DTC is streaming, not broadcast
Wine consumption habits changed in these months of pandemic, and the data is especially important for Direct To Consumer, ie the direct sale of wine. There is no doubt that this will be the next trend.
Sales report: broadcast
To find out about shopping habits, you need buyers, study their habits and then offer the best product for them. And the more customers make their choices, the clearer their consumption habits become; Wine Clubs make their offers based on these criteria.
Of course there are reports such as Wine Market Council (WMC) reported by Wine Business. According to this survey of wine consumers, 41% are not very interested in the wine ingredient list; even 44% of wine lovers have an equally low level of interest in the vine cultivation method. The way a wine is produced is a bit more interesting with only 33% of respondents saying they have a low interest in the subject.
More than a third of them buy wine only to discover that it tasted different from what they imagined. Most of the time the consumer searches for wine directly on Google while in front of the shelf. Often this leads them to the Facebook group or the Instagram account of a winery.
Another interesting report on wine consumption habits is that of the Vinitaly-Nomisma Wine Monitor Observatory; during the lockdown, wine consumption increased for 14% of the interviewees, almost all Millennials in smart working.
Wine customer data: streaming
All these data are nice, but they are generic and not actually useful for the direct sale of wine. It would be as if Netflix made its proposals based on the behavior of viewers at the cinema. They are both film products, but one is streaming, the other is broadcast. The same goes for wine.
Purchasing at the supermarket or in a wine shop is different from buying online on dedicated platforms. Wine Clubs and vertical sales platforms think like Netflix, not cinema. They check which wines are most appreciated by their customers, and build targeted offers.
Sometimes they are a series of rosé wines, other times sparkling wines, often a mix of wines to improve the data collected. Buyer feedback is important to understand if they are selling the right product.
Some wines are specially assembled for the Wine Club, others are bought by small wineries. The consumer has to do is pay the subscription and wait for the next box with the wines to arrive.
The data collection therefore moves from the point of view of the company to that of the consumer; no longer what a generic customer buys, but what a specific one does.
Direct sales means that wine lover is the final consumer, don’t the restaurant or wine shop or supermarket.
The data of who opens a certain bottle remain in the hands of whoever produced that bottle; winery can stream its wine, no more broad them.
