Online retailers battle it out

Naked Wines won the head-to-head consumer benchmarking exercise against fellow online retail newcomer FindWine last week.

The retailers hosted a taste-off for their consumers because they thought “it would be fun to compare and contrast our wine discoveries, given we’re the new kids on the block.”

Each retailer invited 15 customers to the tasting, which featured three tables of five wine pairs (one from each merchant in the pair) and with each table being organised by price; less than £5.99, £6-£9.99 and £10-£15.

Customers, who attended free-of-charge, were asked to taste and simply vote for their favourite in each pair, with an optional extra (“a bit of fun”) asking customers to guess the grape variety, if they so wished.

Naked Wines was eventually revealed to be the winner by a margin of 339 to 303 in a tight contest that was won on first (cheapest) table.

Commenting on the venture, director of FindWine, Mike Howes, told the drinks business: “It’s great to have the opportunity to align ourselves with Naked Wines, which is at the forefront of online wine retailing.

“They’re doing the best job out there and they have interesting stuff, so it’s great to show our ranges head-to-head, it confirms the difference in our approaches. As online retailers, one of our biggest challenges is getting customers to understand what our wines are about,” added Howes.

Rowan Gormley, of Naked Wines, said: “FindWine has some great wines, I’m going to order some next week!

“We’re two tiddly merchants who are new to the wine scene but we have a stylistic difference to our wines and that makes our consumers different, which means we compliment each other.”

Click here to visit Naked Wines and FindWine

Jane Parkinson, 15.11.2010