Wine product bundling: for a new segment of wine consumers

Abstract

PURPOSE – Researchers have investigated product bundles using convenient product categories, but there is little evidence that wine product bundles have been studied. Research is fundamental to producing wine product bundles that will benefit the wine industry rather than hurt it. This research forms an exploratory study as to whether a large scale segment of wine market is likely to be prone to deals that include product bundles. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH – Personally administered quantitative questionnaire that pre-tested 25 respondents, with a full research sample of 262 valid responses. The survey was administered at 14 locales around the South Australian metropolitan and outer metropolitan areas. Respondents were filtered to include wine drinkers above the age of 18 years. FINDINGS – Segmentation analysis from the research describes three market segments which offer market intelligence to the wine industry. One wine consumer segment is particularly deal prone, and is also interested in promotions and discounts and purchasing bundles. This segment is predominately younger between the ages of 18-39. Other findings included a lack of wine product bundle awareness and results that indicated, alcohol consumers who did not consider wine to be the most important element in the bundle purchase, also consider the bundle including to be more convenient, better value for money, and were more likely to represent a purchase. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS – The Australian wine industry is experiencing difficult economic conditions, low profitability, and consolidation of the retail industry is causing a loss of negotiating power. This research has the potential to provide the wine industry with market intelligence that may uncover a new buying wine consumer segment and provide small to medium wine companies (SME’s) the data to create wine product bundles that form a unique set of wine products.