The shonky is the voucher being portrayed as something special by the companies offering it as a ‘reward’.

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I’ve used Naked wines a number of times. I now only order a wine if it has a better than 93% ‘buy again rating’ and often buy wine from a winery I’ve been happy with before; there’s a couple of wineries of particularly high quality. I’ve had a couple of outstanding wines, many very goods and have only a couple of wines that I certainly wouldn’t buy again. Naked aren’t my online wine supplier but they are often the best value for money.

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Quite a while ago, I took advantage of one of those $100 Naked Wine deals, only to find I was signed up for continuing deliveries. Trying to get out of that meant jumping through hoops, but I finally succeeded. I don’t know if that’s how they continue to operate, but I’ll never go near them again.

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Happened to me too. Except it was an ongoing monthly debit on my card to be used as money toward future orders.
Somewhere in the online order process lurked a ticked box that indicated that was what I wanted.
Naked Wines lost my business. But they did reverse the debit.

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I’ve been happily receiving Naked Wines for several years. I like the concept of supporting smaller producers. I mainly wait until my monthly credits cover a dozen I would really like (which comes with a “freebie”). but indulged in a pack to use with an online tasting - looking forward to it.

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Yep, been a member of Naked for years. They have always been happy to pause (such as when going away)or reduce the monthly amount charged to my CC when asked. Happy to use this method of paying for wines because it’s always on budget and easy to manage. Never been signed up for continuing deliveries - always have to order.

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They lost business in the NT as well, but of course with such a small population I’m sure they just don’t consider it worth their while even trying, which tells me all I need to know - just blame it on the legislation and make it look like ‘they can’t’ when they quite easily can. Like many cheap and nasty retailers, they can’t be bothered understanding and complying with the legislation, which is fairly simple,

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A number of other online alcohol retailers including Dan Murphy’s & Cellarmasters have chosen not to deliver to the NT.

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