I have a small winery that makes Cabernet. We have released one cab from 05' called "a", we have another one called "B" that will not be released until March 08. We have not even released "b" Cabernet yet some clown at winerz.com is claiming to have the wine for $30. The wine had not left the warehouse and when it does it will be $60 yet this website claims to have it. How insane is this? As wine buyers how insane do you think this is? Do you find that you are falsely lured onto online wineshops by false promises?

Yes. You had me at "online stores that lie..."

If I were you I'd order a dozen cases.

Petruslabels.com strikes again?

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Originally posted by Healdsburg Gal:
Do you find that you are falsely lured onto online wineshops by false promises?

Using W-S, one comes across the same 'retailers' that perform similar 'bait and switch' tactics. Incredibly low prices and when you check, they're always 'out of stock'. You clue in pretty quick to these characters and you just avoid their website completely, so they get zero sales. Stupid marketing tactics, IMO. They just shoot themselves in their..uh..foot.

I have sent an email to the retailer telling them to stop falsely representing that they have our wines. If they do not take us off the website I have a lawyer lined up. (yes,I realize that is extreme but this nonsense has to stop) I hate dishonesty. Wine is about sharing a great experience, not trickery. It is so low. I think we should start a list of online retailers who make false claims so that people do not get lured in to dishonest retailers. Reward honest retailers by boycotting the swine. If you have had a similar experience as a consumer or as a winery list the site. Let's stop the madness.

You should also tell wine-searcher.
They take a dim view of such things.

This thread is just another example viral marketing [aka word-of-mouth] - applied in the negative direction. Either way, it does work.

Don't need analysis from 'The Tipping Point' to get it.

In Australia "bait and switch" advertising is illegal. All you would need to do would be to send an email to the ACCC (the consumer watchdog) and bingo; they would be in court facing a big fine.

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Either way, it does work

I hope so, so that wineries and consumers will stop having to deal with retailers who make false claims.

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You should also tell wine-searcher.
They take a dim view of such things.

Thank you for the tip. I just emailed winesearcher. I have never dealt with anything like this before and it makes me sooo mad.

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Originally posted by Dave Tong BBP:
If I were you I'd order a dozen cases.

LOL! That was really good!

maybe they are being offered as "futures"?

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maybe they are being offered as "futures"?

hahaha, yeah no. We do not sell futures.

Now that's an opportunity to gain some money:

You order your own wine for 30$ and when they ask you to ship some wine to them so that they can process the order, you sell it for 40$ to them.
At the end you get your wine back and have gained 10$

quote:

You order your own wine for 30$ and when they ask you to ship some wine to them so that they can process the order, you sell it for 40$ to them.
At the end you get your wine back and have gained 10$

Nice

Healdsburg Gal, are you really that upset that someone said he carried your wine, or that he said it was only $30? I gotta be honest with you, this doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. Just call the guy and explain yourself. Do you know this guy and he has made you angry in the past? Is this a personal thing?

Does he carry "a?" How much is it? Perhaps he is excited by your wine and wants to be among the first on board? There has to be more to this than just the random sighting of a yet to be released wine advertised on a website.

quote:

Originally posted by Healdsburg Gal:
I have a small winery that makes Cabernet. We have released one cab from 05' called "a", we have another one called "B" that will not be released until March 08. We have not even released "b" Cabernet yet some clown at winerz.com is claiming to have the wine for $30. The wine had not left the warehouse and when it does it will be $60 yet this website claims to have it. How insane is this? As wine buyers how insane do you think this is? Do you find that you are falsely lured onto online wineshops by false promises?

Report them to the Better Business Bureau.

I find this all the time on Wine Searcher, and we learned the hard way by driving over an hour to a shop in North Jersey that claimed to have "bottle x" for a certain price, only to get up there and it was $30 a bottle more.

Have also run into the same thing on Wine Searcher where stores list "bottle x" at a great price, but when you go to purchase, they are out of stock. Someone needs to start a new thread titled something about wine shops that lie and we can all start a list of BS retailers.

-mJ

Admittedly, I deal mostly with ten or so reputable companies when shopping online, but this has very rarely happened to me. Lucky?

PH

quote:

Originally posted by cdr:
Healdsburg Gal, are you really that upset that someone said he carried your wine, or that he said it was only $30? I gotta be honest with you, this doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. Just call the guy and explain yourself. Do you know this guy and he has made you angry in the past? Is this a personal thing?

Does he carry "a?" How much is it? Perhaps he is excited by your wine and wants to be among the first on board? There has to be more to this than just the random sighting of a yet to be released wine advertised on a website.

Are you on crack? That's a seriously delusional post in every way.

Btw, how would you like it if some of your potential customers thought you were charging double what it's worth? If you saw a wine for $30 on wine-searcher, would you even bother looking at a $60 listing?

This sort of thing was so rampant when wine-searcher first went up, I quickly gave up bothering trying to use them. I came back after they addressed the problem, and as Dave says, they take a very dim view as this undermines the value of their service.

You really should consider contacting the FTC.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by cdr:
Healdsburg Gal, are you really that upset that someone said he carried your wine, or that he said it was only $30? I gotta be honest with you, this doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. Just call the guy and explain yourself. Do you know this guy and he has made you angry in the past? Is this a personal thing?

QUOTE]
cdr,
what we have here is a producer looking out for the interests of the consumer. That is a big deal with me.

quote:

Healdsburg Gal, are you really that upset that someone said he carried your wine, or that he said it was only $30? I gotta be honest with you, this doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. Just call the guy and explain yourself. Do you know this guy and he has made you angry in the past? Is this a personal thing?

Does he carry "a?" How much is it? Perhaps he is excited by your wine and wants to be among the first on board? There has to be more to this than just the random sighting of a yet to be released wine advertised on a website.

It is not personal it is business. False advertising hurts everyone. It hurts the winery, the retailer who has the wine and the consumer. For the record they never had any of the wines we produced and never will. My guess is they read about it on a LA wine blog and thought it may be a way to increase their web traffic. Why did I get so upset? I have been telling our distributors since October that the wine will not be released until late march 2008 (this will be the first release of this wine and it is our top tier wine) yet some clown is advertising it and advertising it at below distributor cost.
Something else that really bothered me is that they claimed to have the wine and would go as far as to let you check out with it with a credit card. For our Petit Verdot (which they never had)they had it so you could order I think about 700 bottles. We only made 20 cases. So you could put $4000 worth of wine on your credit card that never exsisted. That to me is sketchy.
Yes, I am very protective of our brand and the retailers and customers who work with us. Every winery should be. I check the internet all the time. You have to in today's world. I actually spoke with a lawyer that represents some large wineries and he says that this is a growing problem and wineries more and more are having to police the internet.
If someone advertises that they have our wine and I know they do not, they better watch themselves because I will hunt them down.

PS: They have removed the wines from the Website

I applaud you for protecting your brand. I personally don't think that involving a lawyer is extreme. A tersely-worded nasty-gram on legal letterhead has solved many such problems.