Things to Consider Before Building Liquor eCommerce Store with PIM

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By: Sagar Sharma

Things to Consider Before Building Liquor eCommerce Store with PIM

Before putting your foot forward in business or an eCommerce store, you need to take care of four major things. You should know what will be a strength for your eCommerce business, what will be a weakness or who are your competitors in the same field, what opportunities are there for your eCommerce business, and what could go wrong with your business. When you are well prepared with these four things, you can be succeeding in any type of business.

Liquor eCommerce – An Overview

The liquor industry is one of the industries whose demand has been increasing since the pre-pandemic to the pandemic and is even going to increase in upcoming years. The exceeding demand for liquor has made it one of the best products to be traded on the eCommerce platform. Consumers are running towards websites that provide them with convenient shopping options. That being said, customers prefer to buy Liquor from the online platform.

Liquor eCommerce is the type of eCommerce platform that would never go into recession due to its everlasting demand. Consumers would not hold themselves back from storing the excess liquor so that if every next restriction on liquor shops is applied, they would be safer with their liquor store. There are many positive sides to having a liquor eCommerce store and you can’t overlook it.

In a recent survey, it was found that the liquor business is expected to grow 2.9% in volume by the end of 2021 and long-term volume recovery will increase the annual growth rate.

Rise In Alcohol eCommerce

We all remember the time when everything was shut down for an uncertain period of time due to the COVID effect. At that lockdown time, many shops were closed and the Liquor shop was also one of them. People were unable to buy liquor and enjoy having it during their lockdown time. In those days, the sales of liquor were drastically decreased.

The drastic fall in sales has urged customers to buy liquor from online platforms. Just like many other grocery items or apparel or medical requirements; people want a liquor facility at their door within a few hours or days. Customers are under the impression that they are going to be liquorless if the government puts another restriction due to the present situation.

There were days in 2019 when customers did not prefer to buy liquor from online stores and the sales of liquor were just 1% on the online platforms. In 2020, online shopping took a 360-degree turn, and consumers were bound to do shopping from the online platforms and that made the online sales ratio of more than 100%.

Many Liquor eCommerce stores have been advertising their store and product since they have established. As and when people get to know about the product and store’s facility they are making their online purchase from an eCommerce store. The active stores will attract more customers.

Thus, Liquor commerce has become more and more popular nowadays. Consumers want their favorite liquor while sitting on their couch and being safe from the threat of Covid. The liquor eCommerce store is profitable eCommerce because in other eCommerce businesses you need to target your audience, while in liquor eCommerce your targeted customers just need to hear about your existence and you don’t need to push them.

Business Model For Starting An eCommerce Liquor Store

There are two parties involved in eCommerce shopping; buyer and seller. For the buyer the process is pretty much simple, he/she needs to visit the website, register to the website, put their favorite liquor bottle in the cart, enter their necessary details, make payment, and it’s done. While for the other party, i.e. for the seller, the process is not as simple as it is for the buyer.

Buyer needs to keep on tracking on whether a customer who has registered has confirmed his legal age for liquor or not, whether the customer can browse through product catalogs or not, does the customer have enough payment options in their hand or not, does customer is facing any difficulty in completing his/her order, and does the vendor has received his commission or not.

One eCommerce can’t take care of all the above-mentioned things without having a proper business model. The business model is your eCommerce model that shows how much profit you will make through your eCommerce business. A proper business model has key partners, key activities, value proposition, customer relationship, customer segment, and revenue streams.

You need to come up with certain answers for your business model like, what value are you going to deliver to your customer, are there any issues facing by customers- can you learn from it to evolve your business, are you able to deliver products to your segmented customer, which are the areas where you can still make yourself better at?

You also need to see what will be your revenue model. Are customers willing to pay higher prices for your extraordinary products/ services, for which products your customers are willing to pay the same price, how your customer prefers to pay, and do you need to add other payment options to attract more customers towards your business?

Challenges and its Solution of Liquor ECommerce

Liquor eCommerce is considered as one of the rarest eCommerce types and just like any other eCommerce industry, liquor eCommerce has its own challenges. The owner of liquor eCommerce is facing and will face some unavoidable challenges, but luckily there are solutions to overcome the challenges.

Challenge 1: Alcohol regulation and restrictions

The setting up of liquor eCommerce is not as easy as setting up grocery eCommerce. In liquor eCommerce, the first thing to worry about is rules and regulations set forth by the government. You need to put your liquor eCommerce forward following the government’s compliance. Liquor eCommerce owners also need to monitor the whole complex process.

Due to existing rules and compliance, it is a bit tough for liquor eCommerce owners to offer duty-free delivery or free shipping of liquor.

Solution

The ultimate solution to this complex challenge is to learn the rules and regulations of operating government. If you don’t want to get involved in any kind of trouble, then the best way is to not give the government any chance to create trouble for you. Before setting up liquor eCommerce, you should get a proper license to sell and deliver your liquor products.

Challenge 2: Age-restriction

As you might be already aware, there is a certain age limit that one must pass to consume liquor. Consumers simply can’t get liquor without confirming their age limit. There are already some websites that have an age inquiry section on their website. The customer just needs to put a tick in the check box and enter their birth date.

A customer can easily fool a website owner by putting on false details of his/her. Although, strict actions are taken if caught. The challenge is how you are going to manage and identify who are false or under-age customers.

Solution

The best solution to this challenge is confirming customer’s age by asking them to submit their ID proof. In this way, the admin can confirm the age of the customer by approving or disapproving the ID proof. You can put another security measure while delivering for extra security while asking an adult to sign the delivery receipt.

Challenge 3: Temperature control and courier service

This is a unique challenge as not many other eCommerce need to worry about temperature. During delivery, it is quite a hurdle to deliver liquor if the surrounding temperature is not in support of the liquor.

Without hampering the quality of liquor, you need to be able to deliver liquor with proper tracking, and proper packaging. If you fail to do so, you are going to lose your valuable customer and that will affect your brand name.

Solution

You can create a rule for delivery and make it clear to your customer while they order that their product delivery may be postponed if the temperature is not within 45-80 degrees Fahrenheit. You can partner with logistics, which is ethical in delivery, and will make sure that liquor product’s quality won’t get hampered.

Future-Proofing ECommerce Platform with PIM

The goal of eCommerce is to earn maximum profit and satisfy their customers. When you start your eCommerce business, do you want it to just run for some 3-4 upcoming years or do you want to make it future-proof? The answer will definitely be option 2; you would love to see your growing eCommerce business position.

When business is not going as you planned it to be, or if you are lacking in delivering functions that you are capable of delivering, then you need to update your business with the help of some other tool. When you want to opt for some new tool, the big concern is whether it will integrate with your existing systems or not.

PIM-Product Information Management is a solution that is flexible, scalable, and easily integrated with your existing system. It is specifically designed to manage, store, and validate product information. When you future-proof your eCommerce platform with PIM you are ensuring that your eCommerce is going to last long.

Results of integration of PIM and your eCommerce

1. You can accomplish your objectives for growth

As you will grow in the future, you will have an increase in the number of customers and a decrease in time-to-market. With PIM, you can have a higher ranking because of the rich product data stored in it, your tedious manual tasks will not be there anymore, there would be nearly Nil or minimal product return issues.

You will have one systematic workflow in the future that automatically approves the process so that you don’t need to worry about the manual process. To fulfill your objectives, you will have PIM by your side and you will have a competitive edge over your competitors in the future.

2. You can address issues that are promoting change

Some minor or major issues can hamper your eCommerce business. The integration can let you know which are the issues present in your eCommerce that are promoting change. With PIM, you can list the issues and resolve them.

You can identify an issue that is hampering the growth of your eCommerce and use it in favor of you by having a potential solution for it.

3. Customized solution

With the help of PIM, you can implement a customized solution that fits best your eCommerce business. You can have a solution that has higher levels of functions and flexibility. PIM software delivers consistent results and has specific product information. With PIM by your side, you have relevant and consistent product information.

PIM is not biased software, as it takes care of your eCommerce business as well as your customer’s needs. Your customer will have rightful and consistent data of products so that they can buy products with maximum information.

4. Increase in Brand Loyalty

Your eCommerce will have more and more customers soon, and your goal should be to deliver a rich customer experience. To deliver a rich customer experience is not as easy as it is to attract customers. When you can deliver a rich customer experience to your existing or potential customers, you are increasing your brand loyalty.

As stated earlier, customers will have the power to make an informed purchase decision with the help of PIM, which will eventually boost up your brand loyalty

Summarize With

As the current world is moving towards digital at a fast phase, it would be a good move to do liquor business online. Sure, liquor eCommerce is a little bit tricky to handle because of the uncontrollable variants available in the eCommerce business.

However, with the help of PIM and following some basic and necessary government regulations; you can make your eCommerce long-lasting.

Say goodbye to data chaos and embrace the power of PIM/MDM to supercharge your business growth!