Any POS/Web/Inv software is going to be real time. The problem is it requires that the underlying inventory is properly added and maintained by the retailer as well - hence why now and then across all forms of retail you may see a sign or note on the door that they’re closed to do inventory. If they don’t regularly update their system inventory with loss/stolen/damage and all of that then they’re going to oversell.
I’d go straight to my credit card company if this happened. Tell them you didn’t get what you ordered, what you went through with the owner trying to return the wine and get your money back. See if they can reverse the charge and put the onus on the bad actors if they want to allow you to ship their wine back.
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I had this happen to me on Vivino with their retailer partner Yiannis Wine Shop. The retailer claimed a wine was the 2018 vintage when it was really the 2017. When I received the wine, all the paperwork/receipts showed a 2018 wine but the bottles were 2017. Vivino was excellent in my case. They just ask you to take some pictures to verify the mistake and they contact the retailer. It usually takes less than a week for them to get the retailer to respond. Vivino will offer you a discount of most likely 10% if you will keep the wine or you can return for a full refund. The retailer would have to pay for the return shipping was my understanding. Again, I was extremely impressed with how Vivino handled the entire issue.
I missed that part, in addition to being naive, I guess I’m not a good critical reader either! I stand corrected. Totally unacceptable.
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Buyer beware…Vivino policy was up to at least recently to substitute without warning. They don’t want the retailer to communicate with the customer directly. And they don’t really know anything about wine. We don’t substitute for exactly the obvious reason - namely, it looks bad. I got wind of some recent policy changes that I’ve not had time to digest and uncertain if it affects this situation. Although we sell through Vivino, I once again suggest you purchase directly from the vendor’s web site if they have one.
It would seem to me that if a retailer had a good website, and had some skill at online sales, they would NOT even be involved with Vivino? Just slap a data feed into WineSearcher and let that guide buyers to the store product, no?
The fact that Vivino DGAF about vintage is so Total Wine like.
At least in our case, and we use Shopify which is near real-time to our POS, Vivino is not real time and only uni-directional. Vivino orders do not update our inventory. I believe they are working on an integration that would be most appreciated. Further, under the current mode, we’re naturally going to fill our own site orders before Vivino, who grab a significant extra chunk of the gross.
Vivino certainly drives different traffic to our store. Figuring out how to get the most out of that traffic is the challenge. But it is a source of revenue not to be ignored.
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