Vinfolio’s Hong Kong Launch Coming in Decemeber

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

You can read the rest here.