The last few months has seen a plethora of transparent pricing initiatives launched by the fine wine trade, helping traders and collectors make fully informed buying and selling decisions. The wine trade is reorganising itself along financial market lines with transparent buy (bid) and sell (offer) prices and an emphasis on charging commissions rather than making margin. This is a very welcome development and is very positive for the wine business.
The recent launches include:
Richard Dawes Fine Wine – now allows private customers to trade on live bids and offers from Liv-ex, with a transparent 10% commission.
Berry Brothers & Rudd – has announced it is launching a platform for customers to trade their private reserves with each other (10% commission).
Bordeaux Index – has launched ‘Live Trade’, publishing bid-offer spreads on 60 top wines and allowing registered customers to both buy and sell.
Fine & Rare Wines – provides an instant online valuation from its database of market prices and allows customers to offer wines for sale through F&R if they so wish (varying commission).
Vinfolio Marketplace (US-based) – launching next month, a platform allowing customers to trade their private reserves with each other (15-20% commission to the seller).
We are excited by these initiatives which are complimentary to Liv-ex’s trade-to-trade exchange model and we welcome any initiative that enhances transparency, believing it will only improve market volumes and increase the size of the market. As the largest marketplace for fine wine with a truly global membership (250 members across 22 countries and 4 continents) we are well placed to provide data and liquidity to these new merchant offerings.
