Sales Tactics: Crashing Double 11 with 100 Tastings

Today symbolizes China’s biggest annual shopping spree.

November 11 is known as Double Eleven or Singles Day—due to the “ones” in the date—but this annual shopping spree / economic juggernaut now lasts about a month.

Gross sales value this year is already estimated at USD140 billion. (Last year, it totaled ~USD200 billion.)

This feels like a promotion no wine producer can ignore but at least one is focused elsewhere.

You might remember him, Deng Zhongxiang, the Ningxia-based consultant with ten wineries as clients. Earlier this year, he sent free six-packs of his wine to 100 trade people nationwide to hold tastings on his behalf. He’s now preparing for round two.

“While others use Double Eleven sales to make money by selling alcohol, I’m spending money to distribute it,” he posted today.

Interested restaurants, bars, influencers and retailers simply contact Deng to inquire about a six-pack. Then they receive three-bottle verticals of his Syrah and Marselan—vintages 2021, 2022 and 2023—bottled under the label Beyond Time.

“Wine. I have always thought it was a hedonistic consumer good. It only exists when it’s in your mouth,” he posted. “I have always said that the wine I want to make is good and not expensive. I have been back in China for more than a decade and that has never changed.”

Thus, no Double Eleven for Deng. Nor is he a fan of going to fairs: “Traditional wine shows are too inefficient and time-consuming.”

Instead, he’s focused on making wine while letting partners throughout China help him spread the word.

True, that comes at a cost of 600 bottles of wine plus packaging and shipping. But compared to the cost of flying to a city, booking a hotel and blah-blah-ing for three hours over a contrived meal to a dozen or two people, well, I’d say his experiment is well worth it.

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