What is the average percentage of commission of a commission only wine representative?

Question

Just checking other views on what commission wine representatives make off sales.

Answer 1

So, when I owned my winery (after 15 years I had to shut it down) I went through distributors and agents. Distributors typically buy the wine from me at a 50% discount from the retail price and then mark it up to the 30% discount mark and sell it to retail/restaurant at that price, where the retailer marks it up to to whatever they want.

So, let say I have a $10 bottle of wine. I sell it to a distributor for $5. They mark it up to $7 and sell it to retail. Retailers usually will sell it for around 100% of the price you suggest. Restaurants sell at usually 200% of retail.

So, on a $10 bottle of wine the distributor is making $3 a bottle. That's what we have to work with. Of that $3 there are overhead costs, profits and % goes to the salesman. I once worked with a commission only wine sales guy and he was making 10% on a case of wine. So in our theoretical exercise he makes $1 a bottle or $12 a case. I think 10-12% is typical for commission only sales.

Being a wine salesman is a tough business and it takes a lot of relationship building and cold calls and super thin margins. Good Luck!