Hello everyone and welcome to another Blog.
This week I have have thinking about how to move our Liqueur business into new areas.
Considering that I manufacture liqueurs, it may come as a surprise to find out that I do not consider that I am in the Drinks business.
Rather, I am in the Gift business.
This means that all new products and initiatives have to be seen through the prism of the Gift market and our customers. I do not supply supermarkets, pubs or hotels – I sell direct via our website, at consumer shows and via specialist drinks retailers.
What this means is that I do not have a high overhead company unlike some of the companies that are in the Drinks business. They have factories to keep open so they need to shift the products to make room for the next lot coming down the line. What this means is that particularly at Christmas, it is a great time for consumers to buy Malt Whisky – you’ll never see it so cheap. The stocks have to be shifted as there is another warehouse-full about to be bottled and then sent to the supermarkets.
In the Gift business, customer service is more of an issue and one that has to be taken seriously. One change that I am about to move to is to offer our mail order customers ‘Free delivery’ for all orders.
Up to now, they had to spend @ £50-60 to get free delivery – now it will be free for all orders. Obviously, our prices will have to alter a bit, but not by as much as you would imagine as most of our customers tend to buy over 3 bottles at a time anyway.
How did I work out if this was what customers wanted? Well, I started asking them to fill in a simple surevy last Autumn at a few large shows and then sent an invitation to our online customers to fill in an online survey – in return for doing this for me, they and anyone they know, get 10% off any of our liqueurs for the rest of 2011.
The number one service that our survey respondents wanted was ‘Free delivery’ – and now they are going to have it. I shall write another blog after this sales season to let you know if the move to ‘Free delivery’ was successful
All the best-Roy Lewis