Digital Transformation of Online Grocery & Wine w/ Jessica Kogan, Vintage Wine Estates

Fueled by the pandemic, grocery stores have made significant investments in selling digitally, with wine being an essential growth category for online sales.  With estimates of ~$6B in wine sold through online grocery by 2025, Jessica Kogan, Chief Growth & Experience Officer of Vintage Wine Estates, gets into the trends, key success factors, and the opportunity that online grocery represents.  

Detailed Show Note: 

Vintage Wine Estates (Ticker: VWE)

• 11th largest wine holding company in the US
• 12 wineries, a couple of digitally native businesses, 12-15 lifestyle brands
• Heavy focus on DTC

Online grocery trends

• By 2025 - 22% of Americans will buy groceries online (i.e., anything not in-store and digitally enabled)
• Alcohol is the fastest growing segment for online grocery - by 2025 - $5.97B in wine online from <$1B in 2018 vs. $7.97B DTC from wineries in 2025
• Target saw 4x amount of alcohol when bought online vs. in-store purchases in 2021, most of which was wine
• Digital grocery brings up basket size and provides more flexibility for consumers (e.g., curbside pickup; Target provides lots of flexibility)
• ~50% digital is pickup, ~50% delivery today

Post-pandemic trends

• Wine DTC is seeing slower growth, but online grocery is continuing to grow
• Covid led to increased investment by grocery in online
• Grocery has goals of going beyond grocery into becoming a “lifestyle” store, e.g., leaning into wellness

Why consumers enjoy buying wine online

• Feel overwhelmed by the selection of in-store
• Like learning about the background and story of brands
• Often use phones in-store to learn more about brands
• Gen Z - born digitally, love stories & authenticity, committed to wellness - makes wine compete w/ RTD cocktails and hard seltzers
• Consumers are more open to taking risks on new brands online

Selling into grocery stores

• Believes in-store demo events are powerful
• Making the story accessible and easy (e.g., QR codes on labels) key

Selling in online grocery

• Uses Salsify (a “PIM” - product information manager) to publish info to grocery stores, allows producers to control data shown to consumers
• 94-95% of searches for wine are by varietal (or basic descriptors like red/white), not by brand
• Digital algorithms - can’t buy ads due to Tied House Laws, but can influence algorithms w/ customer reviews or customers saving products
• Using metadata to show up as recommended product vs. search displays helpful
• Being in the “above the fold” carousel of products where consumers don’t need to scroll down is vital for sales, as big as being on the end-cap in-store

Tips for brands for online grocery

• Have a website w/ e-commerce - helps understand the whole process
• Go w/ distributors to stores w/ digital info for products

Future trends for online grocery

• Virtual tastings will continue
• More information on wellness and wine
• Women to play an essential role in connecting w/ customers since most grocery buyers are women

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