Unless it’s overnighting or maybe OWC’s this is absurd. For what it’s worth, I felt like Teeter Totter had high shipping, too, and passed directly from the winery for same price bottles + free shipping via Wine Access. I just checked and while they have a nice 15% off for the wines at the moment, it’s $48 for ground shipping on 6 bottles.
Here is a dummy estimate for FedEx from here in Sonoma County to a random address in Portland. This is for a 3 pk shipper in size, 10lbs weight which is probably light for high end Napa Cab, $375 value. Note this is not shipped as wine which carries a higher surcharge. Overnight is expen$ive. If it’s going cold chain it’s even more expensive. Add $7 per 3-pack shipper carton plus fulfillment Co. labor charge.
i never mentioned ‘cost’ of shipping wine. i know what the cost is, it doesn’t require licensure. call me a naive consumer, but i thoroughly enjoy when wineries offer ‘free’ [saxum] or ‘discounted’ [patria] shipping. even not charging tax makes it move for me.
my biggest issues are mandatory 2 day shipping and owc’s, and to a certain degree charging tax on shipping after the fact.
im aware of the cost of shipping-but the actual cost and how that’s presented for the buyer to pay for are generally very different things.
re: bold above - not sure how things work in NC, but to ship wine [legally] in/from CA you must have a valid shipping license. it’s been that way for at least a year, and possibly longer.
i answered this already essentially. with that being said, evaluating cost out the door is fairly easy but that’s a separate issue from what i mentioned.
I’ve purchased a case of wine from a retailer in California and had it shipped to Ohio at a cost of $40. I’ve purchased directly from a California winery and had a case shipped to me for $64, just now. I also have a case coming from another winery that cost me $200 to ship. The winery charging $64 is not subsidizing the shipping cost. I asked them. The wines will ship UPS or FedEx and arrive at the same time in the same condition. Even though the shipping cost won’t stop me from buying, I feel better about the winery that charges close to what it actually costs to ship the wine.
that makes sense and I agree, it’s more transparent and thus comes off as more honest. with that being said, if i ask 4 different wineries what’s the ‘cost’ of shipping a case of wine, id get 5 different answers.