Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Wine - Buying Influences, Marketing, Retail and Distribution


Find your retail price and this chart will show you who your target customer is, where they get influenced, how available like wines are and where they are most likely to be sold at retail and by distribution.

Juice Buyers – buying for alcohol content and are influenced by price.
Connoisseur – has favorite vineyards and varietals and will seek out wines with high critical acclaim and ratings, typically higher income, status and age. Brands are traditional and they are influenced by educated sales people in the store or traditional wine reviews.
Hipster – a wine drinking party goer, 20 – 30 something’s, enjoys wine, may have limited knowledge but is interested in learning. These are highly engaged consumers. They are influenced by friends, word of mouth and Social Media as much or more than traditional advertisement. Branding & Labels can be very important to Hipsters.

No matter the consumer, if they buy a great or poor product they will remember the brand and won’t make the same mistake twice.

Media Influences on Wine Buying
Clearly the most influential is traditional media, commercials and adverts.
At the higher price points, critical reviews and wine ratings are the most effective means of influencing buyers.
In the medium price range, $8 -$24, Social Media is gaining influence as are nontraditional reviews from bloggers and word of mouth.
As the price points get lower so does the influence of factors other than price.

As important as influence is availability
It is common sense that a fine Wine Shop should not be selling a $3 mass produced bottle, nor should a hypermarket have a  $2,700 Screaming Eagle on its shelf.  In the same sense a Winery must pick its importers and distributors to target the right retail outlet with the right clientele.
The smaller your production the less likely a “one size fits all” distributor will work for you. 

www.iwinefind.com is a resource for the trade matching wineries to importers, distributors and high volume buyers.

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