Les Caves de Taillevent Beirut launched their online shop a month ago, on December 1st. Out of the 1,300 references that the store offers, 350 are currently available for sale on the newly developed e-commerce website (www.cavesdetailleventbeirut.com). According to Samir Abou Deeb, Wine Consultant, the online adventure, although only a month old, brought to the team a great deal of learnings. “People whom we had no access to previously because they are typical online buyers are now part of our database”. Obviously, engaging in a remote virtual presence turned to be advantageous to Taillevent – Beirut, although the core of the store concept has always been about a live experience involving the senses.

Remote selling is not new to Taillevent team as clients continued to ask for their favorite wines even during the toughest times typically during ‘thawra’ and lockdowns. Being located quite close to where the revolution would erupt every now and then, the store never really closed according to Samir Abou Deeb. For that, the team had crafted a soft copy brochure which customers would use to pick their items remotely and orders would come through WhatsApp on a daily basis.

Les Caves de Taillevent – Beirut delivers to everywhere in Lebanon. “Delivery even after the launch of the professional online store represented a challenge which we finally overcame by mapping locations, order size and bottle assortments” explains Christiane Moukarzel, wine consultant. Yet other challenges faced the team upon embarking in e-commerce, one of them being the 30% discount on first order, to which customers proved to be very responsive at the expense of a drop in their average purchases once the first order placed. But being present online, means that Taillevent needs to compete directly with other long-established online stores such as Vintage, Enoteca, Burgandy and the Malt Gallery explains Samir Abou Deeb. “For that we are coming up with constant promotions such as the Monthly Specials offering customers up to 50% price reduction on specific bottles”.

The whole game seems to be about a balance between addressing customers who are price sensitive and those who are loyal by nature and continue to visit the store seeking the live one-to-one experience. Samir carries on: “At least 50 percent of online sales are still being completed by myself or by my colleagues because clients miss the personal touch we provide in counseling them. This is added work for us of course but the system is on the right track”. Another challenge the team had to deal with is to create the necessary link to the Fattal stock management system and to POS.

Finally, if today Taillevent is ranked among the top 3 players in the Lebanese market, it is, according to the team, the fruit of at least 3 years of hard work during which the store positioned itself as best-in-class in terms of wine selection, service level and the strong reputation of professionalism and expertise in the wine field.