5 Easy Tips to Sell Your Wine Like a Pro

Selling wine isn’t always easy. Persuading your customers to purchase a bottle of wine can be quite difficult due to various factors that affect their buying decision. Now, if you find that selling wines can be quite hard, how much more if you are upselling it to the guests? It can be intimidating and even trickier.

However, there is no need to feel such things if you know what to do and how to sell it. If you execute a sales technique with tact, grace, and thoughtfulness, it can significantly increase your wine sales. With this in mind, start thinking “selling my wine is easy” as a first step, then do the rest of the step by following the tips below on how to sell your wine like a pro.

Wine’s Profit Margin

If you are wondering why you should take time in learning the twists and turns in selling wines, then knowing its profit margin might convince you.

First of all, the profit margin and bottle pricing depends on where it is sold. However, it is estimated that restaurants and bars have around 70 percent profit margin on wine. For the retailers, the profit margin is typically between 30 to 50 percent. On the other hand, distributors and wholesalers have around 28-30 percent, while producers have about 50 percent.

This shows that wine beverages are significant in one’s generated revenue, and the more you sell wines, the more likely it will help your business flourish.

Give Options in Different Price Ranges

What you need to do before giving options at varying prices is that you should establish their preference in wines first. Ask your guests for their preference and sort out the wine types available at your store according to their taste. After you have confirmed their wine palate, suggest three options in various price ranges.

In suggesting three different price ranges, one should be priced high, the other should be at average pricing, and the last one should be at a budgeted level. When you suggest your wines like this, your guests would be able to know the differences in the presented wines and make them consider wines they haven’t before.

Using this technique requires wine knowledge and amiable traits to make the wines more appealing to the guests.

Offer Wine and Food Pairings

In the first place, your wine list should easily complement the food that you offer in your restaurant. With this said, your wines should be easily paired with at least one or several offered dishes. Thus, sell your wine by taking advantage of offering wine and food pairings for a better experience.

Utilize your best selling dishes on your food menu and have some specific wines in mind that the sommelier or serving staff can recommend to your restaurant patrons. Also, you might want to pair your wines with your other dishes to upsell both your food and wine.

Selling by a Glass

Selling wines through a half glass initiative can be an effective way to sell your wines. By doing this, you can boost sales from the entree, between courses, and at the end of the meal. Selling wine by the glass creates an opportunity as a choice for your guests since they will be able to drink wine with a little bit of commitment on their behalf.

Although this technique seems to be counterintuitive, it is still better to have 50 percent of a sale than no sale. If you look at a bigger picture, selling by the glass also creates a way for you to boost sales and introduce guests to a wine that they haven’t tried before. Introducing wine to a guest paves the way for an opportunity of a potential regular customer.

Tell Wine Tales

Who wouldn’t love storytelling? Although this is quite a bit of a longshot since it needs ample time, telling stories about a wine encourages your guests to buy the beverage. Your goal here is to romanticize the wine drinking experience and make them enjoy a memorable meal through a bottle of wine.

In doing this, you can talk about the short descriptions of the wine and highlight some unique facts. For instance, the wine’s terroir, winemaking technique, or the brief and interesting history of the winemaker can be. Not only will you be able to sell wine, but you can also build rapport with your guests making your customer service excellent.

Takeaway

Although anyone can offer a bottle of wine, not everybody can guarantee the purchase from the customer. This is why you need to know how professional wine sellers do it so that you will be able to utilize your business asset and generate revenue. With all the easy tips discussed above, you’ll surely see functional changes in your wine sales and services. 

Author’s bio:

Scarlett Wells is a full-time writer and wine expert. She is very active in examining every wine type from vintage labels to the newest so she'll be able to perfectly guide every consumer in selecting the right kind of wine. Also, she has a lot of blogs that discuss detailed wine usage.