Top wine brands choose Vente Privee as new route to market
Top name wine producers are using flash sales site Vente Privée to attract new consumers to their brands in the UK.
Harpers understands that deals between producers and Vente Privee - usually made for a particular consignment - are often done Europe-wide or direct, meaning they bypass the usual route to market. This could mean UK distributors miss out. But producers insist the sales drive brand awareness, and that consumers revert to traditional retailers for their next purchase.
Vente PriveeVente-privee.com offers producers a new, more direct, route to market in the UK
The French-owned site, which launched wine sales to the UK market in March 2014, averages turnover of around €10,000 per wine sale, which usually span three to five days. Vente Privée's sales offer discounts of around 40% on the standard retail price. Between now and Christmas it will average one new wine or spirits sale per week on the UK site.
Maison Louis Latour has tested the water in the UK with Vente Privée, after working with the site elsewhere in Europe. Commercial director Bruno Pepin said: "We have been doing some business with Vente Privée in France (where it has15.5 million members) for the last three to four years.
"We have also done the first UK wine offer with VP last year with moderate success. They have done relatively well in Germany and Italy for us.
"Besides being an additional business, their model has proved to be very efficient to bring a new audience to our wines and to Louis Latour in general, at least in France. Many of these new customers have purchased the wines in stores afterwards. We are testing the new AOC, Coteaux Bourguignons exclusively for them this time."
Corinne Chapoutier, marketing director at Michel Chapoutier Wines, told Harpers.co.uk: "We have been dealing successfully with Vente Privée in France for many years and have a lot of respect for the brand.
"Ventes Privée's sales remain limited for us in the UK. We do this type of sale twice a year for a very short time.
"By offering our wines through Vente Privée, our aim is to improve brand awareness, as we promote the brand to consumers who actually don't yet buy our wines. Therefore we see this operation as sampling these clients. They are a clientele who purchases at a discount price with the real value of the wine in mind; and if they like it, then they purchase it again with confidence through our classic distribution network."
Matthew Dickinson, owner of a commercial consultancy based in France, said that the traditional model - where the distributor holds all the power, was no longer valid nor was it the only route to market. "The whole model is changing as the consumer becomes more open-minded about where they're buying their wine. Producers have to have a lot of flexibility to cope with that demand."
Xavier Court, co-founder of vente-privee.com, told Harpers.co.uk: "We are very happy overall with the performance of our wine sector on vente-privee.com's UK site, having diversified the offer and extended it Spanish and Italian wines. The best success has undoubtedly been with our sales of Grand Cru Classé Bordeaux wines, as well top wines from Burgundy and the Rhone valley. Brands have been asking us more and more to open their wine sales on the UK site because for them it is an important way to make contact with a new type of consumer."
Other brands that have used the site in the UK include the Rhone's Dauvergne Ranvier wine (live today); Albert Bichot and Lurton. It also sells a range of Spanish, German and Italian wines.
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