What Percent of Front Line Retail is Fair for a Cellar?

Short story - friend in another country has about 150 bottles stored in US. Wants to sell.

Some of the stuff is quite interesting (Yquem) some not so much (California Pinot).

A company that specializes in buying and selling private cellars is offering him about 35-40% of retail (as far as I can tell).

Is this reasonable? What would you say the range is?

Keep in mind that this offer is for ALL bottles not the 30-40 best bottles.

Maybe Lou or another ITB person could chime in. I think average/standard retail markup is about 50% (so 33% gross margin). But of course retailer buys only wines they actually want at that rate. There would be further discounting to get someone to buy stuff that is going to be a drag on the market at full retail. When you're estimating retail, are you going by low Winesearcher Pro? I tend to think on non-current vintage of things like midtier CaliPN that's a high estimate- if only a couple retailers, you often have wine at the price no one has been willing to pay for several years. Those willing to discount have already sold.
Depending what the actual mix of desirable vs meh, 40% (if they are arranging pickup etc) might be a good deal for someone out of the country. If that seems too low, maybe they could find someone willing to deal with shipping to Winebid or something for a small commission. But that might not be that much more lucrative in the end.

Has he considered parting the collection out - offering the "good stuff" at auction and selling the rest in bulk to a wholesaler? That might be a good approach to maximize value.

Sadly, that sounds about right to me. 50% markup overwholesale is standard, though not everyone takes the full markup. Still, considering that some of it is likely to have to hit the closeout bin for pennies on the dollar, 30-40% is probably fair. Just get at least three quotes from reputable buyers (like K&L, for instance) and take the best one.

Walt

Thanks to all!! He's looking for the easiest solution and he doesn't necessarily want to travel to the US to facilitate the deal.

The offer he got included going to pick up all the wine. So basically he does nothing.

Has he considered parting the collection out - offering the "good stuff" at auction and selling the rest in bulk to a wholesaler? That might be a good approach to maximize value.

I think if you're not here to do the work, you'll get basically zero for the rest. No one is going to pay much of anything for a collection of so-so stuff and arrange pickup.
As to the "good stuff", remember if you are not a large or regular consignor, most houses will charge a sellers commission and insurance (a few don't, but you still need to pack and ship out bottles). So if a bottle is typically $100 retail, and a buyer wants to spend $90 at auction, bid will be $70-75, you'll realize low 60s probably.