A whine about wine
This morning I went to the Majestic Wine Warehouse (it's a shop here in the UK which sells Beer, Wine, Champagne and so on). I wanted to purchase a good bottle of Champagne and was looking to spend about £75 or so (approx $150). On top of that I was going to buy my "Christmas" alcohol, which usually consists of a couple crates of wine, and perhaps 50 or so bottles of beer.
I like a drink. Anyway, all told, I was looking at spending perhaps £200 on this trip. I asked for help in choosing a decent bottle of Champagne (for an upcoming birthday party) only to be told that they sell all Champagne only in crates. So I would have had to purchase 12 bottles! Errr, I don't think so.
In the end, I drove an extra 30 miles round trip to Waitrose (large supermarket) and bought a nice bottle of bubbly and all the other stuff. So, Majestic lost out on a sale.
Which leads to me my point about "giving the customer what they want". With big ticket items (such as a website build) I try to accomodate whatever the client requires. With smaller stuff like eBooks and what-not, it's "like it or lump it".
I'm not sure if I admire Majestic for not selling me 1 bottle of Champagne (even though I would have boughtbeer/wine also), or if I laugh at them for losing a couple hundred in sales. It's a dilemma. I'll have a think over a w(h)ine or two 
Comment by Toxic — December 14, 2007 @ 2:40 pm
Ah so you're one of these government statistics
Comment by Will — December 15, 2007 @ 1:01 am
Gary,
This post, to me, is the flip side of those posts where you happily 'lose' a customer because they simply didn't fit into your expectation of what a customer should be.
It seems (to me) like Majestic are targeting the customer who will buy crates as opposed to single bottles.
You might think they've lost out, but perhaps the customers you've 'lost' over the years thought along the same lines as what you do now…
Comment by burt — December 15, 2007 @ 12:12 pm
Yeah - s'why I said I should admire them
Comment by Dave J — December 15, 2007 @ 6:52 pm
Many larger players don't want the hassle of dealing with "small" purchases - what they lose they more than make up for in gained efficiency. I'm currently rationalising a business where sales guys who are too customer focussed have run riot and caused serious problems - short production runs, small batch sizes, extended credit terms etc. None of the costs adequately recovered. Similar issues.
I would likely do the same as Majestic unless I knew the punters were covering my costs and more.
Comment by Chance — December 21, 2007 @ 3:05 pm
Anybody notice how this is the last post in over a week?
Comment by burt — December 24, 2007 @ 12:31 am
Hic. I love you all, I do.
Comment by Mike K-H — January 12, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
I guess Majestic were right. If they sold you one bottle, they'd have to gear up for selling singles to get rid of the other 5, and they'd have the overhead of setting up their POS system to cater for single bottles (probably at a higher price per bottle than crates).
However, they should probably look at the option of selling single bottles of items where unit price is on a par with the price of a crate of 'ordinary' stuff.
In my local French supermarket, the wine department boss has the discretion to discount large sales (like when I bought wine fro my son's wedding a year and a half ago) and their POS system allows authorised staff to key in discounts at time of sale.