Market Your Wine Business Platform
What use is a business if your customers dont know about it? Once your online wine sales platform is ready to launch, and the infrastructure behind the execution is complete, your next main concern should be marketing your brand and its services.
One of the best advantages of online marketing is that you can be sure that every penny will be used well. Because, in an online marketing approach, you can set who watches your ad by setting preferences based on age group, location, previous search intents, and many such factors.
Another great approach is to start your own wine tasting channel that wine enthusiasts will subscribe to. Although, remember that this would be a lengthy process that will only start paying back after youve given in several hundred hours and grew a substantial viewer base.
One of the quickest ways to handle social media presence is by connecting your online wine business portal to social media platforms. This way, you can directly post new product listings, offers and deals, and any piece of marketing content.
Email marketing is one of the oldest and yet the most evergreen approach to digital marketing. Dont forget to send out interesting and short emails to people that visit your business. Give them something to come back for, like special discounts, unique and personalized offerings, and sometimes just a few interesting facts or stories on wine and other popular alcohol drinks.
There are two goals with the online marketing approach:
Understand The Competitive Marketplace
While your wines may come with 90+ ratings and your boutique winery may have already attracted the attention of the local media, the fact remains that selling wines into restaurants is highly competitive. Even worse, its a zero-sum game, meaning that in order for your wine to be added to a wine list, it usually means a poor-performing wine needs to be removed. Just think of this from the perspective of a restaurant: why would you fill a wine list with a lot of low-velocity wines that nobody ever orders?
A recent survey on casual dining wine lists is very instructive and helps to showcase just how competitive the marketplace has become. Based on a study of 110 casual dining chains around the nation, the average wine list offered just 20 wines by the glass and 22 wines by the bottle . Moreover, since every restaurant will carry 2-3 options for the most popular varietals, its extremely difficult to convince a restaurant wine manager to carry a fourth Cabernet Sauvignon when there are already three other Cabernet Sauvignon wines available BTG and BTB.
Moreover, if you drill down into each of the categories, you will see that big, national name dominate every single market niche. If you plan on competing in the Chardonnay category, youll be going head-to-head with Kendall-Jackson and La Crema Winery, two of the most popular Chardonnay brands at national casual dining locations.
/11/2020 Looking To Add Your Wine To The Wine List Of Leading National Chains Execute This Detailed Strategic Plan Smartly And Make It Happen
For many wine brands, especially small boutique wineries, it can seem like an impossible task to get their wines on the wine list of a national restaurant chain or sold at the bar of a major hospitality venue. However, it can be done both efficiently and effectively. The secret, quite simply, is coming up with a detailed strategic plan that covers everything from how you plan to stand out in a crowded marketplace, to what type of customer support you plan to offer these restaurants on an ongoing basis.
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How To Sell Rare Wine
Selling rare wine is best done by going through an auction house or broker. This is because rare wines should be evaluated and priced by professionals to ensure you make a profit. They also take most of the risk on themselves, so you’ll be protected if something goes wrong.
Reach out to experienced companies first to get a rough valuation of your wine or collection. Factor in seller’s fees as well, then pick whoever you feel will do the best job of making you money. Then sit back, and wait for them to do the hard work.
Write A Business Plan
A business plan is a comprehensive document that details and guides all of your core business activities. It prepares you for the multitude of business decisions youâll need to make and uncovers any weak spots that need to be addressed.
An eCommerce business plan is even more important to an online venture than an offline one. Youâll need to establish a clear and compelling roadmap for all of your business activities.
Your business plan should include the following:
- Business purpose and mission statement
- Products and/or services offered
- Sales plan and projected quarterly revenue
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Selling Wine Bottles On Ebay In The Uk
You can, of course, quite legally sell a bottle of wine on eBayjust not its contents. And unless the said empties are of Bordeaux First Growths such a Mouton Rothschild or Petrus, the value will not make the effort of listing on the online auction worth your while.
Believe it or not, there really is a market for empties of these top wines: rare examples of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild are particularly popular, as each year since the end of the Second World War the Chateau has commissioned different famous artists to create a piece of art for the label, making the bottles exceedingly collectible. Even Prince Charles has had a go, producing a lovely piece for the 2004 vintage!
This trade in empty fine wine bottles does have a darker side attached to it. In recent years, top wine companies have taken to destroying the empties of leading Bordeaux and Burgundy vintages after tasting events, to remove the risk of forgers refilling them with fake wines and selling them on. Top branded empty bottles destined to be fraudulently refilled have reportedly changed hands for as much as £300 a piece.
Aside from eBay, there are other online trading platforms, some of which even specialise in selling wine. Yet they still have to cope with the same issues theyre not designed with the seller in mind. There is no proactivity, they just list the wine and hope
Try finding that on eBay.
Selling Your Wine Online: The Wrap
If you want to sell all or part of your wine collection, selling it through a licensed auction house is your best bet.
Start by making a catalog of your wines , and then locate at least three reputable fine wine auction houses to ask for estimates.
Once youve settled on a wine auction house, arrange for your wine to be picked up or shipped, and then sit back and watch the auction happen .
Happy auctioning!
Cheers!
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Start Building A Network
Building momentum with your business relies on having people know about it. In order for people to know about your products, they often need to see them in a context theyâre familiar with.
Common contexts for buyers include their existing shopping outlets, their circle of friends, and people who influence them. By creating business relationships that can reach each of these areas, youâll be in a position to create real traction for your business.
There are at least three types of networks you should build:
- Leads and customers. Individuals who are interested in your business are what will generate engagement and sales. You should make customer satisfaction and delivering value a prominent focus of your weekly work.
- Partnerships and those you can influence. If youâre friends with the owner of another food business, discuss the potential of a partnership. Offering buyers complementary products is a great way to introduce customers from both audiences to each otherâs business.
- Influencers who can act on behalf of your business. Influencer marketing is a fast-growing trend in the business world and for good reason. People are more likely to buy from those they trust, and people trust those they like. Look for opportunities to get your product in the hands of influencers who will be both honest and bold.
How Does The Wine Auction Work
The auction house will let you know the approximate date of the auction and the bidding process. Typically the auction happens at a location where people can attend in person, and online bidding happens concurrently.
Prior to the auction, your wines are featured on social media, in newsletters, and through other promotional channels to get the word out about an upcoming auction. These promotions may occur anywhere from one month or one week prior to the auction.
The auction house will advise which wines should be sold individually, which should be sold as a pair or set, and which should be presented as a vertical . These decisions are based upon the experience of the seller and their understanding of what people buy. In our experience, we have sold wines as individual bottles, as a set of three identical bottles, and as a vertical of three or five wines .
Each auction house sells a little differently. However, there are similar patterns. The auction may start with vintage Champagne, then go to white Burgundy, and then to collectible German Rieslings. From there, they may go to red Burgundy and Bordeaux before switching over to collectible New World wines
Each wine is presented. If the auction is online, you can watch each wine get bid on and sold! Exciting stuff for wine enthusiasts!
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Three: Ask A Professional
You found a number. Thats great. But dont get excited or disappointed yet. Past sales, provenance and physical conditionfrom label to cork and everything in betweenare part of a bottles evaluation. If you think your bottle is worth at least $250, talk to a professional.
What matters most, says John Kapon, chairman of Acker Wines, is that the person who appraises the bottle understands the wine market, as well as pricing for specific producers and vintages.
Kapon estimates Acker, a retailer and auction house, has appraised 10 million bottles in the 20 years its held auctions. Like other big houses, it generally deals in quantity, or collections that range from 30 to 3,000 bottles. Single bottles it considered recently include a 2017 Roumier Echézeaux, a 2017 Screaming Eagle magnum and a 2006 Château Pontet-Canet magnum. The pricing of these bottles hasnt been made public.
Shaun Bishop, CEO of JJ Buckley Fine Wines, recalls a client who wished to sell a bottle of 1963 Quinta do Noval Port, worth about $250. After examination, Bishop says, it turned out the bottling was actually the much-rarer label called Quinta do Noval Nacional Port. Its value is around $3,500. The client was very happy.
An appraiser may determine a wines value based on questions like where it was bought, receipts from the sale and how its been stored, says Charles Antin, head of auction sales and auctioneer for Zachys Wine Auctions. And, of course, theyll want to inspect the wine.
Relax And Enjoy The Pursuit
These are just a few of the numerous options you have when considering selling your wine collection. Whatever it is you enjoy collecting, from wine to baseball cards to rare coins, its nice to know theres a variety of options available if you need to sell. Setting your mind at ease will make you a better collector. Relax and enjoy the pursuit.
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How To Sell Wine On Ebay
eBay is arguably one of the riskiest ways to sell wine. It is a very involved option, as you have to pay a number of fees and undertake more responsibilities.
How it works:
If you want to sell alcohol on eBay, you will have to get approved. This requires being a registered business seller on the site.
Perhaps the easiest part of the process is listing your wine on the app or website. You will have to provide as much information as you can about it. So, we suggest looking at our checklist of things to know about your wine before you sell it. The more information you can provide about your wine, the better the bids will be.
All you have to do now is wait for the bids to flood in. In this time, you may receive questions from people who are interested, or private offers. We recommend researching the market price of the wine so as to avoid selling your wine below its value.
Once the wine is sold, the process begins to get a lot more involved. You will have to await payment, package your wine, pay for the postage, and send it. If the wines are expensive, you may want to look into insuring it, or looking into using an experienced wine courier.
Pros
Cons
At JF Tobias, we do not recommend you sell your wine on eBay.
Time To Start An Online Alcohol Business
We began this blog with the question, Are you looking for the best guide on how to start an online wine business in 2021? I believe your quest for the best business guide has found its home.
A word of advice the most important element of an online wine sales platform is not the wine but the platform. To start a wine business that sells online, you need to build an alcohol delivery mobile app that exudes high-quality user experience and app features. To achieve such a feat, you need to get the best alcohol app development company as your technology partner.
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Is It Legal To Sell Wine Online
Regulations vary from state to state, but in general, you need to sell your wine online through a licensed auction house. As we were in the process of downsizing to a smaller home, we contacted Leland Little, a wine auction house that just happens to be local to us in Durham, North Carolina.
There are several wine auction houses in the United States. If you have an especially large collection of fine wines, you will want to shop around to at least three auction houses for estimates before making a commitment.
We had a fairly small number of wines to sell, so we enjoyed working with a local seller.
Whats The Value Of Your Wine
Collectible fine wine has inherent value and real value. Inherent value comes from the wine itself. The way it was made, including the terroir on which the grapes were grown, the classification of the wine, the producers reputation, and the techniques the winemakers used to process the grapes all give the wine inherent value. Real value comes from what happens after the wine is already bottled, such as how it was stored and how many owners it has had in its lifetime.
A wine must have both of these types of value in order to sell for the highest profit. Look at the list of qualities below, and count how many accurately describe your wine:
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What Happens After Your Buyer Bids
If you sell your wine via auction house or online marketplace, shipping is usually already included. The professional sellers already have contracts with shipping companiesyou simply supply the wine. However, if you decide to sell the wine on your own, youll need to consider a complex set of legal steps before your buyer can buy it. You must:
- Get a wine-selling license through your state
- Get approval from your state to ship wine to your buyers location
- Check that your buyers state allows wine shipments
- Contact a trustworthy shipping company
- Pack the wine according to the companys standards
- Send the wine to your buyer
In some cases, you might be denied a shipping license, which means you cant sell your wine at all. This is why the sales fees for auction houses or online marketplaces are often worth the extra cost. Heres what happens when you ship via an online marketplace:
The last step is the most important one for your buyers. A collector who spends thousands of dollars on a top-tier bottle of DRC wants to ensure that the bottle they are buying is authentic and reaches them safely. Selling your wine through other websites like eBay doesnt necessarily guarantee authenticity or a refund for heat damage. Experienced collectors prefer to shop with retailers who offer them shipping thats specifically designed with wine in mind.
The Backstory To Selling Wine From Canada
Having managed wine storage facilities in Canada since 2004, and working on private cellars across the country, we frequently get asked to assist collectors in sell some or all of their wine. Typical reasons include estate sales, health matters, divorce, debt, etc. Many people realize that their palate has changed since they started collecting and theyre long in California Cabernet, for example, a wine they no longer enjoy.
Iron Gate began by working with US auction houses in 2008 to send Canadian collections south for sale. We would manage all the logistics, inventory, etc. and see the sale through to the client receiving funds.
While many clients were pleased with the results, others preferred not to have the risk associated with auctions in a very competitive market like the US. For this reason we began to form relationships with retailers outside of Canada who would offer a fixed price for the wine which they then resold at their stores.
In 2015 with the help of a US partner we began to look at the possibility of opening a retail outlet in NY. The concept was simple. The wine would come to our facility in Toronto for inventory and photography. It would then ship to a facility in Buffalo, NY where is would be held until sold. Title would pass in the United States through our US retail liquor license and the seller would be paid in USD from our US corporation.
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