WINE E-COMMERCE IN ITALY IS STILL A MICRONICHE, AS ITS VALUE IS ESTIMATED AROUND 30 MILLION EUROS. BUT MANY BELIEVE IN IT, FROM THE VINITALY WINE CLUB TO THE GIANT "SALDIPRIVATI.COM” AND THE ITALIAN POST OFFICE

Wine e-commerce in Italy, although official figures are not yet available, is still a micro-niche, since its value is estimated around 30 million euros. Yet many believe in it and are betting on it. It is no coincidence then, that it was one of the hot topics at Vinitaly.

Even VeronaFiere has invested in it with the e-commerce portal Vinitaly Wine Club, which was launched in 2013 and has already entered into a partnership in Italy with "Vini24" (www.vini24.ilsole24ore.com), online wine sales project by the journal "Il Sole 24 Ore", and it is also ready to land in China, in partnership with the portal Wineyun.com. It is a channel that is increasingly explored by different firms, like the case of SaldiPrivati.com (www.saldiprivati.com), one of the main players of online flash sales in Italy, with over 2 million members, which not only began a food and wine partnership with Eataly, but is betting more and more on wine.

“There are three basic reasons”, explained the CEO Bruno Decker to WineNews, “the online wine business, although still small, is growing and we want to get 5-6% of the total market within a few years and then we have noticed that the wine offer has expanded our community from predominantly female to the male audience, and that the value of the cart of those who also buy wine is on average higher than those who do not”. This reflection confirms what Xavier Court, head of Ventee-Privee.com, a giant of e-commerce and global wine leader in Europe (3.3 million bottles sold in 2013 and a turnover of 36 million euros, ed.) said recently to WineNews.

And regarding wineries, “The first concern of this particular channel is the fear of jeopardizing their price positioning”, said Matteo Lunelli, head of Ferrari bubbles in the meeting promoted at Vinitaly by Soave Consortium, which already works with Saldi-Privati, but once you find the formula and the right partner, the results will come. “Especially because with flash sales you can make yourself known by those who maybe do not know you yet, and without getting into conflict with the senior channels of distribution”. And the major brands believe this, like SaldiPrivati.com, which of course will focus on sales, but also on the “narrative of wines and territories”, added Decker, that big wine names are already doing, like Ferrari, Argiolas, Feudi di San Gregorio, Michele Chiarlo, Bellavista, Contadi Castaldi, Umani Ronchi, Mionetto, Masciarelli, Terredora, Carpineto, Marco Felluga, Sella & Mosca, La Braccesca, Velenosi and many others.

That e-commerce wine has great potential is also demonstrated by the investment of an important group like the Italian Post Office that at Vinitaly launched a new dedicated platform designed especially for small and medium-sized wineries that want to export. In fact, the project, in addition to the service of selling bottles of wine and logistics, also provides a comprehensive package of "legal" advice from the bureaucratic point of view, taking on all the management issues like excise duties and documents that change from country to country, as well as VAT, but also the manner and timing of payments. The product offer is "hardware" and "software" to allow even the smallest Italian wineries to explore the promising frontier of e-commerce.