Vine Republic: Avoid This Poorly-Run Website!
Written: Sep 23 '09 (Updated Sep 24 '09)
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On a trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, my mother visited the Inniskillin Winery where she first discovered ice wine. She brought a bottle home for my husband and the two of them have raved about it since. With the holidays approaching, I started researching websites that offer Inniskillin ice wine. I stumbled upon Vine Republic and my order experience has unfortunately revealed a poorly-run business with a lack of integrity.
Website
VineRepublic.com sells a wide selection of wine, including red, white, sparkling, fruit, rice, and dessert wine. I actually found the site through Google Shopping in a search for Inniskillin ice wine. I had found a number of sites offering 375ml bottles, which is half-bottle size. Vine Republic came up in a subsequent search for full bottles.
Though I was brought directly to my target product page, I did spend some time browsing the website. The site navigation leaves something to be desired. Customers can browse the site using category links in the sidebar on the homepage. Wines can be sorted by type, region, producer, or price point. Clicking these categories sometimes brings up incomplete results. For example, clicking "Canada" in the region section brings up only one wine when there are actually several Canadian wines offered on the site. The search feature offers similarly spotty results. A search for "Inniskillin" brings you directly to the product page of a particular Inniskillin wine, which is only one of several they carry.
The product pages appear to be sufficiently detailed. Each page features a picture of the wine, along with information about its region of origin, alcohol percentage, producer, and price. The picture can be enlarged, but not enough to read the label. Each listing has a description of the wine, along with any applicable reviews (Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Wine Advocate, etc.). A small note on the bottom of each page states that all sizes are 750ml unless otherwise noted. There is no information to indicate how much handling time is necessary before the wine ships.
During my time browsing Vine Republic, I encountered no broken links or page errors.
My Experience
As I previously mentioned, I found Vine Republic during a search for 750ml bottles of Inniskillin Ice Wine on Google Shopping. My search brought me to the product page of a bottle of Inniskillin Vidal Ice Wine 2006. The wine was "on sale" for $47.99, which was only about $10 more than the price other websites were charging for half bottles of the wine. I ordered two bottles for a total of $107.29 including UPS ground shipping. I was not charged sales tax. Upon submitting my order, I received an email confirmation confirming my order of two 750ml bottles of the wine. The next day, the shipping confirmation again reiterated my order.
I received the wine faster than I expected; five days after placing the order. The box contained two 375ml (half) bottles of Inniskillin Vidal Ice Wine 2006. The 750ml volume had been crossed out by hand on the packing slip and "375ml" was written above it. I emailed the company to inquire about the discrepancy and received the following email response:
"We apologize for the confusion with the Inniskillin Ice Wine .Sometimes the Internet Web site does not acknowledge half bottles. Inniskillin only produces Ice wine in half bottles, if you do not want this order you may contact us back at vinerepublic@aol.com to request a return shipping label to send back the order, which we will refund you back once the order has returned."
A voicemail was also left on the phone number I had provided that also stated that Inniskillin only produced 375ml bottles of the wine, without any sort of apology.
There were several reasons I felt this demonstrated a lack of integrity on Vine Republic's part. While I could have accepted that Inniskillin only produces half bottles of the wine, the company failed to offer a real apology for the inconvenience caused by their misrepresentation of the product. The wording of the email makes it sound as if the company is the hapless victim of an autonomous website. As a wine vendor, volume is an important detail of the product they sell and they should make sure (or have their web developer confirm) that their website is able to represent all of their products correctly. It specifically notes that every bottle sold on the site is 750ml unless otherwise noted at the bottom of every product page, including the Inniskillin Vidal Ice Wine 2006 page. Though there is a product description and review, which obviously is unique to this wine, there is no note that these are sold only in half bottles. Had I known more about this wine, I may have known that it is only produced in half bottles, but I shouldn't have to be an expert on a particular wine because I can't trust the website selling it.
The response to my inquiry would also suggest this is an ongoing problem for wine sold in half bottles on the website. A more responsible and diligent company would closely monitor transactions involving wines sold in bottles other than 750ml. The fact that the packing slip was hand-altered indicates that some employee did recognize the discrepancy. At that point, the proper course of action would have been to call me to notify me of the error on the website and ask if I'd still like the order. It makes me question whether or not they hoped I would accept the order without noticing the mistake, rather than admit the error and possibly lose the sale.
I would not have ordered from Vine Republic had I known that the listing was for a half bottle, since numerous sites offered this exact wine at better prices. Though they offered to allow me to return the product, I felt it would be too much of an inconvenience to send the wine back and order it from another website. I was disappointed that the website did not accept responsibility for the mistake, acknowledge the error, and offer an apology. They didn't offer a discount on future purchases or any other compensation for the inconvenience such as offering to match the prices of other sites. I felt this demonstrated that Vine Republic cares little about quality customer service or customer loyalty. A letter expressing my dismay over the handling of this situation received no response.
Overall Recommendation
I wish I didn't have the unfortunate opportunity of dealing with Vine Republic. I would not recommend them to anyone, as there are plenty of sites with better prices and better business practices.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
noangels
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 in Online Stores & Services |
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Member: Jamilynn
Location: Staten Island, NY USA
Reviews written: 226
Trusted by: 41 members
About Me:
So glad to almost be done with Christmas shopping!
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