In recent years, as the foreign market economy is not optimistic, the consumption of wine drops sharply, and the overseas wine market is expected to be large, so that overseas wine brands enter the Chinese market in a large scale. However, the domestic first-tier market demand is becoming increasingly saturated, and the market competition is becoming more and more fierce, prompting imported wine brands to start targeting the second and third-tier markets.

"Judging from the feedback from distributors we have invited so far, wine distributors in second - and third-tier cities are more enthusiastic than in previous years to participate in the exhibition. As far as we know, they are very optimistic about the development prospects of imported wine in second - and third-tier cities." Recently, Jia Yanping, general manager of Guangzhou Ketong Exhibition Co., LTD., the organizer of Interwine China (Guangzhou) International Famous Wine Exhibition, told reporters that the second and third tier markets of imported wine have huge growth potential. Cities such as Dongguan, Changsha, Wuhan and Chengdu have gradually become the most active cities for high-end imported wine consumption.

Dealers target second - and third-tier markets

For a long time, first-tier cities have been the main market for high-end wine consumption. However, in recent years, affected by multiple factors such as the restriction of "three public consumption", the liquor industry has suffered a serious setback, which also has a slight impact on the wine industry. Red wine consumption in China fell slightly by 2.2% in 2013 from the previous year, according to data.

"At present, the demand potential of imported wine in the domestic second and third-tier markets is still in the initial stage of mining. The huge consumer groups and strong consumption power will become the gold mining point of the future market." Jia Yanping told reporters that in general, compared with first-tier cities, consumers in the second and third-tier markets have a low degree of brand recognition, and their desire to buy middle and low-end brands is higher than that of high-end brands. It will take a long time to cultivate the rational consumption concept.

A wine dealer in Shenzhen also said the wines they import have been sold in coastal cities for 10 years and are well accepted by consumers, but competition is fierce and the market has become fuller. At this time, wine consumption in the second and third-tier mainland cities just started to heat up, so the coastal wine distributors began to set up shop in the second and third-tier cities.

Branding is the key

Reporters learned that the import wine market is huge, and two factors related. First of all, the unique "face" culture of the Chinese people makes it a fashion to drink imported wine with more face. Secondly, the limited development of domestic wine industry also brings huge market opportunities to imported wine, and the operation mode of imported wine is constantly optimized and gradually mature.

"In the future, more standardized, specialized and branded operation will be the key for imported wines to seize market opportunities." Chen Tianyu, food industry researcher of China Business Information Network Industry Research Institute, said in an interview with reporters, to expand the second and third line imported wine market, first of all, the channels should be diversified, wine exhibition, wine association, network, distributors and other channels should be flexible use, multi-channel publicity and promotion, to establish the brand image; Secondly, different product marketing strategies should be developed for different regions. Market research is essential to understand the local dealer strength, consumption power, consumption preference, competition degree and other market information. Moreover, to shape the brand image, the culture of wine is very important for consumers. With the rationalization of consumption in second - and third-tier cities, more and more attention is paid to the brand and cultural connotation. Therefore, wine enterprises can establish their own brand image through tasting meetings and other forms, laying a good foundation for the development of the subsequent market.

Exhibitions help expand the market

For Chen Tianyu's point of view, Jia Yanping agreed, "Through the exhibition, tasting and other ways, can make consumers, dealers more convenient and fast to understand the enterprise, enterprise products, so as to promote sales." She said that every year, Interwine China (Guangzhou) International wine Exhibition attracts nearly 1,000 independent wine merchants from dozens of major wine producing countries. The number of visitors reached 50,000, from 31 provinces and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, among which more than 95% were professional buyers.

"In fact, I do not know much about wine, knowledge of wine understanding is very shallow, usually buy wine is to look at the price and then look at the brand." In a supermarket in Guangzhou, the reporter randomly interviewed a woman who came to buy wine, according to her introduction of her knowledge of wine, mostly through participating in the exhibition, tasting. "Many brands are only seen at exhibitions, and it is difficult to see so many different kinds of wines from different regions."

The reporter has learned that the 12th Interwine China (Guangzhou) International Wine Exhibition - Spring Exhibition, which will be held on May 22 in Pazhou, Guangzhou, is the only national professional international wine exhibition in South China. The wine exhibition will have tens of thousands of brand importers of thousands of wineries from 72 countries to participate in the exhibition, the organizer also specially invited 31 provinces and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan 1.7 million wine dealers and retailers to visit and negotiate, at that time, the public can go to visit and buy.

It is worth mentioning that the exhibition tour around Interwine will be launched in April and will be held in 18 cities including Xi 'an, Zhengzhou, Chongqing and Nanjing. Experts said that through the similar tour exhibition, it can be very good to help wine enterprises, distributors to expand the market in second - and third-tier cities.