Japanese wine stores make wine shopping more interactive.
With so many recent advancements in RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology, digital signage is cropping up in Japan. One of the coolest uses? Digital signage in food and wine markets. With digital POS (digital Point of Sale) technology, pairing the perfect wine with your home-cooked gourmet is as easy as scanning a bar-code.
If adopted on a wide scale, this technology could be groundbreaking and lots of fun! Smartphone apps with like VinoforDinner for the iPhone may be able to incorporate bar-code scanning in order to produce on-the-go info, downloadable coupons, dinner-pairings and a history of your wine-shopping over time. This type of digital signage works with apps on mobile phones using RFID technology and will only get more advanced over time.
It’s true, supermarkets can’t be lazy in incorporating digital signage tech – there would be a lot of maintenance work on their end – but imagine the possibilities! We think any store to incorporate this kind of digital signage would draw enough customers to sustain the technology and educate those who are just starting out in wine.
Vinfolio’s Hong Kong operation now getting into full swing.
We sat down with Vinfolio Hong Kong Managing Director Anthony Mak last week to talk about Vinfolio’s Hong Kong plans. After the recent announcement of the company’s series A US$4.5 million investment and their expansion into the Hong Kong market, we thought Hong Kong wine enthusiasts would like to know there will be a new major player entering the market in the next couple of months.
Mr. Mak is in heavy preparations for the Hong Kong launch of Vinfolio.hk – the website will be in English and Chinese. The company has held off on launching their online wine shop until now because of the recent economic downturn. Vinfolio Hong Kong will also launch a new Hong Kong wine storage operation and online wine auction component early next year.
Their auction service launched in July in the US, and has many Hong Kong users, and is different to the eBay model where its seller-to-buyer with no intermediary. Vinfolio’s auction service has them in the middle brokering the deal for wines ranging from small quantities of wine in the US$50/bottle price and higher.
UPDATE 10/06:
Vinfolio CEO Steve Bachmann just posted new information on their Hong Kong plans on the Vinfolio site:
In short, Vinfolio Hong Kong will essentially become a local wine store to Hong Kong/Macau residents. No overseas shipping need be arranged and no minimum purchase quantity will apply. We will list all available items in a new “Vinfolio Hong Kong” listing on Winesearcher, WinePrices.com, and Global Wine Stocks.
Of course, our U.S. online wine store will continue to be available to Hong Kong customers if they prefer and the Vinfolio Marketplace will continue to be there exclusively. Just keep in mind that those prices are in U.S. dollars for pick-up/delivery in San Francisco so onward shipping costs to Hong Kong are extra (whereas this is already included in HK site pricing). U.S. purchases come with six months free storage in one of our climate-controlled facilities. Initially, we will not ship to other countries from Hong Kong so customers in other Asian countries will need to continue to order from the U.S. site or make their own arrangements from Hong Kong
Have dinner with wine from Southern France in Causeway Bay.
Maxford Wines invites you to rediscover French shiraz at their upcoming wine dinner. While wines from the Languedoc region in Southern France are traditionally known for producing copious amounts of fairly mediocre table wines; over the last two decades, grapes from the fertile Pic St-Loup region have transformed that reputation. Today, the Pic St-Loup region is renowned for its complex and concentrated wines.
The five-course Maxford wines dinner will introduce a special selection of some of the best new value wines from Languedoc and Pic Saint-Loup with a gourmet menu of exotic foods including: pan-fried French foie gras, char-grilled Australian tenderloin and a mango pancake.
Details for the dinner are listed below:
When:
Thursday, 15 October, 2009
Where:
21/F, Bartlock Centre, 3, Yiu Wah Street, Causeway Bay
Time
Cocktail begins at 19:30 and dinner begins at 20:00.
London sells more French wine to Hong Kong than France does!
Import duties have been abolished and the UK has officially overtaken France as the biggest wine exporter to Hong Kong. This news has surprised a few, but that doesn’t mean Hong Kong has lost its signature taste for fine French wines.
The twist? London is actually a major hub of fine French Wine – and no one would deny Hong Kong’s appetite for Bordeaux. So, despite the fact that the UK is not a major wine-producing region, Hong Kong imports from Britain showed a huge annual increase during the first seven months of 2009:
Imports from Britain showed an annual 146% increase during the first seven months of 2009 to almost US$80 million from Jan-Jul 2009, which was around US 69.5 million for the whole of 2008. UK has increased its share of this wine market from 20% to 33%, while France’s has slipped from over 35% to 31.6% at around US $72 million for the comparable period. The fine, expensive French wines are exported from the UK, explaining the phenomenal increase in dollar value.
Australia, in third place this year, has an 8.7% share totalling US$ 21 million followed by the US, Chile, Switzerland and Italy.
What’s responsible for the steep increase? Abolishing import duties made the fine of course, expensive French wines we love so much coming to Hong Kong duty-free. We call that cause for celebration: let’s make a toast with our favorite Bordeaux – to fatter wallets!
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