Assessing Consumer Behavior in the Wine Industry and Its Consequences for Wineries: A Case Study of a Spanish Company

Abstract

The widening gap between production and domestic consumption has led Spain to become the country with the largest volume of wine exports, of which it has a global market share of 20.5%. Wineries in Spain have, in recent years, undergone important transformation and modernization processes, while their customers have simultaneously acquired more power than ever before owing to both the availability of information and the technological means required to access that information. The objectives of this paper are the following. We first wish to analyze current wine consumer behavior in an attempt to discover indicators associated with exploratory behavior, i.e., the willingness to try new and innovative products for the first time. We also attempt to understand the extent of wine consumers’ demands in this new digital and technological world. The second goal is to analyze the changes that have taken place in the wine industry, which have come about as a result of the evolution of consumers’ expectations and demands. The customer accordingly now plays a new role in this new quick change scenario, which involves aspects such as the intensive use of technology, advances in communication, digital transformation, etc. We consider that this could affect some aspects of business and have, therefore, chosen to analyze one of the most advanced Spanish wineries in order to examine its entrepreneurial orientation, strategy and level of technological and digital transformation when linked to adaptation to this new consumer behavior. The results and conclusions obtained will allow us to apply our findings in future research, during which we intend to expand our studies to wineries from other regions and countries.

Agro-Environmental Practices and Business Performance in the Wine Sector

“…The findings provide empirical evidence and theoretically complement previous research. The findings of this study show that of the analyzed variables the brand performance (BP) has the strongest impact on the brand equity (brand value coefficients BP3 = 0.914), which is consistent with the conclusions [29,31,32,34,90] on the importance of the brand for increasing turnover and improving the overall business performance of wineries. The answer to market challenges is certainly communication [17][18][19][20], marketing tools [15,16], informing [27] and educating producers and consumers [21,78,148,149], as well as clear differentiation and development of loyalty [30], and image [38].…”

“…Efficient marketing communication [27] leads to company profiles with a desired image and creates an appropriate position in the consciousness of consumers and the general public [28] contributing to an increased awareness on sustainability. Muñoz et al [29] pointed to the importance of the brand in the prevention of wine counterfeiting. They concluded that proactivity and differentiation of wine, the development of loyalty of wine consumers [30], the improvement and the guarantee of the wine quality, the geographical indication [31][32][33][34] contribute to the purchase and the brand recognition [35] and the overall performance of the wineries.…”