Video: A Better Way to Sell Wine
It’s great to see our economy making a turn for the better, but one industry in particular was not adversely affected by our economic downturn: The Wine Industry! According to the Wine Institute, every year the world is drinking about 1% more volume, and in the US alone, consumption has grown almost 15% making this an $18 Billion industry nationally and a $240 Billion industry worldwide.
While wine marketing and distribution varies significantly from country to country and state to state, there is a common trend: the internet has become central to marketing and selling wine as ecommerce grows around the world. A study by the Bordeaux Management School found online sales grew 30% last year alone. Based on the volume of wine sold online, I believe video will be pivotal in the future for online wine retailing.
While online video is no new concept, it’s still in its early stages of growth and for the wine industry it’s a very rare form of marketing. Some companies such as wine.com are slowing grabbing on and more informative sites such as winetaste.tv has begun partnering with a few producers to help increase online sales but one frontrunner in this race is Gary Vaynerchuk from WineLibrary.tv. Vaynerchuk (VAY NER CHUK) is one of the internet’s hottest retail celebrities and has built a business of $70 million with his wine tasting videos which attract 90,000 visitors daily. Vaynerchuk understands the value of online video and branding and has a profound understanding of what customers need when it comes to buying wine online. While his approach is very a-typical for the wine industry, he understands that people shouldn’t feel intimidated when it comes to buying such an enjoyable product.
Generally speaking, wine shopping is more of a sensual experience when in a tasting room but a guessing game at the grocery store. People are also generally going to spend more per bottle in a tasting room because they can touch the bottle, feel the label, see the color, get expert advice on region and food pairing and most importantly, they can taste it. For shopping online, video presents a fantastic medium to better educate customers on a particular bottle and ultimately sell more products.
Online wine retailers who utilize good video content and perhaps include wine tasting or cooking shows will gain a competitive advantage compared to more static sites with limited opportunities to educate buyers in an engaging way. While Vaynerchuk is on top of his game, he doesn’t represent every brand and many wineries may not enjoy his brazen approach to wine. There are 6,705 wineries in the US and 2,972 are in California, that’s a lot of competition. It will be interesting to see how the industry as a whole responds.
For wineries and wine etailers wanting to take the leap to better communicate their products via video, there are a few options we’ve discussed in a recent article: In-House vs. Full-Service Production which can help you decide how to take the next steps.
*Some of the thoughts expressed in this article are those of Doris Obermair from videoretailer.org in her article, Wine Videos: Watch and Taste!
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