Product, price, place and promotion: the four Ps of marketing. It may be corporate jargon, but it works. Sadly, promotion and price are all too often considered one and the same thing within wine retail. This slavish reliance on discounting not only undermines the value of wine, it debases the potential of non-price promotion. Every off-licence has the opportunity to promote wine without always resorting to…

The Co-operative Group’s new wine boss plans to move away from discounts and overhaul its own-label range. Simon Cairns, a former Morrisons buyer who crossed the Pennines to fill the role left by Paul Bastard, said he is relishing the challenge of replacing the industry stalwart. He told OLN: “There is a great opportunity to provide an interesting and eclectic range that is competitively-priced and…

Online drinks retailer Slurp is to introduce daily deal promotions in a move it hopes will appeal to supermarket wine shoppers. The company is building a dedicated list of subscribers for its Slurp Deals programme, and aims to take the num- bers signing up to more than 100,000 by running advertising on third-party websites. Deals will feature wines, beers, spirits and accessories, with discounts running…

Piper-Heidsieck Champagne is setting out to refocus on the prestige of the house – and is prepared to sacrifice retail volumes to do so. The strategy change came after the house was bought from the Rémy Cointreau Group by luxury brands group EPI, along with unrelated Champagne house Charles Heidsieck, last July. EPI chief executive Cécile Bonnefond told OLN: “We will try to be less…

The festive price war got off to an aggressive start this week as supermarkets drew battle lines in the fight for market share. Tesco and Sainsbury’s slashed 25% off all their wines as well as running a number of half-price deals on Champagne. Morrisons also dropped the price of its Champagnes with Charles de Villers reduced to £14.99 from £28.99 and French Connection Rosé down…