2022 RETAILER OF THE YEAR

From left : Mike and Gary

Fisch , son and father , continue to grow Gary ' s Wine & Marketplace as the company expands nationally and improves digitally .

BY KYLE SWARTZ

Gary ’ s began in 1987 , when Gary Fisch purchased a 1,200-square-foot store in Madison , NJ . That first , small location — known then as Shoppers Discount Liquor / Wine Warehouse — quickly expanded into the adjacent retail spaces . At the same time , Fisch was making a name for himself by excelling in the areas of fine wine imports and selection , and world-class customer service .

So it only made sense for the company to take the name of its founder , as Fisch ’ s work and reputation cemented his place among the great northeast retailers . Today , the company counts four locations in New Jersey and one in Napa Valley . The family legacy continues as Gary ’ s son Mike has entered the business , reshaping it at just the right time to help adapt with the pandemic . We recently caught up with Gary and Mike Fisch to talk about this evolution , among other topics .

Beverage Dynamics : Mike , what was your process of joining the family business ? Mike Fisch : I started my career at Ernst & Young as consultant for financial services firms , helping them make tech transformations . I was a CPA there for three years . Then I went to Wharton for my MBA in finance . If I was to go into our family business , I wanted to make sure that I brought in new ideas and best practices from my experience in the MBA world . Gary Fisch : The original plan was for Mike to go work for one of the importers or suppliers , because that ’ s a great training ground . But then Covid came in and it was too important to our operations that Mike come back to help keep us alive . MF : While I was at business school , I was still working full time for our business . My first big project was to integrate our POS data into Microsoft Power BI . That ’ s a great way to learn the intricacies of our numbers , how our customers behave .

I was also working on our mobile app with City Hive , as well as our last-mile delivery opportunities . Everything I was learning at school was telling me that the future belonged to the Drizlys and GoPuffs of the world . I was working on route optimization , and putting the right tech in place . This was all before Covid . Then we had to close our stores . Suddenly , our little app was getting thousands of downloads a day . We switched overnight to an ecommerce website with City Hive . All that work and the subsequent years have been stressful — yet gratifying .

BD : What ’ s your focus now ? MF : On various aspects of the business , such as bringing in best practices to our accounting systems . GF : Before we switched to Microsoft Power BI , all decision-making was based on a traditional retail POS system . It was not heavily modern . I would joke that my version of ‘ analytics ’ was walking the floor and seeing a hole in the Rhône section and saying , ‘ We need more Rhône ’. Mike would ask , ‘ How can you back that with data ?’ Now , we can see all the data behind everything to make decisions . Mike has trained all our staff on this . The importance of that cannot be stressed enough . Now we ’ re a data-driven company . MF : I ’ ve also gone into each department and taken a look at best practices . I ’ ve increased efficiencies while lowering costs . It ’ s been great working with Gary and his business partner Joel . They ’ ve been in business for 35 years . I ’ m new , and can sometimes be overly optimistic or naïve . It ’ s a great combination , because I ’ m bringing in new technology and practices , and they ’ re more grounded in what ’ s tried and true . They ’ re thinking about what ’ s the trade off , and not just innovation for the sake of innovation . GF : When I started in ’ 87 , I was solely focused on retail . I always grew my business from the boot-

www . beveragedynamics . com June 2022 • Beverage Dynamics 11