Wine website informs and lowers costs
Print Edition
The Internet is opening up the world of wine, making wine information and wine available at competitive prices to every wine lover with a computer. And thanks to vertical e-commerce and mobile apps, shoppers can bypass the middlemen in physical stores and get the best prices.
Wine lovers Roger Hou and Alvin Huang have combined information and sales in a single website, Vinehoo.com (in Chinese), founded in 2008. Today, Shanghai-based Vinehoo has become the biggest and probably the most influential domestic wine e-platform that combines e-commerce and media. They are kept separate and independent of each other, the founders say.
The information section doesn’t review wines sold on the e-commerce site and instead even lists prices available on other e-commerce platforms, mostly by their competitors. Still, the active visitors to the information section are the target customers.
Hou is the website’s chief brand officer (CBO) in charge of e-commerce and one of the first in the Chinese wine industry practicing flash sales of limited quantities for a limited period.
He organizes blind tastings in Shanghai and emphasizes that symmetric information between merchant and consumer is key to avoiding price gouging, which he calls a “cancer” in the industry.
Huang is CEO of Vinehoo in charge of the editorial. He emphasizes clear, down-to-earth content with a team of 10 editors and many contributors. He also emphasizes the mobile Internet so shoppers can check quality and prices.
“There’s a common belief that there won’t be another Robert Parker,” says Huang, “not because there’s no one as professional as he but because wine judging has become a mass movement.”
Huang has launched e-learning platform with what is probably the biggest wine database in China. E-commerce head Hou sometimes complains that editorial head Huang isn’t giving him enough support, but Huang says only the free flow of information can drive the wine market forward.
“I am optimistic about vertical e-commerce websites. Professional evaluations and better integration of upstream resources lead directly to more competitive prices and product variety,” says Liu Yinbin, a professor at Shanghai University of International Business and Management. His focus is e-commerce and social media.
He reserves judgment, however, on combining wine e-commerce with an open learning platform.
Hou is more like an easygoing artist while Huang is an engineer with literary touch, says one of their clients. Their venture is based on an open attitude and pragmatic approach.
Their office on Zhongshan Road N. in Putuo District is small and cluttered. An array of corks are displayed under a glass floor. Though they just received an investment of 5 million yuan (US$825,374), they are not interested in spending on an elaborate office.
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