You hear that a lot out in the advertising world. Everybody wants to sound accommodating and consumer friendly, like they are anxious to fill the varied needs of a diverse public. It all sounds peachy when you hear the ads but perhaps doesn’t always translate to the real world. It’s easy for the corporate heads to advertise that they have a ‘liberal return policy’ when they aren’t going to be the ones standing in line for 30-40 minutes while the lone person in the return department is on break. Promising something is one thing, how (or if) those promises are met is quite another.
Most outlets can’t handle a lot of requests that are outside the carefully put together order sheets that the employees have to work with. We have seen the panic on the face of operatives when the ‘special requests’ don’t fit into the prescribed ‘boxes’. Granted it isn’t rocket science to grill someone’s onions for their burger instead of put them on raw. Obviously with certain types of furniture these days, everything is ‘special order’. Rather one must select not only the style of the couch but the size, upholstery, and complementary pieces. The point is that, when you hear about some outlets’ claims about, well, anything, you have to take them with the proverbial grain of salt. Their interpretation of what constitutes ‘fulfillment’ of the promise can vary greatly from yours.
We have always prided ourselves in trying to be as close to ‘literal’ as possible. In other words, when we say ‘special orders don’t upset us’, we mean it. That being said, however, we must also point out that there are parameters to the promise. First, if we’re going to go out and try and find something that is outside our normal, albeit very expansive and occasionally esoteric routine, there are a few things that sort of override the process. Everything is determined by the amount of effort needed to complete the task, and the size of the task.
There are plenty of factors that play into the fulfillment equation and, for the sake of perspective and full disclosure, we thought it might be informative to understand what some of those factors are. Now bear in mind virtually everyone in our industry has to go through some form of the same process. We’re just being up front about it. So, say you come to us with a special order for something, the key parts of the process go something like this…
PRICE: Of course most of these conversations start with ‘can you get this wine?’ and ‘how much will it cost?’ Even though it doesn’t sound particularly difficult, answering those two simple questions can be unbelievably daunting. First of all, to quote a price means we have to find a cost, which means we have to find someone who sells the wine. That is easier said than done. There are thousands of producers in California alone, let alone all of the other places that produce wine in the world. There are far more labels out there than most folks realize and new ones all the time. Even with as much experience as we have, the information required to be able to answer those two simple questions for all of the wines in the world is impossible.
There isn’t a single source reference for all brands. We can’t just pull out the ‘Great Book of Wine’ and get the answer. Such an all-encompassing source simply does not exist for even all of the wines that are sold within California. Purveyors can be region specific as well, meaning for example that a wine might be sold in northern California but not in southern California. Sometimes associating a particular brand with certain source can be next to impossible.
If you had the wine in another city, or another country, that will make the process that much harder because sometimes that wine you had doesn’t even come to California or reside with any source whatsoever within the state, or sometimes even the country. So we wouldn’t be able to simply order it even if we could find it. The process would be much more complicated even if we could find it in the first place.
PHYSICAL ACQUISITION: Every borderline you cross, be it state or international, adds to the difficulty of the process of acquisition. There are paperwork, licensing, and shipping issues that have to be resolved presuming you actually find the wine to buy. Some wines only exist in one place. There are California wineries, for example, that produce wines for export or for restaurant chains or distributors in other states, that are specifically only for those entities. You won’t find them anywhere else but those places (even though that same wine might exist under many other different labels) and never know the origins of the wine.
So let’s say we actually can find the wine you asked for via the ‘needle in a haystack’ process (sheer luck), in a quantity that makes business sense for us, and find a cost and be able to create a ‘landed’ price. But, wait, how do we create that price? There are also discounts, shipping quantity and dollar minimums, as well as potential U.S. and state taxes, just to name a few things that would have a direct effect on final pricing simply based on the logistical aspects.
Now we don’t mean to imply that everything is incredibly difficult. Often we know the purveyor right away. But if we don’t, it can sometimes take an hour or two just to find out who we are supposed to talk to. There can be special promotional prices and other variables that can greatly affect the final sale numbers which are not evident until one has that conversation with the source.
The bottom line is that, truly, ‘special orders don’t upset us’. It is one of the many things we can do that large chain operations, big box stores, or grocers simply cannot do. It is unlikely you will even find someone that knows what you are talking about in most outlets unless that item is very main stream.
You also won’t find many people that really understand the process in those other scenarios either. The follow-up systems simply aren’t geared to accommodate the ordering and receiving of ‘special requests’. We are pleased to be able to offer the service. We can and will try. But one needs to know going in that it can be an extremely difficult and time consuming process that may not ultimately make economic sense to anyone.
Sadly, all of this knowledge is both a blessing and a curse. While we feel the need to impress upon people how difficult this process is behind the scene, we are doing so to make people aware of all of the pitfalls in doing this sort of thing. Like that current pop hit ‘whatever it takes’, we are willing to ‘go the distance’ if the result makes sense from a business standpoint and we know what to do.
Unfortunately, the greatest cause for past consumer disappointments is something we absolutely have no control over. There is usually a reason that people seek a particular wine that is not readily available. It is because of their positive, possibly ‘aha!’ experience with that wine. People sometimes don’t think about context and how it can affect the joy of the moment.
If you had some wine on your back porch and it struck you as tasty, that’s one thing. Cases like that pretty much revolve around the wine. But there are also occasions where the wine is associated with a grander experience, where the perception of the wine is augmented by the backdrop. We learned long ago that, for some folks, the moment can be as important as the wine itself, and the perception of the wine is greatly colored by ‘other elements’.
So, like those drug ads on TV, we have a few disclaimers. While we will do our best to ‘get the goods’, there are certain parts of the process that made a wine’s experience memorable that we cannot be responsible for. Be aware that your enjoyment of the juice might well have had, at least in part, something to do with ‘the moment’. As we have stated, in some cases it is difficult enough to simply procure the juice requested. However we cannot guarantee your experience will be the same because we cannot presuppose or recreate the environment in which the moment occurred. In all honestly, you probably can’t either because so many things come into play.
What are we getting at? Well, an O.K. wine at the perfect moment will often shine greater than a great wine when you are in a bad mood. Therefore, we will not assume any liability for the affect the food, the significant other, the company, the sunset, the ambience, any body of water, or any other non-wine aspect had that made that particular wine experience special.
So, in the end, ‘special orders really don’t upset us.’ We just need for people to realize that in some cases the task can be prohibitively difficult. As for ‘the moment’…that’s on you.