The SVB Direct to Consumer Survey Closes Tonight, Monday, March 24th.

 

The SVB DTC Survey Closes tonight. Twenty minutes of effort in exchange for great information and benchmarks that only go to respondents.

Change in the wine business has come quickly. There is so much to do that you might wish you had extra limbs to complete everything. But rather than sprouting new legs, working smarter might be the more realistic approach, which brings me to the point:

The grandaddy of all DTC surveys, the Annual SVB Direct to Consumer Survey will close on Monday, March 24th, and I need 20 minutes of your time this weekend to contribute your winery's data, and your opinions. 

Do you need a success guide?

The Annual SVB Direct to Consumer Survey continues to be open through March 24th, and I need your help with contributing your own data. Only participants will get a success guide... And now you're asking, 'What is a success guide?'

What most wineries want today are answers. What should wineries do to get through this period? 

In this year's survey, we are collecting the solutions wineries are using to counter the headwinds. When finished, we will collate those thoughts into a file, and give those anonymized solutions only to participants. That's a success guide. 

Think of the success guide as a checklist or a muse. If you are searching for answers, you might get help from hearing what others are trying. 

What information will respondents get back in the guide? A very short topical list will include strategies that might fall into categories like:

Enhancing Wine Quality and Experience
Operational changes
Cost management
Supplier contracts
Inventory management
Marketing and engagement
Expansion and Distribution
Customer retention
Access to Capital
Navigating challenges

Respondents also will receive the full set of slides from which you can benchmark your operations. Neither of these two files will be released to the public.

Here are the [survey questions], and here is the [link to the survey]

Is the Direct-to-Consumer Channel Holding Up?

The answer to the title question is yes, DTC is holding up, but as most in the industry will attest, it's a nuanced response that requires a discussion. 

Sign up for the 2024 annual SVB Direct-to-Consumer Videocast presented next Tuesday, June 25th, to hear an expert panel discuss the findings from the 2024 Direct-Direct-to-Consumer Survey.

What can you expect? After researching the wine industry for more than 20 years and producing this report for well over a decade, you can expect the same thing you always get: an honest and balanced view of the current direct-to-consumer market. 

Would you like a teaser? Take a look at the chart below. 

Some early results from the SVB DTC survey

 

Today, we are about 50 responses short of what we need to produce the Annual Direct to Consumer Report, so please participate. To help us reach the finish line, we are leaving the survey open over the weekend and closing it on 3/24.

Here are the questions if you want to prepare [link], as well as the [link] to the survey.

Let me give you some examples of important and interesting information from the survey so far.

Several sources have reported that tasting room visitation was down last year. Some have speculated that it's due to high tasting room fees. The headline slide is a chart from the interim survey data that puts a different spin on that conclusion. 

Breaking the top chart into quartiles, the upper quartile seems expensive, especially considering people seldom taste alone. Life and wine tasting are a team sport—maybe someone can use that in a marketing pitch. Anyway, the lower two quartiles, representing half of the winery respondents so far, are about $23 or less.

Another fact you can pull from that same information set is the practice of using standard and reserve tasting fees. Surprisingly, 26.2% of responses thus far only use standard tasting fees. For those wineries that have both reserve and standard fees, the average reserve fee is 1.9 times larger than the reserve fee, with a maximum of 5 times the standard fee, down to 1.2 times the standard tasting fee.

Here is some more interesting information on tasting room reimbursement policies. From this chart below, you can see how you compare to other wineries on tasting fee reimbursement policies. If you participate in the survey and get the full anonymous data set, you can also sort this information out by region.

There is one other thing that might be of interest. Seven percent of the wineries do something besides the other choices offered. Aren't you curious about their policies? Only participants who complete the survey get this added data that you might use to generate ideas. 

Without giving away all of the "other" responses, here are some:

•    We comp tastings if you join the club or purchase 3 bottles.

•    We do flights, not tastings. No reimbursement.

•    Free tastings for people who rent venue (we do weddings)

•    10% off 12 bottles.

•    We will waive two tasting fees for a minimum $1,000 purchase.

•    Club Members get a limited number of free tastings; otherwise, we do not reimburse them.

•    Tasting fees waived for wine industry partners only

•    Club members only 4x per year

•    We don't charge our top buyers for their tasting fees

•    We only waive fees for people who have McMillan for a last name.

•    we don't offer tastings. We offer 5 oz glass for $3.75

•    Our state law doesn't allow "free" tastings, so we charge $1 per taste

•    We allow wine club members and up to three of their guests to taste for free. We do not reimburse tasting fees otherwise.

•    We waive tasting fees if the customer pays with cash.

Some of those ideas are certainly worth considering. Here are the questions if you want to prepare [link]

Should SVB continue to produce the Annual DTC report?

This is my annual attempt to plead for your help, without which we can't produce the 13th Annual Direct-to-Consumer Report. 

If there was ever a time when actionable information and insights were needed, this is it. But we are close to a crisis point because we are unable to get sufficient survey responses. 

The SVB Annual Direct-to-Consumer Survey has been open for two weeks and is scheduled to close this Friday, March 22nd. As of this writing, we have 165 responses with just a few days remaining. That's far from the 500 we need to produce good results. (Click the top chart to see your region's performance thus far.)

The survey has just 29 questions. It should take 10 to 15 minutes to complete, even less if you are prepared. Many complete the survey in under five minutes. If you want to see the questions in advance, you can download and print them here.

In May, all survey participants will receive high-level analysis, benchmarks, and complete sanitized respondent data, anonymized of all personal and business-identifying information. Nobody else gets this data, and it can't be purchased.

Silicon Valley Bank goes to great lengths and costs to provide this report to the industry gratis. Still, it's a partnership with you: Without survey responses, we can't produce this industry resource.

So please spread the word on your social channels and make this a personal goal. Your choice to participate or not is a vote for us to continue with this initiative or phase it out.

 

The SVB 2023 Direct to Consumer Wine Survey is Open!

For those following closely, you will notice that I've changed the headline slide back from Rob McMillan on Wine, to the prior blog title of, SVB on Wine.

For most, hopefully it's obvious why I've done that. But for those who haven't followed the rollercoaster, SVB was taken over by the FDIC on March 10th. That was the end of the old SVB. 

But after a couple failed auctions, most of the legacy bank's assets were sold to First Citizens Bank, who decided to run the acquired bank as a division, and retain the name of Silicon Valley Bank. So we died and have been reborn! 

Internet Sales are dramatically higher, but how do we know?

 

Selling Wine in a Pandemic

What an insane past few years! But doesn't it feel wonderful to be moving into spring and at the same time into the endemic phase of this crisis? With fewer mask mandates now, maybe we'll be able to smell the spring flowers! But before we linger too long on the warmer days ahead, we still have some work to do. So let me take you back to the start of this crisis in 2020 when the COVID case numbers began picking up. 

At that point in time, I wrote a piece called Selling Wine in a Pandemic which is one the most-read pieces I've posted. I wrote it on March 15th, 2020 - a date that is etched in my mind and probably yours if you live in California. 

If you don't recall, that was the date Governor Newsom first issued the shelter-in-place orders and closed tasting rooms, restaurants and bars. I finished writing that blog on March 15th in the morning, but by late afternoon, I had to go back and update it when news of the lock-downs came out. 

The Annual SVB Direct to Consumer Webcast is Tuesday May 25th

 

    How do you sell wine in a Pandemic?

That was the question asked in middle-March 2020 as the industry, country, and world awoke to discover that we were living in circumstances that seemed more like a second-rate Hollywood movie. 

Now, more than a year into the COVID Pandemic, we have answered many of those early questions, and we’ve discovered a few things about ourselves along the way, about our ability to adapt, create, and even thrive in some cases during a period I would describe as the most difficult business conditions since Prohibition.

Why Am I so Optimistic about 2021

Opportunity Knocks

Ebullience! That's a word we haven't heard much in the past year. But I predict that's only the start. You might soon also hear such rare terms as buoyancy, vivacity, and euphoria bandied about. 

Count me in the camp that is exuberant for the opportunity presented to us in 2021 - 2022. I can't wait to work again in a group practicing social nearness sans masks as in the headline picture... though my vision of tomorrow has a nicer desk than the headline picture. Why so cheerful you ask?

I covered some of the information in this post when we announced the opening of the SVB 2021 Direct to Consumer survey. 

Canceled: Annual SVB Direct to Consumer Survey

You probably recognize the photo up top of Times Square. I took it this afternoon from a webcam. You might never again see it this empty - or so that's my hope.

The Decision to Cancel

The Annual SVB Direct to Consumer Survey is Open

Improving and evolving your direct sales strategies, marketing, and sales will be the difference between success and struggling in the coming decade as the industry's consumer target evolves under our feet as, anti-alcohol groups push their agenda and competition from beer, spirits, and foreign wine intensify. We defend ourselves by using data and evolving or approach.

For instance, how does your tasting fee compare to your region? Are you enticing consumers or scaring them away with that? Are your tasting rooms sales growing like others in your area? What are the splits between club sales and tasting room sales and are they in-line with comps. There are so many other questions that deserve attention.

Shortcut for those looking for the links: Survey Questions  Take the Survey Now ... otherwise, let me convince you a little more.

Video Replay: Secrets to Successful DtC Sales

On May 17th we presented several of the findings from the most recent Direct to Consumer survey. This year we again had good participation from the wine business community both in region and by case production. Many great observations were offered from the panelists:

Last Chance: SVB Live DtC Videocast

I wanted to title this post with something like, "Jaw Dropping Evidence You Won't Believe !!" Then I was going to send you to another site that would have you click through 75 random pictures. Don't you hate it when you get pulled into one of those links? They never get to the picture you wanted to see. It's a form of internet fraud and torture.

Well I actually do have more than 75 slides we've just finished putting together. They're from the most recent Direct to Consumer survey; hardly a fraud. I think you would really appreciate all of the information, but the total deck of slides are only for original survey participants. There are some slides and information anyone can get though.

Among many interesting metrics and findings, the conclusions on Urban Tasting Rooms were pretty remarkable ... we could even say the discoveries are 'jaw dropping?'

Last Chance to Get 2018 DtC Metrics

The Direct-to-Consumer Wine Sales Survey closes March 23

 

Take the survey

How do you know you are performing at the top of club performance, or even above the average? What percent of revenue, relative to total revenue do your neighbor wineries produce from just the tasting room or just the club? If I asked you how many wineries pay for data capture within their comp structure in the tasting room, what would be your guess? What percent of revenue comes in through web sales in your region?

What's the reserve tasting fee in your region? How about the average tenure of a club member sorted out by average bottle price? Would it help to know the average gain in club members in your AVA last year?