Open for business....i am tingling.

Wine Pimps
21

Hi Randy…yes, I can sell online, but have no immediate plans to do so. With the modest volumes I now buy, I doubt that I can compete with the big retailers. I have a Facebook page planned, though, where i can post recommendations, special promotions, etc and customers can discuss their likes and dislikes.

Right now, I see no real advantage to a full-blown website other than to my competitors who would have instant access to my pricing. I would appreciate your thoughts, though. Am I missing something?

22

Michelle, it sounds fantastic! Just wanted to add my congrats :slight_smile: Love the niche!

23

I do think there are a few things you’re missing regarding the advantages of having your own website…

One, letting FB be your online presence. They can and have altered policies in the past. Letting FB be your main online presence means investing your time in a place that you don’t control. A site gives you control of your information. More on that in a sec.

Two, don’t take this wrong, but your pricing isn’t important data. Tools like Vinquire and Winesearcher give people access to pricing from around the world. One new shop’s pricing just isn’t key data nationally and locally they can come in and see.

Three, and the biggest, is that you’re thinking defensively vs opportunistically. A website lets you build your brand in a way that you control. It lets you connect with your customers so that they can see things that you want to share. If you decide you’d like to sell online it’s a known place to do that from. It’s YOU to anyone who looks online for you. Heck, it’s even a customer service tool - “What are your hours? Are you open Sundays? What’s you address?” are all questions that can be answered on a site.

For example, if you can do weekly tastings, you can post the tastings for the month so that people who might want to come know that. You can post your own tasting notes so that your take on wines is there. You can post blurbs or even reviews of wines that have come in that you’re enthused about. You can do quick posts about things like ‘great wines to have with Thanksgiving dinner’ etc. You can give people a place to signup for your email offers so you have their permission to email them weekly or monthly or whatever with offers. Your site, properly done, is an extension of you and your store. And, frankly, not having a site in 2010 is rather like not putting up signs or buying a Yellow Pages ad in previous decades.

A site isn’t enough - it’s one part of things. You should ALSO have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Don’t repost everything, just actionable things (tastings and events for example). There are content management software products that will run your site and that can post to FB and Twitter, but honestly, posting to FB and Twitter shouldn’t really take more than 15-30 mins out of a day at most.

Finally, don’t underestimate online exposure for driving offline sales. For brick and mortar stores, most online interactions drive offline sales, not online. That is, they drive people to come in and buy. If someone searches for “Colorado wine shops” or “Trinidad wine shops” and you have no site they can’t find you. If you start to specialize in something (Champagne say), then when people search for that they won’t find you. No site? You don’t exist to someone who uses online means to find things and, increasingly, that’s everyone. Especially younger people who are more likely to be focused online.

24

Excellent post and comments, thanks!

25

++++ to Rick Gregory’s post above.

My own thoughts on the subject:

We all wish you the very best with your new venture, but approaching it from several direction is just plain good thinking. My own experience is in a highly competitive market (Orange County, CA) and one likely hit much harder over the past few years than Trinidad, CO but I’d still advise that you do as much as possible to market the business and to add revenue sources.

Regarding revenue sources: In my local market it’s virtually impossible to just sell wine in a small shop. A regular tasting format is a must, and having small plate food (or even more) seems to make a big difference too. One small shop does 80% of it’s business in gourmet food items (mostly jarred artisanal sauces, dressings & farmers market type stuff), hand-made candies, and wine-related accessory items. It has about 50 very good facings and is going to expand that soon, but lives on the ‘gift’ items right now. The shops that serve food seem to do the best overall, but that can be a very expensive proposition.

Selling wine online, I found, is really about having exactly what the customer is looking for at a reasonable price. True, you can’t compete wine-for-wine at your in-store price, but if your selection is unique you can do extra business online. It’s just something that has to be enough to pay the overhead of the site. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got (and didn’t use, unfortunately) was to create a second online store under a different name! Once you’ve set up the infrastructure of online sales, that would allow you to do additional business at more competitive prices, on those wines that require that kind of pricing without conflicting with your ‘branded’ store business. You own the inventory anyway, so if you have the space and time, why not? The extra volume can only help with your pricing on buys, if you keep it tight and under control.

Regarding ‘social marketing’: It’s been absolutely amazing to me how many people find out about small businesses through online social networking sites, blogs, forums, and just plain Googling. I don’t know if Trinidad is big enough or gets enough tourist traffic for it to help you from beyond the local area, but it’s not something to ignore these days.

Anyway… in spite of all that advice, I do believe in being sure you can walk before you try to run. I’d just advise that you give immediate thought to any part of the online world that you can get into with minimal cost and time as soon as you can.

Just my 2¢, but I really think this is very important stuff, especially these days.

26

One more reason to have a site - you could own the top results for a search like wine shop trinidad colorado. Note that there are basically no wine shops in that listing. Now, I get that Trinidad is small (About 10k people) - is there substantial population outside the city limits? That is, what’s your market potential? If you have only about 10,000 people who are even remotely in or near Trinidad that’s different than if you have 50 or 100,000 in the general area (say within 20 miles of you). From a map, it looks like there are no cities close, but you tell me. :slight_smile:


By the way - I would NOT invest heavily in a site right now, but I would make a modest investment. Even if it’s just domain that points to a wordpress.com site and that site just has some basic information and a way to follow you on Facebook, Twitter and signup for an email newsletter I’d get something up. Doing that is very cheap, doesn’t require you to host anything on a server yourself and you can export that information and take it elsewhere if you need to.

27

Rick,

Not to take away from the topic here, but how would you describe/recommend use of social online marketing for a wine ‘related’, mostly B to B product? I’m doing anything and everything to expose the world to my preservation device but it’s such a niche product that the connection doesn’t seem to be as easily defined.

We can do this via PM or e-mail if that’s easier.

Thanks.

28

That’s an interesting issue. I’ll think about it more, but ny snap reaction is that you want to do a few things:

  1. Make sure that you have a site that ranks for relevant keywords, e.g “wine preservation”, “storing wine” etc. Most of that is understanding what words people use when they search for what you offer. For example, we might say “Preserving wine” but many people might search for “keeping wine” - knowing that affects how you talk in the copy on your site.

  2. Having good info on your site and then a prominent Where to Buy section that drives interested customers to your retailers. Act as a lead gen tool that helps them. Businesses love partners that help them make money.

  3. I’d setup a Facebook Page and a Twitter account and use them to promote not only your product but related things - send out links to an interesting and relevant article on, say, Tom Wark’s blog. Don’t tweet/FB every wine related thing, but send out ones you find genuinely interesting. Mix in things like “I’ll be at the BLAH BLAH Wine trade show” too. If a client or prospect tweets out (or FBs) good or interesting news, retweet/share it.

Follow prospects if they have accounts on these services. Hopefully, they follow back… which means that the above messages get seen by people who have opted in to listening to you. Consider setting up and using a Linkedin account since that service is more business oriented.

Be consistent. Don’t follow people, get them to follow you back, share a lot… then stop. Then start 2 months later. You don’t have to be sharing all day, every day, but be consistent and be active.

  1. Setup Google Alerts for relevant topics. That will let you see what conversations are happening out there and you can, when it’s appropriate, chime in with comments. Don’t comment on blog posts about wine preservation with things that are effectively commercials, but make helpful, interesting comments when you have them. Make sure at least one of your alerts is for the word Vinassure so you know when people are talking about your product.

  2. Consider producing shareable content for your clients. For example, videos. I’d have to think about how you might use video to showcase Vinassure, but if you can, upload those to Youtube and make them sharable.

In general, you want to use SM as a way to promote your partners. Promote success stories about your product. Promote testimonials. Give them sharable tools if they’re clients and if they’re not, make it easy for them to find out about you by being prominent whenever people think about, search for or talk about wine preservation.

I’ll think more about this and post after the coffee’s kicked in a bit.

29

Wow…thanks for all the helpful advice on this. Rick and Peter, your thoughtful comments are especially appreciated. I am now convinced that an online presence is very important.

In the surrounding area for Trinidad are two towns of about the same size (approx 10k population each). Raton, NM is about 20 miles away and Walsenburg, CO is about 40 miles. That may seem like a long distance, but here in the world of uncrowded interstates, that really is nothing. Also, there are another three or four thousand people “out in the county” on ranches…people who I need to reach through special promotions.

While I am off to a strong start, I need to build momentum and I see now that the internet (other than facebook) is a very good way to establish an identity, control my presence and attract young people.

Thanks for the great advice, all.

30

Michelle,

Rick and Peter hit the nail on the head. Our store/website is Napa Valley Wine & Cigar. “Cigars in Napa” is a keyword that brings us more business than all the wine data. In this day and age, people go on to their Iphone/droid, etc. and google what they are looking for. You have thousands of people going north and south right by you and trust me, they are googling things in your area.

As Peter said, a secondary draw is both beneficial and a necessity. During the recession, we lost 50% of our on-line wine sales and most of our corporate Christmas orders. Cigar sales picked up a little and while the guys were in the humidor, their wives were in the cellar. We back filled our wine cellar with “value” wines. Everybody still smokes and drinks during a recession, they just don’t spend as much. That has carried us through what I hope is the worst of it.

We intend to put locally made olive oils and some good balsamic vinegars in at some point in time. That will probably be followed by cheeses, crackers and other items that go along with wine and wine service in our bar.

Oh, and by the way, holding Berserkerfests and Flannery Fests at your place is also a ton of fun. You get to meet all of us. flirtysmile

31

Oh yeah, Carrie…tell me about the emotions! I think my electrician is about ready to lassoo me. Thanks for all the support!