Virgin to tempt US consumers?
25 Jun 2010
- Image via Wikipedia
It’s a bit if speculation, but I’m guessing that Virgin Wines is about to start targeting US consumers having been built up in the UK.
Since they started they’ve always been at www.virginwines.com which, when they started (as one if the longest lasting players in this space), was sensible as country specific domains such as .co.uk were still misunderstood and mistrusted.
It seems that they are transferring their existing site to the www.virginwines.co.uk URL and asking bloggers who had included links to their old site to change all their links (a PITA for no specific reward other than doing a favour for our readers and their Google visibility).
Why would they do that? Presumably because they have separate plans for the .com URL
I have not seen any announcement about a US consumer launch, but it makes sense to expect one. It will be interesting to see how the model works in the complex US market, and what that means, also, for the UK business.
If they have a much bigger market they could end up simply sourcing more volume lines, or they could increase their buying power for more, small parcels of greater interest, we shall see.
Anyone know any more about this? Presumably someone at Virgin Wines is watching 
Tags: markering, news, retail, speculation, virgin, wine
June 28th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Bigger US market, yes, but very fragmented with the strange interstate shipping laws.
June 28th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
I agree, which is why I thought it was particularly interesting considering that other BIG players (e.g. Amazon) have not managed it. However, Virgin is part of a much bigger empire with experience of this, so I guess they'll have that part sorted
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July 13th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
I believe you are correct Sir…. They are already involved with some big direct mail wine vendors in the US – Wall St journal etc. They are part of Direct Wines… Lionstone in the USA etc.
July 15th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
thanks Catherine. Yes, I know they are part of the bigger business, but I don't think they've traded as Virgin Wines in the US before and the messages/wines are a bit different from the rest of the portfolio (I believe)
July 30th, 2010 at 9:44 am
An “outreach” program of sort. There's no one to blame except change. Everyone wants change. And this includes targeting customers outside your “backyard”. Just wondering if this change makes sense. Big players are already there.
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