Plays
Sales and Retention · Oct 21, 2026
Sell the occasion, not the varietal: four plays for AOV and reorder rate
Listing wines and spirits by grape or category makes the guest do the work of figuring out when to drink it, and most of them just leave. These four moves rewrite the ask around occasions and sampling, which is what HSP Brands sees driving purchases across more than 66,000 retail-tasting events a year.
On the Beverage Dynamics podcast, HSP Brands CEO Jessica Kogan walks through what moves a buyer at the point of purchase: occasion-based buying, sampling, and packaging innovation. Four ways to put that to work.
- Relabel your menu and shelf tags by occasion this week. Replace "2024 Albariño" with "2024 Albariño: oysters, fish tacos, hot afternoons." Zero budget, and it moves tasting room and shelf conversion rate because the guest no longer has to guess when to open it.
- Pour a splash of the next release at every club pickup. Kogan's point about sampling applies inside your own four walls: a 1 oz taste of the wine or spirit they have not bought yet is the cheapest add-on pitch you have. Track add-on rate and AOV per pickup.
- Build two occasion packs your club can reorder between shipments. A weeknight pack and a host-gift pack, each with a pairing card. This takes setup in your cart, and it moves reorder rate, which is the number that quietly protects club churn.
- Have your sales rep sell a retail account on a recurring occasion tasting, not a brand tasting. Tailgate night, holiday gifting, patio season. Repeat dates beat one-offs for sell-through.
Start with the menu rewrite Monday, then measure conversion against last month before you spend a dollar on the rest.
More plays on tasting room and hospitality
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