s I start looking around for wines I discovered on woot, I'm finding a disturbing trend. The latest is my wife loves the Tasi Merlot, purchased 3 cases on woot for $89.99 a case (normal $216 (?) or $18 a bottle) ($7.42 each) . found a place in West Hollywood called Mel & Rose (on Melrose st) bought a case for $7.99 a bottle (after 10% discount for a case) this bugs the hell out of me.

Same price as woot plus time and gas. What other situations like this have you found? Why does it bother you so much?

Obviously you guys aren't in Ohio!!! With the State imposed pricing here, it is difficult to get the kind of deals those of you in other states find. The State of Ohio sets minimum pricing for beer, wine, and hard liquor can only be purchased at State liquor stores. At our locally owned grocery here in the Cleveland area, we get some pretty good deals, on some pretty good wine. For example, the Meekers were here in the Fall promoting their Rose, and following that there were some deals. But, nothing like I know occur in CA.

kylemittskus wrote:Same price as woot plus time and gas. What other situations like this have you found? Why does it bother you so much?

It took me about an hr total and 16 miles, Why does it bother me? Saying a wine is $18 a bottle and I get it for under $8 is a big discrepancy, don't get me wrong I have found some great wines here. but don't tell me I'm getting a 60% discount when I can go to a local wine store and get it for the same price.

I have a hard time following your logic. Woot states it's "x% off retail" price the winery sets. Seems much different than woot stating, "we're the cheapest place in the world" to buy this wine.

I guess I wouldn't be surprised to occasionally find a wine I bought here at a similar price elsewhere. Ok, actually I would, as most of the wines from woot I usually don't find locally.

fredrinaldi wrote:It took me about an hr total and 16 miles, Why does it bother me? Saying a wine is $18 a bottle and I get it for under $8 is a big discrepancy, don't get me wrong I have found some great wines here. but don't tell me I'm getting a 60% discount when I can go to a local wine store and get it for the same price.

16 miles is far!

Ok. It's the pricing issue that a lot of people have vented issues about. I think, although I'm not sure, that woot uses the suggested retail price which is almost assuredly higher than the wine could be bought for elsewhere (excluding allocation-only/rare wines). The problem is that woot would have a hard time knowing what every store sells a wine for. The reason is the f-ed up system of distributors we're stuck with. Example: tyger, ron, and I bought some Cameron Hughs CS from Howell Mtn. We paid $26/btl I think directly from CH. Then tyger saw it at Costco for $19. We were pissed, but what could we do? If a different price is widely available, WD will get his price to beat it. Distributors are outside of the control of the wineries, though. And ultimately, that's who woot deals with.

Not trying to be a wine.woot apologist; just giving some explanation about how the (f-ed_ system works thanks to the 3 big, multi-billion dollar, lobbying, distributing mother f-ers.

fredrinaldi wrote:s I start looking around for wines I discovered on woot, I'm finding a disturbing trend. The latest is my wife loves the Tasi Merlot, purchased 3 cases on woot for $89.99 a case (normal $216 (?) or $18 a bottle) ($7.42 each) . found a place in West Hollywood called Mel & Rose (on Melrose st) bought a case for $7.99 a bottle (after 10% discount for a case) this bugs the hell out of me.

Let's start with the first part - you tried wines on woot that you had never tried before and weren't aware of before - wow, that's cool... thanks for that opportunity woot!... and if I follow your numbers, the woot price was still lower by 7% and you didn't have to leave your house. That alone would be worth it to me, avoiding an hour of my time that's not wasted in traffic.... I'm not seeing the issue here.

jhkey wrote:Let's start with the first part - you tried wines on woot that you had never tried before and weren't aware of before - wow, that's cool... thanks for that opportunity woot!... and if I follow your numbers, the woot price was still lower by 7% and you didn't have to leave your house. That alone would be worth it to me, avoiding an hour of my time that's not wasted in traffic.... I'm not seeing the issue here.

I think his issue is the way WW advertised the listed price. But like others have said, that is not the price that I can get the wine for. WD doesn't have to scour every known source to see what the wines sell for in your neighborhood. But apparently his problem is that WD and the winery stated a certain price and he found it for lower. So he feels that it wasn't as good a deal as he thought. But the price he found it for is not available to everybody and I don't mind how WD and WW does the pricing. They go with what they know and what is available to them from the winery and not every known wine seller out there on the web or B&M stores.

Edit: That's a lot of rambling. Hope it makes sense.