I would suggest revisiting their web site after you return the bottles to see if they now have “new” bottles in stock. That will tell you a lot about what they do with them, and the potential quality of any future purchases.
Take very close-up photos of distinguishing bottle features, such as label or capsule nicks, marks, and wear. Original price stickers or previous retailer labels work too.
Then, if the current retailer shows pictures of collectible bottles for sale, your can trace recycled rejects.
Slight thread drift: People should not purchase wine in months without an “R” in them.
That would solve the bulk of the problem right there.
Glad to hear the retailer made you whole. On their end, they will file a claim with FedEx which will take weeks to get an answer on and will receive a maximum of $100 for the claim. Basically eating the loss. Wineries deal with this too by eating a loss when FedEx and UPS fouls things delivery wise and has to replace damaged wine and re-ship it to their customer. Even more prevalent now with COVID delays and the Spring/Summer heat.
No winery could survive that.
One thing I learned from this and other threads is that it sucks to be a wine store. You specifically asked for shipping in hot weather, they obliged and offered overnight at their cost due to a small miss with the cold chain shipping. Then FedEx makes a mistake (and very publicly states that things are not guaranteed during COVID) and they are most likely on the hook, have to pay for return shipping and new bottles, when their only miss was to get the cold-chain shipment out the door on time. Now they’re being monitored whether they put those bottles back in stock or not. Not at all saying this should be on you as the customer, but it really does suck to be them.
Where aren’t snafus happening during this Covid period? It seems the whole world is in a never ending snafu! Ha!
Vinfolio was able to source the last bottle remaining from the same consignor at the original price (or they weren’t and they ate the difference?). Three cheers for them.
I will say, however, they actually RECOMMEND overnight shipping on their website. They say something to the effect of “you’re shipping during summer season, so we highly recommend overnight shipping.” Again, I actually didn’t see that notice before as I’d selected cold chain and was told they’d switch it to overnight via phone call, but they might want to reevaluate that language if they don’t want to be responsible for shipping snafus. OTOH, Vinfolio pays $0 for their inventory and they make 15% of the total sale price while having the consignor actually pay them to store the product. Maybe they can absorb these as a cost of doing business?