A CHAT WITH THE THIRD TIER
Wine & Spirits Daily had the pleasure of sitting down with EJ Tso, the national beer and wine buyer for Target, earlier this month. He has some great insight into the industry, so let’s take a look at what EJ had to say.
Wine & Spirits Daily: Does the fact that you have a higher female demographic shopping at Target stores have something to do with why you recently expanded your wine aisle and wine offerings?
EJ: Yes, but there are two different formats of stores, general merchandise and Super Targets. Wine will always lead. The way we introduce any beverage alcohol in stores typically is that we won’t have spirits unless we have beer and we won’t have beer unless we have wine, so we always lead with wine. It is brand right and speaks extremely well to our guests. We have a brand program currently which we do not have for spirits or beer yet we do really well with our wine strategy. In the typical Super Target, our aisles are about 60 feet long and wine occupies a good chunk of that aisle. In a general merchandise store our aisles are typically 24 feet long. My beer cooler is 44 feet long in a SuperTarget in a 60-foot aisle. It jumps down to 24-foot warm set in a general merchandise store. With wine it’s real similar with roughly 40 to 52 feet of wine in Super Targets and in general merchandise stores it goes down to 24 feet. That’s really our strategy for wine and beer. Wine is brand right which speaks well to our guests and our brand program works really well for us.
WSD: How is your private label program going?
EJ: We are very happy with our penetration. We have the wine cube, which is in two sizes, either 1.5 or 3 liters in quite a few different varietals. The wine cube is probably what you think. It’s a square box with a spigot on the outside and for ten or fifteen bucks it sells really well.
WSD: How valuable are suppliers in helping you with your category management? It seems like wine companies are getting more into category management, Gallo and Constellation in particular. Do you visit with those guys regularly?
EJ: We do. My counterpart that buys wine obviously works on the category more than I do, but Gallo is a strong partner as is Trinchero Estates. Constellation is a good business partner as well and we are very happy with those relationships. We couldn’t sell wine or any beverage alcohol for that matter without the partnership in category management. When you get down to the market level, you’re always learning from the distributor and the market specialists and from the suppliers. I want to know what package makes sense for a particular market. Gone are the days that we did a one size fits all strategy....The challenge is making sure I have the right product for the stores through meetings and category management and the right strategy. Ultimately the strategy is mine and so I’ll take all the accolades but all the blame as well if something doesn’t go right. I’m lucky that things have been going pretty well for us. I couldn’t do it without those steps and resources. I think you would be remiss if you didn’t use category management.
WSD: Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you EJ.
Wine & Spirits Daily: Does the fact that you have a higher female demographic shopping at Target stores have something to do with why you recently expanded your wine aisle and wine offerings?
EJ: Yes, but there are two different formats of stores, general merchandise and Super Targets. Wine will always lead. The way we introduce any beverage alcohol in stores typically is that we won’t have spirits unless we have beer and we won’t have beer unless we have wine, so we always lead with wine. It is brand right and speaks extremely well to our guests. We have a brand program currently which we do not have for spirits or beer yet we do really well with our wine strategy. In the typical Super Target, our aisles are about 60 feet long and wine occupies a good chunk of that aisle. In a general merchandise store our aisles are typically 24 feet long. My beer cooler is 44 feet long in a SuperTarget in a 60-foot aisle. It jumps down to 24-foot warm set in a general merchandise store. With wine it’s real similar with roughly 40 to 52 feet of wine in Super Targets and in general merchandise stores it goes down to 24 feet. That’s really our strategy for wine and beer. Wine is brand right which speaks well to our guests and our brand program works really well for us.
WSD: How is your private label program going?
EJ: We are very happy with our penetration. We have the wine cube, which is in two sizes, either 1.5 or 3 liters in quite a few different varietals. The wine cube is probably what you think. It’s a square box with a spigot on the outside and for ten or fifteen bucks it sells really well.
WSD: How valuable are suppliers in helping you with your category management? It seems like wine companies are getting more into category management, Gallo and Constellation in particular. Do you visit with those guys regularly?
EJ: We do. My counterpart that buys wine obviously works on the category more than I do, but Gallo is a strong partner as is Trinchero Estates. Constellation is a good business partner as well and we are very happy with those relationships. We couldn’t sell wine or any beverage alcohol for that matter without the partnership in category management. When you get down to the market level, you’re always learning from the distributor and the market specialists and from the suppliers. I want to know what package makes sense for a particular market. Gone are the days that we did a one size fits all strategy....The challenge is making sure I have the right product for the stores through meetings and category management and the right strategy. Ultimately the strategy is mine and so I’ll take all the accolades but all the blame as well if something doesn’t go right. I’m lucky that things have been going pretty well for us. I couldn’t do it without those steps and resources. I think you would be remiss if you didn’t use category management.
WSD: Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you EJ.
posted at 10:19 AM
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