iPads and Wine: a Nice Pairing

 Will tablets like the iPad take over restaurant menu presentations? It's starting to happen as some restaurants on the tech edge have converted. It may in fact be a trend though one can easily argue it's an expensive gambit to outfit almost every table with a tablet. But a wine list? Less units and a natural fit for wine information presentation-could make for a strong case. Here's a number of ways that the iPad and wine make a nice pair.

Sleek & Sexy Display

For upscale restaurants with a nice wine program, the tech sophistication of the elegant iPad is a natural match. The point and swipe user interface of the touch tablet is very user friendly and natural. Honestly, my initial thoughts concerned the senior customer segment. Nadine Serfass, Co-owner of Hospitality Social, a wine app solution for iPads (and also co-owner of Naples Tomato), put me at ease. "They love it," she said. "Yes, there can be some initial resistance, but once they see how easy it is to navigate, they really get into it."

Sales

Early results are showing nice sales gains for restaurants using tablet based wine menus. Sales gains of 15-20% are normal according to vinopad, an iPad based wine list application. In addition, the iPad lists have encouraged sales of higher priced wine. "People are more likely to buy a higher priced bottle of wine if they know more about it," says Bob Johnson, General Manager at Forepaugh's, a Saint Paul-based restaurant and vinopad customer.

Training & Customer Education

Let's face it, wine can be intimidating. If you've got a sommelier, great, but if your restaurant is like most and relies of waitstaff for promotion and education you've probably seen that they come up short. "For a transient waitstaff population, strong motivation about wine education can be hard to come by," says Nadine from Hospitality Social. "The beauty of the iPad application is each wine can be presented with full profile information, even food pairing suggestions right on screen, giving customer on-demand education they can peruse at their leisure while make their wine selections."

Marketing & Rewards

I love the interface on Hospitality Social, for example, because it naturally prompts for your email address in the flow of selecting your wine. This is great for the restaurant because they capture that address for future e-marketing. And the immediate benefit for the customer is they receive an email a couple hours after the meal with summary info of the wines from the evening. Great, because if you're like me, even when you really enjoy a wine, you often quickly forget the name of the label from your meal. Customers could also be marketed to in the future based on preferences, spend amount or potentially entered into a rewards type program, all terrific ways for the restaurant to capture additional customer visits.

Inventory & Printing

Well, obviously not having to print out the wine list is a big bonus, especially it a restaurant's list is large or changes frequently. Beyond that, the technology kicks in as a back end administration module can allow restaurants to both remove out of stock units as well as update pricing instantly and automatically. That's a nice, effective use of the digital platform.

Specials

 The graphical interface of the tablet lends itself well to promoting specials. Imagine a nice splash screen upon first opening the application that presents the customer with some key specials. This gives the operator a chance to feature high margin products or move desired inventory.

Co-Marketing & Branding

This plays into the potential cost factor. The restaurant can look for opportunities amongst its purveyors and wine reps for special graphic placements or promotion of specific wines and labels, whereby placement fees could offset technology costs. It can be a very natural flow to have marketing wrapped around the wine list presentation in a win-win format for all.

The Elephant in the Room

The big potential negative, of course, is the cost of the iPad tablet units. At approximately $500 each, plus a sturdy presentation case and other tech gizmos let's say $600 per unit. That's the bad news. The good news, aside from the fact the system could pay for itself in increased sales and marketing options, is companies in this space are making leasing options available.

With all that being said, you have to make a very firm commitment to the program to spin a positive ROI. For the right venues with attractive wine programs and appropriate business volumes I absolutely love it as a program. The fusion of technology, information, ease of use and back-end marketing potential make iPads and wine a delectable combination.

http://www.HospitalitySocial.com
http://www.Vinopad.com
http://www.naplestomato.com

Jaime Oikle is the Owner of RestaurantWebGuy.com and RunningRestaurants.com, a comprehensive web site for restaurant owners & managers filled with marketing, operations & service tips to help restaurants profit and succeed.