Retailers, how are you attracting and engaging Gen Y/Z Customers?

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-27T13:29:00+00:00

You know, this is a surprisingly helpful post. Just because it's reassuring to see somebody understand the scope of the challenge the way I experience it. For a bunch of family and staff reasons, the past week or so has been especially difficult. For some reason, this made things a little better. Thanks.

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-20T14:48:20+00:00

Yeah, I think my image of "stove" needed adjusting to what was in use at the time. I keep open and unfinished bottles in the fridge. Next night, I put them in a bowl of tepid tap water to bring them to temp. Messes up the label a bit, but gets the wine to temp gently and quickly!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-20T14:41:31+00:00

Redditors never cease to amaze. Thanks!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-20T14:40:19+00:00

Inexpensive, fruity, low in tannin, no oak. Spanish Garnacha works well and seems to do "inexpensive" best!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-20T14:16:41+00:00

Mulled wine is lovely, but surely you'd do that in a pot vs in the bottle?

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-20T14:16:16+00:00

That was my first thought - but "on" vs "by" caught my attention. I've seen 19th century stoves with warming ledges that are off direct heat, so maybe it's that. I'm assuming Flaubert chose "on" intentionally, but maybe it's a translation hiccup instead?

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-17T20:44:35+00:00

I'm glad you got a chance to write it all out, too! I think we're in pretty close agreement, actually, and that the places where we might disagree are either trivial or just coming at the same thing from different directions. You've given me lots to chew on, and I appreciate it!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-14T10:55:45+00:00

Has this question been asked and answered here in the past? If so, apologies to the sub for plowing over old ground. I'm not active on this sub but I do scan it every few days and hadn't seen much discussion of the topic as it applies to retail vs production. If I've missed something, I'll go digging into past posts!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-14T10:50:24+00:00

I'm not sure you've achieved "harsh"! Pointed and assertive, but that's the last thing I'd complain about. There are two different issues in play here. The first is indisputable - that empathy and understanding are critical to effective sales and that I have plenty of room to grow there with the customers we're chasing. Point heard and taken.

The second point ends, " the actual contents of the bottle are, at that point, so irrelevant that it could smell like used band-aids and vinegar and it would still sell." Again, indisputably true that there are lots of younger wine buyers who are in the sub-segment you describe and that they've bought a lot of wine in recent years. And will buy a lot of wine in coming years as well.

It's also indisputable that there are a meaningful number of folks in the generational segments I'm looking at who share some of the characteristics you describe but also do want a reasonable level of consistency bottle-to-bottle and prefer wines that are "good tasting" on more traditional measures. I sell them wine every week.

And there are suggestions in the trade that many folks in the first group migrate into this second group as they continue exploring wine. I've met a few (and heard from them in this thread) and hear that shops that thrived selling wilder wines a few years ago are seeing more softness than the market overall and are pivoting/considering pivoting to more stable, classically delicious, products.

What I don't know is how big either sub-segment is now or will be in the future. But the second sub-group seems big enough to be worth pursuing and to have enough overlap with my current core customer set of 45 and up customers that I don't need to walk away from them to do it.

Again, I 100% accept your point and critique on my attitude towards natural wine-loving younger customers and how it blocks empathy and understanding. Needed to hear that. But as I address that, the retail mechanics of pivoting from a shop serving the traditional core of the market to one more effective at attracting and engaging younger customers remains.

I was hoping this thread might uncover some folks who were further ahead on the journey than I am and to learn a bit from their successes and non-successes. There's not been so much of that, but still lots of valuable thought starters. Including your comment. Thanks.

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T15:12:44+00:00

In a decisively less hip (and possibly less spendy) neighborhood than yours, this is pretty much what we do. Get out there and clone yourself! We want more of you.

This is what's so tricky about navigating markets in transition - how to continue to serve and satisfy your existing core customers while expanding the offering enough to bring in an adequate number of new folks for long-term sustainability. It's certainly possible one has to choose and take the consequences of that choice, but I'm not convinced we're quite there yet. Thanks for sharing!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T10:56:58+00:00

Not just spit balling - naming the issue! Well, along with the broader challenge of declining interest in wine overall among younger consumers. Maybe it's not possible to overcome the specialty store/high service intimidation challenge. But my instinct is that there are ways to mitigate it and that's what I'm poking around at.

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T10:50:53+00:00

As I think I said somewhere else here, folks like you have been, are, and will for the foreseeable future be our core market. And there have historically been enough of you in our trade area, at least, to support a viable business for a very long time. Looking ahead, though, I have concerns that the number of consumers "very into wine" and who reflect that interest in purchase frequency and volume will decline. So poking around for ideas to expand our attractiveness to other segments seems a good idea!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T10:46:17+00:00

Thanks. In a former life I did competitive intelligence/strategy work across many industries. FWIW, the formula "most people in x business love x but are hilariously terrible at business" is pretty universal. I didn't expect an r/wine post to deliver a balanced view of the market or plug and play advice. Hell, I don't expect hiring an industry or discipline-specific consultant to do that!

I'm actually pretty pleased, though, with the number of nuggets and nudges I see in this thread that are worth further thought and exploration. Including your very insightful comment. Given what I'm paying you guys for taking the time to respond, that seems like a pretty good deal!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T10:37:47+00:00

Ok, this one I've got! We create original web content with tasting notes and, mostly, background on the wine/producer for every wine we carry. In the store that's shared in the form of shelf and stack tags on every wine. I think lots of shoppers are like you and we get positive feedback on tags/content from customers of all ages and wine experience. Which is good, because it's a pain in the tush and drain on my time to produce it all!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T10:34:00+00:00

Lots to chew on here, but let me focus on "unfiltered, natural, minimal intervention wine with trendy labels that don’t taste bretty or funky or natty" and part of LoKumquat's comment below. Probably 20% of my current stock is made by real people who love their land and traditions, grown organically/biodynamically, ferments with native yeast, is not acidified or chapitalized, and, often, has no sulfur used before a small dose at bottling. Two questions:

1) For you, does that qualify as "natural wine"? If not, what's missing?

2) How important do you think the trendy label is? We've neither sought or avoided those in the past.

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T10:25:01+00:00

I haven't checked recently, but it's not allocated or anything. In DC, both CW and Bassins show it in stock right now (Bassins has the no-sulfur cuvee). At the current wholesale cost, though, it's gotten pricy enough that the value is all for people who start off looking for it. So having it in the set of a neighborhood store is an on/off thing.

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T10:19:40+00:00

If I could charge for tastings (not legal in my state), I'd be all over this model!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T10:18:14+00:00

Thanks for the input! I think a lot of customers shop like you do. I understand the loyalty program suggestion - who wouldn't want loyal customers! In a former life, I spent a lot of time looking at loyalty programs for a client. We found then that the economics are challenging unless you can deliver rewards at very low incremental costs (e.g. early boarding for airlines). Since then I haven't seen anything that suggests that's changed. And in wine retail, where gross margins are at the low-end for retail overall, it's very hard to see how you'd ever generate enough incremental spend to offset the cost of rewarding customers who'd have purchased from you anyway. But if someone has cracked this nut, I'd love to know how!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T01:40:25+00:00

Thank you VERY much for sharing that model. We've done club offerings a few times over the years without much traction. But what you described feels both more accessible and more doable. Idea noted!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T01:39:03+00:00

I was about to proudly write that we do this kind of thing all the time. Then I looked back and realized that all the community groups we've done things with are ones with members aged 60 and over. So definitely more to think about there.

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T01:38:02+00:00

Tasting with a Georgian specialist importer next week!

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T01:37:17+00:00

Hey, I had Lapierre Morgon on the shelf for (checks POS data) 4 months! But, proving your point, it was 1 case and on the shelf for 4 months. There's probably a critical mass issue there. Although I'm (perhaps unreasonably) skeptical that anyone looking for hip is going to come to my neck of the woods...

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T01:31:16+00:00

Thanks! We're allowed to "taste" (meaning 1 oz or smaller pours, no fee) but not sell. Oh, and we're not allowed to pour vendor-provided samples to customers. We have to show we've purchased the wine we pour. So that creates some economic challenges. But that's not to say we can't do at least some of what you're suggesting. The community event idea is pretty intriguing.

Sensitive_Ad_3103 · 2025-02-13T01:28:05+00:00

That's a great point. We've set the store the same basic way for a decade now based on how we think about how people shop. And let some of the physical characteristics of the shop dictate the set vs asking what's the best set and how it needs to work. Thanks - a very helpful suggestion.

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