Wine — In a Flash
Everybody loves a good deal. In today’s market, there are opportunities to purchase wine at discounts from 10 to 20% or even as much as 40% off retail. These opportunities can be found at something called Flash Wine Sites. They typically offer limited quantities of wines at discounts. The wine is offered for a limited time – hence the name “Flash.” This can be a great bargain. Akin to Tuesday Morning or other discount stores, the situation is not one of searching for a particular label or brand – you need to be open to what is being offered. There are bargains to be had if you know your wineries and what the vintage being sold has to offer. If so, this may be right up your alley.
This is the market place born out of the excess inventory of wineries. For wineries with an excess, it makes a lot of sense to offer their inventory to a flash site to move it efficiently and quickly. In just a few short years, this segment of the wine market has grown to about 100 million dollars in annual sales. This accounts for approximately 25% of the online wine market, according to an estimate by the wine industry-consulting firm VinTank.
There are many Flash Sites now competing for your wine dollar. Here is a list of those most commonly used:
Cinderella Wine
Invino
Last Bottle Wines
The Wine Spies
Wine Woot
Wines Til Sold Out
Each of these websites will offer different twists to attract you to their site. The significant majority of wines being offered by these sites come from California, many of which are from Napa and Sonoma.
Sounds good, right? Just a few caveats… While shipping may be free, it is challenging at best to ship wine in the summer months based on temperatures. The vast majority of wineries will only ship during fall, winter and spring. Also, the question has to arise, how was the wine held while waiting to be sent to you? I personally am always a little shy about buying from sources where conveyance is of question. Also, how do they handle returns? What if you get a bad bottle? How do you exchange it for a fresh one? These are all questions you should be sure to get the answers to, so you safeguard your investment. There are bargains to be had, just make sure you know what you are buying. Check them out to see if they hit your sweet spot.
Enjoy!