E-commerce and alcohol is intersecting and Blake Moore, Director of E-Com at RNDC and our guest for this episode, is here to demystify the complexities around that. Blake brings his unique understanding of the traditional three-tier system and the role of marketplaces like Instacart to the table, emphasizing on the absolute necessity of having a hefty budget for investing in the right channels. He also shares RNDC's e-commerce strategies during the trying times of the pandemic and their plans for the future.
We dive deep into the rise of B2B e-commerce and the importance of merging it with traditional e-commerce tactics for an effective omni-channel strategy. Blake emphasizes on the need to restructure team incentives to go in line with the overall sales goals. As a cherry on top, we wrap up by sharing our favorite alcohol memories and our choice of wines for a perfect evening.
Grab a glass and tune in!
E-commerce and alcohol is intersecting and Blake Moore, Director of E-Com at RNDC and our guest for this episode, is here to demystify the complexities around that. Blake brings his unique understanding of the traditional three-tier system and the role of marketplaces like Instacart to the table, emphasizing on the absolute necessity of having a hefty budget for investing in the right channels. He also shares RNDC's e-commerce strategies during the trying times of the pandemic and their plans for the future.
We dive deep into the rise of B2B e-commerce and the importance of merging it with traditional e-commerce tactics for an effective omni-channel strategy. Blake emphasizes on the need to restructure team incentives to go in line with the overall sales goals. As a cherry on top, we wrap up by sharing our favorite alcohol memories and our choice of wines for a perfect evening.
Grab a glass and tune in!
Hey everyone, thanks for listening to the drinkscom podcast the business of online alcohol. I'm your host, brandon Amoroso, and today I'm talking with Blake Moore, director of Ecom at RNDC, the powerhouse distributor in the alcohol industry. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Brandon.
Speaker 1:So before we dive into some of the topics that I know we want to cover today, can you just give everybody listening a quick background on yourself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I've been with RNDC now for close to 12 years, a variety of roles, but most recently Ecom. So I manage all consumer activations on third-party platforms. So anything from Instacart DoorDash to Flaviar Reserve Bar any third-party platform. So any unlicensed vendor out there that's providing advertising or marketing services.
Speaker 1:And then for those that are listening that don't know the full sort of depth or breadth of what RNDC is and does, just a quick overview of that would be great as well.
Speaker 2:Of course I'd argue we're the best wholesaler in town, but RNDC is a traditional wholesaler. So if you think of the three-tier system, we are a big component of that. So we service retailers, restaurants, bars across the country. We have expanded pretty dramatically over the last few years, mostly by mergers and acquisitions, but we are, I think, believe, now in 40 states across the country.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a quite a sizable footprint.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hopefully all 50 one day, but we got a ways to go.
Speaker 1:What does that process even look like in terms of the, because you're obviously on the E-com side. What's the sort of balance between the two and when deciding to go into like a new state per se, since you've been growing?
Speaker 2:pretty dramatically. I mean, a lot of it is supplier-driven and servicing our suppliers. So we want a national footprint so that if suppliers on board with RNDC we can manage the majority of the capabilities they desire. So we had some gaps in New York and Illinois. We've addressed those with some acquisitions, but it's really market-driven, supplier-driven. And then obviously RNDC wants to be the distributor of choice. So being in all markets, understanding the compliance and regulatory efforts in those markets, being able to serve as suppliers and customers and growing our business. So I'm not as involved in that piece, but I know we're eager to keep growing and I trust that our leadership will continue to expand in other markets.
Speaker 1:And what do you think about all of these recent developments in E-com and in the alcohol space? It feels like over the last five years it's been a lot, and so what are some of your thoughts around that?
Speaker 2:Well, it's crazy. I feel like it's the gold rush of BevValc. They are platforms and ad agencies and services popping up all over the place supporting BevValc and E-com. It's tough. You have two sides of the coin. You have the B2B side, which is what RNDC is heavily invested in. With the RNDC you also have the consumer side, which is predominantly owned by brands and vendors, so wholesalers themselves didn't have a lot of influence or participation in those types of programs.
Speaker 2:That has changed quite dramatically over the last couple of years. Rndc specifically has built out the team to where we can help suppliers and retailers kind of align on E-com. But it's been crazy to see the growth. Obviously COVID had a huge impact on that. As we taper off that, it's been interesting to see what platforms that have popped up and wanting to get involved with BevValc specifically. I think a lot of people avoided it due to the regulatory and compliance efforts by state, but there are some major players. It has been quite impressive what the Instacarts and DoorDashes of the world produce in E-com with BevValc and all the services related to those. So on-site and off-site media contents. Everyone is chasing BevValc and they all have a service team product that they're willing to sell, so the market's been a little diluted. Companies have to be pretty decisive on where they want to go and what direction, based on their goals, but I don't anticipate it slowing down anytime soon.
Speaker 1:How do the marketplaces like Instacart fit into the industry?
Speaker 2:They have become a major player. If you are a specific brand, if you have great distribution.
Speaker 2:I think all of these tied back to the wholesale tier. And do you have distribution? The wine side has had a DTC play forever. But even them on an Instacart or any marketplace, if you want to be seen your traditional category, you want a certain number of facings on the right eye level to get as many people to buy your product. Online and E-com you have fewer spots to play with and they've deemed those as a market driven price. So you bid on those positions and if you are a position or on page one and position one through six, the opportunity for consumers to buy your product goes up. I don't know. Six, seven, x, it's pretty amazing. If you're on page 20, you're not going to get bought. So they have a unique product for specific brands that have great distribution and, if I'm being honest, have some money in the bank to spend to make sure that their products are positioned appropriately. So they are a major player for the right brand.
Speaker 1:It kind of feels like a little bit like Google with SEO If you're not on that first page, you might as well not even exist type of deal.
Speaker 2:You're absolutely right, brandon. I mean I've been shocked. It's a newer space for most people in that Valk. If they say they figured it out, I don't know if I believe them all, but the marketplaces have provided a unique opportunity for brands to it's really, if you look at the brands, it could be a shift of budget or a channel shift, but the great thing about this space is it's incredibly measurable and the insights you get are really a lot better than traditional media that we've seen in BevValk. So the example I say is if you throw a billboard out there, given the cost, how many sales do you convert? I don't know. I don't think anyone would know. You definitely get a lot of impressions. But the great thing about Ecom for us, when you're looking at deploying capital, is you know how many impressions you got, how many clicks you got and, for the most part, depending on the platform, you know how many attributed sales you got, and that alone is incredibly insightful and useful for every brand, retailer or wholesaler.
Speaker 1:And when you're talking about e-commerce, what does that mean to you? Because obviously there's like marketplaces, but there's a whole other, there's a lot of other different flavors of e-commerce. And then it gets even more confusing for me when it gets down to like spirits because of all the rules and regulations around e-commerce. So like what does e-commerce alcohol look like in your world?
Speaker 2:Well, a friend of ours that we both know very well said it best. I think Ecom is muddled between marketing and advertising. So let's focus on spirits for a minute. Ecom, to me, if I were a spirits brand, is driving the most amount of engagement, loyalty and subscribers that you can to your storefront. So if I'm brandonsburbancom, my goals in e-commerce lead would be get as many eyes, clicks and users on my side or my site so I can engage that first party data continuously in perpetuity. So new releases, collabs, build brand loyalty.
Speaker 2:That's where you can see the most grit. Utilizing social media, utilizing any sort of tactic to gain as many followers and loyal brand consumers as you can. That's Ecom to me. The marketplaces those are really advertising means. Offsite is more of conversion and driving traffic. But the spirits brands that I work with, if you take the large ones away from it, are the mid to small tier brands. Ecom to me, is really building a brand online. That you could not do traditionally, given the three tier system and trying to get distribution and retail having a massive footprint, sales reps in every market. It's not cost effective. So to me it's building brands online, getting as gritty as you can and utilizing your own means socialstorefrontcom and driving as much as you can through those channels.
Speaker 1:I think this leads to a great follow up question, which is something I've been thinking about. And not envious of anybody who would try and start a spirits brand right now because, as you mentioned, like the marketplaces, you're either on the first page or you're not, and that costs a significant amount of money and resources. But if you're a new entrance to the market, like, how do you eventually get to that? Does Ecom provide them the ability to get a little bit more creative and does it reduce the barriers to entry a bit? Or what sort of advice would you give to somebody who's like I want to go start a spirits brand and I don't have $100 million to spend on Instacart ads?
Speaker 2:I'd say the short answer is I think it's dramatically reduced the number of barriers. Now, given the current compliance framework, it's still conducive for that. We'll see what happens with regulations. It's a little muddy Right now, I'd say for direct to consumer on spirits. But with that being said, there are tons of examples where brands are built online.
Speaker 2:Take the celebrity brands away for a minute. I think those have had its place and some of those are doing well and some of those are not. But people want a brand, they want a brand story, they want something they can attach to and I think now more than ever, being able to do that online. It's still expensive, but it's not nearly as expensive. You can be creative with pre-sales and get the capital upfront. You can leverage a lot of your own social media. So if I wanted to manage it not hire an agency and you knew a little bit how to navigate those waters, you can convert and get some capital and continue to invest in the business.
Speaker 2:So I absolutely agree with your sentiment there. I don't want to say easy, but it is a lot more forgiving. If you have the right plan, the right action and the right support, it's still. You can get lost out there pretty quick, but I've seen a lot of examples where brands have been essentially built completely online. A good example Hercules Mulligan Really cool story there to see them. Shanky's Whip. There's a lot of stories where they have been built online Great UX, ui on the platform. They convert great social schemes, great collaborations and partnerships. They make it fun and this business is supposed to be fun so they usually win when they do that.
Speaker 1:I feel like the most successful brands I see today have some sort of a almost. They're very founder led, and usually the founder has some sort of like social media presence or there's a why or a story that is very authentic and customers can connect with. And I think that's also why there's a graveyard of celebrity brands that have started and failed because it's just like a licensing deal or there's not really, you know, a true meaning or reason behind why they did it. But we had a, the founder of Sattika on one of the other episodes and he obviously did Aviation Gin with Ryan Reynolds and it was fascinating to see how, when it, when somebody truly is bought in, like it really can work. But there's a whole host of stories where that didn't happen. But it doesn't have to be a celebrity. I mean you have plenty of people who have random people on TikTok who got like 30 million followers. I mean, start a brand, build your own content and community.
Speaker 2:Well, the one that is close to me just right, longer and different, I think they're a celebrity now. But the next milk boys with Happy Dad, they're a great partner of ours. I mean, they've they're highly committed, highly involved and they've done a tremendous job. So you're absolutely right. I think it's a lot about the founder. How involved are they telling the story or someone else? But to your point, I almost think the celebrity stuff is so deluded, Even if they are telling the story. Ryan Reynolds is the use the the goat, in my opinion, for marketing. So whatever he touches usually turns the gold. I think that's like a just a unfair advantage. But some of the others are executing well and some of the others not so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do enjoy the. There's like a collab between Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, which I find very amusing.
Speaker 2:But the Snoop Dogg. Can you believe we have a great relationship with Treasury? We distribute 19 crimes, the Cali Red with Snoop Dogg I mean that is that has done amazingly well. If you would ask me that a few years ago, you're crazy. That's not going to do well. But you know Snoop Dogg and Treasury good on them and then, yeah, it's been crazy. Martha Stewart spent in the game a long time. She's. She's a genius as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like the Happy Dad. I discovered that down here in South Florida and I had no idea who it was from. Like it was just everybody was drinking it, and so I feel like once you reach that tipping point where you have people consuming it and they don't even know it's backed by the personality or the celebrity like then you've really achieved something there with with the brand itself and how much it resonates with people, regardless of being attached to the founders themselves. So I thought that was that was pretty interesting, but yeah they're super unique how they do it.
Speaker 2:They have great product placement. They definitely drive the brand when able, but they've done it, I think, really organically. They haven't leveraged agencies, they've done it in house They've. They've used their social channels. They use YouTube, they they announce everything and, man, they have a loyal following. I mean, I think that's a great example of build your following and then build the brand, because really, I think their, their consumers, told them what to make, not the other way around, and it's worked really well. It's continuing to do well and I mean, those guys are crazy, they're, they're killing it, literally yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how, how did the, how did the pandemic accelerate these initiatives? It feels like there's, whether it's 19 crimes or, or, or, happy dad, there's like a lot more brands out there, at least that I see on social media and whatnot. How did the pandemic affect the, the e-com side of things with, with R and DC?
Speaker 2:Well, on the con, I let's focus on the consumer side of that, because that's really what. Where I saw the biggest boom, I mean we couldn't go anywhere. It was. It was a forced. It was a forced hand there. We had to adapt, suppliers had to adapt. These marketplaces had the means. They were at the right place at the right time. I mean, take Drizli I know they were doing pretty well, I mean the pandem pandemic. I people had to buy from them. There was really no other way around it.
Speaker 2:In terms of us, it made us strategize on how we are going to be a part of this side of the business. It's becoming more important for our suppliers. If you think about current relationships, future relationships. It's, it's part of the process. So we've built out a team. Our team is small but mighty. We have, I believe, seven people on our team dedicated to consumer e-com.
Speaker 2:So even though I'm I'm involved on the third party space, we have a national account lead. We have Omni regional. We have content. We have we have, you know, two leaders that are trying to drive the boat forward. We have e-tail with GoPuff and Bevmo. We're really investing in the space. Our competitors have as well, but really it's just to provide it. Really, what it said was there's a whole category or channel that we have been ignoring because we didn't really need to focus on it, and it's forced us to look at it and it's a very, a very important aspect of our business. Now It'll be talked about in every QBR, every planning session. E-com will have a place now and hopefully forever it'll keep growing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what. What does that look like in terms of things you're thinking about for how to better support your brands moving forward when it comes to e-com?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that question. It's an active conversation that changes daily, but it's really embedding these types of services and what RNDC can do. So, again, it really all goes back to the brand, the goal and their current state. So, how many you know, if you have great distribution, you have so many tactics you can pull from. But if we think about embedding the service, whether it's hey, if you're with RNDC, you're getting automatically a storefront, we want to enable e-com for you if you don't already have it. We want to evaluate how your UX is. Is your site optimal for converting e-com sales? Is it optimal for presenting your brand? We currently don't have that today, but we want to be a part of that, even social. Think about that. You'd say why is RNDC involved in social? Well, it's a great place to build brand awareness. It's probably the cheapest versus traditional trade and it's highly measurable and effective. So we want to embed all of those types of services and what we do. It's going to take us a minute to get there. We're making progress.
Speaker 2:But I think e-com has changed the way we create our service for suppliers and build brands. It's not just hey, let's throw an incentive out there and see how many polls we can get. Let's drive some Salesforce goals and get distribution across markets. It's more of a mature approach around what's the best way to build the brand online, and these are all the taxes we're going to do. In most cases today, we have to leverage agencies and people that are more familiar with the space, but hopefully we'll get there. Or that's just, if you're with R&D C, this is the suite of services you get, and we're going to build your brands not only in traditional matters, but online as well.
Speaker 1:Where is the line drawn between what the brand is responsible for versus what you're responsible for? And because obviously both parties benefit of sales accelerate and growth accelerates but typically what falls on which party?
Speaker 2:That has changed so much in the last 12 months and it's the chicken before the egg. I think it is a responsibility for not just the supplier to build the brand. I think it is a responsibility of the retailer as well and their online channels, and I think it's a responsibility of the wholesaler. Where in those decision-making says that fall? It's really, at the simplest form, if you think about online and E-com, is let's make sure the content's right, let's make sure you're presenting the brand in the best way possible. But it goes way beyond that.
Speaker 2:That's not just a supplier responsibility. That is on us to be able to syndicate on their behalf. In some cases that's on the retailer to make sure they're up to date and have appropriate SLAs on updating content on their sites. So that's probably the easiest example. But if you look at programming, if we had $100 to spend on programming across all channels, our responsibility is RNDC, which it wasn't maybe two to three years ago is a percentage of that will be allocated for not only B2B E-com on our ERNDC platform, but it will be on B2C activations with E-com.
Speaker 2:So we will spend on behalf of brands on these platforms and that benefits our retailers. That benefits our suppliers. I think it's gone. The lines have been muddied on who owns what. I don't think there's a clear line. It really depends on the brand. But we are actively involved in activations online.
Speaker 1:You mentioned ERNDC. Can you touch on that Just briefly, yeah?
Speaker 2:of course, I don't know what it is, man, I don't know how long we've been going at it, but ERNDC is our B2B platform, so it services our customers and retailers in the market to be able to order online rather than having a rep come in the store in some cases, but also in support of our reps coming in to stores. I believe now we're in 20 states, with three more coming up at the end of the year, so we'll be in 23 states by the end of the year. The growth has been tremendous. The adoption has been tremendous. The team there is really driven as many capabilities as possible to service our clients. I think the sky's the limit there. It'll continue to be a major priority for ERNDC moving forward and hopefully it just gets better and better.
Speaker 1:I've been seeing, whether it's alcohol or just the overall e-com market, b2b getting a significant facelift, both in terms of the user experience but also the functionality behind it, whether it's a platform like ERNDC or even as simple as some of the brands, we migrate over to Shopify Plus and their B2B capabilities that they're now rolling out, because I think B2B is pretty far behind B2C, at least in terms of experience and tech, historically.
Speaker 2:I agree with that and I think that it's mostly the perception that traditional e-com tactics wouldn't work for B2B. I think what we've seen is that that's not necessarily the case. So embedding those same capabilities for sponsored product, for recommended products, for alternative products or newer products, buy it again all those types of things you see on any sollte pronus B2C I mean Instacart, my buy it again bucket is insane. That's where I shop 95% of the time. Now, embedding those type of capabilities on the B2B side, I think we found is equally as important and what we're striving for. So I totally agree with you we're still behind, we got a ways to go, but I know we're ramping up. We have the resources, we have the focus and I see nothing but green passures there for that team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it feels like there's more of an understanding that driving online sales and in-store sales complement each other, versus sort of it's the term that I'm looking for versus cannibalizing each other. There's more of an omni-channel approach that's being taken from brands across the board, and it's been interesting to see companies themselves try and restructure incentives, because historically maybe some teams were only compensated off of X, but now it's like well, we need to look at the total sales and how it's affecting the overall business.
Speaker 2:That's a great point. I think we're still in the process of figuring out how that all is gonna work, but you're absolutely right, they definitely do not cannibalize each other in my opinion. I'm biased because I'm on the Ecom team, but I think the traditional folks will agree, seeing the volume that's going online and more attendexing and the trends we see in future years. But it needs to be part of the conversation for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, I've grilled you with enough questions as far. I've got two fun ones before we-.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1:What is your? Typically it's what is your favorite wine memory, but I'll expand it to what's your favorite alcohol memory, if it was with spirits and stuff instead of wine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know we talked about most of the conversations related to spirits, but at heart I am a wine guy. It's either wine or tequila. But in college my brother-in-law started up a little market in Southern California and he I think he didn't have a choice but he allowed me to help with the wine program. So working with wholesalers and seeing that side of the business and doing the wine tasting and pizza Friday nights we had and going to Napa and utilizing the business card, which back then was like gold. Oh, you work for a retailer, you get a free tasting and getting to be able to experience the wine business like that was super fun. But I'd say if the ride in the company line, anything in front of me is usually what I like the best. But I definitely say back in the day, working in a store and seeing all the process and how it works, and that was probably the most enjoyable and fun and gritty and I had no idea what I was doing, but it was a blast.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. I'm going to go print out a business card it was a retailer and head down to Napa and then back in the day it worked great.
Speaker 2:It doesn't anymore you have to have some coordination, but it was awesome why it lasted.
Speaker 1:And last question if you could share a bottle of anyone, who would it be and what are you drinking?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, obviously my wife is a big whino as well. So if I had my choice she'd probably go old world. But for me, if I'm choosing, since you and I are talking I'd probably do a bottle of 97 Brian family. I had it once. It was by far the best bottle of wine I've ever had. I'd share it with her, and let's just say we'd be somewhere in Half Moon Bay on the beach, nice glass of wine and steak, and that's probably the best way to go out. How about you?
Speaker 1:That sounds like a hell of an evening for me. Yeah, hmm.
Speaker 2:How about?
Speaker 1:me. I mean, I'm definitely more of a. I do enjoy some of the California red wines at. Sinec-wanana is always fun and super funky, and especially when, when those more like powerhouse wines have been aged for 10, 15, 20 years, I think they really start to develop and and show some some, some, some life that you can't get in the beginning, when it's just like punching you in the face.
Speaker 2:I probably say, my problem is if I ever get an expensive bottle of wine, I I just can't last 10, 10, 12 years that that if it's in the house it's getting popped. So I can't. I don't trust myself with high in wine.
Speaker 1:I've got all mine and it's in folio because if it's here, I'm yeah, it's a risk, you never know what's gonna happen. And you're smart like maybe I come home from a late evening and I'm like, oh, this seems like a good idea, and then I wake up the next morning like wow, I really should not have opened that bottle and drank it. And yeah, I think for me best would be depending on location. Like so much of it is location dependent. Like if I was back in California very easy to get to Hawaii I would definitely want to be drinking a bottle of red wine down by the beach in Maui. But now out here in Florida, if it's not a hundred degrees outside and I'm not sweating, then maybe on a, on a boat somewhere drinking a nice bottle of red wine. But I'm far more red wine than than anything else personally.
Speaker 2:That's great man, and I got one for you just because drinks is a great partner of ours. What, what's the plan for drinks? What? Any exciting news that you can share with me?
Speaker 1:So we have a lot of things in in the hopper, and the thing that I'm most excited about is the continued acceleration of I mean, I know we talked a lot about spirits on this, on this call, but wineries and retailers adopting more modern tech like the whole concept of vertical specific technology does not really jive well of me, whether it's oh, this is the SMS platform, that's only for wineries, it's like you're. You can't get the scale or the innovation or development that you see with companies like a, like a Shopify, for example, because of the fact that they've got 4,000 engineers and you've would really just put yourself into a very small, defined TAM and so you can't have the rapid sort of pace of innovation that's needed to keep up with what everybody else gets to use. So everybody else gets to, whether to choose coffee, skincare, beauty products, whatever it may be, they get all the fancy bells and whistles, but if you're a winery or retailer, historically you don't, and so we've done quite literally zero outbound to the market. Everything has been inbound through word of mouth or through hearing that you know now Shopify can support these types of businesses and it's been super exciting to get to dig in with them, understand their pain points and sort of see their eyes light up to when we're able to showcase some of the features and functionality that they now get to leverage to be able to better connect with their customers.
Speaker 1:Because, like I was out in Napa last week and the tasting room experience was so cool, and then I go on their website and this is, this is awful, it's like a mail order catalog from the 1980s or something, and, yeah, so for them it's like how do we take what is so unique and different about wine as a product all the backstory, the history of the vineyard, your sort of method to how you go about crafting what ends up in the bottle and make that where presented online, which is not the norm or the case, I think, for a lot of, for a lot of brands at this moment, and so it's been exciting to get to help shepherd that over and and wear multiple different hats, working with them to understand how to better connect with with customers. So that's a little I know where you guys are headed.
Speaker 2:It's, it's exciting. I think you're out, you're on to something big and I can't wait to work with you all more and see what we can do together. You guys are on to something for sure yeah, it's an exciting time.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for coming on and doing this with us before we hop off. Where can people connect with you online?
Speaker 2:you know I say everything about e-com but I'm not really a social guy, so the best part is where I linked in. Other than that, you probably have a tough time finding me, but yeah you know, already see, you can definitely find me and then linked in, but happy to connect with anyone and continue talking about the space. It's fun and exciting and none of us are experts yet, so that's, that's the cool part always learning, there's always a lot to learn, yeah well for everybody listening.
Speaker 1:As always, this is Brandon Moroso. You can find me at drinkscom and we will see you next time.