I read the article. I am sure it’s a major cost for businesses. But it’s also again, not my problem. I’m going to purchase from businesses that offer products I want, good service at prices I find reasonable.
One would think that would be primarily from larger businesses, but it seems like the majority of my purchases are from small businesses with the exception of Benchmark.
So it seems like small businesses are able to do a good job. Whether or not they’re making money, I don’t know.
One thing vendors could do to avoid the ‘abandoned cart’ issue is to provide more transparency about shipping costs, and how they can be ameliorated. I’ve found that most vendors are kind of vague about that (if they don’t offer free/subsidized shipping) and if instead there was more clarity around that, perhaps there would be more consummated transactions (where purchasers paid shipping).
It would not have to be wildly intrusive either, maybe just a little visual that made reasonable assumptions (you’re browsing from stay XY, 3 day ground to your region for 1-3 btls is $15, etc. Buy 3 more bottles and only pay $5 more, change destination state/speed with this drop down…)
Perhaps some day it’ll be easier/cheaper to ship wine when Amazon gets involved. They seem to be getting into the pharmacy business, which I suspect has just as many issues as alcohol/states.
I was thinking Amazon would get involved more with Whole Foods but haven’t seen that.
I’ve never ordered from a winery that used shipping as a profit center, it would not be in their self interest given consumer sentiment about shipping costs. Some of them use fulfillment folks and don’t subsidize, the fulfillment people do treat packing and shipping as a profit center because that’s their business.
I’m not that bothered by shipping costs because mainly I ship things I want that I can’t find locally or because I don’t want to go into more retail shops (in the present).
One thing about subsidies, it partly takes a bite out of the winery margin. But, to the extent it’s partly built into prices, it really shifts subsidies from nearby or pickup customers to far away customers.
I’ve never closed out an order based on shipping costs.
-Al
Hmmm. My Whole Foods now carries rare artisanal brands such as General Mills ‘Cheerios’ on the endcaps and the halibut there is now thawed (previously frozen). There is a ton of small changes I can observe, and have mixed feelings about. The PrimeNow / Fresh business they run out of the location makes it really hard to deal with their parking lot - which also has a busy Starbucks - and makes it a place I almost have to plan to go shopping at. Fortunately it’s so close - 1 mile away - that walking there is reasonable when I’m not buying heavy stuff (like milk etc.).
The wine dept at my WF has also really deteriorated, and I’ve not bought anything there since the cutover to AMZN ownership. Years ago the wine steward would call/text me if they had interesting items, or when things were on their periodic sales…now I’m not sure they even have a wine salesperson around.
I’ve generally found lower prices since Amazon moved in, not many other changes. I rarely bought booze from Whole Foods so can’t comment. I did see a couple years ago fu bought chave and Krug from there though.
In the alcoholic beverage industry the influential group are the conglomerate producers and importers, and the distributors who carry them (and make more money off beer and spirits). It’s all about market share. The big money contributions to state legislators making and keeping it difficult for the little guy is the industry. And, there is enough of the little guys and consumers fighting battle after battle after battle after battle that it’s even possible to have market access.
It would not have to be wildly intrusive either, maybe just a little visual that made reasonable assumptions (you’re browsing from stay XY, 3 day ground to your region for 1-3 btls is $15, etc. Buy 3 more bottles and only pay $5 more, change destination state/speed with this drop down…)
I always try and do a case as the cost per bottle is better. Yes shipping 3 bottles can be expensive.
How does WTSO offer free shipping?
While most of what they have is not of interest to me when they do have something I want it is already a good price but when you buy 4 or whatever it is you get free shipping.
Oh, man. The bane of my existence. I’ve spend close to $20K with FedEx in shipping just this year. I was so frustrated that I even ranted about starting my own delivery network in another thread! ![[crazy2.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/9/93d372920ca6a7ebc82c5879151b3e5642d41ad1.gif "crazy2"){kind=small}
But I’m also a consumer and I know the psychological resistance to shipping costs added at checkout. I decided that I’d just add a flat fee of $20 for all shippings below a case, and include shipping with full case buys, and just eat the difference myself. It’s painful, but I think it results in less abandoned carts. A case to NY or CT is $55+, so I end up eating that for a case. A single bottle is easily $17-22 in shipping, still.
Some wineries don’t allow less than 3 bottle purchases, just to get away from the mental barrier. That might be a solution. So far, since my release earlier this year, I’ve not sold a single bottle delivery anyway, so it’s not a big sale item. 2-packs are also rare, but come from time to time.
I don’t know what the solution is, but the one I had in my rant thread I think had a few points. The main one being - you, as a consumer, probably don’t care that much how fast a delivery of wine gets to you, as long as you know two things:
It’s not time sensitive stuff. And in many ways that’s what we pay through the nose for with FedEx and UPS, to support an infrastructure that lives on being fast. We don’t necessarily need that.
Adam,
It’s ‘noble’ of you to ‘eat’ shipping charges, but from a long term business standpoint, it’s unsustainable, especially with the prices you charge. I do the best I can for my customers, but ultimately, I need to make enough margin to make it worthwhile to do what I do in the first place.
If my wines were $50+, it would be easier to consider eating more of the freight charges that I already do, but with pricing lower than that, it’s just not feasible.
And just an FYI, I don’t believe some of the ‘favorite’ wineries on this board, including Carlisle, Bedrock, Rivers-Marie, Kutch and Rhys offer ‘shipping deals’, do they? And let’s not even begin to talk about some of the shipping costs charged by some of the most sought after wines here.
I agree that it is ‘psychological’, but hopefully this article sheds more light on the reality of the situation - and makes more consumers understanding when smaller wineries especially charge what they do to ship wines to you . . .
Cheers.
Bedrock is $35 flat rate for shipping any quantity of wine.
But Larry, don’t you offer a case discount? In my case that case discount is free shipping. Isn’t it just semantics where the discount is applied?
But yes, this was an establishing year, I was swimming in costs from the two unreleased vintages, pandemic killing my other income, so I was willing to do aggressive deals to get people to try the vines and get some cash flow. It’s not sustainable. I will probably have to charge more for shipping down the line. But I understand Michael’s point of view, too - I’ve abandoned a lot of carts because of shipping costs. It’s not rational always, but nevertheless it’s a reality.
If you are ordering single bottles or even two, then yes.
A 12/bottle shipper(pulp) costs us $6.00. A 1 or 2 bottle shipper costs $3.50.
Adult signature on a 12 bottle case: $6.50
Adult signature on 1 or 2: $6.50
UPS/FedEx charges us $40-85 for a 12 bottle case depending upon where you are in the country. (Including said adult signature)
They charge us $20-35 for 1 to 2 bottles.
It’s cost prohibitive for me to ship 1-2 bottles, so we hold orders until we have 6 or 12 bottle orders for most of our customers.
I hate paying for shipping, but it’s in there one way or the other. Folding it in, just makes it harder for the consumer to see how much UPS and FedEx take as a cut.
Wow, $6.50 for adult signature? That’s wild. Is that waived or reduced if you ship to a business address? I suppose the logic is a much higher rate of delivery failure and therefore extra trips to the address, since the package can’t be left. Still, it seems really high.
The signature charge is the single most egregious rip off in shipping charges imaginable. If you order 10 cases from a winery the winery gets charged 10x for whatever they pay for a signature even though you will only sign once (or zero times in Covid era shipping). It’s a farce.
I think most people don’t order 1-2 bottles from a winery. Many of the producers I buy from have flat shipping rates for a case or in the case of bedrock have flat rate shipping, period.
The vast majority of wine I buy is burgundy and mostly in 2-3 bottle increments with average cost per bottle of 100-150 although I will consolidate to cases or 6 bottle lots from places from which I frequently buy. For that quantity of wine, I find $10/btl to be a reasonable cost for ground. Per Marcus’ estimate, it should cost about $10 for shipper and adult signature. For a 3 bottle shipment from CA to me, Fedex estimates $27 via ground. That’s a $37 cost for the shipper, assuming they are paying full Fedex cost that I would pay from a retail counter; I’d expect their cost to be at least 10% less, or about $25. If they charged $30 for S/H they’d be subsidizing $5 of shipping on likely $500 in merchandise. My guess is there’s at least 20% markup on that sale if not much more.
All this discussion just illustrates more clearly the pure madness that is wine.com’s StewardShip deal.
I fully expect it to be revamped or ended.
I think Rhys has a minimum order and ground shipping is complimentary.
-Al
I guess I need to pay more attention to some of these winery’s shipping charges . . .