Naked Wines is a site with a unique concept. It runs as an online farmers’ market that is a mix between an online wine store and a social networking site. This means farmers can concentrate on what they do best, making great wine, whilst the site sells it for them. This means no money is spent on marketing, so you can receive great high quality wine for much less. They sell wines you have probably never heard of before, but all are tested to ensure they meet the highest standards in taste. This is an extremely new site, launched at the end of 2008.
Minimum Orders
If you are going to buy wine the traditional way, the minimum purchase is six bottles of wine. However, you can join a scheme called the Naked Wine Angel where there is no minimum order as such.
Delivery Times and Costs
Fantastic delivery times and costs are a key benefit of this site. Delivery costs £4.99 and you will receive your purchase the very next working day provided you order by 5pm. This is excellent time and cost beating most other wine merchants by far.
Range of Products
The products come from 29 different winemakers. The range of wines is currently fairly small, less than 50. However, this is still a relatively new site and may expand in the future. Winemakers are spread out around the world, with some in French regions, many Spanish producers and some fantastic Australian wines. There are some areas unrepresented or simply absent such as Italy. However, there is good information about the wines and producers which in some ways makes up for the lack of choice. The site does not offer any accessories or different alcoholic beverages, however, this is in part the appeal of the site. It is all about stripping down to selling good quality wine, as cheaply as possible.
Types of Products and Price Range
The site claims the average bottle of wine is made up of 30p of wine and £1.00 of marketing. It therefore aims to take away the money spent on marketing and put more into the wine. It sells wines for similar prices to lower priced bottles on the market, but the resulting wine is of a much higher quality. As a result, most wines are fairly cheap often between £5 and £10.
Style and Usability of Site
This new site is extremely novel and this section therefore requires a great deal of attention. NakedWine uses a curious mix between the website of an online wine merchant and social networking sites such as facebook. The objective of this is to change the way we buy wine. Each wine has its own page, on this page there are details such as the price, and facts about its use. However, unlike other sites, it has a social networking style wall where users can write comments about the wine. Users can also click to support this wine, supporters show up on the left hand side of the page. There is also an option to ‘Meet the Winemaker’ where a comment is left from the producer itself. You can use the site to chat to other fans of the wine and share hints and tips on finding the best wines.
The appearance of the website is not dissimilar to some social networking pages, however, it can appear slightly clumsy and disorganised for an online store and this may put some people off. The concept is not always clear, and the Naked Angels £5 a month model can seem slightly confusing. However, the checkout process is simple and easy and the concept is novel. The wall is also an interesting feature as it enables customers to ask questions about the wine and directly interact with others who have already tried it. The countdown to place orders for next day delivery on the top of the page is also a helpful facility as is the comprehensive help page.
Purchasing
On this site, you can either buy directly or join the Naked Angels scheme. As part of this scheme. you put £5 each month into your account to a wine maker in order to guarantee purchases from them. Your money will build up and you can spend it whenever you like. You then receive a 33% discount on all wine you purchase from them. By doing this you can also receive six wines from the producer for free.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I do not understand how people do not realise the whole naked wines concept is a HUGE RIP OFF scheme. These wine makers are not necesarily small, much less depend on naked wines to survive, neither they only produce for naked wines. All those wine makers produce wine that is sold to supermarkets and shops across the UK and elsewhere…under their main (many times very well known) brands.
Naked Wines rips off people by asking those producers to produce the exact same wine under a different label. Why? So that consumers (you and I) cannot compare prices, believe their lies, and “agree” to pay some times TWICE the regular price.
They create a monopoly that allows them to set much higher prices for the wine, charging some times TWICE the supermarket price for THE SAME wine (produced under another name). That’s the basis of the whole Naked Wines business concept.
I’m in the wine business and know at least a couple of producers who currently produce (or have done so in the past) wine for naked wines. The wine is exactly THE SAME the sell to many supermarkets in the UK (and worldwide). You can buy those wines in Tesco or Waitrose for 4.99, but naked wines charges you up to 9.99, for EXACTLY THE SAME WINE. That’s double the price! What a great business…
On top of that, as said before, those wineries do NOT depend on naked wines at all. Typically they produce a few different wines (some of those producers have a portfolio of a couple dozens wines) and only a couple are labeled differently for Naked Wines (again, those same couple are labeled for the usual distribution chain – supermarkets). The volume naked wines generates for these producers is usually neglible compared to what they produce for the “rest of the world”, including most supermarket chains in the UK, for exactly the same wines.
On top of that, those naive people that become “angels” are only making naked wines bank account grow larger, not helping any wine maker survive. Come on people, wake up!
Having looked, I see that the site has been revamped since this review. However, the new site is still clean and looks very graphically pleasing.
There are so many of these types of schemes about. I think the daily Telegraphs wine club and the Daily Mails offer far more value for your money.