There is a value proposition in there somewhere. Keep hammering out the details and you can come up with a successful offering. I would rank the virtues to your target audience and price accordingly.
To me the rank is as follows:
Having a wine locker at a restaurant I plan on frequenting often
having access at certain time slots to pull some bottles Ad hoc with some other members and have some light food available as Jay suggested. This may require some store beyond a basic locker and also may require some quick chilling options to draw whites or champers
Events, tastings, educations. Separate fee or included at a certain fee level
pure storage at a competitive rate. I wouldn’t under or over price here. Under pricing won’t draw folks who don’t need other features so they are not your target audience
I would set up a matrix like casino operators do here in NJ for their rewards programs. Don’t create too many pricing tiers but hit the big ones as part of the monthly fee and the other can be pay as you go.
You can’t compare the bonded warehouses at 8p / bottle and the level of service I am offering. As far as I know, and I have done my research, those warehouses charge logistics fees left right and centre, like paying for them to receive wine (£7.50 / case regardless of size, for example). Withdrawals of part cases are also charged, at £10 / product sometimes. Meaning if you want to pull out one bottle for a dinner, you pay £10. With me you pay nothing. All logistics are included in the price, receiving, pick & pack etc…
There is also no work done by the customer, no need to warn us that wine is coming, or anything like that. We act like a doorman in a fancy NYC apartment building. And we don’t need to be tipped at Christmas
Please also note that pure storage will be available, at prices that range from 34p to 20p / bottle / month, depending on quantity. My offering, if you are an “active” drinker and not a collector that buys to store only, with all logistics free of charge, might end up being on the same level price wise than the bonded warehouses… Many people also have a wine fridge bursting at the seams, and might want a little extra space.
The truth is that my offering is probably targeted at less seasoned collectors than the WB community, even though I am sure there are plenty of enthusiasts here who do not have offsite storage with thousands of bottles to whom I might appeal.
The idea is for the restaurant to be attractive enough, and the “club” element to make members want to come more than once a month for events, tastings, pop ups… I might be looking more for locals (at large) than people who take me as a destination, the feedback here seems to highlight this.
Anyway, thank you again, and I hope to see you there one day!
Thanks so much for your feedback Tony! Much appreciated.
All very good points, and definitely taken onboard. The matrix sounds interesting, I will look into it. Confused about tiers at the moment, do I do one, do I do three, it’s hard to decide!
Hope to see you there one day if you visit London!
Your £7.50/case receipt fee is BBR only, as far as I’m aware, for what its worth. Manyy of the merchants I work with will take delivery of bonded wine free of charge. You’re not wrong on the £10 delivery fee, but its also not universal. If I want the flexibility to pull out single bottles free of charge, I’d store my wine with Lay and Wheeler who do free delivery as part of their cellar plan (which isnt strictly a cellar plan like BBR/etc would do).
I think if you did a ‘worked example’, even with frequent delivery of single bottles, you’d probably still find that you were substantially more expensive, tbh. You’re charging £20/bottle/year storage fees, against a prevailing rate of £1/bottle/year - I need to be getting that bottle delivered twice a year for it to be cheaper to use your services than LCB/etc. Personally, I have about 800 bottles of wine in bond at the moment - over the course of this year so far I seem to have consumed about 70 bottles (pandemic, please dont judge) - so even in single delivery mode that’s about £700 in delivery costs, with about £833/year in storage costs. In your system, if you had a tier at the same rate that took 800 bottles, you’d be charging like £16k for me to have free storage. Total cost of ownership is £1533 vs £16,000. Even if you only held a subset of my wine, say, 50 bottles for convenience, that’s £1000 a year in storage costs, against £1533 including delivery for 800 bottles. Numbers just dont add up for me - I suspect anyone who drinks wine has storage at home (even if some small quantity), so ‘same day delivery’ adds no value for me, I can plan my wine consumption either based on what I have to hand, or what I can have delivered on ~3 days notice
Obviously this is a ‘ridiculous’ example where I store my entire wine collection with you, but the math (mostly) is proportional to number of bottles stored. I just pulled out 18 bottles of wine from one of merchants last night - I paid VAT and everything else, with a total of £10 delivery charge (I could have delivered it to the store which is 3 minutes walk from me, for free).
Just one last comment on the storage piece too - at £20/bottle/year storage cost, you need to have a certain tier of wine to justify that. At that price, you’re talking expensive wines - from what I own I’d probably only consider bottles worth several hundred £ each, otherwise it doesnt add up att all. How does the storage facility compare to in bond storage? Do you have replacement insurance included as part of the service? Is it temperature controlled etc? How do I KNOW (rather than on a promise) that my wine won’t be Rudy’d while I’m not looking?
Back to the club/restaurant - as other posters have said it’s a bit of an anti-pattern, you’re expecting me to come several times a month to get my money’s worth. Thinking it through in a little more detail, probably the only mechanism I’d join under would be if I paid a monthly subscription, and that money went into credit towards my restaurant bill with you - e.g. I pay £60 a month to come and get all the benefits you mention, and then I get £60 off my restaurant bill every month.
It might be worth a rethink on some of your benefits - whilst the current implementation is something I wouldnt touch with a barge pole, there’s probably something that could be put together that would be attractive. Opening based on your internal logistics is a non starter, as is trying to appeal to price for storage of wine, and trying to bake me into coming to your restaurant 3 times a month is a non-starter either (to the point raised throughout the thread, why would someone in London go to the same restaurant repeatedly? There are only two London restaurants I visit more than once a year, personally) but there might well be something you could do that would generate the interest. I’m not sure what, yet, though.
If you could get something like exclusive corkage deals at a number of major London restaurants and get my wine delivered rthere when I want it, that might be interesting (then its math of corkage cost vs your corkage cost + subscription cost - for what its worth some restaurants do deals with merchants already e.g. Farr Vintners seem to always have some deals on with Michelin places), or you had a number of restaurants where this deal would apply… Or you do something like a bring a bottle club and you get to meet a number of wine enthusiasts (Again, it comes down to pricing. Asking me to fork out £50+ a month sets a level of expectation!)
Cheers! I’ll look forward to seeing the restaurant reviews when they are out. If you manage to crack Michelin food at half the price, maybe I will subscribe
Sorry Henry but you misread part of my answer. I said that pure storage was also available between 34p and 20p / bottle / month depending on quantity. For example, 800 bottles would cost the £60 membership, which includes 36 bottles, plus on top of that 764 bottles at 22p / bottle. This amounts to £2,736.96 / year. Considering you pay zero logistics on top of that, and your wine is right outside of zone 1, I don’t think my prices are as silly as you might think.
You don’t think I was going to incrementally charge £20 / bottle / year did you? I have 5,000 bottles myself, stored in 3 countries (UK, France and Switzerland) and have been a customer of such companies for a while now, I do believe I know a thing or two on the topic.
Regarding the quality of the storage, I guess you’d have to come see for yourself, which I did in Paris and Geneva, and Sydney in the past when I lived in Australia. It’s obviously temperature and humidity controlled, with state of the art equipment. You don’t have to trust me, but then who do you trust? Your storage company? Why? Because they are not new to the business? I can’t blame you for that, I just hope not everyone thinks like you.
I personally go to at least 3 restaurants once a month or more, but they are all close to where I live. And the idea would be to deliver wine anywhere in London, to your home or any restaurant you’d like. That’s part of the deal.
Anyway, all of this is super interesting, because it will help me refine my sales pitch. So thanks a lot for taking the time to reply thoroughly, and I sure hope we can share a glass of something delicious there one day together!
I’m out and about at the moment - just re storage. I’m unfamiliar with storage options in Paris and Geneva for example but I think you underestimate the professionalism that sits with in bond warehousing. A typical LCB warehouse might contain something like 250 million quid of wine - its a completely different league. I’m not talking about American style storage lockers, but legally regulated bonded warehouses. I assume youre familiar with them but wanted to check, because I dont know why anyone in the UK would consider storing any substantial quantity of wine outside of bonded storage tbh.
I tbink you are overestimating the logistics cost in London to be honest!
With the restaurant side, fine; I dont think any of my friends go to the same restaurant on a regular basis though. But either way, good luck!
‘This amounts to £2,736.96 / year. Considering you pay zero logistics on top of that, and your wine is right outside of zone 1, I don’t think my prices are as silly as you might think.’
Are you being serious? something like £700 would be normal.
Jon, first of all I hope you find the feedback on this forum helpful and are able to craft a successful model. I’ve been collecting for about a decade now. I keep wine intended for near-term consumption at my house, and store the remainder through various retailers that have storage at LCB. Before the pandemic I ate out quite a bit, and I appreciate being able to bring my own wine.
I typically don’t eat at the same restaurant that often though for reasons others have already mentioned. I’m not sure the quality of food alone would change that, simply because I appreciate variety and trying new things (though, perhaps it’s then a point in favour of your model of rotating chefs through).
For this concept to be of interest to me I’d really need to understand how much of the focus would be on tastings, events, learning and media. As it is the opportunity to store wine doesn’t do much for me. Nor does properietary inventory management software. I’m already using CT to track my wine at home and in storage here and back in the US. Using another platform means I’ve got to track wines I store with you in two platforms; the alternative is that I can’t get a complete picture of my inventory.
I am not talking about professionalism, only about the level of logistics they provide, and the attention to detail. I visited those warehouses, and I know I can offer more “care” than them, just because of how much volume they look after.
I believe it’s like comparing Monzo to Barclays. I’ll always be on the disruptor’s side, but then maybe we are not the same age (I’m 38).
I will finish with the famous quote from Henry Ford: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”.
Thank you again for taking the time to get back to me!
Hey Alan, I haven’t yet, but will later this week! This was more about the concept than where it is going to be I guess, but it will be good to connect with the UK based collectors too.
By way of example, I’d invest in Barclays every day of the week, Monzo loses money hand over fist and their most recent auditor report mentioned serious questions as to its ability to be an on-going concern. It also lacks a profitable business model. I can see the analogy I suppose (Apologies, just in good humour)
My wine is passive - it sits in a warehouse. Provided the warehouse is temperature and humidity controlled, why should I really care? Their logistics do the job for the one or twice in a case lifetime I actually move wine, and their inventory management systems are good. I’ve yet to take a case of wine out of storage and had it soiled/ruined/etc.
£700 / year for 800 bottles for pure storage, with no logistics, in a giant warehouse, 2 hour drive from London, seems to be quite low, but yes, I am sure you could find a price like that. Do you drink your wine or just amass it in a bonded warehouse, with the intention of selling it or donate it to your kids? This is an important question, I am not being facetious.
My concept is for active drinkers, who want access to their wine quickly, efficiently, not waiting 3 days for a delivery. And who want the community aspect (don’t we all, we are members of a forum for something…) which I provide through the membership and the venue.
Also, how much do you need to add to those £700 for logistics, wine coming in, coming out, the odd bottle you need for a mid-week dinner, deliveries etc… Also do you need to file a form every time wine arrives? I would find that the biggest inconvenience… But then, I personally pay for more high end service in Paris and Geneva, and couldn’t find an equivalent in London, except Smith & Taylor which is outrageously expensive. You might want to pay less / bottle / year, that might be the most important criteria for you, which means… you might not be my customer. Can’t have them all
Anyway, thank you for your time replying, and for the “constructive” feedback.
I think some of your response is misleading, to be honest. The location of the wine is irrelevant - it gets delivered to me whenever I want. I couldnt care less where it is stored as long as it is safe, secure, and with the appropriate conditions. I drink a lot of my wine. A very small amount of it is for ‘investment’. I deliver in cases and keep a wine fridge at home as my ‘active cache’.
I’ve never filed a single form to take delivery of any of my wine. I go into a merchant, click ‘Delivery’ next to a wine I want, and a few days later it shows up. I think the point that is being made is that anyone in London who is seriously into wine probably has easily 20+ bottle storage at home themselves - I’d be surprised if there are so many bad planners that they cant plan three days out for delivery?
I personally get my wines delivered in cases - I could do it in bottles if I wanted to with some merchants (e.g. Lay and Wheeler for certain, who also use LCB) - they do offer a cellar plan which gives me free delivery, so I dont see that as a benefical example either to be honest.
Thank you Jason for your feedback, and yes this is actually very helpful, even if sometimes I feel like I am being taken for a fool by some, who want to “educate” me on storage, when my concept is much more.
Do you not have the culture of becoming a regular in restaurants? I am French and a lot of people I know gravitate between 3-5 restaurants.
I also know many chefs and restaurateurs here, who tell me they have regulars. Yet again, everybody who is having a go at me for the club part forgets that 67 Pall Mall is a huge success and have close to 3,000 members!
The software is only for inventory management, I also use CT but I want to make sure there is no error and my inventories reconcile. Some softwares are terrible, some great, I hope the one I am working on will be an asset and will complement CT nicely.
Fair enough regarding the storage, again the idea is to have the wine onsite, in a similar fashion that what 67 PM offers. Great wine service, in an informal setting, with some East London flair. That might not appeal to everybody, maybe even to nobody here, but there is a customer (a few even) to whom this is a great way to move up the ladder and become a more advanced enthusiast.
The tastings, wine dinners, themed gatherings… are pillars of the project, the idea being that a lot of people, myself included, have way more bottles than occasions to drink them.
Thank you again, and maybe we will share a drink one day!
Thank you Henry, fair enough, again this is maybe not for you, or anyone here for that matter. I am glad I know that. But, again, how does 67 Pall Mall get to 3,000 members paying up to £1,500 / year ? The club aspect might be appealing to some… Not to you, to each his own.
TBH I think you’ve hit on the crux of it here. You’re probably primarily aiming to appeal to a different level of enthusiast to the sort of person you find on here.
RE the restaurant comment, I cant speak for London as a culture, but among my friends, visiting the same restaurant twice in six months would be a sign that you really love the place, to be honest. Within the distance I could probably throw a pebble (or perhaps someone stronger than me) I’ve got 4 michelin starred restaurants that all do pretty decent prices. Probably another two dozen restaurants on top of that that are note worthy. Most of them do corkage at reasonable prices.
To be honest, I’m not a member, so I cant comment. Just looking over their benefits, though, it’s probably having a very diverse wine list where you can pay by-the-glass, and the access to their sommelier team. If those are the main perks of your club, then I’d almost scrap all mention of storage and inventory management - look at their website - Membership - 67 Pall Mall storage is left until the second last bullet point. Also they have the longevity, right? I feel like it’s every other day I hear about one of the wine merchants I use hosting an event or similar at their location. Looking over their events for the next TWO WEEKS alone, they’ve got Jasper Morris, Richard Hemming, Jane Anson alone talking about wines.
Personally, I’d probably not sign up to their services unless someone could articulate to me the value proposition (considering the price)… or made me a lot wealthier
If your intention is to be as event-focused as they are, then that’s brilliant - make sure you shift emphasis appropriately, because of your original post, I’d say half of them were commodity services that I can get anywhere realistically, and some of the others arent really benefits (e.g. You get the chance to book dinner at our restaurant! - No, I want a place guaranteed for me if I decide to come)
If you took my membership fee and gave it to me as a voucher every month for exclusive tastings/events (e.g. we’re doing a first growth tasting and you get a £60 rebate as you’re a member on what is a decent price anyway), then I’d probably be keen. That, or as mentioned before, you’re running an incredible restaurant that is otherwise very difficult to get in to without being a member.
I’m sure there are many other creative things one could do to entice me, just trying to provide a couple of examples
They’re not associated with specific restaurant so far as I know but there’s a group here in the US which seems to do something similar with regards to organized tastings, talks, etc.
I’ve been on their mailing list for a while but haven’t been inclined to join both because the events are a bit pricey for me and and because these days my preferred environment for wine drinking is relatively casual dinners with wine loving friends.
There might be useful ideas for you there (or not) as they seem to have made a go of it: pressoir.com
Ridiculous. Like pretty much every other wine enthusiast I keep some of my wine at home, where it is instantly accessible when I want to drink it, taking delivery of my stored wine when I consider the time is right. I wish you well but your proposition is hopeless-do you really not understand the difference between a substantial address in Pall Mall and a restaurant in Shoreditch?
but there might well be something you could do that would generate the interest. I’m not sure what, yet, though.
