Majestic aims to be the ‘Apple Store of wine’
Majestic is upping its online ambitions and adding named day deliveries as it seeks to become ‘the Apple Store for wine’.
Speaking to db in an interview, the new md of Majestic Retail John Colley said the wine specialist had developed an operational business plan based on the vision put forward by CEO Rowan Gormley last November, adopting ideas and input from staff across the business.
The company’s new stated aim to be the nation’s favourite wine specialists, and Colley drew a parallel with the effective way the Apple Store has built and maintains loyalty with its customer-base by focusing on what it sees as its usp – its in-store experience.
“You can go and get an Apple Mac from PC World, but you don’t, you go into the Apple Store because of the experience you get there, from great staff who are very knowledgeable. We’re using it as iconic retail brand as we have the constituent parts to [do the same], we’ve got great people, great locations and fantastic products and we’re putting all of that together.”
“We did a lot of retail basics in the first 6-9 months and that has benefited the company is a number of ways by giving focus to the store teams to get customer-centric and our customers are already seeing a different experience in store – they are brighter, cleaner and easier to shop,” retail md John Colley told db. “Our job is to help customers discover and buy wines they are going to love, and on top of that is also to help and educate the customer. That is our mission.”
Part of this mission is to develop the customer relationship and with the help of sister company Naked’s IT team, it is developing a new website and mobile app in a way that will “better sync” its bricks & mortar and online businesses. Customers will be able access the full range wherever they happen to be, and it is already rolling out high speed wi-fi in stores to enable customers to download the app, browse the full range, and take advantage of a more tailored approach to marketing and digital communication.
“The idea was to do something with web and mobile app which all the store teams can understand and buy into,” Colley explains.“Bringing the tech together means we will get a single view of the customer – we can recognise when you come into a store and know what you like and like to buy, and they get open access to buy our products wherever they want and get it delivered to them as well. We want to develop an online shopping service which is leading in our sector.”
Partner Content
As part of this move, the company is set to launch a named-day delivery service, which is currently does not have the ability to promise, supplementing its existing fleet of van stores with as yet unconfirmed carriers.
“The customers like our store teams delivering to them, but if you want to order for the next day, we can’t do that at the moment, but we will have the capability to do so. So if a customer wants to use the store vans, it will look at the store inventory, if not it will look at the warehouse inventory. If they wanted named day delivery, it will figure it out.”
This will also boost availablility considerably, Colley argues.
For a full, in-depth interview with John Colley, see the August issue of The Drinks Business.
