I just realised this would make the last 3 blog posts purely about the wine business. Not quite in fitting with the history of my blog, but certainly in fitting with my mental focus over the past 12 months. This past weekend marked 12 months since we completed on the purchase of Affordable Wine, a 13 year old wine ecommerce business. I last wrote in January about what we had learnt, and what we had done so far. 7 months later and the anniversary of the venture it feels like time for an update.
As with anything you are deep in the weeds with, on a day to day basis progress feels slow. But every now and then, when you lift your head up, you realise just how far you’ve come. I made a list of 2022 “things to do” on the business and I had ticked off 70% of them by June. Not bad going when this is officially a “side gig”.
The Rebrand
I was never bother by the Affordable Wine brand. I saw it as a bit Ronseal, in the same way as Appliance Online used to be. Plus as a reseller of other peoples products do people care where they buy from if the price and the service is good?
But in the end I had to bow to pressure from my business partner in the trade. In his opinion it would be preventing us selling into other pubs/venues as it didn’t give off the right impression. Plus when asked they want to be able to tell their customers where they source their wines, and it needed to sound right.
So after a little debate, some heavy use of online translators, and then me finally just making something up everybody thought sounded OK, BonCru Wines was born. Loosely translated it means Good Vintage. But remove the “Wines” and it doesn’t sound out of place to sell spirits and other alcohol (in the pipeline…)
The website remains at www.affordablewine.co.uk though, I put my foot down there!
Moving into Trade
Last time I update we hadn’t yet done any trade business. This was always on the horizon as my business partners own a number of venues, but getting wholesale approval, and making sure we were set up to service them was trickier than we imagined. Now we are fully AWRS approved and selling through 6 pubs/eateries. This has transformed our cashflow position. It has also made our stock ordering far smoother as we know we can order 80% which is guaranteed for sale within a month, and it has allowed us to secure payment terms with suppliers.
This year we will look to add a few additional trade clients to the business but we will be selective. They need to be customers we can work with to shape their range, and who will likewise work with us to get everything right. Anybody treating us like a commodity supplier wouldn’t work out and would drain our limited resources.
Stock and Suppliers
We have a wine list of circa 160 lines which I dont think we will exceed. Some wines will be sold through and go out of stock, and we will replace them with others, but 150-160 is where we will continue to be. We have ample room to store this many lines, it provides us with an adequate breadth of range, and it means we can cycle lines which need selling through.
We are buying primarily through 3 UK based importers. This enables us to build closer relations with a small number, whilst also meeting minimum orders. Previously the business had traded with as many as 8, that is unsustainable for us. It can be frustrating as it sometimes means we can’t secure specific wines we know we could sell, but that is a small price to pay for the benefits.
Website and Functionality
At some point in 2023 the website will need an overhaul. For now we continue to bolt on and amend as we can to have it evolve as we want. This is mostly tinkering, but that is fine for now.
Subscriptions are now live on site with small but growing take up. when I look at our orders I feel like more people should subscribe and save themselves 10%, but there is no allowing for peoples behaviour. I guess our frequent customers tell themselves each month they wont be back for a while…
We launched a blog last month, but I want a few more post live before I push that too much. Over time I think this could be a major source of traffic as a lot of people look for advice and guidance. Growing this over the next 12 months is a major focus.
I want to overhaul our product pages, but that might have to wait a while.
Marketing
Our marketing is now more consistent. Our social media is in the hands of somebody far more creative than I, and our emails go out on a regular basis. These are our primary marketing channels and continue to drive good revenue. I would like our following to be bigger than it is (hint, hint!) but if we remain consistent I know this will come.
Our promotions are regular and strong. The industry is heavily price sensitive and even our loyal customers wait for the next deal to make their purchases. This is only going to increase as the cost of living issues grow.
Organic Traffic remains our main visitor source and delivers a large number of new customers to us. This has grown steadily since we took over the website and I have done a lot of work around it. There is still a lot to be done here, as in the very generic areas such as grape types and single phrase searches such as “wine” we are nowhere to be found. It is important we broaden our reach as we are heavily reliant on “cheap” keywords. And when Google decides that a map listing is the best result for a search for “cheap wine” or puts Amazon above us, we notice it.
What’s Next?
Our industry is facing a perfect storm in terms of challenges. Poor harvests have affected supply. Brexit has made importing tough for our suppliers. The war in Ukraine has made bottles hard to come by. Fuel increases have made our delivery charges rise. And now demand is in doubt due to cost of living challenges facing everyone.
There is so much we could continue to do, it all comes down to time and priorities. A website overhaul will come in 2023. Until then we need to continue to evolve our marketing efforts and see what that brings us, it doesnt feel like the right time to be doing anything significant due to the state of the world.
It will be our first Q4 with trade customers so we have that to contend with, and I remain convinced we will have a strong November/December on the retail side based on our website growth. If we do better than last year, plus trade on top, we will be in great shape.
We do have plans to introduce craft gins to the site via a local supplier which will add something new, whether that happens in 2022 we will have to see.
For now, the learning curve remains steep but we are still enjoying the ride!