I have about 50 price catalogues from my suppliers sitting on my desk at the moment, AND NOT ONE SINGLE ONE OF THEM has an RRP listed for any of the thousands of wines in those catalogues. Whether dealing with wineries or wholesalers, you will not find a single wine merchant who has definitive RRP’s on their wines. That’s not to say that I can’t ask a supplier for an RRP on a wine, but there is a possibility that figure will differ to what they give another retailer, and the reps who are willing to please may just give an inflated RRP to suit the retailers’ requirements.  What wholesalers/distributors cannot do is to coerce retailers in any way in to setting a minimum retail price for their wines – It is highly anti-competitive and illegal.

So when a retailer lists a wine as “$9.95 – that’s 50% off the RRP of $19.95”, it is probably complete bullshit. I even saw a retailer list a wine that they exclusively stocked in Australia as 75% off RRP. I questioned them on this and they swore black and blue that the wine sold for up to xxx elsewhere – despite the fact they had already stated this was their exclusive product in this market.

I also see RRP’s purposely worked backwards from the discounted price to get the desired discount percentage to suit the retailers promotion at the time eg 25% off an RRP of $38.35. I can tell you right now if a supplier did give an RRP, it would not be an odd a number as $38.35!

I can safely say as well, that MANY of the RRP’s listed by wine retailers are grossly inflated from any number that would be given to them by any supplier in a formal or informal capacity. I know of wines that wholesale for approx $17 that have been given an RRP of $34.95 by a retailer – I don't know of any wholesaler of any integrity selling a wine of any providence would EVER walk in to a retailer and say “I would like you to mark up this wine by over 100% please” – it simply doesn’t happen. (The only exceptions to this are clearance wines).

So, the moral of the story here is to simply ignore RRP’s when used to highlight the ‘MASSIVE’ discounts being offered by retailers. The only genuine value of the wine is what it is being sold for in the market today...

Dirty Trick # 2 - Vague Pricing Terms...Coming Soon!