Changes with Langtons

[ufo]

What do you guys think about the changes Langtons is making?

http://www.langtons.com.au/Magazine/Fea ... zineId=564

Arnie

[Polymer]

Not a big deal....I think the bigger changes are they're artificially inflating a lot of the prices now....

On the plus side, Classification Tasting this year .

[burges]

I too noticed the price increases. And delivery charges to Sydney.
It might be a good time to start looking at sales results of other auction sites.

[dave vino]

More people should support places like Wickmans if they are looking for Auction wines. Great personalised service.

[TiggerK]

Not a big deal....I think the bigger changes are they're artificially inflating a lot of the prices now....

On the plus side, Classification Tasting this year .

Price of classification tasting has more than doubled from last one. At least they're consistent.

Bet it's nowhere near as good as the last one too. We shall see. I hope I'm wrong.

[odyssey]

Indeed for me the plus of Langtons was the ability to collect in person.Having removed their only positive, I will most definitely be giving business to Wickmans and Sterling since they are all on even ground now in terms of not being able to collect in person, and all the better not funneling money into Woolworths.

[rens]

Not a big deal....I think the bigger changes are they're artificially inflating a lot of the prices now....

On the plus side, Classification Tasting this year .

Price of classification tasting has more than doubled from last one.

Since when did they get bought out by TWE?

[ticklenow1]

No tasting in Brisbane either. We are the wine backwater of Australia up here.

Cheers
Ian

[Brucer]

I too noticed the price increases. And delivery charges to Sydney.
It might be a good time to start looking at sales results of other auction sites.

If you elect to pick up wine from their Sydney office, there is no freight charge from Melbourne.

[Brucer]

Not a big deal....I think the bigger changes are they're artificially inflating a lot of the prices now....

On the plus side, Classification Tasting this year .

Price of classification tasting has more than doubled from last one.

Since when did they get bought out by TWE?

They were bought by Woolworths a few years ago.

[rooman]

I too noticed the price increases. And delivery charges to Sydney.
It might be a good time to start looking at sales results of other auction sites.

If you elect to pick up wine from their Sydney office, there is no freight charge from Melbourne.

thats useful information. i never buy at the melbourne auctions simply because i refuse to pay the freight to sydney. are you saying if you elect to pick it up from the sydney office they will ship it up from melbourne free? if so how you let them know you want it in sydney? do you have to call up?

[rooman]

They were bought by Woolworths a few years ago.

I believe the only reason they bought the auction house was to provide an artificial floor to the price of wines in Australia, particularly imported wines. If you look at the last auction you will see the passed in rate for some areas such as Bordeaux was close to 90%. If the house was privately owned there is no way they would allow prices to remain so high with the resulting pass in rates since an auctioneer only makes money on successful sales.

Prior to the purchase of the company by Woolworths, I picked up some amazing 2005 Bordeaux wines when the 2006 started coming in: Pontet Canet at just over $100 pb and Lynch Bages for not much more. Now they refuse to allow the prices to drop back down to the price at which buyers will buy.

I would buy at Wickman auctions but they really need to update there online website to match the Langton offering and run a warehouse in Sydney.

[Brucer]

I too noticed the price increases. And delivery charges to Sydney.
It might be a good time to start looking at sales results of other auction sites.

If you elect to pick up wine from their Sydney office, there is no freight charge from Melbourne.

thats useful information. i never buy at the melbourne auctions simply because i refuse to pay the freight to sydney. are you saying if you elect to pick it up from the sydney office they will ship it up from melbourne free? if so how you let them know you want it in sydney? do you have to call up?

Yes, free shipping from Melbourne to Sydney, and for sellers from Sydney to Melbourne.
I was worried about the changes initially, but after speaking to them, its all good.
Check out the link above. it says it all there.

[Brucer]

They were bought by Woolworths a few years ago.

I believe the only reason they bought the auction house was to provide an artificial floor to the price of wines in Australia, particularly imported wines. If you look at the last auction you will see the passed in rate for some areas such as Bordeaux was close to 90%. If the house was privately owned there is no way they would allow prices to remain so high with the resulting pass in rates since an auctioneer only makes money on successful sales.

Prior to the purchase of the company by Woolworths, I picked up some amazing 2005 Bordeaux wines when the 2006 started coming in: Pontet Canet at just over $100 pb and Lynch Bages for not much more. Now they refuse to allow the prices to drop back down to the price at which buyers will buy.

I would buy at Wickman auctions but they really need to update there online website to match the Langton offering and run a warehouse in Sydney.

I have been selling wines thru Langtons for many years.
Since WOW bought them, they actually have put pressure on sellers to LOWER their reserves, so wine sells. Previously I could put a reserve in the middle of the price range, now the minimum must be at the bottom price, and they prefer 10% below that.
So, I cannot see how this action would increase prices. Just the opposite, in fact.
If reserves are too high, they are virtually just storing the wine for free.
I have always found them to be fair.

[Michael R]

Regarding Sydney deliveries...this is my understanding
There is a $10 charge on all purchases delivered to Sydney, including the Langtons Sydney office, Wine Ark etc.
My info's based on a recent call from the Sydney auction manager (Caton), responding to my email asking for clarification on Sydney delivery charges.

Edit...Brucer...seeing as you also spoke to them, perhaps they changed their mind?, I got a call the day after the changes were announced.

[Brucer]

I spoke to Caton, and I am much more of a seller then buyer, and it does not effect things for sellers who drop wine off at their Sydney office.
I was under the impression that freight from Melbourne to Sydney for buyers picking up at their Sydney office was free, but now I think I will need to double check this.
I have been buying a little bit lately, and have just paid the $10 for delivery.

[TiggerK]

I was under the impression that freight from Melbourne to Sydney for buyers picking up at their Sydney office was free, but now I think I will need to double check this.

Suspect this is not the case, but hoping it is!!

[GraemeG]

Unless they abandon that absurd and profiteering $18/case or whatever it was from Melb to Syd, they'll lose a lot of trade.
I certainly had the impression that the floor prices did seem to rise once Woolies took over the show, although perhaps it's hard to separate that from general market conditions.
I do have the distinct feeling that I stood a better chance of picking up bargains under the old regime, and I think the clearance rate bears this out.
After all, it doesn't have to operate with the same level of profitability (over the short-term) as it used to: there's surely no doubt that Woolies use it as a clearing house for unsold stock from Dan Murphys and their other chains. If it takes them 3 months to push it out, who cares? - it's cheaper leaving it in a 'Langtons' warehouse than a Dan's retail shop...
All rather sad. I should make a bigger effort to support non-Woolies/Coles traders.
GG

[Chuck]

The market should always be allowed to determine prices after reasonable reserves are set. 10% clearance is not allowing the market to function properly.

Carl

[ufo]

They were bought by Woolworths a few years ago.

I believe the only reason they bought the auction house was to provide an artificial floor to the price of wines in Australia, particularly imported wines. If you look at the last auction you will see the passed in rate for some areas such as Bordeaux was close to 90%. If the house was privately owned there is no way they would allow prices to remain so high with the resulting pass in rates since an auctioneer only makes money on successful sales.

Prior to the purchase of the company by Woolworths, I picked up some amazing 2005 Bordeaux wines when the 2006 started coming in: Pontet Canet at just over $100 pb and Lynch Bages for not much more. Now they refuse to allow the prices to drop back down to the price at which buyers will buy.

I would buy at Wickman auctions but they really need to update there online website to match the Langton offering and run a warehouse in Sydney.

I have been selling wines thru Langtons for many years.
Since WOW bought them, they actually have put pressure on sellers to LOWER their reserves, so wine sells. Previously I could put a reserve in the middle of the price range, now the minimum must be at the bottom price, and they prefer 10% below that.
So, I cannot see how this action would increase prices. Just the opposite, in fact.
If reserves are too high, they are virtually just storing the wine for free.
I have always found them to be fair.

100 % agreed on the reserves. But they never just store the wine for free if the reserve is even reasonable. They put a lot of pressure to drop to reserve or pass on the wine to the Exchange Market without even sellers consent. Even worse, they sell the wines (to whom not kwon, may be to themselves to be sold at Dan Murphy's) at reserve before even auction starts. That's what happen to my 1998 Roeenfeldt Road Shiraz & Cabs last year

[Boyeah]

Indeed for me the plus of Langtons was the ability to collect in person.Having removed their only positive, I will most definitely be giving business to Wickmans and Sterling since they are all on even ground now in terms of not being able to collect in person, and all the better not funneling money into Woolworths.

Ditto that. But other auction houses mentioned above don't have as wider choices as Lxxgtons.
Plus when sending items from Melb also need to pay insurance and CC fee and Melb office is far inefficient comparing to Syd.
Guess we all can vote by our feet!!!!!
Boyeah

[dlo]

Certainly agree on inflated pricing since the WW takeover, particularly of European, and especially French wine - problem is any of the "other" houses who access Langtons website, seemingly, tend to follow suit with Langtons upward pricing lead, in any case. Suppose the "others" don't have much of a choice - in order to retain their vendor base. But the point that market forces are being largely manipulated here is mostly true IMO, no matter how much spin can be spun by the various protagonists. As was stated above in this thread, clearance rates at Langtons are so low, they now border on "pathetic" and the same dilemna will, no doubt, feed off to any copy cats ad nauseum if they persist with the same practice. A case of "vicious circle" here and just not in the spirit of what wine auctions were all about when I first started ITB. IMHO, since WW joined the market, the local wine auction market is, slowly but surely, going to the outhouse.

It must be said - I do have a lot of time for the bulk of the people ITB I deal with on a regular basis - Tamara, Ron, Mark, Merrilyn, Graham (you know who you are!) and I still do my bit from time to time to support them all with the occasional purchase!

[rooman]

I agree with David, namely the clearance rates are bordering on the ridiculous. Clearly if the prices drop to meet the market more people will move into this space and away from retail. This is most obvious in the European market where we pay nearly double the price of wines in Europe. WOW has no interest in letting this sector crash as there are clearly nice profits being made by everyone in the chain.

If the other auction houses are to compete however they need to upgrade their online trading platform. IMO this is still main reason Langtons has the majoirty of the market shares in the auction space.

[dlo]

I agree with David, namely the clearance rates are bordering on the ridiculous. Clearly if the prices drop to meet the market more people will move into this space and away from retail. This is most obvious in the European market where we pay nearly double the price of wines in Europe. WOW has no interest in letting this sector crash as there are clearly nice profits being made by everyone in the chain.

If the other auction houses are to compete however they need to upgrade their online trading platform. IMO this is still main reason Langtons has the majoirty of the market shares in the auction space.

Excellent point.

[Brucer]

If the clearance rates on European wine have dropped,isnt that a lot to do with the sellers demanding higher prices then previous? Havent French wines increased in price a lot lately, due to Chinese buyers, and this is reflected here also, in the auction market?
Sellers can put lower reserves on wines then recommended to move them. How is this Langtons fault that prices have increased?
If I have wine there that wont sell, I drop the reserve until it sells.

[markg]

I would buy at Wickman auctions but they really need to update there online website to match the Langton offering and run a warehouse in Sydney.

Working on it.. One man band here.. software programming usually comes after frantic wine sorting to get people their wine asap
But it is slowly getting there, I did at least 40 minutes today, rewrote code in the bidding logic, made the tracking page faster and fixed a problem in the new auction management tool (All unreleased and untested as yet)

I hear that Langtons is also upgrading their software too.. should be interesting, cant wait to see what ideas they will impliment.

I am working on Sydney and Melbourne.. logistically a nightmare.. somehow it should be possible .

Oh.. btw.. why do people think that the Langtons prices are going up ? They appear to be stable, at least in Grange, havn't moved much since 2011. Or are you talking about the exchange prices ?

[Brucer]

I was under the impression that freight from Melbourne to Sydney for buyers picking up at their Sydney office was free, but now I think I will need to double check this.

Suspect this is not the case, but hoping it is!!

It is not the case. Buyer needs to pay.

[Polymer]

Oh.. btw.. why do people think that the Langtons prices are going up ? They appear to be stable, at least in Grange, havn't moved much since 2011. Or are you talking about the exchange prices ?

It depends on what you're looking at.

For really popular items it hasn't changed at all...

For those less popular items they have changed the minimum on a lot of them...It isn't market pressure or previous auction results..you know that because you can look up that item and see what it last went for....

[Hacker]

Oh.. btw.. why do people think that the Langtons prices are going up ? They appear to be stable, at least in Grange, havn't moved much since 2011. Or are you talking about the exchange prices ?

Certainly in isolated instances they seem to jump up, for example in the current Single vendor auction Fourrier Clos St Jacques estimate is around $580-680. However last sale was $216 in 2013. Big difference. Justified? I don't know. We will see if they sell. 1996 Dom Perignon about a year ago jumped from low 200's to around high 300's overnight as well. I'm sure there are other instances as well I have missed.

[markg]

Oh.. btw.. why do people think that the Langtons prices are going up ? They appear to be stable, at least in Grange, haven't moved much since 2011. Or are you talking about the exchange prices ?

Certainly in isolated instances they seem to jump up, for example in the current Single vendor auction Fourrier Clos St Jacques estimate is around $580-680. However last sale was $216 in 2013. Big difference. Justified? I don't know. We will see if they sell. 1996 Dom Perignon about a year ago jumped from low 200's to around high 300's overnight as well. I'm sure there are other instances as well I have missed.

Interesting. It looks as though it may have been pressure from the vendor trying to recover a fantasy price as there is certainly no data to support $580 - $680 for the 2009. Their normal price guide is accurate though at $200 - $250. Over the past few years it has never sold higher than $253 (Feb 2012). In fact you could probably buy it less from the states or UK at around $300 - $400 (plus taxes, shipping etc.).

The Dom is a different story though. The higher price can be justified as there is data to support the rise in price. The 1996 was selling for over $300 back in 2011 but then dipped to around $250 in 2012 and has started to 'recover' this year. Although I believe all champagne will be dipping again later this year.

A lot of the price rises can be put down to individual vendors demanding higher prices.. but ultimately the power rests in the buyers hands.. and buyers at auction are not silly, they do their homework, know the wine and have a price limit they want to pay.