Beverage Dynamics

Beverage Dynamics July-Aug 2014

Beverage Dynamics is the largest national business magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of off-premise beverage alcohol retailers, from single liquor stores to big box chains, through coverage of the latest trends in wine, beer and spirits.

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www.beveragedynamics.com July/August 2014 • Beverage Dynamics 13 [ RETAIL PROFILE ] F or those who have been active in wine and spirits retail- ing over the past few decades, the recent rate of change has presented both problems and opportunities. The men behind Atlanta, GA, area beverage alcohol re- tailing powerhouse Sherlock's and Sherlock's Wine Mer- chants — majority owner Doug Bryant and partner and general manager Craig Maske — understood this as they watched the retailing landscape shift, with outlets like drugstores and supermarkets angling for a bigger piece of the business, with Big Box retailers nibbling at the edges, and with the crash of 2008 reconfi guring the top end of the wine business. And then there was the evolving consumer desire for the oppor- tunity to shop at more spacious, clean and well-organized stores, modern ones that offered the best-sellers but also focused on in- novative and new spirits and beers as well as wines from emerging regions. Clearly, they realized, modernizing their stores and up- grading the customer shopping experience was essential for them in order to maintain a successful position as one of the largest purveyors of beverage alcohol in the state of Georgia and among the nation's best fi ne wine merchants. It wasn't that the stores were dowdy, and the Sherlock's brand in the Atlanta area has always stood for quality beverage alcohol backed with supportive, educated and helpful staffers, so there wasn't any change needed to improve their image in the market or their sales personnel. But since their business was launched in the 1980s, there have been many changes in retailing beverage alcohol, some of which required a bit of a rethink about how best to serve loyal customers and en- courage new ones to explore, experiment and experience. "We've been in this business since 1986, and for instance during the 90s and 2000s, the trend was to have big fl oor stacks of product available," says Bryant. "And so we had a lot of pallet stacks serving as the main merchandising in our stores. What we've seen recently is a tremendous amount of new product introductions, line exten- sions and fl avors and so forth and we fi gured it was better for us to go away from the big displays - though we still have some of them - and instead put these products on a type of shelving display that would allow us to provide more horizontal exposure and broaden our portfolio for our customers." MODERNIZING AS NEEDED To make that happen, it meant renovation of some of the stores, each of which has well over a million dollars invested in inventory at any one time. The most recent changeover took place at one of the two large Marietta, GA, oper- ations, with the fi nal punch outs and tweaks being crossed off the list in early June. The other large unit was spruced up last summer, and in Atlanta proper, the Buckhead area Sherlock's Wine Merchant store moved into a new building at the its long-term shopping center location a couple of years ago. The pair has gone about their upgrade steadily, as needed. With around 50 employees at fi ve operations — three shops focused on wine and beer within the Atlanta neighborhoods of Buck- head, Decatur and Brookhaven, the other two full-fl edged 15,000 to 20,000-square- foot stores in Cobb County that also carry spirits as well as cigars and accessories — choices need to be made ad hoc. Addition- ally, Sherlock's has teamed with local retailer and industry leader The Cook's Warehouse in their Brookhaven and Decatur wine-fo- cused stores, creating a fairly unique pair- ing with high-end cookware, including Le Creuset pots and pans, Wusthof knives and a wide variety of appliances, culinary gear and kitchenware with Bordeaux, Burgundy and lots of superpremium California names. [At the Wine Merchant stores, the beverage sales breakdown is about 20% beer and 80% wine; overall, at the fi ve stores the sales percentages are about 40% wine, 40% spirits and 20% beer.] Modernizing was in part driven by competition. "The advent of chains into our industry was part of the reason why we undertook these changes," says Bryant. "Even though we're fairly large, we're also small enough to be fl exible and move quickly. We need to SHERLOCK'S, ON THE CASE F The Atlanta area retailer spruces up for the 21st Century. "Even though we're fairly large, we're also small enough to be fl exible and move quickly. We need to meet our customers' needs if we want to continue to be a leader in the marketplace." — Doug Bryant BY JACK ROBERTIELLO

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