The Auswine Forum

I hope this post is appropriate, in that I'm going to ask a question about another retailer. If it is not kosher I'm sure RB or Gavin will pull it.

I was In DM's today picking up some plonk and in my conversation with the fine wine dude he mentioned the back vintages of the expensive, hard to get stuff. He says Dan Murphy's get it from Langtons. Now I know as well as anyone that both are owned by Woolworths. My question is how can Woolies buy wine through their own auction house. Should this not be a conflict of interest? Especially when they know the sellers' reserve price. Anyone know how this is managed?

Langtons also do the Exchange, fixed buy now price wines. I expect they either buy on release and cellar, or buy collections as is, and sell themselves via the exchange, or make exchange sellers an offer based on their expected exchange price.

Cheers
TiggerK

TiggerK wrote:Langtons also do the Exchange, fixed buy now price wines. I expect they either buy on release and cellar, or buy collections as is, and sell themselves via the exchange, or make exchange sellers an offer based on their expected exchange price.

Cheers
TiggerK

I don't believe that's the case - I understand the exchange is essentially consignment service. Langtons don't take ownership of the wines at any point.

I have a problem with this whole model. I put some wines on Langtons auction, they didn't reach reserve. reserve was then lowered (by Langtons) and before I know it, the wines were pulled, put on Exchange and sold at this low reserve price. It was never my intention to sell anywhere but at auction. Who knows who they were sold to - perhaps DM.

When I signed my original agreement with Langtons many years ago, Exchange didn't exist. So I'm not sure how they justify this situation.

Mike Hawkins wrote:I have a problem with this whole model. I put some wines on Langtons auction, they didn't reach reserve. reserve was then lowered (by Langtons) and before I know it, the wines were pulled, put on Exchange and sold at this low reserve price. It was never my intention to sell anywhere but at auction. Who knows who they were sold to - perhaps DM.

When I signed my original agreement with Langtons many years ago, Exchange didn't exist. So I'm not sure how they justify this situation.

They have done exactly the same thing to me. I think some sort of dirty tactics are in place to acquire the sought after wines.

I stopped using Langtons a while ago because of this type of behavior. Unprofessional at the least.

Fortunately there are other auction houses that don't operate with such underhand and non-transparent practices.