Ways of selling Beaujolais Nouveau in China
Beaujolais Nouveau Carnival was just past for days, how is the sale of Nouveau in China this year? WBO reporter has interviewed some retailers and now sharing their experiences to all of you today.
Treat “it” as Mid-autumn Day
Fang Yi, general manager of Puyi Fine Wines in Changsha,who has imported 2400 bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau and already sold out all before the carnival. As FangYi put it, sales value this year has increased nearly 50% compared to last year.
As an annual seller for Nouveau, he shared his experiences to WBO, ”Never talk about its quality to China consumers for it is a brand new vintage, nobody can assure 100% correctness of such wine, but we could tell every targeted consumer its back stories, talking and laughing just like what we do in Mid-autumn day. Then it became a well-reasoned habit to buy Nouveau on that day after sense of ceremony has formed.”
Fang Yi also pointed out that communicating with your consumers for drinking ASAP after selling matters a lot in the process.
According to Fang Yi, Beaujolais Nouveau Carnival appears as a great opportunity for sustaining good relationship with clients. After all, it’s really annoying to call them frequently for wine sales, whereas sending your regards to all clients before Beaujolais Nouveau Carnival sounds very sincere, from which you could judge their recent consumption capability for further wine promotion.
Consumer experience weighs the most
“Nouveau sales volume raised 20%-30% compared to last year, even though it’s not a big deal overall.” said Chen Ruidong of Chengdu Wine Cellar, whose Nouveau sells good.
He attributed his excellent performance to yearly sell of Beaujolais Nouveau, which give consumers a sense of ceremony. At this time of year, wine lovers and clients usually take the initiative to ask Nouveau details and buy them when releasing. “Beaujolais Nouveau sells good due to the development of local wine market and the first-class experience in my wine cellar. Consumers can enjoy in the cellar and it really makes sense, which online purchase can’t bring them. Some of them usually buy more bottles for home drinking.”
Pan Jiajia, who runs wine business and wine culture union in Guangzhou, pointed out that there’s a “trap” for Beaujolais Nouveau, the confusion of wine region Beaujolais and its Nouveau in consumers’ mind, most wines in Beaujolais were mistaken as Nouveau, which lead to the hard sell of Beaujolais villages and crus. For this concern, he mainly promotes Beaujolais fine wines instead of Nouveau.
For years, he insisted on paring Cantonese cuisine with beef in different ways of cooking and inviting organizations, key opinion leaders and wine lovers. In this way he has already built reputation for future sale.
In our survey of vintners in different cities, WBO found those who were interested in Beaujolais Nouveau and performed very well are mainly vintners sophisticated in fine wine selling, with many group purchase clients or followers.
As for wine retailing stores, Beaujolais Nouveau will not be their main product for sale, this is what Liquor boss（a wine company） did in Shanghai.
“It might be impossible for consumers born in 80s and 90s to accept this day, adding Nouveau to our product list is just my own wine attitude.” said Shen Xiangyun, who runs a wine retailing shop in Hangzhou.
However, online sellers such as Jiuxian.com and 1919 online shop attached great importance to Beaujolais Nouveau.
It’s worth noticing that first or second tier cities are major market for Beaujolais Nouveau, whilst vintners from Tangshan in Hebei province and Jinzhou in Liaoning Province expressed they don’t sell Nouveau, because it must be done in a very short period which means high risk to them.
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