Harrods way

Alistair Viner, wine and spirits buyer for The World’s Most Famous Department Store, tells Robyn Lewis how his department competes with anyother independent wine merchant – from own-label to money-off promotions

I SHOULD have known, really.  Having spent many summers in my youth in the backrooms of another well known department store, I should have guessed that the backrooms of Harrods would be nothing like the bastion of luxury and conspicuous consumption of the shop floor.

Nonetheless, behind the "Staff Only" doors of Harrods lies something of a lesson in economy of comfort.  Less gilding and deep pile carpets were perhaps to be expected, but, frankly, the tiny, cramped, windowless office, stuffed with mismatched furniture, deep in the bowels of  "The World’s most Famous Department Store" where I find Alistair Viner, wine and spirits buyer for Harrods, is perhaps the least glamorous place I have ever done an interview and wine tasting.

It is in stark contrast to the wine department itself, which is a swish and contemporary affair in the basement of the store, where it has been located since a move from upstairs in 1998.  "I think that this is the right place for us," says Viner, "but basements of stores are difficult to get people down to and you don’t automatically get thousands of people coming down to us.

It does mean we tend to get more serious customers down here, rather than people just walking through, which is what it was like upstairs, but you reduce your footfall.  So we have to work harder to get people here.

We need to push sales through like anyone else."  And at the heart of this strategy are promotions, such as the "Made in Italy" launch, which is the premise for my visit.  The event runs across the store through September and October with Italian films showing in a new cinema, a Ferrari in the menswear department and mozzarella making in the food halls, to mention but a few activities.

In the wine department, there are 86 Italian wines on promotion, all chosen by Viner, of course.  "We’ve taken a slightly different approach in the food and wine departments to the promotion.  Instead of encompassing the whole of Italy, we are doing regional promotions, two regions at a time, and I would say at least four of them are regions that you wouldn’t normally anticipate being major wine areas," explains Viner.

"A lot of them come from UK suppliers because, obviously, it is a lot easier for me, but it does allow me to bring in a lot of more esoteric and slightly unusual wines that I wouldn’t have thought of doing before because you are looking to find pretty much mainstream products.

Not commercial necessarily but mainstream; wines like Chianti or Brunello, for example, because those are what people are going to buy.  So to do something like this is quite adventurous, but you know I’ve been very pleased at the quality of wines coming in from the other regions."

Italy is already a significant part of the Harrods wine offer, forming the second largest category by sales volume for the department.  France, not unexpectedly, comes first by a large margin.  "French is certainly what we do," confirms Viner.

"If you look at the Fine Wine room you will see it is very French-dominated as Burgundy, Bordeaux and Champagne are certainly still our biggest selling lines by a long way. I mean, last year Champagne accounted for about 28% of sales, which is ridiculous and a lot of it, obviously, is at the top end.

Then Bordeaux and Burgundy come close behind that, so I would say that we were French specialists."  This is also reflected in the own-label range, which consists of about 35 products "mostly French," says Viner.

The private label range for Harrods is interesting as Viner has had the opportunity, with the weight of the Harrods name, to create an own-label range that is not at entry-point level.  "We do own-label to show a really good representation of the product and we do use top producers for it," he says.

"We are looking for top names to be associated with Harrods, so, for example, our own-label Port comes from Dows and is cross-branded to highlight that.  It is important to make sure that what people are getting in the own-label shows a very good quality/value ratio."

And there are other advantages to that famous moniker as well.  The prestige of the brand ensures that consumers are perhaps a little more open to suggestion, says Viner.  "We do get a lot of feedback from customers saying that they have subsequently bought a wine at a restaurant that they first saw and maybe tasted with us at one of our tasting evenings.

Our customers do seem to know what they like, know a bit about wine and are keen to taste new things.  think what we are ultimately trying to do here is to try and get away from the tried and tested wine; to move your drinkers up to experimenters and your experimenters up a level, and that is a slow build process.

To try and take the snobbism out of wine and get people to say, ‘Well, I wouldn’t normally try a £25 wine but you have it on promotion so let’s try it and see if I like it.’"  So it is still money off that works then, even at this level? "Of course.

People are always on the look out for a bargain and people do compare our prices with other merchants’.  What I’ve tried to do over the last four years is put us in line with other independents, look for products that other people maybe aren’t selling, keep the prices fair and say, you know, look, these are really good prices plus we do promotions and money off."

From the supplier side the name opens doors too, says Viner, with people keen to see their product in such a high profile, high quality outlet, but there are misconceptions.  "A lot of people think Harrods is such a big name, we are bound to sell vast quantities of wine.

Well, I do sell vast quantities of wine but, because I have such a vast number of lines, I’m never going to sell huge quantities of one product.  Obviously, own-label we sell quite a lot of but as far as other things are concerned it is the exposure you get and the number of people who see your products at Harrods that is beneficial, even if your sales don’t go through."

The department is, in fact, a medium sized affair with 16 staff – four buyers, a man in the warehouse and the remaining 10 people, shop floor staff.  Most are either educated to WSET diploma level, are currently studying for it or have qualifications from other countries.

"We have a great variety of nationalities on staff – Australian, Italian, South African and quite a few French," explains Viner.  "In fact I think there are only three English people in the department, and that’s good because it sort of brings a wealth of experience from other countries and people can learn from each other."

Even though the staff are already highly qualified it doesn’t mean that Viner does not have the usual staff training to organise – although, again, the Harrods name is a help here.  "We do a lot of inhouse training and if ever a producer is over we get them in for a tasting, and we’ve had some really great people do that for us – we’ve had Remi Krug, for example.

We are fortunate in that respect and so staff do get to taste a lot of products that we sell, and at the top end, which is good.  I think that’s important because if anyone is going to sell these types of products it’s these guys, and I think it is only fair to show them the difference between one product and another and why this one is £85 and what makes it good value at £85 or £35 or £15.

Individually they have their favourites as well, which is important as if you have 15 people working in a department and they all like 20 different wines each, suddenly you are selling a very broad spectrum of products.

Giving them the opportunity to try things means they can say, ‘Well I preferred this or that because…’ and so I think it is vital for us to just broaden their knowledge."  Ultimately, Viner says, staff knowledge is key to what he is trying to say about the Harrods wine department to the world at large.

"What I am trying to get across is what we have to offer people as a wine merchant," he says. "And that is a really good team of staff who can advise and recommend things to suit everybody’s pocket, and we cover a broad spectrum of customers as well as having a broad range of products.

Ultimately, I want to be a top independent wine merchant and I think if you are competing in the wine market you have to look at what your competitors are doing and try and work with that.  That’s why we do promotions and evening events.

We have to compete on that sort of playing field and most of the time, if you keep that in mind, then being in Harrods is a benefit as well."