Restaurant Operator Steve Turned his Beverage Program into an Ecomm Play.
It was simple with Liquid to Lips Marketing. First, why would he want to do so?
According to Toast; Restaurant Informer says although beverages typically make up only 25 or 30 percent of a restaurant’s sales, putting an emphasis on your beverage program and selling it well can increase beverage sales to closer to 50 percent. Typical food cost for a restaurant sits between 25 and 35 percent, but liquor cost of goods is often closer to 20 percent, so it’s worth it to look into how developing a beverage program could be a good financial choice for your restaurant.
This factoid from Erik Segelbaum on Seven Fifty Daily: “Beverage programs have always been integral to the financial success of restaurants. While food sales might typically account for 60 to 70 percent of gross revenue, the beverage category often accounts for 80 percent or more of gross profit dollars. There are myriad reasons for this—for example, beverage generally has less loss, lower labor costs, and less prep variation. Plus, it’s not nearly as perishable as food. Simply put, it costs far less to put a bottle of wine or a cocktail on a table than it does an entrée or dessert.”
He shares additionally; “Non-alcoholic beverages are another incredible source of revenue and profitability. Many more diners are avoiding alcohol, so a program limited to the soda gun is a massive missed opportunity. The combination of a simple shrub, fresh fruit, soda water, and a garnish not only provides an exciting and interesting option, but can also run at an extremely high profit margin. Typically, these types of non-alcoholic cocktails cost 20 to 30 cents to produce and can be sold for $8 to $15. Plus, it demonstrates mindfulness by providing enjoyable and unique options to those who prefer not to drink alcohol.”
So how did Steve turn his already successful beverage program into a great ecomm play? By leveraging the Shared Spirits platform. At Shared Spirits, restaurant and bar operators are discovering that retail sellers of alcohol are not the only ones with an ecomm option. Drizly, ReserveBar, MiniBar, and a host of others are meeting the needs of customers when it comes to buying options at retail and online for direct to home delivery.
Shared Spirits knew it was time to provide restaurant, bar, and hospitality operators a method to digitize and monetize their beverage programs.
How does turning your beverage program into an ecomm play work?
Shared Spirits provided a platform, free of charge to Steve. The platform allows consumers to buy, share, and redeem individual cocktails, wine, and beer available at his establishment.
It started with onboarding Steve’s establishment by loading up a portion of his beverage menu. The details of price, with regional tax requirements, tip, and fees are all taken care of by the automation.
Within minutes, drink selections were live on the platform.
Staff were trained to know how to redeem the shared drink credits. Once they were trained, marketing of the new feature allowed patrons, fans, and the restaurant itself to buy drinks on the platform and share them with colleagues, friends, sales prospects, family, and more!
When a customer/recipient received a text, they built a quick profile in the app and their gifted drink was present in there inventory of drinks available for redemption.
When the recipient shared the Redemption screen with the trained wait staff, the staff entered the total dollar number into the previously created “Shared Spirits” tender and with a couple of clicks on the phone, Shared Spirits was sent a server call and we knew it was time to pay the bar.
Most importantly, Restaurant Operator Steve Turned his Beverage Program into an Ecomm Play. Each drink was also ready for marketing in campaigns.
When a alcohol beverage supplier, patron, or operator wishes to leverage beverages as a sales tool, or manage a campaign for “liquid to lips” purposes, the platform features a campaign management component that allows for the deployment of campaign drinks out to a chosen network of Ambassadors. The Ambassadors share the drinks they have available and recipients have to come to the participating restaurant or bar for redemption.
What is the upside for a participating bar or restaurant?
- Nearly instant giftability of the beverage program.
- No merchant account processing fees or gateway fees for the redeemed drinks.
- Compliant marketing for the beverage program.
- Drinkers spend more. Research proves it. Cocktail, wine, and beer drinkers spend more per ticket.
- The ability to remarket via Shared Spirits to these new patrons and new customers.
- Shared Spirits works immediately to start marketing a restaurant participant to its list of alcohol beverage suppliers. Why? We know they want to spend money supporting great on-premise partners. We know they would rather do so with partners who have first party data on who bought drinks, who shared drinks, and who redeemed drinks.
How does the money flow back to Steve as an operator?
The Shared Spirits platform delivers real time visibility on who and when drinks were redeemed. This important information allows for the proper tracking of tips at the end of business each shift or at closing time. Shared Spirits delivers all payments for drinks every two weeks. In an upcoming technology enhancement, look for an automatic deposit coming in every night on that day’s redeemed drinks.
If this new way to monetize your beverage program, like Steve did, sounds interesting, schedule a meeting with us by clicking this link. Schedule a meeting!
