Wine is playing an important role in more and more people’s lives nowadays. The majority of Americans think that drinking wine will make their lives more joyful. People’s meals will be more delightful by pairing up the wine with different foods; their parties will be more pleasurable by cheering up with friends. People start to love wines and it causes more and more wine shops to be opened by wine lovers or business investors, and you will see a wine shop almost every few blocks in Manhattan, New York City. I have visited two wine Retail shops recently. One is Crush Wine and Spirits located in midtown Manhattan, the other one is North End Wine and Liquor store located around the Bronx Zoo. These two shops are very different from each other in many ways. However, the differences between these two shops are both caused by where they located.
Products from Crush and North End are all organized by the types of the target consumers for each shop. Crush’s target consumers are varying in large scale because it is located in midtown Manhattan. The neighbors of Crush are residents and companies. Residents around there are more likely to purchase pricy drinks while the companies prefer to buy some less pricy wine for their own parties. The range of prices for wine is varied, it causes Crush to organize products by their prices and regions, and within the regions the prices are ranged from high to low, starting from the top of the shelf to the bottom. North End is located nearby the Bronx Zoo. As we know, the rentals around that area are a lot cheaper than the rentals around midtown Manhattan, so young people become North End’s target consumers. Since they are young and they have less abilities to afford pricy beverages, most of wines from North End are priced around 10 to 20 bucks. The shop has less abilities to sell the pricy beverages, it limits the varieties of the wine in the store. And it also causes the shop to only organize their products by separating different types of wine and beverage into different sections. For example, they store all of white wine and red wine in one area without categorizing them by regions or something else because they don’t have enough variety of wine. The presentations of wines and beverages in both wine shops are very different from each other, and it’s because their locations already determine what kind of customers each shop has to deal with.
Locations also control the ambiences of wine shops and what kind of experience that its customers will have when they visit the stores. Since Crush is located in an area that has more rich residents and more companies, the store is designed to have more elegant decorations, and the speed of music in Crush was a bit slow it also made me feel like I became a rich person when I visited. Unlike Crush, North End was playing some kind of pop music in order to fit what young people like. Customers of different areas have different treatment too. Crush provides better wine and a peaceful environment for its neighbors for tasting events using their own budget, but North End provides wine for tasting events only when some of the wine companies provide the free wine for its customers to taste.
The differences between Crush and North End are huge. I think it is not caused by which manager has better abilities of managing a store, but it’s because of where the store is located. Having more varieties of wine and beverages is a strength for Crush. However, it can be a weakness for North End if its manager also gets many varieties of wine and beverages because having more varieties of beverages means the price range of the wine shop will have to increase. This will be a waste of product because consumers will only continue to purchase the cheaper wines. Also, having less varieties of wine can be a strength for North End, because young people may prefer to buy wine from the store, but it can never be happen in Crush because Crush deals with varying types of customers that purchase varying types of wine depending on the events.
I found you blog to be very interesting and knowledge meaning you made the experience of the wine come to life. Also, your experience at the wine shop makes people want to go and enjoy the selection of wines.
I really enjoyed reading your post. I like how you took the extra step to visit two different wine shops and compared them. Very unique & different.
As I read your post, I learned about not only wines but also how important the demographic marketing for wine shops. Also, the design of the store also related to the target customers. It was very interesting for me.
I’d like to visit this store.
I really like you post I see that two store are very interesting in the way that both have same way to display the wines and the styles. you did great job
It seems your peers really enjoyed your work, so did I!
You thought about and expressed your understanding of marketing, wine, consumer behavior and the nuances of real estate in NYC. Well done.