So, I’ve been asked quite a few times in the past couple of days for my opinion on USA Today launching its wine club. To start, yes we’re always concerned when a significant competitor comes into the market, but after some basic research I can’t say I’ll give it another thought.

To start, we’re talking about drastically different price levels. USA Today is working with My Wines Direct and providing 6 bottles each quarter for about $70. Some quick, inexact math leaves me at $11 per bottle for club members and I can only assume that USA Today is paying somewhere in the range of $5-$8 per bottle from the wineries. Thinking of the type of wine that we’re working to source, I cannot imagine any winery that we’re currently working with selling any wine they make at such a severe discount. In that way this new wine club probably isn’t going to be a big competitor, they’re simply marketing to a different audience. That’s ok and that price level certainly makes some sense, we’re comfortable that a $30-$40 per month for our entry level club is a good place to start so we can still provide top notch wine to our customers.

The one thing that I do think is very interesting in regards to their club is that they will have tasting panels helping to select the wines. Frankly speaking that sounds like a ton of fun and something that I’d like to be able use on some level with my clubs. I enjoy the social aspect of wine, I did end up with a couple of thoughts and plans for action after reading the USA Today wine club article.

On Twitter I’ve talked in passing to Sandy Aichner, a Realtor based in Lake Norman, North Carolina. She is part of a wine tasting group that includes about 700 members. These type of wino groups are a clear target market for our wine club. I do believe that with the type of wine and food pairing that we’re set to feature will allow us to reach out to groups like this, even though they already work with a number of local wine merchants. I know from conversations with a few of our partner wineries that Alpha Omega and Audelssa are just starting to be available outside of California, getting some of our wine in the hands of groups like this one is going to be a goal once all of our paperwork is approved by the state of California and in this case, North Carolina…..which doesn’t have the easiest paperwork requirements for third party suppliers like ourselves as we have to include all brands that we’ll be shipping.

Secondly I’ll be working on hosting a virtual tasting of some type. I’d like to use Skype, but this is on the to-do list. I think finding easily attainable wine across the country could be difficult. Costco? Beverages and More?

As always thanks for reading, please leave your comments!