Can alcohol brands leverage the growth hack of on-demand delivery?
We break down the Do's and Don'ts for Bev-Alc Suppliers in E-commerce
As the holidays approach, expect an influx of gift purchases across the next few months — an annual event that’ll only be heightened by the post-COVID e-commerce shopping boom.
Even more so, broader delays in global supply chains are trickling down to affect availability and shipping for e-commerce brands across all segments. Our recommendation? Beat this year’s slowdown by getting a head start on your seasonal campaigns, promotions, and more.
We’ve laid out four steps below that every alcohol brand should take to beat the annual gift rush, while also maximizing the profitability and potential of this concentrated shopping period.
Step One: Time Blocking
First, you can start building out a major messaging campaign by looking ahead on your calendar and selecting key dates to lay out a time frame from early November up until Christmas.
Specifically, we recommend blocking out three primary phases for your campaign delivery.
Pre-Black Friday
By pushing messaging campaigns out as early as mid-November, you’re gearing folks up for the holiday season around the corner, as well as letting potential buyers know to keep an eye out for a promotion in the works.
More importantly, you’re setting your brand up to start the season on a strong note — and to not get caught unprepared by the sudden arrival of Thanksgiving crunchtime.
Thanksgiving & Late November
From Thanksgiving onward, particularly that first weekend including Black Friday, you’ll want to host and advertise some kind of actionable event, i.e. a special release or promotional discount, to jumpstart customers into their seasonal shopping cycles.
Cutoffs for Christmas
Finally, you’ll want to round out the season by selecting a cutoff date for placing new orders.
Seven to 10 days before December 25th is a safe bet for buyers to receive a bottle at their door by Christmas Day, and reminders should be sent out in the days leading up to this cutoff.
In terms of the broader time crunch that’s anticipated due to global supply chain slowdowns, you should emphasize the convenience of purchasing from a domestic brand paired with the reliability that you offer for a timely, safe delivery of your product.
Step Two: Spice Up Your Specials
Once you’ve laid the initial groundwork, it’s time to elevate your campaign by crafting it into something creative and exciting for the spirit of the season.
In other words, your buyer’s inbox may be flooded by holiday deals, but you can capture their attention and help them recognize the thoughtfulness through your core brand messaging.
For instance, Far North Spirits is offering a holiday two-pack for drinks that’ll warm you up in the colder months. Imagine a whiskey, rye, or bourbon for your spicy cocktail or mulled wine.
Ultimately, you’re working with the inventory you have and considering which themed products can play into people’s holiday spirit — even better if it’s in a bundle to boost your AOV.
On the other hand, this period offers a practical opportunity to look back at the year’s releases and offload any remaining inventory through a unique discount or exclusive holiday promo.
Step Three: Ramp Up Your Promotion Game
Next, consider the tactical logistics of your promotions. After all, it can be tricky to time promo launches, depending on whether your customer pool skews toward early or late gift grabbers.
There are two general approaches you can take: 1) offering enticing deals early on to preempt other sales or 2) holding off until late in the buyer’s window to pull the trigger on your promo.
The former can snag early shoppers, or at least convince late shoppers to try an early purchase, but could also lose its appeal by mid-December when fresher deals are dropping every day.
The latter can appeal to buyers who play the long game and wait it out for the most optimal deal, but can still ultimately result in you losing out on early or average shoppers.
Ultimately, there’s no gold-standard method and you’ll need to use your judgement depending on what aligns with your brand’s target demographic, metric goalposts, and even inventory.
For instance, returning to your campaign calendar, you can skew discounts away from marking down products and toward offering cheaper, faster shipping as Christmas creeps closer.
Step Four: Email Marketing On Deck
As we pointed out in our advice for email marketing, setting up your email flow so your comms can run seamlessly is a simple yet essential step of the process that’s easily overlooked.
We recommend starting with a quick info sweep: pull last year’s seasonal purchase data and make sure that customer cohort is consistently re-engaged early on.
In turn, your team won’t be stressed out and frantically attempt to piece together the perfect layout in MailChimp just a few days before Thanksgiving — which circles back to our larger point: the holidays are a time of year with promise of high ROI for your alcohol brand.
You can utilize this opportunity to the max by planning thoroughly and creatively, not stressfully executing a last minute, makeshift campaign.
If your brand has these moving parts staged within the first weeks of November, you should be ready to hook the earliest seasonal shoppers and take full advantage of the holiday rush.
Sit Back and Enjoy the Holidays!
Once you’ve got these steps locked in — a killer campaign calendar, creative promos, and ready-to-launch email marketing — you’ll be the one leading the holiday rush, not falling behind.
Whether your user base is composed of individuals shopping for friends and family or corporate customers with high-volume needs, Accelpay is the platform of choice for your alcohol brand.
To get access to our instant storefront setup and stress-free bulk ordering, get started here.
Can bev-alc suppliers really leverage the growth the of on-demand delivery? Read until the end to see how you can.
The Missing Puzzle Piece in Liquor E-Commerce
Speed of delivery is the key to unlocking direct sales success.
A Tale of Missed Opportunity: Sarah's Experience with Online Liquor Shopping 🛒 🍾
Consider Sarah, a typical consumer navigating the digital marketplace. One Sunday afternoon, while perusing social media, she finds an ad for her favorite tequila brand. Clicking through to the brand's website, she anticipates enjoying her preferred drink by evening. However, at checkout, she's informed of a 5-7 day delivery period, dampening her excitement and pushing her towards alternative services like Drizly, offering same-day delivery. This scenario, common in the liquor e-commerce sector, illustrates a disconnect between effective marketing and fulfillment capabilities, leading to cart abandonment and loss of potential long-term engagement.
So, what should Suppliers do about this… Can they set up their own Delivery Programs? 🚚
Well.. actually…yes, suppliers can provide direct delivery services. That may be counterintuitive since we’re so used to this idea of Alcohol brands not being able to transact with end-consumers on alcohol products, but there’s nothing in the law that says that alcohol companies can’t sell shipping to consumers. Weird, right? Obviously, writing the 3-tier system during the early 1900s did not account for eventuality of ecommerce and the fractionalization of payments and fulfillment and delivery but we’re in a place now where ecommerce and that fractionalization has created strategic exploits within the framework. So let’s talk specifics.. both state and federal laws restrict suppliers from offering gifts or free services to retailers that could influence purchasing decisions. So, would Brand supplied delivery be considered a ‘free service’ to retailers? Depends on who you talk to.. some may argue that delivery is not a free service to Retailers, but instead is a benefit to the consumer and there’s nothing in the law that says that an alcohol company cannot provide a free benefit to consumers.. and when you’re selling delivery to consumers it’s not even free, they’re paying for it! So then what’s the problem? Well, upon further inspection.. the responsibility to verify ID and that these end-consumers are 21 years or older is on the shoulders of the party that is transacting for those alcohol products. And so we’re back to 3-tier basics, it is indeed a retailer performed function. And, so, in that way, it must be something that the retailer would have to pay the brand supplier for the service of. And moreover, these laws are interpreted broadly, meaning suppliers would need to offer equitable delivery services to all retailers and not just for their own products but all other brand products in that retailers inventory. So, is Investing in last-mile delivery solutions that also cater to competitors a viable strategy for suppliers? Putting aside the cost and logistical implications, when considering the implication of having to offer this to all retailers and offer the delivery service to other competitors, the answer seems to be ‘no’.
But… is there another way that Suppliers can benefit from this growth hack? 💰📈
The Answer is right there: use 3rd Party Apps ✅
In states where third-party delivery is legal, third party companies like us at Accelpay can actually provide this last-mile service ourselves or through white label connections to delivery services like Doordash and Uber. At AccelPay we’re about to set up a new beta test where we offer same day delivery in a major market like New York and Los Angeles. Our hypothesis is that by focusing solely on same day delivery for alcohol brands and not having the demand-burden of other food and beverage deliveries, we can consume the demand for alcohol delivery by having far geographic reach from from a retail location for a low flat fee which will boost conversion rates on brand supplier sites, and lower costs to acquire and create a better experience for the end-consumer. We are looking at this as a key strategy in helping brand supplier sites generate significant revenues through their own site domains and make more effective use of their digital marketing dollars and create more 1:1 relationships with their end-users.
So, what do you think? Are you an alcohol brand looking to drive higher conversion, reduce shipping fees, speed up delivery times and drive more revenue through this often overlooked conversion drive? Sign up for a demo if your brand may be interested in joining our beta program.
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Braxton Freeman
Grolsch