Online alcohol sales are still in a state of infancy. But as they start to take full advantage of all the opportunities that e-commerce can bring to their overall brand, it will be exciting to watch them innovate and scale to drive the next period of their business forward.
While gifts are driving e-commerce alcohol purchases, traffic doesn’t necessarily increase substantially during November and December.
However, conversions to sale nearly double. So how can online retailers maximize their holiday wins? The key lies in focusing in on what they know best — their own brand. It may seem shortsighted, but online retailers need to be laser focused exclusively on what has traditionally worked to maximize online sales.
Now is not the time to get too creative. Online retailers can start experimenting with different marketing channels, target customers, and marketing ideas post the holiday rush in January.
This type of experimentation will likely be seen coming from large liquor brands, who will likely start issuing more limited-edition products to stay competitive. The reason is that as they start to collect more online data from their own e-commerce enabled sites, the more they’ll be able to learn about their individual customers unique interests. Furthermore, specialty items drive the highest conversions to sale in the liquor industry, and we anticipate a lot more collaboration between brands and celebrities or artists to create new types of products.
Finally, to truly grow on e-commerce during the holidays and beyond, brands cannot disregard the importance of having a seamless online ordering experience for their customers. They must focus on optimizing the checkout flow — which is the point of highest drop-off. Offering various payment methods and requesting as little information as possible are two areas where brands can improve the customer experience and capture added sales.
