Retailer Focus: Grapy Store

Innovative modular displays are huge success for wine retailer

Grapy, the once Internet-only wine retailer, has recently opened its first store in Roosendaal, Netherlands. The Grapy Store and the Het Verborgen Rijk bookstore, which showcases a large selection of books on cooking, share the same shop front and complement each other with a crossover in merchandising.

Designed by Amsterdam-based retail design firm Storage, Grapy Store features a vibrant wine-inspired palette, decorative fresh food wall graphics and a modular system of stackable, wooden wine-and-book units. The units can be altered to store wine, books or accessories and are painted in contrasting earthy tones with rich, purple hues that mimic Grapy.nl flavor charts. 3D block letters and chalkboard paint direct shoppers to fresh fish, pasta and wines from around the world.

A central interactive touchscreen suggests wine-and-food pairings, bringing Grapy’s originally online-dominated world into a physical realm. Since Storeage developed the ‘flexible fixtures’ concept, the 25 square meter Grapy shop could easily travel or relocate to other locations, such as a music store or gourmet deli. And since these mobile units can expand or condense, there is no need for a stock room.

Key lessons from Grapy Shop:
• Have a proprietary fixture that makes the product the hero.
• Modular fixture defines the space and becomes the signature of the brand and becomes the proprietary element that they own.
• Visually pleasing fixtures with the right use of color can create a feeling of warmth and enjoyment.
• Functional displays and shelving with lots of product space can eliminate the need for extra storage and can enable mobility as needed.
• Shared retail space can be an advantage to both storefronts – providing complimentary merchandise for a unique shopping experience.

A successfully integrated food and wine shop with a mouth-watering spread of food, wine and cookbooks, the Grapy Shop has the right recipe to entice passers-by inside.

Store Within a Store: Wine Kiosks Boost Sales

Create a Dedicated Space to Help Drive Revenue

Wine Kiosks
Wine kiosks may be coming soon to Pennsylvania’s convenience stores, gas stations and the country’s leading retailer, Walmart.

These new self-service wine kiosks, developed by Simple Brands, are currently in 30 supermarkets within the state, including some Giant Food Stores, Wegmans Food Markets, Giant Eagle, The Fresh Grocer and Shop ‘n Save stores, and have been well received by the public.

In order to purchase wine at a kiosk, customers need to swipe a driver’s license and blow into a mouthpiece to prove they are not intoxicated. After completing those two steps, customers can open the door and pick the bottle of wine they purchased.

They are part of a six-month-old program designed to make wine-buying more convenient for consumers, who otherwise would have to make a separate trip to a state liquor store. Simple Brands CEO Jim Lesser said, “On many days there are over 1,000 transactions.”

Craft Beer Sales Soar
Craft beer continues to grow in popularity as well, with double- digit growth across the board, the Chicago Tribune reports. Even the big brewers are taking notice, as with the recent transaction of Anheuser-Busch buying Goose Island craft brewery for $38.8 million.

Craft beers started in the 1980s, growing from a mere handful of breweries to more than 1,750 last year. In 2010, craft beer took 5 percent of beer sales nationwide, with some analysts forecasting that it could account for 20 percent by 2020.

“Craft beer is kind of a rising tide right now,” said Benj Steinman, president of Beer Marketer’s Insights. “It’s really in the sweet spot of where more consumers are going, and that seems to be toward the sort of innovation, flavor and variety that the craft brewers are epitomizing.”

Create Your Own Wine and Craft Beer Boutique
With the popularity of wine kiosks and the increasing sales of craft beers, why not create your own wine and craft beer boutique within your store.

You could dedicate a section of the store to this new trendy boutique that showcases affordable wines and craft beers. The wines could be displayed in wooden wine racks or barrels, or in a unique brick display case. With the beer, you could have a display showcasing some of the craft beer six-packs, as well as individual bottles in large wooden or galvanized beverage tubs—on ice ready to go.

You could even specialize in small production, hand crafted, artisan wine and craft beer that consumers are unable to find at groceries, big warehouses or liquor stores. Advertise with POP in-store window signs and banners, and handouts showcasing a unique wine or beer with a monthly special, or an occasional wine and beer tasting event.