Mix it up With In-Store Events

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Driving foot traffic into your store is the main goal of your advertising and marketing efforts. I recently read a good article on the wesite retailminded.com regarding the importance of holding in-store events to boost traffic and help create added buzz around your business. The article suggests that while a great location, personable staff, and a quality mix of products will help your store succeed, having unique and special events can help drive your sales to the next level. Check out this article to see 3 great reasons to host in-store events.

The article emphasizes the importance of inviting as many people as possible to the event. Emailing customers and tools like facebook are great ways to generate buzz for events. Facebook is no longer just for college kids keeping in touch with their friends. Businesses, bands, authors and other people trying to sell their goods are using facebook to reach consumers like never before. If your business is not on facebook, you are missing a big opportunity to maximize your exposure to the general public. Whether or not your facebook followers and the people in your email address book can attend your event, everyone appreciates being thought of. So, remember to invite as many people as possible. Reaching out to your customers, even though they may not be able to attend, will keep your store fresh in their minds.

In store events are great because they mix up the day to day routine in your store. The article also suggested focusing on events that are not based around sales. Consider bring in musical acts, food vendors to pair with wines, or anything else that you can do to enhance the experience of visiting your store. We often hear from our customers about how they incorporate True Fabrications’ products into their store’s events. We would love to hear from you about successful events you’ve tried in your store.

The Younger Generation

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How do you get more traffic into your store? Do you add new products frequently to keep inventory fresh? Offer large discounts? Stand a guy outside with a sign pointing people toward your business? Or, do you attempt to engage a larger audience? If you chose the last idea, you might be on to something that many in the wine business are slow to adopt. The millennial age group (21-35) is an often overlooked demographic by the wine industry. Counted as the second largest group of wine drinkers, (ages 55-64 comes in at #1) approaching and engaging the millennial generation is a great way to expand your customer base.

An article titled “Marketing Wine to the Next Generation” inspired this blog post. The post describes how perplexed, young people can become frustrated by wine and end up with a “screw it, let’s just get drunk” attitude.   To prevent this, a connection must be made with the younger consumer. To approach this group, “Good wine is not nearly enough, an experience must be provided as well”.

Does your business offer activities tailored for younger consumers? As a member of the wine and spirits industry, consider holding tastings targeted towards younger wine drinkers and apply your expertise by teaching wine basics. Helping them understand wine will allow them to appreciate the contents of their glass, and get them away from the “let’s get drunk attitude” Target the millennial age group in your advertisements and offer a discount to the young people that participate. Events offering musical entertainment and food are also a great way to engage the millennial demographic. Wine can be confusing, and working to make it as accessible as possible will allow you to capture this expanding group of wine drinkers. We would love to hear about any activities you’ve created to reach out to the millennial demographic of wine drinkers.

Super Size Your Super Bowl With the Right Beer and Wine Accessories

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Although the college football season has come to an end, there is still one big football game to go. The NFL’s Super Bowl XLVI is just around the corner, and it’s time to start thinking about how you are going to prepare your store. According to PartnershipActivation.com, 9 out of 10 households watch the Super Bowl. Because the game is so heavily followed, Super Bowl parties and consumption of food and drink are at an all time high. Are you ready to take full advantage of this big Q1 weekend?

Beer sales surrounding the 2 weeks prior to the Super Bowl are surpassed only by the Independence Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Halloween. Making sure that your beer section is stocked and your Super Bowl-related displays are ready, is essential for retail stores who want to get the most out of this mid-winter sales jump. Super Bowl viewers also consume an estimate 166 million pounds of food for the annual big game. When it comes to food and beverage, Super Bowl weekend is not one to be ignored.

Consider special displays that will cater to Super Bowl weekend. Have food and beer very clearly placed in the forefront of your store. This is also a great time to take advantage of some extra accessory sales. Place one of our convenient POP displays of Beer Bands next to your beer selection. The large margin on beer accessories is a great way to collect some extra revenue. For those who are a little more into utility, the Bottle Hammer Automatic Opener is a great tool to show beer lovers. Simply press the hammer down on the top of any bottle, and the Bottle Hammer effortlessly removes the cap. Finally, whether its Super Bowl season or not, having an inexpensive beer opening option near your register is a great idea. Our key chain openers come in 5 assorted colors and can fit conveniently in your pocket. Now is the time to start thinking about super bowl weekend. The sales possibilities from this game are not to be missed.

Key Chain Bottle Openers by True Fabrications

New & Saucy Wine Labels Hit the Shelves

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Walking through a wine shop or a supermarket’s wine section, the labels and colors jump out at you like a kaleidoscope. From the colorful, to the minimal, to downright questionable taste, wine labels and winery names are the first point of contact between a bottle and a consumer. Amid the thousands of labels out there, how does a winery find a way to have their bottles purchased without the aid of an employee recommendation or a famous brand? The answer: the label.

For centuries, wine labels were simply informative. A name, a location, the contents and possibly a small design was all that was included. In the past 30 years, labels began to grow more bold and assertive. While many wines still stick to a more traditional label, other wines have taken on new names and label designs to try and set themselves apart on the shelves. Check out this article in the New York Times to see how a name change from Scherzinger Estates to Dirty Laundry Vineyards increased traffic to the winery tenfold or how Fat Bastard wines became one of the best selling lines of French wines in the United States.

The article also has a number of wine names that you have to visit the article in order to read.  Whether it’s appealing to a younger demographic or simply trying to catch consumers attention and set their brand apart, “saucy” wine labels have worked their way onto the shelves and into the grocery bags of many. We would love to get your thoughts on these colorful names. Do you or would you stock these labels in your store? Do you think these names are having a positive or negative effect on wine as a whole?

Whether it’s for girl’s night out, a humorous gift, or you were ensnared by the wine label’s character, bold labels have been successful and are probably here to stay. Wine with attitude has also translated over into wine accessories. If you’re looking for the perfect wine accessory to go with “saucy” labeled wine, check out our hand painted wine glasses and our beverage themed t-shirts. The market for these wines as well as the accessories is quite large. Are you doing what you can to optimize your sales and capture this business?

Wine Girl Painted Wine Glass by True Fabrications

How to Pair Wine & Chocolate

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True Fabrications believes that wine and food go together hand in hand. The right wine with a meal can make the dining experience that much better. But what about wine and chocolate? Commonly paired together, wine and chocolate are thought by many to be a perfect combination. However, this is not always true. The wrong wine with the wrong chocolate can make for a very unpleasant experience.
To keep this from happening, consider the following when pairing these two foods. First, be selective with the chocolate you are choosing to go with your wine. While sweet milk chocolate is great by itself, the high sugar content has a habit of masking the sugars in certain wines and making them taste lifeless or even worse, astringent and harsh. According to CNN.com , the selected chocolate should never be sweeter than the wine it is being paired with. To keep this from happening, select a chocolate with a very high cacao percentage. This will help prevent your chocolate from being too sugary. Try our Brix Medium Dark, and Brix Extra Dark, with 60% and 70% cacao respectively. If you’re looking for an easy add on for wine sold in your store, the In Vino Veritas Bottle Neckers feature chocolate in the 64% and 71% cacao range and fit conveniently around the neck of a bottle.

In Vino Veritas Chocolate Neckers by True Fabrications

To choose the right wine, ask a professional who can provide a selection that has good balance. A wine that has a balance of sugar, acid and fruit will be perfect for chocolate. Wines like grenache, merlot and port all go well with chocolate. But, just because one wine goes well with a certain chocolate, does not mean it will pair well with another. Each wine and chocolate will pair differently. Wine and chocolate can be a very enjoyable experience. However, we would encourage you to pair wisely to get the most out of both your wine and the chocolate.

There’s Still One Holiday to Go: Don’t Forget about New Year’s Eve

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While this week marks the end of the Christmas buying chaos, there is still one holiday that we would encourage our customers not to miss. New Years Eve is just around the corner and it is not too late to make sure your store has what it needs to finish off this very busy season. We at True Fabrications have found that our sales, and your sales, tend to be higher when Christmas or New Year’s Eve falls on a weekend. Because New Year’s Eve falls on a Saturday night this year, we would encourage our customers to be prepared for a busy selling window. Don’t miss out on lost sales opportunities this year. Consider the following products to help your customers ring in the New Year.

For many, celebrating the New Year would not be complete without champagne. Consider bringing in some champagne stemware for your customers who shop last minute. Also, for your leftover, open bottles of champagne, you can lock in the bubbles for another night using our best selling champagne stopper. This is a very popular item this time of year.

Champagne Stemware by True Fabrications

New Year’s is also a great time to feature champagne themed bags for customers who are looking to turn their purchase into a party gift. Consider our Pop Goes The Party Bag for a champagne themed bag. We also recommend our sheer sacks for those who want to dress up their bottle.

Wine Sacks by True Fabrications

Wine Sacks by True Fabrications

We know New Year’s is a big holiday for our customers. We would encourage you to not miss out on accessory sales next weekend. Cheers!

Wine Gifts for All Occasions

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With a catalog of more than 800 products, True Fabrications offers great gifts for all occasions. Whether you’re looking for stocking stuffers, bridal shower gifts, or a birthday present for that hard to shop for uncle of yours, we have everything your store needs. Having a successful accessory section is a great way to make extra money in your store. With the positive news about this year’s holiday sales numbers, there is no time like the present to offer your customers a line of wine and bar accessories.

Creating a gift section and recommending products to accompany your customer’s purchases is a quick and easy up-sell. For example, consider the following products, to make sure your store is ready with gifts for all occasions.

Wine shops are excellent at recommending the right wine with the right food. If you can learn to pare the right accessory with the right wine, you can see your sales increase with each customer. Figure out why your customers are looking for a specific bottle and recommend the best accessory to go with it. For the bachelorette or girl’s night out, see our hand painted wine glasses. If someone buys a bottle of champagne, always recommend our best selling champagne stopper. This product is great around the holidays, thanks to Christmas and New Year’s Eve.  If someone comes in to buy a nice bottle of whiskey as a gift, suggest that they buy our glacier rocks to turn the gift into something even better.

Glacier Rocks Set by True Fabrications

Making recommendations such as these are a quick and easy way to boost your store’s revenue. Whether it’s having a quality, well priced corkscrew near the register, or a section devoted to gifts where you can recommend the right gift for the right wine, providing your customers with great gift ideas of all types is a necessity for every store.

Wholesale Wine Bags and Tubes for Your Business

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With the holiday sales season officially kicking off next week, True Fabrications thought it would be worthwhile to go over some basics for the holidays. As wine and liquor stores arm themselves with extra stock for the gift giving season, it can be easy to forget merchandise other than wine and liquor. Obviously, wine, liquor and beer are the primary items your store is selling. However, forgetting to include wine bags and wine tubes this year will lead to many missed sales opportunities. Wine tubes and wine bags can easily be sold at a 100% markup. This is a great way to make extra money this holiday season.  Ask each person who buys a bottle(s) if they’re purchasing it for a gift. If so, have your bags and tubes at the ready to up sell!

Ruby Slippers Wine Bag by True Fabrications

True Fabrications offers bags at all price points, with many different themes and designs. No matter the store, we have a bag for your needs. Our most common bags are .79 to $1.75 paper bags. Because we originally started as a bag company, we work hard to still offer a wide selection. We offer from year round elegant bags that can also pose as Christmas bags, to those that are covered in Holiday cheer. Offering paper bags in your store is an easy way to make a few extra dollars with every sale.

Lovely Leaves Jute Bag by True Fabrications

If paper’s not what you’re looking for, we offer a number of fabric bags as well. Quite elegant and at a number of price points, upselling these bags around the holidays is a great idea.  Finally, don’t forget our jute bags. For a great natural look, our jute bags are where our company started. These classic bags have been with us since the beginning and are still quite popular.

Whether you prefer, paper, fabric or jute, we can help you find the right bags for your store. We highly recommend investing in some bags for the holiday season if you haven’t already. The margins are great and they are very easy to sell. Try some out and see what they can do for you and your business.

Wine Bags and Wine Tubes: How Basic Winery Accessories Add Value to Your Retail Store

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Every year, True Fabrications continues to add more products to its line-up of the finest consumer and wholesale winery accessories on the market. As our offerings continue to grow, we would like to remind people that we originally started out as a wine bag company. With each new season, our catalog of products has become larger and more diverse, ultimately providing more products for our customers. However, our best selling and foundational products are still our wine bags and wine tubes.

Purple Angled Wine Bag | True Fabrications

Commonly, we get customers that ask us what exactly IS a wine tube? Round instead of square, the classic wine tube goes beyond the ordinary wine gift box with its sleek and stylish design. They are a great way to gift wine because they are both reusable and decorative. Similarly, wine bags come in every color, pattern and material to match your occasion. From chic to cheeky, you can be sure to carry your vino in style with the perfect wine bag in tow.

For stores that are considering investing in wine accessories, we offer a very extensive line up. However, if you are feeling a little apprehensive about investing your money in new products, consider wine bags and wine tubes.  Because they are inexpensive and easy to up-sell as a gift (especially around the holidays), wine bags and wine tubes are a great way to bring in extra revenue for your store. While most bottles of wine will only yield a 30% mark up, (spend $7, sell for $10, make $3), wine bags, wine tubes and other accessories can easily be sold at a 100% mark up, spend a dollar, sell for two, make one.

Assorted Holiday Wine Tubes | True Fabrications

We recommend a 100% mark up on all of our products regardless of price. By doing this, our more expensive products are just as rewarding to sell as our inexpensive ones. However, for those who are just starting a new store, or those who have been in business for years but are apprehensive to bring in accessories, consider wine bags and wine tubes as a low risk investment to test the waters and see the rewards investing in wine accessories can provide for your store. With the holidays just around the corner, this is the best time of year to add accessories to your store.

Are Young Wine Connoisseurs an Untapped Market?

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Dear Retailer,

Americans in their 20s and early 30s are continuing to consume more wine. The businesses that have recognized the expanding demographic are trying to capitalize on young adults finding their way into the world of wine. By attempting to reshape wine’s image from “your parents beverage”, groups like Wine Riot are attracting large groups of young people by putting on wine tasting events designed for the younger consumer. See this article in the New York Times discussing the success of Wine Riot events in New York.

The younger demographic is an untapped market for wine sales as they are often written off as the beer drinking age group. Consider creating events targeting this age group. Whether it takes live music, free food, or some well placed advertising particularly calling out to your younger customers, consider events designed to grow and solidify your relationships with this customer base.

As a company made up of young people and the young at heart, we like the idea of wine being accessible and fun for everyone (21+ only please). When asked what our company does for wine, I like to say “we make drinking wine better”. Or, “we make wine more fun”, whichever you prefer. A wine event designed for young people is also the perfect time to up-sell wine accessories. As a member of this gadget driven generation, we want a gadget for everything, and we want it to be newer and better than the person sitting next to us. At True Fabrications, we’re always trying to come out with new and different products you can provide for your customers. Check out our New Arrivals section for all of our latest products. Some of them are so new, they aren’t even in our catalog.

Cheers,

True Fabrications