The saver club: a bit like Naked Wines, only better

Sam Jackson at Chester Beer & Wine invites her customers to pay a regular amount into a scheme for a 5% top-up at purchase.

“I was at a local business group and I was asked who my major competition was,” she says. “I said Naked Wines, and lots of members there said, ‘I use them, it’s really easy, you just put in 20 quid a month and cash it in whenever you want to’.

“I asked if they’d use me if I did something similar and they said yes. The more I looked into it, I was sure this is what we should be doing, because we’ve already done subscription boxes for wine and beer. It just seemed like a good add-on if people wanted to save up and spread the

cost of Christmas.

“My website guy is really good and he did a lot of research into finding the right bit of software and we set it up. We think it’s better than Naked Wines because you get to choose, and we have beer and spirits as well as wine.

“A few customers save up and only cash in at Christmas, but that’s fine because we always have high stocks of everything at that time of year. Most people just save up and treat themselves to a nice case every couple of months. It is quite a mix, but I think increasingly we’ll get people saving for a special occasion that otherwise would cost them quite a lot of money. It just helps to take the edge off.”

The app: it works in France, so why not Northampton?

Harriet Poupinel at V&B in Northampton is about to launch an app-based loyalty scheme.

“We won't just reward people for every pound that they spend in store,” she says. “They will also get points if they do a tasting or a masterclass with us.

“We want it to encourage people to participate. They will have the ability to cash in their points quickly, which will be in the form of a percentage off a purchase, or they can save their points and get a free wine tasting, for example. It would be nice to invite people through the loyalty programme to do product selections with us too.

“We’re using some software that’s linked to our epos system. It’s not bespokebespoke, but we are able to tailor it. We just need to send over our brand kit, our fonts etc, and they’ll create the app around it. We’ll also use it to put out our monthly newsletter. We hold so many events here, so it’s a good way of keeping everyone up to date as not all of our customers use social media.”

As a franchisee of the French retailer V&B, Harriet has total autonomy over how she chooses to run her store when it comes to marketing and events. But she says she is inspired by what happens in the company’s home territory.

“In France there are around two million customers who are signed up to the V&B loyalty scheme. Obviously we cannot compare ourselves whatsoever, but we are aware of the sense of community that a good loyalty programme can have, for sure.”

People will also gets points if they do a tasting or masterclass with us