Chinese Pattern of Foreign Wine Franchised Store----An interview with Tan Aiping

Which one first set up wine franchised stores in China, Chinese people or foreigner?In comparison with this question, it is more practical to ask which one is operating better now.

By carrying forward tradition yet not adhering too strictly to it, blazing new trails and facing the marketing practice in China, Jointek Fine Wines in Guangzhou has found the Chinese pattern for foreign wine franchised stores, thus establishing itself as the innovative enterprise in foreign wine marketing and attracting a lot of foreign wine enterprises. There is a great collection of wine from France, Italy, Spain, Germany, USA, Australia and Argentina etc in Jointek Fine Wines franchised stores.
   

China Wine News journalist has interviewed Tai Aiping, vice general manager of Jointek Fine Wines.
  
The journalist: Under what circumstance does Jointek Fine Wines choose franchised store?

Tan Aiping: Jointek Fine Wines began to pay attention to wine industry in 1999 and set up the first large-scale wine franchised store in China in 2000.

Ten years ago, consumers knew little about wine, in particular foreign wine, and didn’t have the habit of drinking wine. At that time, people preferred spirit, so it was difficult to cultivate the consumers to develop the habit of drinking wine. Finally, Jointek Fine Wines has found the solution. With the franchised store, Jointek Fine Wines can directly face consumers and provide a platform for consumers to know about wine.

Through nearly ten years of efforts, Jointek Fine Wines franchised store has been playing a key role in popularizing foreign wine culture, in which many consumers have developed profound friendship with it. Now, Jointek Fine Wines is meditating the way to make consumers like wine better.

The journalist: Why do you choose franchised store? What is the biggest difference between it and domestic famous wine franchised stores? Which is more different, sales volume, brand or to establish your own marketing channel? Can all these be achieved?

Tan Aiping:   Franchised stores can better boost wine culture. The marketing pattern of Jointek Fine Wines is greatly different from that of domestic famous wine, so it is difficult to make comparison. It can only be pointed out that products in Jointek Fine Wines are from all around the world, so emphasis must be laid on boosting wine culture during marketing and providing excellent service to consumers. While choosing wine, consumers can both enjoy the distinctive wine culture atmosphere and quality service from salesman, so as to build up the professional image of Jointek Fine Wines. The building-up of brand and increase of sales volume should be complementary. The clear orientation of brand is most important.
The journalist: What bewilderment has this kind of franchised store faced during popularization? What is the experience of success?
 

Tan Aiping:  The growth process of Jointek Fine Wines is also a process in which Chinese consumers gradually know about imported wine. The popularization of wine culture is both a major marketing issue and a huge project, which involves cultivating the consumption habit of consumers. At present, Jointek Fine Wines periodically holds wine tasting events or wine appreciation banquets in the hope of further popularizing wine culture and bringing wine drinking habit to more consumers.

The journalist:  How does Jointek Fine Wines solve the most difficult problem of purchasing the authentic wine but selling the counterfeit wine? Although a lot of foreign wine has entered China, no relevant law, regulations and standards have been formulated yet.

Tan Aiping: Wine in Jointek Fine Wines is all directly imported from places of origin. Jointek Fine Wines assigns the professional wine appreciators and expert team to places of origin to choose wine. By testing indexes and judging taste professionally, wine appreciators choose quality wine fit for Chinese consumers, which is the most fundamental control over wine quality from Jointek Fine Wines.

Jointek Fine Wines is a large-scale chain stores enterprise dealing in imported wine, not involving any brewage process. Here, consumers can buy the authentic wine from places of origin, providing them the most primitive flavor and most direct platform to appreciate quality foreign wine. 

The journalist: How to recover investment and generate profit after the franchised store is set up? How to further develop marketing in the next step?

Tan Aiping:  Setting up of franchised store is related to popularization of wine culture. It is hoped that franchised stores can directly communicate with consumers and make more people the members of Jointek Fine Wines.  In the next step, Jointek Fine Wines will improve membership system to provide more service to its members to make it the best partner for members in wine choice and drinking and to make members have more feeling of belonging.  
The journalist: Is franchised store for foreign beer and alcohol different from foreign wine franchised store?

Tan Aiping: They are totally different. Wine has its distinctive cultural annotation. Although basically they are all imported products, their annotation are different，which leading to different marketing methods. In order to maintain the integrality of products and continuity of service, Jointek Fine Wines mainly sticks to the marketing pattern of franchised stores.

The franchised store of Jointek Fine Wines is equipped with professional salesmen who are trained with wine expertise and can help consumers in dealing with various problems in wine choice. Furthermore, the franchised stores are backed by wine appreciators and experts. In the franchised stores, wine quality can be monitored in an all-round way so as to achieve the goal of “to share with you world famous wine sincerely”.