Experience or Convenience?

      Throughout this course, I have been surprised by the number of online wine players that have been shared on the screen such as WineDirect and Wine.com. Despite the growth in this space, I still find myself thinking brick & mortar for my own personal wine purchases, however maybe I am just old school. For me, wine has always been an activity of discovery when dealing with lower priced wines, but when thinking about a more expensive purchase, I exclusively rely on a few trusted people for direction. For this reason, I was not surprised to read in the "Drowning in the Wine Lake" reading that the attribute ranked second as most valuable in wine choice was good customer service. It also stated that "at the specialist shop, having a staff with good wine knowledge was rated more important than a good selection of higher priced wines, implying that even more knowledgeable consumers want a salesman that can be trusted with making wine recommendations." So where does ecommerce come into play here and why would someone chose to forego the experience of wine selection and choice to purchase online? I think one of the key differentiators is knowledge and education in this space. There is no way to know what the wine inside the bottle will taste like without expert knowledge of the region, the varietal and perhaps even simply having tasted it before. The salesperson is necessary to bridge this gap between the product and the consumer. Without this expert knowledge, people are most likely to rely on queues such as a familiar brand name, an eye catching label or perhaps a brand name that triggers a recollection. Another thing to note is the differentiation of selection that consumers can find online vs. in store. Growth of online DTC has grown over 60% in the past several years, but when looking at lower priced wines under $15, that growth is much smaller. Perhaps, online consumers are falling more into a category of wine enthusiasts that enjoy the search for a delicious wine to round out their collection or perhaps even to gift to a friend. My assumption and learning from this course is that many smaller wineries are using the DTC online channel to circumvent the three-tier system and that wine enthusiasts that want specific bottles will go to the source to attain them.

      This caused me to think a lot about the role ecommerce plays in other luxury industries such as fashion or beauty. Many of the luxury players have been slow to jump on the ecommerce bandwagon relinquishing power of controlling the experience that consumers have with the brands. Consumers enjoy the process of entering a luxury house, being cared for by the associates and then showcasing their new purchase in a luxury labeled bag as they exit the store. This experience is lost with ecommerce, but with it, consumers gain convenience and expanded distribution availability. The question remains – which is more valuable to the consumer and does this change depending on what the product is that is being purchased? As ecommerce has become more popular, we see many of these luxury houses starting to adopt ecommerce as a distribution channel because of the benefits of being able to reach a wider range of consumers. The challenge is balancing exclusivity with availability. Many of the big wine players have managed to tackle this challenge by introducing wine clubs, but I will be interested to see how these luxury players continue to weather this trend – will the store experience or the tasting experience ever decouple from the purchase of wine? Will a world ever exist where we rely solely on information available over the web and forego the luxury experience for convenience? I am not sure that it will ever be that extreme, but I am eager to see how this industry plays out as technology begins to play an ever-present role in our lives.