ThePortForum.com

Why is there such a diverse range of retail prices for port?

Surely pretty much everybody compares prices. In the old days I can understand that merchants got away with it because it was harder to do the comparison.

To name and shame I was thinking of Berrys listing of Fonseca 1997 at the wrong side of £1000 in bond. I check the site regularly and they have never sold one as far as I can see. What possible explanation is there for this, it looks daft and makes one assume that there will be other wines as wildly overpriced on the site.

We aren't always drunk and incapable of reading the bottom line when we buy port.

Some people don't bother shopping around. They buy from (e.g.) Berry Bros because they think the reputation is a guarantee (and perhaps carries a kind of cachet). It's the same reason some people pay a premium to buy things in Waitrose that are cheaper in Aldi.

I think merchants like BBR maximise the value out of a loyal customer base who are prepared to pay over the odds for certainty of provenance. I am not talking about us, I am talking about the seriously wealthy who form the core of the merchant's mailing list. What is left on the list after those guys have had their pickings looks odd when it pops up on wine searcher but they must be selling enough of it to sustain the price otherwise it wouldn't be there.

Alex will tell you that the right price for port is what someone will pay for it. If someone wants to pay BBR well over the odds for a case or twenty of port, good luck to them. More for us elsewhere.

I don't buy the argument that the rich are stupid. Some are I suppose. And I too have paid slightly over the odds because Berrys are reliable and have a great website, but this is nearly three times dearer, how could you not notice that?

I wondered if it is like those algorithms on Amazon where some book ends up being priced at ten million quid.

They have been known to have incorrect prices on their website. I and others here bought a stash of SW97 for £97 a case a few years ago. They honoured the purchases but then corrected the price to around £300 per case. A typing error no doubt. Perhaps this is the same.

I wasn't implying that the rich are stupid. I think Daniel hit it on the head with cache. Rich people regularly shop in places we could not dream of shopping in simply because that is where they and their friends go to shop. We all do it to a certain extent, otherwise we would all be buying everything from our local market traders and lifestyle supermarket chains couldn't exist.

LGTrotter wrote:I don't buy the argument that the rich are stupid. Some are I suppose. And I too have paid slightly over the odds because Berrys are reliable and have a great website, but this is nearly three times dearer, how could you not notice that?

I wondered if it is like those algorithms on Amazon where some book ends up being priced at ten million quid.

I think you should invite Berry Bros to comment on this thread.

DRT wrote:I think Daniel hit it on the head.

A compliment. I hoard these.