I am sure that most retailers are faced with this everyday. The look what is on their floor, they look at what the salesman are pushing and to me the most important, is what the consumer is buying.
Our store may not be the largest in floor space, but we take pride in having solid price points for every wine type that we sell, regardless of country.
I have made it very clear to some of the young associated, that when selling wines, (regardless of type) there are some basics (beyond the actual wine type/style)… the price Point!
So often when working with a customer asking about Wine Type (XXXX) (doesnt matter), I ask them about their personal likes/dislikes in wines. From that conversation, we start tarking prices. It always comes down to:
Under $10
Between $10 and $15
From $15 to $25
Over $25
That gives everyone a solid ground for selecting wines. I have made documents for our employees to follow. I outline the various brand names that fall into each of those categories along with the wine type.
All this helps for our staff in helping any customer make a selection. All that helps in providing the customer with something they want, not just something we want to give them
I have to be honest–I don’t really understand what you’re saying in your post 100%. With that said…
Seems kind of impractical to me to group everything in together over $25.
I’m probably just a punk who spends too much money on wine, but I ROUGHLY would break it down around: under $20, $20-30, $31-50, $51-80… any more than that and I wouldn’t just walk into a store to buy a bottle. Hell, I probably wouldn’t buy anything over $30 without doing additional research. Categories like this might be useful but they also seem to break down when you think about how the dollar value of a bottle of wine doesn’t translate directly to quality and how the edge of these hard lines is truly fuzzy.
If I’m going into a wine store and don’t want to spend more than $X but want suggestions, I will tell the retailer that. I get pissed off when I tell the retailer that I don’t want to spend more than $30 on a bottle of wine and the first suggestion comes in at $35. This happens way too often.
Without knowing your store’s inventory or your customer base, it’s hard to respond to the four price categories you’ve suggested. I agree with the comment that lumping everything over $25 into one price category is overbroad, but again, I don’t know your inventory or customer base.
I’m also not exactly sure what the point is of defining upfront four specific price categories. In the discussion with the customer, you can simply ask (however you want to articulate it) “is there a price point you have in mind?” Some customers come in knowing they only want to spend $X; others don’t have a specific price in mind and may be much more flexible.
I’m not at all sure whether or not the OP is asking a question here or just stating his way of doing business. On the assumption that this was meant to start a discussion about the relevance of establishing a price range with the customer…
I find that it is usually very important to establish a price ‘comfort level’ with a customer who is not establishing that level through what they’re looking at or as part of the questions they’re asking. Both shops I work for have wines from $10 to several hundred, so the range is large. I don’t want to oversell or undersell… or make the customer uncomfortable, so establishing that level with a simple straightforward question can be very helpful.
As far as price-bracketing is concerned… it DOES seem as if there is a natural price hurdle above $25, although (depending on the customer) there can be a barrier at $15 or $40. That’s why I’ll ask where they’re “comfortable” unless they tell ME. If the customer seems to be knowledgeable and familiar with the wineries we carry (judged by the conversation) I will let them lead. It’s really just common sense and understanding what the customer is really looking for.
That’s what I took from it. Establishing a price range the customer wants to spend is a good way to narrow down selections, then the staff can offer an up-sell through their expertise on the wines available in that range.
Not common sense for newbies. Brian, I’ve met you and you’re much wiser than most first-time wine retail workers. No reason to bag the OP’s thread. Just saying this is good advice for young wine folk just getting into the retail sector. Don’t try to read any more into in than it was originally stated.
Ron’s store is probably near the middle for size between our store and Bevmo and the other mega stores. As such, he probably has a different “daily” clientelle than we have, so we may have different models but similar issues. Until the recession hit, we didn’t have any under $20 wines and few under $30. Since the “warehouse” liquor store down the street closed, we are seeing a lot more people looking for good Cabs under $15 and “deals” like at the box stores. Our clientelle has changed enough that we have added “value” wines we approve of, but haven’t/won’t put in the stadium cut boxes of bulk wine AND we have had to direct a few people to where they can find it.
Another thing we don’t have to deal with yet is employees. I just can’t expect somebody who just wants a job, that is without a passion for wine, to think beyond price and color of the wine. It’s bad enough that I can’t speak competently to the character and history of French, German and Italian wines, let alone try to train a millennial generation employee about it.
Randy, all that is certainly relevant but it seems to me that the question here is whether establishing the customer’s price level is a good/necessary/helpful thing to be doing. I think the OP believes it is important in terms of providing the customer with a product that is what they are comfortable with and meets their need, as opposed to, I guess, keeping the discussion focused on the wine…regardless of its price or whether the customer is OK with that price range.
In a way, I think this is about whether ‘up-selling’ (or possible down-selling) has a place and where that place might be. It MAY be about a lowering of price level acceptability in today’s reality, but I didn’t get that impression from the post.
Peter–Just my opinion, but I think it’s unwise to treat all customers the same; e.g., to immediately start out talking about price and then impose some sort of artificial price grid and ask the customer to select their price point. From my days in wine retail, you quickly realize that some customers come in already knowing the specific price point they want. Others are very price-sensitive, but they don’t have a price in mind when they walk in the door. Others are relatively price-insensitive, especially when they come in looking to buy something like a “special gift” for a friend or relative.
One of the disadvantages to the approach suggested in the OP is that if you quickly present a price grid to the customer, you may get some people who quickly select the lowest price level that sounds good to them when in fact they might have been prepared to spend more per bottle. If a customer quickly picks a $15 price point, you miss the opportunity to sell them a $25 bottle that they might have preferred.
Personally, I think retail staff would do a better job asking relatively open-ended questions (when time permits) and then use the responses to narrow down the choices. The more you can engage the customer in the process of selecting the bottle they buy, the more likely they are to like their purchase, and the more likely they are to return. By contrast, if you immediately move to getting the customer to selecting a $15 bottle of [fill in the blank] and then pointing out what’s on the shelf, then staff miss a potentially valuable opportunity to sell that customer something else. Or establish a longer term relationship…
I believe a wine forum (or any specific topic forum) is usually a microcosm of the real retail market. When you start talking about running a business and selling a product to the masses, you get entirely different comments from people that frequent a forum, and people who actually frequent stores.
Since I have gotten into wine in the last few years, I have started to notice how others I meet choose their wine, or what they based their decisions on.
I have a variety of friends, that all make different levels of income, but I would say by far most are above average in household income. I still see the vast majority of them buying on label and price point. They simply have a preconceived notion about what they should pay for a bottle of wine and then go to either a recommendation from the store (or someone) or the label.
Perhaps I should have been more specific in my comment. I agree with you completely and was starting with where the OP started. I, personally, never begin with a price question… unless that’s where the customer begins [“What have you got under $10!”]. But I think the basic retail rule is to make a customer happy with their purchase and make them want to return. To achieve that you may need to determine where their price comfort level is. If you’re at all sensitive, and listen well, it’s pretty easy to determine whether or not the price issue is something that needs to be brought up.
I don’t think this level of sales/marketing understanding is necessarily all that obvious to everyone in retail, but I think it should be.
Peter–I agree. Sales staff can err if they try to undersell or oversell a customer who has a specific price point in mind.
Of course, some stores are just interested in selling the same wine to everyone who walks in the door. You know, the store got some blow-out deal from a distributor and has multiple cases of that wine on the floor, so the staff try to push it off on everyone regardless of what the customer comes in seeking.