Are your display decorations helping your customers get in the holiday spirit?
It’s that time of year again—the winter holiday season. Once again my favorite stores have jump started me into thinking about what to buy my friends and family. It’s amazing how as a consumer my brain shifts gears once I see the sparkles and shimmers of wintery merchandise displays. As I navigate through aisles of red and green, I can’t help but wonder what wineries can do to take advantage of the holiday season and what for many retailers is the biggest shopping time of the year. In this article, I’ll talk about what some of the big market research companies are saying about this year’s holiday season. I’ll also include a list I pulled together from my customer perspective of what I think are some simple ways winery owners and managers can use this information in their tasting rooms.
First, let’s define the “winter holiday season.” In its 2009 Holiday Retailer’s Survival Kit for retailers, the National Retail Federation classifies the “winter holidays” as the months of November and December—in total 55 days. “For many retailers, the holiday season can represent anywhere between 25 to 40% of annual sales. In 2008, holiday sales represented 18.5% of total retail industry sales.”
Is your winery ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
Included in the “winter holiday” time period is Black Friday, traditionally the day after Thanksgiving, and the day that many retailers go from being “in the red” (in debt) to being “in the black” (making a profit). To many shoppers, Black Friday is known as the kick-off to the holiday season and one of the biggest days for sales and promotions. Black Friday ranks up with the Saturday before Christmas as the busiest shopping day of the year. The Monday after Thanksgiving, now called Cyber Monday, a term coined by the NRF in 2005 after retailers began to see a clear online consumer trend in 2003 and 2004, is also a busy shopping day. Over the past few years retailers have seen consumers who were not able to purchase items over the Thanksgiving weekend or did not find what they were looking for, shop online the Monday after Thanksgiving from home or work to find bargains.
Now that we’ve defined the “winter holiday season,” and its importance to many retailers, what are some of the largest retail market research companies forecasting for this year’s holiday sales as we continue through our current recession? (Click here for a list of major market research forecasts and surveys put together by NRF.) Here are some of the things they are saying:
Nielsen Company, 2009 Holiday Forecast, 9/30/2009
Households continue to focus on “essential gift giving” such as staple consumables, candy, beverage/alcohol and entertaining at home.
The NPD Group, 2009 Holiday Survey, 10/13/2009
I think consumers will be looking for the right gift, rather than the most extravagant or expensive one.
Miller Zell, 2009 Shopper Behavior Survey, 1/12/2009
68% of shoppers are staying home versus eating out
5 out of 10 shoppers have brought special occasions or family nights into the house
So how can winery owners and tasting room managers use the above information during this year’s winter holiday season? Since
Are you helping your customers visualize practical uses for your wine and wine gifts this holiday season?
many consumers are looking for practical and essential gifts as well as bringing special occasions into the home, wineries need to help customers visualize how their products meet all of these criteria. Steve and I recently visited a tasting room that was selling apple wine. At first the tasting room manager offered samples of the wine cold just like all of his other wines. He later began offering his customers the wine heated and mulled. Sales increased dramatically once he offered the wine this second way. While the manager explained to us that people really liked the taste of the wine heated, I’m curious how many of these customers also bought the wine because they could visualize using it for a specific purpose. I know I always buy cider during the winter months and look forward to serving it to friends and family. Fall and winter parties just aren’t the same without it. I’m guessing this hot mulled apple wine is for many of this winery’s customers a practical and essential winter party item that puts an interesting twist on an old tradition.
Above I talked about how Black Friday and Cyber Monday are important retail days during the winter holiday season. In fact the National Retail Federation in its 2009 Holiday Survival Kit claims that the whole weekend—Friday through Sunday—is big. In 2008 consumers spent an average of $372.57 during the weekend. The NRF also claims that 1 in 2 retailers said Cyber Monday was the biggest sales day last holiday season and that 76% of online shoppers know the term “Cyber Monday.”
What can wineries do to gear up for these important days? How about creating signage within the winery as well as on your website that talks about how consumers can avoid mall crowds on Black Friday and Cyber Monday while getting great deals on certain products? You might include a flyer with each receipt about your specials for these days. Are you in contact with your customers through email or an electronic newsletter? If so, don’t forget promoting the convenience of online shopping and your specials on these days as well as the rest of the holiday season through these forms of communication as well.
What do you think? What winery shopping trends have you seen during the winter holiday season? How about on Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Please include your feedback in the Comments section above. Want to contact me directly? Please email me, Kelly Richards, at info@wineryprofitability.com.
Are you a member of the Winery Benchmark? Be sure to check out Steve’s latest password-protected article Changing Wine Buying Behavior where he talks about the value in promoting wine as gifts as well as safe ways to bundle and discount during the holiday season. Want to learn about how membership in the Winery Benchmark can help you save money and drive business to your winery? Click here.
