Buying wine online, offline
With the Supreme Court having ruled on winery to consumer wine shipments, one of the next big legal issues for consumers is to be able to buy wine from shops in other states. Three cases are currently pending in courts around the country.
Buying wine from the web sites of wine retailers is becoming increasingly easy. The “Cranky Consumer” column for the WSJ recently reviewed buying wine and found it “relatively painless.” But one thing she forgot to mention: browse the site but phone in your order.
If you’re looking a specific item, use wine-searcher, slap it in your cart and you’re done. But if you are looking for wines around a certain theme or rare wines, I’ve had experiences recently where calling has helped me.
Shops don’t always put their full inventory on the web site as recently arrived or limited quantity items might not make it up there. And sometimes the search functions aren’t advanced. Or you want to ask for a recommendation in a certain category to fill up your half a case order. In all these circumstances, I find talking to a human in the store useful. Imagine that! Humans trump computers!
tags: wine | buying wine | ecommerce
On June 21st, 2006 at 11:24 am ,Jack wrote:
I second your suggestion. I’m one of those guys who’s often looking for something obscure or old, and I’ve found that you really do need to phone whomever if it’s something you care about. Having a person on the phone go physically check their inventory is key!
On June 23rd, 2006 at 1:37 am ,Anali wrote:
Good suggestions. I’ve been thinking about that ruling and wondering if people have been taking advantage of it. I first started following the case after visiting Mondavi Vineyards and finding out that I wasn’t allowed to ship wine back to Massachusetts.