by Jenny Tan
Denise, a wine retail chain with 18 stores in Malaysia, is invading the rather conservative wine retail scene in Singapore in a big way, with a planned investment estimated at S$4 million ( 2m). In just the four months to Christmas this year, 10 stores will be opened. By the end of next year, Denise plans to have at least 20 stores on the island. Compared to Malaysia, which is developing, Singapore is a mature market, asserts David Lim. Yet there are few neighbourhood wine shops where consumers can grab a bottle for that last minute dinner party.
This aggressive expansion strategy is not without reason, for it allows the company to commit to larger volumes, which in turn encourages producers to allocate sought-after wines to South East Asia instead of concentrating only on the UK and US markets. This plan has worked. For the Australian winery Two Hands it was the 2,000 cases per order commitment promised by Denise that finally got them interested in the market.
Denise imports most of their wines directly from the producers - and by reducing the number of links in the distribution chain, saves on mark-up costs and possible bad storage in the process. With the S$7 ( 3.5) per bottle tax in Singapore, this also means that an AUD$15 bottle of wine will have, compared to other shops, a more appealing price tag in our chain stores, Lim added.
Other than good pricing, consumers will also have a wide scope of choices, with a targeted 1,500 to 2,000 SKUs, and close to 100 wines with 90 Parker points and above. Another unique factor is their stringent training. The group s programme uses WSET as their benchmark - and cost does not seem to be a factor. Just last week a Lafite 1995 was included in the blind tasting.
