We are making some changes following customer feedback.
The biggest change is that customers want us to curate the offers – they wanted us to do the selection and they wanted a fixed price.
The other elements remain the same:
- They set the price
- Anyone can pitch
- We take 10%
In view of my recent article about Naked Wines' proposal to change the way they trade by taking a group of their 'angels' round the London Wine Trade Fair, I asked Naked's Rowan Gormley how things went. This is his reply:It's been...interesting.
We found some corkers. The winner was an Argentine winery called Cavas 23 which got loads of votes, and sold out almost 200 cases immediately.
The Decanter World Wine Award medal winners looking for UK representation were less successful. I suspect this is because of the difference between what the wine trade see as quality and what consumers see as quality.
Half of the suppliers we spoke to said it was 'too good to be true' – and the other half found a million reasons to wait and see! I think we have a big education job to do.
Sales have been great – we've had over £100,000 worth of bids and we will know how that translates into sales when bids close.
The mechanism seems (but it's early days) to be working well, in that
a. Winemakers are adjusting their pricing to reflect demand
b. Customers are bringing in their friends.
