My first thought was that companies like Inertia Beverage Group or even Southern Wine & Spirits should be jumping on this opportunity.
Brixr takes a 750 ml bottle of wine and transforms it into about 14 tiny sample bottles, complete with miniature labels.
Because I work in the wine business, I immediately thought of the industry applications.
Ideas like virtual trade tastings with wine buyers across the country. Or even having distributor wine reps sent out with these tiny samples, instead of the 750 ml bottles.
Each buyer gets a fresh sample and gets to see the visuals of the regular wine label at the same time. Less wastage, more efficiency and greater reach.
A very savvy example of how to utilize virtual trade tastings has been displayed By Israeli Wine Direct. The owner, Richard Shaffer, has seen success with online and/or phone tastings with trade buyers that are thousands of miles away and have never met him. It's simple, he sends them samples and sets time to do a web conference or phonecall with the trade buyer. Afterwards, they place an order. Richard is now running a pilot program with a run of tiny sample bottles from Brixr.
Seems as if Brixr is more interested in reaching out to the consumer with this concept.
A wine lover can order a sample pack on the Brixr website. Either that is the end of the transaction, or even better perhaps that consumer then orders a full bottle or case of one of the wines they sampled.
But I wonder, will a wine consumer really adopt the above buying behavior? Trade buyers are disciplined about sampling product and then making a buying commitment.
Will the sample packs in themselves be of interest to the average wine lover? Maybe.
But will they be enough to get them to return to Brixr's website and order full bottles or cases of said wine? I am not so sure of that. It would represent a significant shift in the buying experience for wine consumers.
4 comments:
Amy-
Interesting point. I see the applications for the trade (especially in places that don't have a lot of feet on the street), but for the consumer, I'm not sure... Will the volume justify the cost?
I like the concept.
As a consumer, and wine related business owner, I have always loved the "try before you buy" approach. If I can order sample size bottles of a winery's varietals, and then go back to buy the ones I love, I'd be all for it.
I can see many applications for sample size packaging - travel being one of them.
Hey Amy...
I'm actually toying with this right now. I'm really only interested in the buyer route (vs. consumer) since my production is so limited.
This is a great conversation topic as i'm debating how to approach.
Thanks for mentioning my efforts here, Amy! To Hardy's point...I see this as solely a good fit for trade buyers (versus consumers) - affording small suppliers/importers like me a more cost-effective way to introduce our wines to a geographically diverse trade buyer audience.
Richard
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