In our post yesterday we were talking about wine clubs in the broader sense. Wine club as in social club – a physical place to gather. But of course, there are also wine clubs a la the old music clubs, where you subscribe to receive product on a regular basis. [level-members]
And those are worth a discussion, as well. Wine clubs have proliferated in recent years, with everyone from The New York Times and Food & Wine magazine to web-based firms like Club W and Lot 18. This is great news because it has raised awareness among consumers about wine clubs and made those consumers more comfortable with the idea.
Even better, most of the more widely-known clubs have set the bar pretty low. It’s a lot of wine that couldn’t be sold any other way. This leaves the door wide open for you to create a less expensive and more enjoyable experience. Less expensive because you won’t have to ship to most of your customers. And more enjoyable, because you’re better able to tailor your monthly picks to your market. You won’t make everyone happy, but you will be able to personalize in a much more meaningful way.
And you’ll give folks just one more reason to stop by the shop each month, which is always a good thing.
(BTW, if you’re not running a wine club now, we’d love to hear why. We’re working on a technology platform to help make managing club membership a breeze. We’d love to hear the issues you’ve faced so we can be sure to include solutions for you. Drop us a line if you’d like to contribute your input.)
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