“ NOW , I THINK CONSUMERS ARE HOOKED ON THAT CONVENIENCE . WHEN THIS CRISIS SUBSIDES , I THINK THAT ONLINE ORDERING WILL CONTINUE .” – Matt Rosen , CEO of WineFetch
Technology During Covid mid-March . “ By the end of that first week we were doubling in business ,” recalls Roi Kliper , co-founder and CEO . “ Then as weeks go by we are doing 10 times the week before . We had a lot of new sign-ups . There was a lot of demand .”
Kliper and his team helped retailers create ecommerce sites , sometimes overnight . This work occurred as digital delivery and curbside pickup requests ballooned from customers . In the months of March and April , 60 % of the transactions logged in City Hive systems were curbside pickup .
Sometimes this was consumers who preferred to remain in their cars . In others instances , businesses actively made the choice to close . Leading New Jersey retailer Gary ' s Wine & Marketplace shut down shop voluntarily and switched all sales to curbside and delivery . For that task , Gary ’ s contacted City Hive .
“ Gary ’ s had been our customer for a while for their phone app ,” Kliper explains . “ In late March , [ COO ] Mike Fisch called me and said they were going curbside only . He told me what they needed . We bought the domain GarysLocal . com , and within two hours had web ordering up and online .”
City Hive software takes in the customer ’ s order and car information . The program lets retailers know when the customer has arrived . Launched early in the pandemic , a City Hive app helps pickers inside the store get the appropriate products . Challenges include how to print receipts accurately , how to handle substitutions , how to check IDs and not serve underage people disguised behind masks , and how to communicate with customers when orders get delayed inside . Another issue was the sheer scope of the new trends . “ One store used to do 150 deliveries per week ,” says Kliper . “ Suddenly they ’ re up to 1,500 deliveries per week . This is a single store , a single operation . This is hard .”
Adding onto the troubles was the ever-present threat of national chain stores like Total Wine .
“ A lot of alcohol sales have been shifting to Big Box stores , so getting ecommerce set up was critical ,” says Mike Provance , CEO of 3x3 Insights . The company provides a location-based digital marketing platform for beer , wine and spirits retailers .
“ We helped [ smaller retailers ] with how to take customers back , and how to find new customers ,” Provance adds . “ We help them stay relevant when everything is becoming digital .”
Matt Rosen , CEO of WineFetch , speaks during the 2019 Beverage Alcohol Retailers conference .
alcohol in a way that they were never able to in the past ,” says Matt Rosen , CEO of WineFetch . “ Now , I think consumers are hooked on that convenience . When this crisis subsides , I think that online ordering will continue .”
WineFetch offers an e-commerce and marketing platform built specifically for the retail wine and spirits industry .
“ We had people with limited or no presence who came scrambling to us in March ,” Rosen remembers . “ We were rolling out websites overnight . Stores were having the equivalent of Cyber Monday on a random Wednesday in March . It was incredible to see how much shifted in a two-week period .”
At first , the consumers stocked up on large-format name brands like Tito ’ s , Svedka , Miller Lite and Bota Box . But as customers became more comfortable with digital platforms , Rosen saw a shift .
“ People are shopping again ,” he says . “ It ’ s not just the bestknown brands . We ’ re seeing an increase in the bottle cost again . People have time at home to shop through products .”
Retailers with websites or social media ( or preferably both ) loaded with product images allow consumers to shop online as
“ NOW , I THINK CONSUMERS ARE HOOKED ON THAT CONVENIENCE . WHEN THIS CRISIS SUBSIDES , I THINK THAT ONLINE ORDERING WILL CONTINUE .” – Matt Rosen , CEO of WineFetch
THE NEW DIGITAL WORLD COVID-19 had the effect of hastening many trends . Movements in consumer behavior and technological preferences leapt ahead by many years . Even if the virus finally recedes — or a vaccine rolls out — it ’ s hard to imagine most people going back to how they shopped before the novel coronavirus .
“ One silver lining in all this is that people were able to order though browsing through aisles .
“ Stores with ecommerce are conditioning people to do this ,” Rosen says . “ It ’ s all about the convenience .”
Because of the coronavirus , the genie is likely out of the bottle with ecommerce . Too many consumers have
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