Full-Funnel Data w/ Aaron Sherman, SevenFifty

Displacing pen and paper isn’t that easy in the wine world.  SevenFifty, an online wine marketplace, has been innovating in the full value chain of wine to bring things online.  Starting with distributors, Aaron Sherman, CEO of SevenFifty, tells Robert and Peter about his plans to become a full-funnel sales & marketing platform for the wine world, with solutions for distributors, suppliers, and both on- and off-premise retailers.  Aaron digs into how the platform works today and the innovations on the horizon.  

Detailed Show Notes: 

• Aaron’s background - grew up in a restaurant and wine family was a sommelier and beverage director in New York and Los Angeles
• The inspiration for SevenFifty - wanted a better way than pen and paper, which is what distributors used back in 2008-2009
• The SevenFifty Platform
  • From the trade account perspective
    •  a wine buyer, sommelier, or beverage director signs up, attaches an account to a liquor license, then can search what’s available in their market
    • They can build lists of items, build orders online, send credit applications to distributors with one click, and view a local events calendar
  • For distributor sales reps (~35,000 sales reps have access to these tools)
    • Can see the competitive set in their market
    • Can explore their own portfolio and build tasting sheets, proposals, and digital order forms
    • Includes a lightweight CRM to track customer interactions
  • For producers
    • Can claim their products
    • Consolidate data across their distributors
    • Add more product information
• The intention is to target all parts of the supply chain, starting with distributors
• The biggest challenge today is integration into the “source of truth” - accounting or ERP systems of distributors, focused on integrating to other 3rd party systems to drive online ordering
• Has built the largest product data library in the country
• SevenFifty today - the largest alcoholic beverage marketplace, active in almost every state, >1,000 distributors, >100,000 on and off-premise retailers, >$1 billion in gross merchandise volume (sales volume on the marketplace); ~100 employees in 2020
• How users search for wines - ~50/50 split between looking at categories of wines vs. looking for specific wines and brands
• How do distributors sell more wine with SevenFifty?
  • Access to customers
  • Lets buyers discover products within a distributor’s portfolio
• Business model - subscription-based software for distributors, suppliers, and the newest product, storefronts (for retailers); in the future, plan on launching a product for on-premise accounts
• Bridge Acquisition - great technology for wine retail e-commerce, synergistic with Beverage Media Group’s BevSites (also acquired)
• Beverage Media - long history of representing distributors, editorial content compliments SevenFifty Daily

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