The Auswine Forum

sjw_11 wrote:I dont necessarily think Woolies is deliberately trying to kill the auction business.

I mean, lets say Langtons auctions ~$10-15m of wine a year... Woolies sells >$4bn in the retail market. Its just not a competitive threat, its like the equivalent of half a Dan Murphy outlet . But the scale of those numbers gives you the answer - this is just not a big enough part of the business for them to spend much time or effort on. Really all they want from it is access to be able to buy 'used' wine which can be re-purposed as a "Dan Muprhys Cellar Release" with much higher margins in the retail stores... but even then this is only at the extreme edge of shaking out a few extra basis points of gross margin in a biz where you dont make a whole lot on the bulk of what you sell.

I struggle with this explanation. I have no idea what Langtons cost to buy though somewhere I seem to recall of figure of $30m or so. I can not believe Woolies spent that much on a business without a clear game plan. What people have been describing above it not far off fraudulent. I simply cant see the senior management of Woolies agreeing to buy Langtons in order to buy cheap wine to release as a cellar release. That degree of price manipulation should scare the bullocks off management.

n4sir wrote:

rooman wrote:I believe when you look at how Woolies have run this business since its purchase that they are deliberately trying to destroy the secondary auction market in order to maintain their margins on bottles sales through their retail liquor shops. No auction business can survive with realisation rates this low. For the lawyers on the forum, it would be interesting to know whether one could lodge a complaint with the ACCC. Acquiring a major participant in a market sector in order to effectively kill off that sector in order to support another sector might give the ACCC the basis to force a disposal of Langtons by Woolworths.

It's really hard to tell whether this is a deliberate action by Woolies, or they are just managing it through sheer incompetence - it would make an interesting argument for the ACCC though if someone had big enough balls and/or deep enough pockets to go into a lengthy legal battle with a corporate giant

Cheers,
Ian

The wonderful thing about the ACCC in this country is that if they believed there is foundation to the complaint that there is market manipulation being undertaken by Woolies that is seeking to adversely affect a market such as the secondary wine auction market, the ACCC would use it own resources to undertake the investigation. If that was their final conclusion they could then compel Woolies to dispose of the business within a certain timeframe. They could also stop it being sold to Coles as a competitor.

Mark

rooman wrote:

n4sir wrote:

rooman wrote:I believe when you look at how Woolies have run this business since its purchase that they are deliberately trying to destroy the secondary auction market in order to maintain their margins on bottles sales through their retail liquor shops. No auction business can survive with realisation rates this low. For the lawyers on the forum, it would be interesting to know whether one could lodge a complaint with the ACCC. Acquiring a major participant in a market sector in order to effectively kill off that sector in order to support another sector might give the ACCC the basis to force a disposal of Langtons by Woolworths.

It's really hard to tell whether this is a deliberate action by Woolies, or they are just managing it through sheer incompetence - it would make an interesting argument for the ACCC though if someone had big enough balls and/or deep enough pockets to go into a lengthy legal battle with a corporate giant

Cheers,
Ian

The wonderful thing about the ACCC in this country is that if they believed there is foundation to the complaint that there is market manipulation being undertaken by Woolies that is seeking to adversely affect a market such as the secondary wine auction market, the ACCC would use it own resources to undertake the investigation. If that was their final conclusion they could then compel Woolies to dispose of the business within a certain timeframe. They could also stop it being sold to Coles as a competitor.

Mark

I don't have any faith that they'd do anything of the sorts though..otherwise they wouldn't have let them buy Langtons to begin with...You only have to look at the retail landscape to see there isn't much being done to prevent one or two major competitors that completely dominate the marketplace...what makes it worse is they also allow them to own several different brands within the same space...The public is given the illusion there is competition (Vintage Cellars, Dans, First Choice or things like Coles Bi Lo in the same shopping Center). But the reality is quite different. They let them acquire both horizontally and vertically...

I don't think they're trying to kill off Langtons...not at all really. They're doing things to expand the brand, doing more events and even investing in a new site which I'm sure they're hoping will generate more money. I also don't think they can kill off the auction market even if they wanted to. There are enough alternatives out there in what is really a niche market to begin with....I actually think they'll be forced to make some changes to their new terms and conditions. One of the things that brings people to Langtons is the selection...but if the risk is too great for people to send them the less popular stuff then those suppliers will go elsewhere..they aren't really given an option.

It'll be interesting to see either way...

rooman wrote:

sjw_11 wrote:I dont necessarily think Woolies is deliberately trying to kill the auction business.

I mean, lets say Langtons auctions ~$10-15m of wine a year... Woolies sells >$4bn in the retail market. Its just not a competitive threat, its like the equivalent of half a Dan Murphy outlet . But the scale of those numbers gives you the answer - this is just not a big enough part of the business for them to spend much time or effort on. Really all they want from it is access to be able to buy 'used' wine which can be re-purposed as a "Dan Muprhys Cellar Release" with much higher margins in the retail stores... but even then this is only at the extreme edge of shaking out a few extra basis points of gross margin in a biz where you dont make a whole lot on the bulk of what you sell.

I struggle with this explanation. I have no idea what Langtons cost to buy though somewhere I seem to recall of figure of $30m or so. I can not believe Woolies spent that much on a business without a clear game plan. What people have been describing above it not far off fraudulent. I simply cant see the senior management of Woolies agreeing to buy Langtons in order to buy cheap wine to release as a cellar release. That degree of price manipulation should scare the bullocks off management.

Its not price manipulation... more price arbitrage. Consumers, knowing they buy from a reputable chain, will pay more than at auction (though the retailer, unlike the auctiuon, has to accept returns!). Woolies could (and did already) just buy at auction but why not control it? The main advantage is this might help you form links with investors/collectors with good storage/provenance. Then, when they want to sell, you might decide to offer a cash price for their whole collection in one go and ship it straight to Uncle Dan's.....

It was also a branding excercise - Langtons has a high prestige level and would add the brand image of high end liquor and Dan Murphy's.

Plus, I would suggest the existing profit of Langtons core business probably justified the price paid, which I seem to recall speculation being a fair bit lower than you suggest.

Site down yesterday for a few hours, upgrade? Now my password that worked Monday does not work Wednesday.

Did they push the closing date back again a day?? Is that even legal?

They pushed last weeks back a week..it was the 16th then the 23rd now the 24th...it is pretty stupid...

What is odd is the no reserve one still happened..so not sure what is making them change things on this one..

I spoke to Langtons this afternoon after having problems logging on my my iPad. They confirmed that there is a glitch with the iPads and Safari software.

Just a quick comment. Am finding the new site extremely user unfriendly. Very disappointing, I have been with Langtons for yonks, even back when they were in Flemington Rd(it was a completely different business then of course) . Will be expressing my concerns at upcoming classification tastings!!

Checked out the website for the first time this afternoon, and within few minutes I closed the window...

They're really going to get some feedback at the Classification tastings!
cheers,
GG

They're really going to get some feedback at the Classification tastings! cheers, GG

..it's probably going to be the last time that many of the 'winerati' will flock to the tastings. This smells (or should I say looks?) a touch like the TWE takeover. Well intentioned from a theoretical point and financial point of view. Totally misunderstood from a practical implementation point of view.

Langtons was Andrew Caillard and Stewart Langton's baby? Wonder what they makes of it these days.

FWIW I stopped using Langtons a few years ago - too may delivery stuff ups (not what I purchased/someone elses wine/non-delivery) and the buyers premium became a bit of a rip off (could get it for less elswehere with better provenance).

Cheers
Matt

Well, the Langtons site re-do has prompted me to have a look at the competition, since if I have to learn to navigate a new website anyway ... And I've just put my first bid down. I rather suspect that wasn't the intention of the website makeover.

GraemeG wrote:They're really going to get some feedback at the Classification tastings!
cheers,
GG

They will certainly get my not so positive feedback!!

mjs wrote:

GraemeG wrote:They're really going to get some feedback at the Classification tastings!
cheers,
GG

They will certainly get my not so positive feedback!!

I doubt the staff at the tasting will be in a position to do anything helpful about it. Why don't you put down your main issues with the site in an email and ask them for a response? They may or may not respond but it's more likely to get noticed or at least forwarded on to the developer to be tracked.

Despite the issues with the site, I've had two shipments delivered in recent weeks and was impressed with the turnaround time (delivered in a week after payment) compared to the old deliveries which would often take a month before being processed. Hopefully this continues.

When I emailed them about the login problem (fixed - probably had something to do with the fact that the new website requires an 8-character password whereas my old one was 6) I also told them (politely) the new site was rubbish.
Amongst the response they said "... passed this feedback onto our customer service team and hope to see further changes to the Langtons website to ensure that it is more user friendly."
so presumably they'll start fixing it up to some degree.
The only practical way to view auctions is via the PDF now, but that doesn't help with the bidding. Supposing I like the look of Lot 986.
You can't even add that to your bid list without filtering down to find the lot on-screen.

And now I see that my new log-in has stopped working anyway.
I'm pretty much over it at this point.
cheers,
GG

GraemeG wrote:And now I see that my new log-in has stopped working anyway.

Just tried to login and I am having the same issue. Was working on the weekend but now ...

On the positive side will save some money tonight as I cannot bid on the auction closing at 7pm!!

The first time I logged in to the new site you had to accept the new T&Cs by a checkbox - did you notice this?

Diddy wrote:The first time I logged in to the new site you had to accept the new T&Cs by a checkbox - did you notice this?

Yes ticked this box and actually purchased and paid for some wine last week. So not sure why I cannot access it now?!? Diddy have you tried today?

Andrew Jordan wrote:

Diddy wrote:The first time I logged in to the new site you had to accept the new T&Cs by a checkbox - did you notice this?

Yes ticked this box and actually purchased and paid for some wine last week. So not sure why I cannot access it now?!? Diddy have you tried today?

Yes, I was able to login a few moments ago - although it wouldn't let me make any bids as I hadn't given them my credit card details (yet)

dave vino wrote:The only way I can use it, is by downloading the PDF and scrolling through that, finding ones of interest and then searching for them and adding them to my watch list. Like Polymer you can't remove anything from it, even when you click OK 'do you really want to delete it'.

The pictures don't even show in the main notes of the wine when you drill down on some occasions so you can't see a close up of the bottle.

Admittedly I'm not a regular user of Langtons, but a couple of simple things I've noticed:-

1. You can't delete items from your Watch List (has been mentioned previously)
2. You can't go from your Watch List to the detailed listing of a particular wine
3. The detailed listings have a large image of the bottle, but it's oriented sideways meaning you're having to strain your neck sideways to inspect for ullage, label damage etc. The photo was evidently taken vertically; why not display it as such?

Andrew Jordan wrote:

GraemeG wrote:And now I see that my new log-in has stopped working anyway.

Just tried to login and I am having the same issue. Was working on the weekend but now ...

On the positive side will save some money tonight as I cannot bid on the auction closing at 7pm!!

interestingly, the login works at home (Firefox on XP). Work doesn't work (IE9 on Win7), but I notice that there's no error message on the login, it just kind of locks up; no login, no error message either.
Maybe when they've got a website that actually works, then, well, it'll work.
GG

Haha..I thought that might be it for the bid list removal too..but I tried it on several browsers..nope...

It is just really poor...If it didn't work with IE 5 or something old..that's ok...but all major browsers on major OS platforms should be tested...I'm not sure this was tested at all based on some of the things that have gone wrong...

Polymer wrote:Haha..I thought that might be it for the bid list removal too..but I tried it on several browsers..nope...

401 is a server side error.

Cam - Yeah..but I actually don't get that error (that doesn't show up with a 401 page) but I haven't looked into what is going on in the background to see if there is something else happening that doesn't just show up on the main page...

Polymer wrote:Cam - Yeah..but I actually don't get that error (that doesn't show up with a 401 page) but I haven't looked into what is going on in the background to see if there is something else happening that doesn't just show up on the main page...

Yeah it doesn't show up unless you look in the console in Chrome (or whatever equivalent section of other browsers).

OMFG the site still needs an enema (clean out the crap).
I started looking around the site and came across this https://www.langtons.com.au/productdeta ... ttlesize=1 if you look at a photo in the https://www.langtons.com.au/search/?Inc ... nIds=1433& area it shows a photo of Ch. Bataille, Puillac. So Burgundy = Bordeaux. It's just wine to some programmer.
I then checked some wine I submitted just before the "upgrade" and the bottle has the words "Pinot Noir" on the label. It is listed as a Chardonnay. WTF?

I will be having a chat with Mark about my next sales

cheers Phill

At the risk of going against the prevailing sentiment, I last looked at the Langtons website 18 months ago and I didn't like what I saw. It was clunky, opaque and like something out of the 90s. There was a sign up charge (off-putting). I went back there by chance yesterday and liked what I saw. I registered and have already started bidding.

It is far from perfect. As some of the commenters here have noted:
- No thought seems to have been given to the mobile experience (where as Dan Murphys and Grays have adequate mobile versions).
- The site itself seems slow - whether that's due to the site architecture or the backend server grunt or a mix of both is hard to say. But it could be considerably better.
- There are wrinkles in the search and filtering functionality.

But as a casual wine nerd (rather than a hardcore wine nerd), I want to use this site in a way that I haven't previously. My benchmark here is Dan Murphys and Grays (Yes, I like to spend Sundays in my extinct volcano lair, stroking my white cat and feeding incompetent henchmen to my giant mutant bilby) and Winestar and Cloudwine.

Site now not working on Firefox 28 or 29 this morning. Did work a week ago. Seems OK on IE11.

And on IE11, my checkout is showing all the wrong amounts for the individual bottles, at least the total is correct.

What a clunky, poorly tested, incompetent mess.

Nice service over the phone though.

TiggerK wrote:Site now not working on Firefox 28 or 29 this morning. Did work a week ago. Seems OK on IE11.

And on IE11, my checkout is showing all the wrong amounts for the individual bottles, at least the total is correct.

What a clunky, poorly tested, incompetent mess.

Nice service over the phone though.

Langtons want the members to testdrive and report all feedbacks to them!!!