Women are buying more wine directly from wineries than ever before, but men are still spending more for it.
This is one of the insights from a new report issued this week on direct wine sales by WineDirect, a company that manages direct sales, and Enolytics, which analyzes wine data.
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"Why is there Enolytics in the first place? There's a ton of data in the wine and spirits world, but there's not a ton of intelligence and analysis of that data," Enolytics CEO Cathy Huyghe told Wine-Searcher. "When we talk about the future of the industry and we talk about trends and where it can go, it's in the data. The data is there. We're trying to uncage it and let it out and do its thing."
Much of the data trends mirror those reported by Sovos ShipCompliant, but Huyghe said this report differs in that it also includes direct sales from tasting rooms: wines that are sold direct, but aren't shipped.
In fact, the Enolytics report shows how important tasting rooms are to direct sales, as they made up 38-40 percent of all direct sales in each of the past five years except for 2020, when pandemic closures cut that to 28 percent. Direct sales via winery websites jumped to an all-time high of 15 percent during 2020.
The biggest chunk of direct sales comes from winery clubs: the 43 percent of direct sales in 2021 was the lowest figure in five years. Club sales had been steady for the previous four years so it's hard to say if 2021 was a one-year phenomenon.
"We found in the data how valuable repeat customers are," Huyghe said. "Let's say a customer walks into a winery and spends $100. They can expect that customer to spend another $50 in another channel. When their data is not captured, the winery is lucky if the person spends another $10."
In fact, in the US, only 13 percent of direct sales go to first-time customers, while 69 percent go to club members and 18 percent to repeat customers.
Gender and generation
Enolytics has the ability to separate direct sales by gender and generation. Thus we learn that men have a higher average order value at every age bracket than women. The gender difference in spending is so great that even Millennial men outspend Gen X and boomer women.
Gen X men spend the most per purchase: $256 on average, just ahead of $252 for boomer men. Gen X women spend $178 per purchase; boomer women spend $173. But women are becoming ever-more important direct sales customers, with their percentage of total cases bought rising from 40 percent in 2017 to 44 percent in 2021.
Though Gen X spends a little more, there are still significantly more boomers: they bought 41 percent of all wine sold direct in 2021, down from 46 percent in 2017. Gen X bought 32 percent and Millennials bought 22 percent.
Men buy two-thirds of all wines from wineries whose average bottle price is $60 or more. Women buy more than half of all wines from wineries whose average bottle price is $39 or less.
Both men and women buy mostly red wine direct: 74 percent for men, 67 percent for women. Both buy about four times as much white wine as rosé.
The "silent generation" (older than boomers) are most susceptible to telemarketing, while Gen Z are most likely to buy their tiny 1 percent of the overall total in tasting rooms and at events.
The average total value of direct wine orders had been dropping slightly before 2020, when it jumped 19 percent to $148; it stayed at $149 in 2021. Discounting was big in 2020, with the average discount percentage reaching 19.5 percent before dropping to 14.5 percent in 2021.
People spend nearly one-third more per-bottle when they buy from wine clubs or telemarketing than they do when they buy at tasting rooms or from a winery website.
The biggest months for ordering wine direct are September through November; maybe we can call it "wine season". Direct sales fall in December and January is the slowest month, giving another meaning to "dry January".
