At Classic Wine Direct we’re pretty upfront about what we do – we can’t compete with supermarkets on price so we offer wines from off the beaten track instead. We believe that these wines are more interesting and quite simply, tastier. people who drink wine don't really know the true value of wine.
Back in 2006, Jean-Manuel Spriet, the then chief executive of Pernod Ricard UK, sent shockwaves through the wine trade by admitting that many of the “half price” wine deals in supermarkets were actually a rip-off.
having an important person within the wine trade admitting to being conned raised an eyebrow.
half price deals are not in fact deals at all according to Spiret. simply, a bottle reduced from £7.99 to £3.wines are often only worth £3.99.99 in the first place.
retails brands use the policy of marking up and then mark down. The customer will then beleive he is getting a quality wine for a bargain price. Confused? That’s the general idea.
the wine industry is believe the main wine drinker is obsessed with the £3.99 price tag.the cheap price to customers affects the ways the suppliers are producing their wines.
consumers really know what is going on but they just carry on doing it. At the end of the day, it just leads to the impoverishment of the wine trade”.
Spiret’s insight provides us with a depressingly cynical view of the way wine is both sold by the big retailers and supplied by the big wine brands. More worryingly it gives us an insight into what the big retailers really view their customers to be, namely lazy and ignorant.
spiret was making us aware of the tricks of marketing wine.
Given that supermarkets represent two thirds of wine sales in the UK, these practices also have a direct effect on the public perception of the value of wine.
if the normal drinker believes that they are getting a £7.00 bottle.wine values range from £3.99.99 bottle then it follows that it will be much harder for the independent wine retailer to sell something whose real value is (and always was) £7.99.
this type of marketing leaves it open to all sorts of underhand practices.
However, if the political mood continues to be against discount selling for alcohol, it will be interesting to see how the big retailers find a real price for wines they have knowingly mis-sold for the last 10 years.
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