How Taster's Club Manages Seasonality

With the holidays fast approaching, we were curious about how our only traditional e-commerce business, Taster's Club, manages this hectic time and adapts to accommodate higher seasonal demand: recent research shows Americans consume 4% more alcohol since the pandemic, and many tend to drink more during holidays like Christmas and New Years.

So, as a B2C curated alcohol subscription service offering nine monthly clubs, it's no surprise that the Taster's Club team is busy running on all cylinders this month. Still, we were able to pull General Manager, Brian Blaize, away for a brief but enlightening chat. Here's what he had to say.

How do your operations, inventory, and marketing adapt to meet seasonal demand shifts during the December peak time?

Blaize explains how Taster's Club's entire business changes to meet this season's uptick in demand. 

Coordinating the team

For a successful fourth-quarter (Q4) or December holiday peak time, the whole team has to come together. This goes beyond our core team members to include the external partners on our broader team.

For example, most people don't think about retailers being key partners, but they handle all of the fulfillment and boxing and help us negotiate deliverables. Additionally, importers and distributors help get selections over to our retail partners. Those we've established partnerships with will work with us to get product all the way from the distilleries to our members' doorsteps.

This coordination is about wrangling the herd to get everyone working in unison. The unique challenge is doing this smoothly since they're third-party team members.

Planning for Q4

We start peak planning in quarter three (Q3). This involves forecasting future demand by reviewing current trends, historical sales, and how our traffic is performing: Is it on par with last year? Is it worse? Is it better?

Once we have estimated selection counts, we take those assumptions back to our distilleries, importers, and distributors, and slot selections in for December and the subsequent months. That's about 40 selections over four months, which is a lot of coordinating.

With the distilleries specifically, we'll talk about the product, what they have available, or what they can make ahead of time or blend for us. It depends on the circumstances and the type of category we're looking at. We'll give some estimated counts and negotiate to figure out the best product we can put in our members' hands based on those counts, our purchasing power, and availability.

A three-tiered system

A key distinction about Taster's Club is that we can't purchase alcohol—retail partners do it on our behalf. We've iterated our Q4 plan so we don't work with just the retailers for sourcing product—instead, we source and then coordinate through a three-tiered system:

To get next year's Q1 lineup, we talk to hundreds and hundreds of different distilleries, vendors, and importers, and work with them on what's available or what can become available based on our predicted counts. Then, it's managing the logistics of getting bottles through the various checkpoints to ultimately end up in our retailer's hands, so they can distribute to our members.

This may seem simple in scope, but it's a very coordinated process. It starts with each distillery, one conversation at a time. And when you're trying to map out up to 40 selections over one quarter, that's a lot of conversations. People don't realize all the "nos" you've got to go through first!

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Looking back: How holiday (Q4) planning has changed over time

When I first got here, we did very little coordination and we didn't make assumptions. So, we've iterated the process, and it's now my sixth season doing this.

Looking back at year one, our focus was to secure product directly from our retailers' storefronts or shelves. However, over time, we've realized how limiting this is as there are over 8,000 distilleries but only a couple hundred bottles we could choose from. This also didn't take advantage of our purchasing power. 

We've now changed that and, in the process, we work more downstream with each distillery, importer, and distributor. This leverages our purchase power and provides a more curated experience for each member.

Do you notice different trends being more popular each year? What's trending this year?

There are some small variances year to year, but here's what's standing out for 2024:

Budget-conscious consumers. This year, we're seeing more budget-conscious customers than we've had in the past, with a volume uptick in some of our lower-end clubs. For example, in tequila and Scotch, we have two different club types: pro and standard. Sales numbers have been lower for the pro, showing that members are a bit more budget-conscious. This trend is something we're keeping an eye on.

Bourbon remains top. As far as types of alcohol go, bourbon remains our best-performing category, as it's been all year. This includes bourbon gifts. We've also seen more interest in Stock the Bar this year, so people want to round off their bar carts with a variety of options.

Craft spirits are fairly strong. Craft spirits are still popular, though maybe not quite as seasonally high as in years past. This is especially the case in whiskey and bourbon—in these categories, people are buying less of the $70-$90 bottles and sticking with well-known brands. All the big familiar names remain popular.

Gifting and three-packs. The prepaid gifting options and three-packs have probably been the best innovations we've made over the last couple of years. Our holiday guides also have bundled bottles packaged and sold together.

Does Taster's Club offer specific holiday sales or promotions?

For the holiday season, we're currently running discounts of 5% to 10% off for the clubs and bottle shop. We have something for everyone, whether it's a curated bourbon or tequila experience, a gift pack, or one of the 5,000 bottles in our marketplace.

Is there anything you're doing differently in terms of engaging customers this time of year?

Our whole message around the holidays (Q4) changes. Before and after that, we talk about how awesome the club is overall, but in Q3 the message is how great the club is to gift. 

The season of gifting

We work out a specific holiday plan to engage customers about gifting. Of course, it must consider what's available and the most in-demand products. While the plan can vary by state, it might mean different types of emails for each buyer type—like previous gift-purchasers we want to re-engage, or members who bought for themselves re-targeted with specific promotions and opportunities to send a gift to their loved ones.

For peak planning, there's a holiday marketing calendar to help us capitalize on seasonal trends throughout the year. We heavily prioritize gifting which allows us to promote bundles, holiday exclusives, and deals through our retail partners that we pass on to our members. Marketing also influences how we promote the distilleries during the holidays. Nearly everything is "dressed up," whether on our website, social channels, or other customer touchpoints.

That said, a Taster’s Club subscription makes a great gift for any spirit enthusiast year-round, whether it's to celebrate a birthday or anniversary, or just to surprise them.

The holiday season is a critical time for businesses like Taster's Club, where careful planning, strategic partnerships, and a clear understanding of customer trends can make all the difference. From navigating the complexities of external teams and a three-tiered system to leveraging data-driven demand forecasting, Taster's Club has honed its approach to delivering a premium experience for its members during its busiest season.  

As Blaize aptly put it, "Holiday time is the Super Bowl for all retailers," and Taster's Club is clearly a team prepared to win. By staying ahead of trends, creatively engaging customers, and emphasizing quality over quantity, the company ensures it remains a standout choice for holiday gifting and beyond.

This holiday season or any time of year, you can visit Taster's Club's website to learn more or gift a bottle or subscription.

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