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Ken Schramm

Ken Schramm
I am curious to know how the off premise business is going in various locations around the country and world (?).

What we have seen is sales shift dramatically to DTC, but we see some activity with grocers and others doing touchless, curbside pick-up service. My Chicago friends report that Binny's is still cranking. We just entered Illinois in 2020.

We are making decisions about whether to seek distributorship in the markets that we have not yet been in (New York, DC, California), or bolster our DTC efforts, or a combination of both.

I'm also interested in hearing how the assembled feel about the regional differences in buying behavior. Detroit as always had a dismal selection in comparison with Chicago, and I still buy things I can't get here and have my Chicago connections pick them up. My CSW connection has gone dry since they can't ship. Quelle drag. It does appear to me that regional markets with better retail selections see much higher loyalty to brick and mortar retailers.

What are others experiencing?
 
The two local shops I frequent , one in DE and one in MD (Stateline liquors) tell me its essentially like Thanksgiving/Christmas season never ended. My DE shop is curbside only and has been insanely busy. Stateline has remained open to walk-ins and is also very busy. Some of this has to do with PA residents coming into DE to buy alcohol due to the PLCB ineptness.
If you want more info or contact info for either store DM me. (i am not affiliated with them financially in any way)
 
B-21, the largest quality retailer in the Tampa/St. Petersburg market, is so backed up with deliveries that customers are waiting 10-14 days for delivery.
I do not know if they are doing curbside.
And I believe that the state/county lockdown is about to be lifted for them so that customers may enter the store - whether they decide to do that is unknown.
Best, Jim
 
Ken, not sure how to answer.

Chambers St is doing delivery only, no pickup.

My local places are doing both. I know one better than the other, and the manager there says he doesn't see a pipeline problem but he hasn't got the scratch to refill the shelves indiscriminately. He's buying what moves and even those have to wait their turn.

My mail order faves seem to be BAU. But I don't place any time demands on them so if they really were running 50% longer I probably wouldn't notice.
 
Not ITB, so how would I know? If you are, then you ought to have first hand info that we mortals cannot obtain, but I hear booze is selling like hotcakes.
 
In NYC I get the sense stores with a strong internet / email business are doing just fine, but those that rely significantly on foot traffic and/or business clients are not. I think Brad Kane has some anecdotal evidence in this. Maybe he will share?
 
Wine sales in national retail scan data (skewed towards chains, big box stores like Binny's and larger brands under $20) showed growth slowing after the initial burst of pantry-stocking; but through the end of April they were still moderately above last year, by around 4%. There's no sign yet of consumers trading down; partly because wine consumer demographics are much less directly impacted by the pandemic economy, but also probably because the induced and indirect effects haven't been fully felt yet.

On the other hand, smaller wineries and distributors did not necessarily participate as much in the off-premise sales surge, due to chaos in the wholesale tier and numerous out-of-stocks that are not necessarily being refilled. Total # of wine SKUs in scan data shrank. I think this is highly variable by market.

From the limited hard data available, online sales jumped enormously in March and are still well above 2019 levels. Tasting room sales are nearly dead, but winery club sales are holding up and ad hoc website sales increased with the general online surge.

For overall wine sales (in volume), it's looking flat to slightly up when you offset the on-premise disaster vs. off-premise sales. The big question is whether all the pantry-stocking, deliveries and online sales will increase consumption or just shift the timing of purchases. I think we'll know a lot more about that in a month or so.
 
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
In NYC I get the sense stores with a strong internet / email business are doing just fine, but those that rely significantly on foot traffic and/or business clients are not. I think Brad Kane has some anecdotal evidence in this. Maybe he will share?
Click to expand...

Yep. It's also all about location. If you read reports, it's Christmas everyday for wine stores, but the store I'm at relies on corporate business and the employees from those businesses that would come in after work. That business is all gone and while there's some residential business around, half of those people have gotten out of Dodge. The store has expanded its delivery range and has taken advantage of some of those cheap delivery services that only charge the store $5 a delivery, which is much cheaper than having delivery folks on staff, but even so, the store is down 50%-60% for these same months last year. A number of stores in the city have also decided to stay shut during this period.
 
Thanks Brad and Christian. That is exactly the kind of feedback I was needing. Our tasting room is closed. DTC business remains our lifeline. We're seeing the beginnings of a rebound in sales to retailers and distributors.

Our sales have never skewed significantly toward on premise, and for that I am presently very thankful. Many of my colleagues and friends from my amateur phase are from the craft beer community. Brewpub owners with a huge portion of their revenue stream from food and beer sales on their own premises are fearing for their businesses. Eight or nine months ago there was a lot of talk about a shakeout in craft beer, but no one foresaw the way this is actually going.

As for myself, I have been drinking way more "weekend" bottles on weekdays now, and I don't regret it a bit. I have watched the impact of not dining out on my bank account, and I have been very willing to spend some of that money with retailers that I respect and want to see at the end of this crisis. Drink better, fill in the holes with equally good or better stuff. Todd, I am overdue to place my order with you. It is coming. My baking has improved, I'm reading more, my work in the orchard has been more on point, and I am playing the guitar as well as I think I ever have. I crave dining out and travel. Badly.

Please stay safe and healthy. We're missing too many stalwarts already, and for a place with "disorder" in the name, y'all play a huge role in my sanity.
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
"Expensive wine sales eclipsed by hard seltzer" is a bit like saying "Old master painting sales eclipsed by surge in lighting fixtures."
Click to expand...

Perhaps Impressionist posters might be more apt.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
"Expensive wine sales eclipsed by hard seltzer" is a bit like saying "Old master painting sales eclipsed by surge in lighting fixtures."
Click to expand...

Perhaps Impressionist posters might be more apt.
Click to expand...
I considered art posters, but I think Impressionist posters would be more like 3L box wine than hard seltzer.
But I like your thinking. Surely this board could vaporize hours coming up with an art/design metaphor for every drink.
 
originally posted by Tristan Welles:
Nielsen data is totally useless when it comes to the kind of wine Disorderlies like.
Click to expand...

Indeed, although you may see some distribution in the larger independent liquor stores they track. It also systematically underestimates certain categories that have poor distribution in chains relative to total U.S. sales - for example Rhone wines, Zinfandel over $15, Portuguese wines - whether the wines are disorderly in nature or not.
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Tristan Welles:
Nielsen data is totally useless when it comes to the kind of wine Disorderlies like.
Click to expand...

Indeed, although you may see some distribution in the larger independent liquor stores they track. It also systematically underestimates certain categories that have poor distribution in chains relative to total U.S. sales - for example Rhone wines, Zinfandel over $15, Portuguese wines - whether the wines are disorderly in nature or not.
Click to expand...

heck, Nielsen data is useless for mass distributed BDX. Nielsen relies on scan data, which badly swamps the measuring of the sales for type of wine enjoyed here. For surveys of indy retailers the problem will frequently be one of sales data not tied to a specific UPC code, or data butchered by varying UPC codes of the same item. Binny's for example, uses an in-house 6 digit code at check out.

Or the problem of on-premise. And allocated product is almost never recorded.

In several previous professional lives I had access to the Nielsen BWS data sets and from time to time would amuse myself by trying to see where, for example, Ducru-Beaucaillou sells. According to Nielsen, it doesn't.

Managers of large(r) retails outlets will ask for 'depletion' data. That is, they'll want to know how many cases were shipped.
 
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