When a Customer Returns Wine

Nothing hurts more than a wine being returned by a customer because it's bad. "Bad" is very loosely defined with wine (as discussed below). Whatever the reason it's costly to replace and there's an irritated person who bought the product and might not again.

Problems in Shipping

Cork popped out = heat damage

It's usually temperature damage causing the problem, but can be from the wine shaken up in transit (bottle shock). Sometimes the winery shipped when they shouldn't have when the weather is too hot or even too cold. That is just dumb. Sometimes the customer insists because they have a party or it's a birthday gift. They will still be unhappy if the wine arrives damaged.

Sometimes it's the shipping company. If that happens once and they cover it then okay. If it happens a second time then find a new shipper. It's not just the money, it's the possible loss customers. You know what they say about an unhappy person telling ten other people of their experience.

Do most customers understand bottle shock when wine is shipped and they should wait a couple weeks before opening? Nope.

Lack of Consumer Awareness

A lot of buyers will treat wine like a bottle of water when it should be treated more like a carton of milk. There's a lack of knowledge concerning temperature, humidity, and light. Besides that there's aging.

In my own experience I've had year-and-a-half old rosé returned. I mean, who ages rosé? And who would expect it to be just as bright and fruity as when they bought it? Well, this couple from Minnesota did. Another was the couple who bought a case of Sauvignon Blanc, apparently put it in their trunk for the ten hour ride home on a hot summer day. Then, of course, called to complain because it was bad wine.

More than once I've had wine returned that was obviously cooked (had gotten too hot), but was told it was corked. Why corked? Because that's the flaw everybody has heard of so they assume that's what happened.

In all of these cases I replaced the wine. Damned expensive and not the winery's fault -- directly.

So this is usually about costumer education. Whose place is it to do this? Not the winery's, you say? Well, who's going to pay for their lack of knowledge?

Online Wine Purchases

Sort of an aside, but ...
A business consulting firm, Walker Sands, did a recent study on what makes people buy online from the winery. Number one was free shipping. The second biggest incentive? Free returns or exchanges. Whoa. So someone buys six bottles of a wine, tries one immediately upon receiving it when it's likely bottle shocked, did not like it so wants to return the other five and get a replacement for the one they opened -- all for free? That is going to get expensive. Not only in shipping, but in the fact that the winery can't resell returned wine.