Secondary Benefits
Kamp points out that tastings in a grocery
store environment not only boost
wine sales, but, when executed properly,
provide an opportunity to increase sales in
other departments as well.
“There are tremendous cross-merchandising
benefits,” he says. “We will pair a nice wine, a
cheese, a chocolate, or even something from the
deli area.” And, he adds, the hands-on nature of
wine tasting demonstrates to customers that the
store is committed to providing good service.
But what happens when in-store wine tastings
are illegal in your state, or require an expensive
license that you may not be willing to invest in
right now? Meijer, which has stores in Michigan,
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky, may only
conduct tastings in Illinois; it’s illegal to pop a
cork in the rest of the states except for Indiana,
which requires retailers to purchase a license.
To get around this restriction, Meijer provides
specially-trained “hand-sellers” who circulate
throughout the department, offering customers
advice and recounting various details about each
wine. If you can put a bottle into a client’s hand,
Kamp reasons, it’s 80 percent sold.
“People don’t want to, if they are going to
someone’s house, buy a bottle of wine and look
like they don’t know what they’re doing,” he
says. “If you have someone who is wine-knowledgeable,
and who can give them food pairings,
information about the winery or the history of
the wine, now you personalize that product for
them. Then, when the customer goes to somebody’s
house with that bottle of wine, they are
not only confident that they have the right bottle,
but they also have a little story to tell.”
In conjunction with tastings or hand-sellers,
special events are another good way to drive
traffic through your wine department. Kamp
recounts that, during tastings, some Meijer
locations charge several cents a glass to donate
to a local organization – solidifying the retailer’s
involvement in the community. Meijer will
also invite some of the country’s better-known
winemakers to come into a store to speak
and sign bottles. Every effort is made to have
wines bolster the store and to help the store
to sell more wine.
To encourage purchases, Ormon notes that
BLM offers a 20 percent discount on the wines
that are being tasted with a minimum purchase
of three bottles. Kamp believes that pricing
should be very aggressive during a tasting so
that customers are encouraged to try the wine
at home – and hopefully, come back to buy
more at the regular price. “My philosophy has
always been that you pretty much need to give
the product away,” he says. “I almost look at it
as a loss leader. I will sell wine at cost during a
wine tasting just to get the product into people’s
hands. If even 10 percent of the people that
tasted it come back the following week and they
buy it at full margin because they like it, or they
tell a friend or neighbor about it, it can be an
extremely powerful way to market product.”
A Bit About Beer
When it’s not staging wine tastings, Hi-Time Wine Cellars in Costa Mesa, California – which
also sells North American micro-brews and world-class beers – holds monthly beer tastings
based on various themes. Dan Rhodes, the store’s French wine buyer, notes that these events
differ greatly from those dedicated to wine, although both can be powerful sales boosters if
they cater to the consumer in the right way.
“It’s two different crowds,” Rhodes says. “There is a definite beer aficionado that appreciates
the subtle differences in beer, but it’s a little bit different in that it’s a little bit more
about a camaraderie between beer drinkers. There is more social interaction going
on and it’s more of a pub atmosphere. We provide snacks, such as chips, pretzels
and pizza rolls.”
During wine tastings, the store offers bread, but the focus on snacks is minimal
in order to keep the palette neutral.
Rhodes believes that this difference between the two beverages is rooted in
our social conditioning. “We are conditioned to think of wine as a more artistic
beverage and beer as a more commercial, industrial beverage,” he said. “I don’t
necessarily agree with that; I think there are some really artistic beers that are really
well done and produced in small quantities, and a lot of industrial plonk that calls
itself wine. I don’t necessarily agree with the perception, but it is the perception.”