From the front lines in China: The end of the three-tiered system?

China never developed the complex infrastructure for the distribution of alcoholic beverages that the U.S. has in the three-tiered system, and it might never, because e-commerce is becoming the distribution method of choice.

That’s according to an article in the Taiwan-based China Times, which says that e-commerce is preventing the emergence of “leading brokers or end retailers,” as they’ve arisen in this country. This is also having an impact on the price of wine in China: “the popularity of e-commerce firms have [sic] shrunk the profits of wine companies,” with “most” of them seeing huge revenue falls.

No one should be surprised. “The golden age of wine e-commerce is coming” to China, according to a Chinese businessman who co-founded one of the country’s biggest such firms.

One big wine e-commerce firm, Wangliu—said to be “China’s priciest”—is venturing beyond mere sales; “The fledgling company is also looking to engage wine connoisseurs offline, opening experience stores and private clubs in major cities across China.” It’s as if Southern Wine & Spirits was opening winetasting “experience” venues in New York, San Francisco and L.A.

China does have a handful of private distributors “who are looking to source wines, beers and spirits from suppliers,” and that segment traditionally has sold wine to on-premise and off-premise accounts, as the three-tiered system does here. But “there are not many big wine distributors,” like Southern, in China, with online or e-commerce wine distribution websites instead filling the void. This would seem to make distributing wines from smaller wineries—the kind that have trouble getting picked up by big distributors in America—easier in China, although the challenge for small wineries is the same there as here: for Chinese consumers, “brand name remain[s] today the leading factor that influence[s] purchasing choices…due to the great complexity…that make[s] wine difficult to understand.” The winery that can work the e-commerce market successfully, and also help the e-commerce company to intelligently explain its wine, should reap the benefits of success in China.