Less expensive Quebec wines

The company La Boîte à vins intends to massively reduce its profit margins to increase the volume of sales of Quebec wines which have the reputation of being too expensive, as even mentioned by the Bye bye 2023

Changes in consumer behavior are affecting the sale of Quebec wines. Many local winegrowers are selling their bottles more slowly. And they have a reputation for being expensive.

“We hear it a lot that Quebec wines are too expensive,” says Normand Guénette, co-owner of Chat botté.

The Hemmingford company is one of the vineyards participating in the Boîte à vins project, which intends to reduce its margins on sales to increase volume. This margin will be established jointly by the winegrower and the merchant who will pay the same basic price when purchasing the wine.

Louis-Philippe Mercier, of the Boîte à vins, believes that many winegrowers would like their bottles to be sold less expensively, particularly in the current context, he who now hears his customers regularly asking for wines for less than $20 in his business, particularly since last fall.

A new business model

La Boîte à vins is a company born in 2019, with the desire to promote Quebec vintages, many online, but also with a storefront. During the pandemic, the retailer’s turnover exploded. “And then, everyone started selling Quebec wines,” says the entrepreneur, who cites this increase in competition as one of the causes of the plummeting turnover. To the point of causing the closure of one of its two stores last year, that of Montreal, and requesting a complete restructuring of the model.

The business still sells online, but also at the La Boîte à vins remainderte store, in Longueuil, where non-alcoholic drinks have been added, which are very popular – particularly at the start of the year.

The entrepreneur also added a sausage maker, a record store and a café to his commercial offering last year.

“We will not hide it, the demand for sausage is much greater than that for wine,” indicates Louis-Philippe Mercier.

As wine is no longer the cash cow of its businesses, it can afford to reduce its margins on alcohol: from around 30%, they should increase to around 15%, sometimes less, depending on the desire of the customer. winemaker.

The goal, explains Louis-Philippe Mercier, is not to sell wine at a discount or less expensive than at the SAQ. On the other hand, the first step of this project is to sell the wines in stock by adjusting the profit margin, which, yes, leads to good deals for customers.

There are three at the moment, Le Chat botté, Les Bacchantes and Coteau Saint-Paul, companies which have a production large enough to deliver volume to La Boîte à vins as well as to their other points of sale.

“We want to become an example,” illustrates Louis-Philippe Mercier. After that, suppliers and other grocers will sell at the prices they want. »

The big gap

How will other businesses that sell Quebec wine react to La Boîte à vins’ new business model?

According to Normand Guénette, in Quebec, there are already large price differences for the same bottle of wine, from one retailer to another.

Le Puss botté will be 20 years old this year and produces 25,000 to 30,000 bottles annually.

Things are still going well, says his co-owner, despite this small decline (around 1%) for 2023, in specialized grocery stores, and 15% at the SAQ. The vineyard sells at least 30% of its production in the SAQ network. Its wines will be offered at prices roughly equivalent to La Boîte à vins.

According to Normand Guénette, the time is welcome to be able to offer wines at a controlled price since consumers are spending less on their wine and, yes, believe that local products are too expensive.

” THE Bye actually threw it back in our faces…,” says Normand Guénette.

In the last Byea Quebec winemaker said that, even if it was bad, at $50 a bottle of natural wine, “the people of Plateau Mont-Royal will still say that they are losing it.”