How Hemingway Whiskey Launched a Successful Limited-Release for Sale Online
After pouring their hearts into perfecting their inaugural release, the team behind Hemingway Spirits needed an effective way to sell it directly to consumers. Fulfilling orders for less than 1000 hand-numbered bottles was a complex problem requiring a powerful e-commerce solution designed specifically to navigate DTC alcohol sales. Enter AccelPay!
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.
Hemingway Whiskey
Launching a successful limited-time release for sale online
After pouring their hearts into perfecting their inaugural release, the team behind Hemingway Spirits needed an effective way to sell it directly to consumers. Fulfilling orders for less than 1000 hand-numbered bottles was a complex problem requiring a powerful e-commerce solution designed specifically to navigate DTC alcohol sales. Enter AccelPay!
Limited First-Edition Release
A family affair
Whiskey pioneer and founder Steve Groth and his two sons came together with 7th-generation Master Distiller Ron Call and his two sons, Clayton and 8th-generation Master Distiller Jacob, to author a new whiskey masterpiece and continue their legacy with Hemingway Whiskey.
Fulfillment headaches
After the recipe was perfected and the launch date grew closer, the Hemingway team anticipated several obstacles ahead. How could they accept orders for the limited-edition bottles online and have those orders fulfilled quickly and reliably by a retail partner, all while ensuring those retailers stayed in-stock and be able to ship orders directly to the customer?
“We knew that the inaugural release would be a special hand-numbered bottle in unique packaging,” said co-founder Kyle Groth. “We were very excited to sell directly to whiskey lovers across the United States, but weren’t sure how we could possibly execute on a DTC limited-release through our own website. It seemed pretty daunting at the time.”
Forming a successful partnership
Easy integration
Hemingway Whiskey was introduced to AccelPay through Drinkubator as their release date approached, and immediately recognized a solution for all of their e-commerce challenges. For Kyle, AccelPay’s extensive network of trusted fulfillment partners made it an easy decision to start working together. He could see that keeping retailers in stock, inventory up-to-date, and orders shipping out fast would be no problem for the AccelPay team.
In fact, AccelPay was able to integrate with Hemingway’s website and get ready for launch in under three weeks with minimal complexity.
“It was amazingly efficient and easy to get things set up,” confirmed Groth. “Their team immediately got to work talking with their fulfillment partners and making sure the right stores were stocked up and ready to ship orders. From there, it was a simple process to get them plugged into our existing Shopify site.”
Consistent selling experience
Hemingway loved that AccelPay was able to keep the selling experience consistent for their online customers. Keeping shoppers on the branded Hemingway Whiskey website and controlling the checkout experience from end-to-end was a huge selling point. For an emerging brand, it was important to reflect their premium, artisanal distilling process in their branding and they wanted that to come through during the entire buying process.
As Kyle put it, “With AccelPay, we can sell online and tap into a large, trusted fulfillment network but still own the customer journey and keep the small batch, handcrafted ethos that drives our company and culture. For us, that’s a winning combination.”
A rewarding inaugural release
972 hand-numbered bottles sold in just 2 weeks
After launching their online store powered by AccelPay, inaugural release bottles went up for sale at the premium price point of $149.99. Each was hand-numbered, signed, and packaged in a library-style box with satin ribbon. Because of Ron Call, Jacob Call and Steve Groth’s reputation in the industry, demand was high and the limited release was sold out in less than two weeks.
“Every bottle from this first release was gone seemingly overnight,” said Kyle Groth. “We worried that this would cause out-of-stock issues for the retailers fulfilling the orders, but the AccelPay team routed everything perfectly and all of the bottles arrived on time and without issue.”
The Hemingway team looks forward to growing their online sales to new heights with AccelPay in the years to come.
“Having been in the industry for quite some time, I wish I had known about AccelPay sooner. Overcoming numerous obstacles, segregating our brand site from our bottle sales site, managing multiple partners and retailers, have always been challenging for our direct-to-consumer efforts. AccelPay's platform has allowed us to overcome these hurdles and optimize our e-commerce business.”
Kyle Groth
Co-Founder of Hemingway Whiskey
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Braxton Freeman
Grolsch