From a recent experience:

It has come to the forum's notice that an internet buyer can order wines, put them into the web basket, and then find at the check-out and card authorisation process that the wines are not available for delivery.

Very frustrating for buyers. This disappointment can destroy the whole buying and selection process for wine lovers.

I know that Majestic and Laithwaites will attempt to put this matter right with compensatory offers as a matter of goodwill and customer satisfaction.

A recent email response from Waitrose on this matter does not appear to recognise this disappointment !

Publilius Syrus said: "The prompter the refusal, the less the disappointment" Roman author 1st century BC

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Duncan

Don't know about Majestic but not my experience with Laithwaites.

Ordered a case in their recent sale, got confirmed order email wiith a delivery date.

Then 2 days later got phone call that they'd oversold the wine, wanted me to take a different wine. Said no and they refunded my credit card.

Excpet when the bill came the refund was missing the £7 delivery charge.

Cock up they said, had been credited to my account instead of refunded, they'd correct and refund the credit card. And they'd leave the credit in the account...

Another thing that I dislike about the Waitrose site is- if you have a discount voucher it does not allow you to enter the code until after you have enterred your card payment details.

I want to see that the voucher has worked and what my new total is before I give them my payment details.

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Yep, Im still here.

Waitrose and other supermarkets websites are geared for grocery orders which cannot run out -- i.e. if you order baked beans they don't have to check stock levels because there is always new stocks being delivered...

But a wine website like Laithwaites should be coded to reflect stock levels and vintages in real time.

Perhaps the idea is to get the money and convince the customer to take an alternative

Hi Everyone,

I'm the Manager at Waitrose Wine Direct - more than happy to try and explain how the site works and get your feedback on what you do, or don't like.

On the question of stock levels - these are refreshed every 15 minutes, so are pretty near real time.

Duncan - it is possible for wines to sell out while you have them in your basket, i.e. prior to actual purchase. This also (frustratingly) happened to me during the promotion too! I added the wines to my basket on the Monday, but didn't complete the transaction until the Tuesday, by when some of the wines had sold out. During the frenetic 25% off promotions, this is still rare but can happen. i.e. adding the items to your basket doesn't reserve them - you must complete the order. Hope that makes sense!

GK - your comments noted. I think you can enter the promotion code prior to entering your payment details, but, yes, at the moment, you do have to enter checkout first.

Pontac - the Waitrose Wine Direct operation is not fulfilled out of local branches but from a central warehouse, so stock levels should have a high level of accuracy. If you order wines with your grocery order, then yes, these will be picked from the local store and you will be limited to the wine selection that they stock there.

I hope this helps - I'm happy to try and answer any questions if I can!

Best wishes,

Alex
Manager, Waitrose Wine Direct

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<i>Why is there so much wine left at the end of my money?</i> - Milan Maximovich

Feedback appreciated Alex.

One other point whilst you is 'ere- stop selling those terrible Blason wines!

Seriously, why has the cost of Chateau Musar increased so much in the last couple of years?

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Yep, Im still here.

Hear hear on both.
Honoured we are, yes. Thanks for the info Mr. A.
If you want to do a poor old man a real favour, then get them to turn down the temperature in the wine dept. of the Bristol (Henleaze) store...it's like a greenhouse in there.

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Four wheels move the body - 2 wheels move the soul.

Hear hear thrice. Alex, thanks so much for the comprehensive and personal reply. That's why we shop at Waitrose. One of the reasons.

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mel

Makes entire sense Alex, and cheers for taking the time to look in here.

My post was prompted by the disappointment for young Mr tribs, whose been very supportive of your service for wine lovers. Did you come across his thread and email to your people ?

You keep a good depth of wine stock from some good producers. We appreciate the effort in generally maintaining quality. The craggy range Old Renwick SB is a great coup.
We shop at Waitrose, been doing so for nearly 25 years, were shocked when you converted our lovely bijou store to a small Tesco look-alike, so were the staff ! We enjoyed the JL beech wood look and closing freezer chests and cupboards before, far greener and much more pleasant than grey plastic But that's progress, we were told ! We had to learn all the changed shelf locations.

Yep, thanks again for dropping by Alex.

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Duncan

Hi All

I've been a bit busy with the move. We moved Friday (although we nearly didn't) and are very happy, although there is still a lot of work to do.

Alex, what you describe, is most likely what has happened in my case. I had actually had one item thrown out of my basket and hence I presumed that the basket, when refreshed would be purged of items no longer in stock. So I had been periodically refreshing my basket assuming everything was hunky dory when in fact it was not. Perhaps this feature would be a useful addition. I appreciate that this may be difficult to incorporate into the website, but most of the other online retailers get around it in a rather simple way. They periodically purge the whole basket say after 12 - 24 hours. That way the buyer has to add them again and if they are out of stock at that point they are fully aware.

My second point, and this is perhaps the most frustrating, is that the checkout process proceeds through entering all your details and even keying in the card payment and confirming your online security (if supported by your credit card). You think that you have completed your order. At this point it then checks the stock levels and tells you there is a problem with your order. Why can the stock levels not be checked before wasting your time going through the whole checkout process. It's very frustrating.

Thanks for taking time to post here. Waitrose have an excellent selection of wines that represent excellent value especially when on special offer. I will still be buying Waitrose wines and now I understand the vagaries of the website I may order online, however it would be a shame if other new Waitrose Wine Direct users were put off by these quirks to your system in the future.

Regards

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tribs

For Alex.

My (Henleaze) branch is much improved. Much. Still not enough, but well on the way. The staff are very happy and so am I.
If 'twere any of your work then many thanks.

B

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Four wheels move the body - 2 wheels move the soul.