How shops help shoppers to choose wine

With research indicating that three-quarters of shoppers find choosing wine 'an ordeal’, and 75 per cent having a repertoire of just two wines, there appears to be real scope for needs-based merchandising of wine in the aisle.

In fact in their wine-traffic, Tesco have isolated two key groups:

-       “Tell Me” customers (47%), who are likely to be intimidated by the wine aisle, prefer to choose from a small selection of wine because it’s easier, tend to be lured by promotions and expect good availability of whatever they choose

-        “Engage Me” shoppers (53%), who are more interested in exploring, and will navigate by colour, grape and country, seeking out wines that are new or intriguing.

Tesco are currently refitting 870 Tesco wine departments to give each type of shopper their own grazing area.

-       “Tell Me” people get a range of own-label wines called Simply. They also get a neat section of three-for-£12 wines, and a “Great With” display.

-       The 'Engage Me’ shoppers get the traditional by-country layout, but with extra boxes so that different wines can be highlighted – new wines, medal-winning wines, journalist-recommended wines. Wines with a reason to buy that goes beyond price.

A retailer that takes the trouble to ask, has the wit and resource to remerchandise accordingly and can validate the result in real-time, has to grow share at the expense of more margin-orientated competitors.