tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1080161909822087430.post8793129730348817025..comments2024-03-02T00:28:05.502-05:00Comments on Wine -- Mise en abyme: New Orlando Specialty Wine Retail VenturewineORLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06163150468541915038noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1080161909822087430.post-85833760452434248652016-05-28T20:57:47.242-04:002016-05-28T20:57:47.242-04:00I just stumbled upon this little bit of character ...I just stumbled upon this little bit of character assassination. First of all, LOVE the blog! Very professional, very insightful. Secondly, it is true, Park Wine Merchants closed owing money to two wholesalers. I assume the anonymous author of this smear was a young salesman from one of those wholesalers. Park Wine closed because my business model was to buy big deals, make the industry standard 32 gross mark-up and pass the savings along to my customers. So often my wine was half the price of other retailers in Orlando who were buying it one case at a time. Frustratingly, just about every retailer in Orlando and some as far away as Miami and Atlanta became obsessed with my pricing, and they would complain to my wholesalers and Wineries every time I emailed a deal. My "competitors" would have friends sign up for my emails under hotmail accounts and then forward them my pricing and a firestorm of complaints would be launched. All of these retailers would rather complain about me than go out and buy their own 100-200 case deals. But ultimately, my aggressive approach drew the attention of a large chain and they leaned on my largest wholesale partner to control my pricing or shut me down. So buy 100 get 100 became 1 on 5. Effectively, half price wine became 20% off wine. At the same time, the recession hit full blast and many of my customers in Baldwin Park ended up losing their homes. It was a perfect storm made even worse by this same wholesaler listing me after begging me to buy an enormous deal (oh please, please help us make our numbers) that I told them in advance I would not be able to pay off in ten days and then not removing me from the State list until I repaid 35,000 in discounts. That was the last nail in the coffin. Bad luck on the location due to a non-compete agreement, Torchiere interference, and a little razzle-dazzle from the big boys buried me. I assure you any customer that I ever had a disagreement with "it was on them and not me". I will put up with almost anything from a customer. There are many people with questionable morality in the wine business and I have had the misfortune of being screwed over by quite a few of them. It is completely true that I will verbally ream out any winery, wholesaler or sales rep. who screws me over. I am not tolerant of loose morals from the people "who work for me". But I am very tolerant of everything except the most intolerable act from my customers (who I work for). I built Park Wine Merchants from nothing to 880k in sales in 3 years and held on from 2008-2010. If not for that 35k in repaid discounts I would have repaid the other two wholesalers and I would still be a brick and mortar business today. But I can report that my business is doing quite well, no longer affiliated in any way with John Washburn and open for almost six years now (with plenty of happy customers). If the person who wrote the inflammatory post still has a problem with me, he can contact me at tom@tomthumbwine.com. But I imagine he was super upset because of how recently everything occurred (6 years ago). So there you go, my side of the story :-). Keep up the good work!Tom Pencehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13181580138701021539noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1080161909822087430.post-71007785492966963392010-08-21T21:31:11.853-04:002010-08-21T21:31:11.853-04:00The fact is that Tom Pence has been an a--hole to ...The fact is that Tom Pence has been an a--hole to people at every level of this business, from consumers to distributors to importers and wineries. Nobody should be surprised his business failed. And nobody should be surprised when his current venture fails. There is no room in the market for a self-righteous loser that berates his customers to their face and screws his vendors. If you want to know how badly he screwed his vendors, it's public record at myfloridalicense.com.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1080161909822087430.post-21856260826206865852010-08-20T10:57:20.749-04:002010-08-20T10:57:20.749-04:00Since posting this at 7:16 am this morning, I have...Since posting this at 7:16 am this morning, I have been deluged with calls and emails expressing displeasure with Tom's exit from his prior venture and the genesis of the current venture. This particular post is not an endorsement of Tom or his venture per se. It is, as indicated, a reporting on a new initiative in the market space.wineORLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06163150468541915038noreply@blogger.com