I've been buying some more Seppelt Show Reserve Sparkling Shiraz 2008 @ $57.78 after it was showing out of stock after my previous round of orders some time ago.
I have these delivered to a Parcel Collect address in the delivery area of an ACT store (Tuggeranong), the deliveries coming from other NSW and Vic stores. My last order of 6 was reduced to 4 and a subsequent order with my store set to Tuggeranong failed due to no stock available. One of my subscribers found another Sydney store with the low price and I succeeded with an order from there for delivery to my PC address, from a different Sydney store.
My analysis of their system indicates:
The algorithm is actually quite simple (apart from the sometimes noted exceptions).
1. Each store has a set of postcodes they deliver to at their listed price.
2. Each store has it's own price for each wine listed for delivery, even if they don't stock it.
3. When you order for delivery, no matter what your store setting for ordering, the lowest price at stores in your delivery area is allowed, but this may be much higher than your selected store.
4. Your delivery, once the order is accepted as above, can come from any store Australia-wide that has stock, no matter what their listed price. (There appears to be limitations on this per store, hence my ability to pick another store after the one I first used said no more stock, not that they had any in the first place, yet the price for delivery was honoured in the delivery area for the store with no more stock when I bought from a store with the low price in another area. Follow that?) In fact I tried an order from a high-priced store for delivery to my address within the delivery area of a low-priced store (with no available allocation) and the price reduced nicely in the cart at checkout.
Weird, but consistent. Very weird.
I'm not sure if multiple stores share some of the same delivery postcodes, I suspect some close stores would.
So, the only really crazy thing, if you accept the algorithm is reasonable, albeit a bit weird, is the odd occurrence of low prices at stores that don't stock the wine. That is really a strange thing to do and beyond my understanding of logic or even good business practice.
I don't really think the algorithm is in any way a normal thing to do either, I would have thought consistent pricing within a state/region would be more usual.
But I'm happy they do it this way, I'm reaping the bargains currently.
Update: There is one "gotcha" in the above, last bit of #4: The store with the low price has to show stock available (even if they have no allocation left), when they run out of allocation and the system (or someone) eventually updates and marks the item as oos, the trick no longer works.