Sell ’Er Through the Cellar Door

“Cellar door sales” is a term associated with wineries, but the idea can be applied to selling a broad range of merchandise. Characteristics of cellar door sales include:

• A retail sale is made directly from the producer to the consumer, with no intermediary. 
• The sale is made at the place where the item is produced, with the opportunity for the shopper to view the production process and talk with those who participated in the production. 
• The shopper is encouraged to sample consumption or use of the product before deciding about purchasing. 

     Using interviews of retailers, researchers at Australia’s University of Western Sydney and Edith Cowan University studied cellar door sales of muscadine wines in the Southern USA. The researchers’ interest in muscadines had been piqued when they were told by winery operators that consumer snobbery is a major impediment to these wines’ popularity.
     Here are cellar door selling success factors consumer behavior studies identify:

• Communicate strong branding. Ensure all public areas are clean. Have distinctive logos and bold signage consistent with your intended personality of the product. This includes on the signage directing drivers to your cellar. 
• Facilitate the shopping experience. Have sufficient parking space and employ enough staff to greet visitors promptly. Don’t pounce on shoppers, but be easily available to initiative entertaining conversation. Keep explanations palatable. Some muscadine wine vendors had reacted to the snobbery stigma by spouting wine jargon to visitors. The result was more often irritation than positive impressions. 
• Educate the shopper. Jargon’s okay. The problem’s with the spouting. One-fourth of the muscadine wine vendors said their main selling challenge was the shoppers’ lack of knowledge about the wines. Give shoppers what consumer researchers call a “consumption vocabulary.” 
• Be a destination or a scripted part of a journey. Join with other cellar door sellers to develop a shopping area. Or as the Apple Hill vendors in Northern California do, distribute maps with your cellar along with other cellars plotted out. Work with tour bus operators to include you as a destination or on a scripted journey. 

     “Cellar door” has been considered by some to be among the most beautiful sounding phrases in any language. Add the word “sales” to it and it will be even more pleasing to the ears of retailers. How might you use the success factors of cellar door sales in your business?

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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