Consumption dynamics and demographics of Canadian wine consumers: Retailing insights from the tasting room channel

Johan Bruwer, Isabelle Lesschaeve and Benjamin Campbell

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2012, vol. 19, issue 1, 45-58

Abstract: This study facilitates a better understanding of the socio-demographics and consumption dynamics of wine consumers using the retailing ‘platform’ of the winery tasting room with them as visitors to it in a wine region environment. The overall aim was to gain some insights on gender and age generation-related consumer behaviour, wine type preferences, and their link to retail channel behaviour. Systematic random sampling yielded a total of 659 useable surveys collected at various tasting rooms in the Niagara Peninsula Wine Region in Ontario, Canada. Specific differences exist in the wine consumption behaviour and wine type preferences of males and females and between generational cohorts, specifically Millennial and older consumers. Whereas females and males do not differ much in quantity consumed and spend on wine, they do differ greatly in wine type consumption with females drinking significantly more white and males more red wine. Wine type consumption was shown to be moderated by not only classical demographic variables, but also by the retail outlets preferred for wine purchase. Females buy more of their wine from foodservice on-trade retail outlets such as restaurants, while Millennials frequent the tasting room channel much less than older consumers. There are strong indications that the higher the wine tourism activity level, the higher the wine consumption (usage) level of the consumers. It is possible to direct marketing strategies at wine consumers in accordance with their gender and lifecycle stage as far as certain behavioural and sensory aspects of the product is concerned. The winery tasting room is the most obvious retail channel vehicle to reach people with high tourism activity factor levels who also happen to be the high usage consumers in the wine market.

Keywords: Retailing; Wine consumption; Consumer behaviour; Segmentation; Canada; Tasting room; Demographics; Wine tourism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698911000932
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:19:y:2012:i:1:p:45-58

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2011.08.008

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services is currently edited by Harry Timmermans

More articles in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().