Total Wine & More is a family-owned, privately held American alcohol retailer founded and led by brothers David and Robert Trone. Total Wine & More is the largest U.S. independent retailer of fine wine. Total Wine & More was named Retailer of the Year by Market Watch in 2006, Beverage Dynamics in 2008, and Wine Enthusiast Magazine in 2004 and 2014. The company is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.
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History
In 1985, Trone and family members opened stores in the Pittsburgh area known as Beer and Pop Warehouse and later Beer World, though legal experiences in Pennsylvania led them to leave the state.
In 1991 brothers David and Robert Trone founded Liquor World as a small, independent store (2,500 sq. ft.) in Claymont, Delaware, which was followed with a second store in Milltown, Delaware. Liquor World grew steadily through the 1990s, expanding state by state down the east coast. The Trones acquired D.C.-area chain Total Beverage in 1998, adopting and modifying that company's moniker for their business.
Total Wine entered Florida in 2005, and then California and Arizona in 2007. As they expanded, the Trones brought in executives from other retailers such as BJ's, Zales, Bloomingdales, Toys R Us, The Home Depot, and Office Depot.
In 2016, Total Wine was served with several-day license suspensions by the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission for selling liquor below its costs, a loss leader pricing strategy not allowed within the state's liquor industry. Total Wine sued the state's regulators to overturn the suspensions, and won based on the final cost of the liquor being less than that shown on the initial invoices.
As of April 2018, Total Wine & More has 176 superstores in 20 states: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. It conducts online sales in 14 states that allow online alcohol sales.
Maps Total Wine & More
Business operations
Owned and operated by Retail Services and Systems, Total Wine & More offers a large selection of products and advertises them as competitive in price. Each Total Wine store carries approximately 8,000 different types of wines from wine-producing regions around the world, 3,000 types of spirits (where permitted by law), and about 2,500 beers. Each store also carries accessories, gifts, and cigars.
Total Wine & More has about 5,000 employees, including 500 employees at their corporate headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland and 800 wine specialists who must demonstrate wine knowledge before they are invited to join the company. All wine department employees must undergo an initial 150-hour training program, participate in weekly team wine tastings, and attend monthly wine producer seminars. Some employees travel to wine-growing regions such as Napa Valley, California and the French regions of Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne on company-sponsored educational trips.
Each Total Wine & More store is 20,000-50,000 square feet (1,900-4,600 m2) in size. Total Wine & More also provides in-house publications to their customers, including Total Wine & More's Guide to Wine, the Total Wine & More Total Guide to Beer, Guide to Spirits, a quarterly Buying Guide which lists brands and prices, and a quarterly newsletter (The Wine Advisor).
The company's 2014 revenue was estimated to be more than $1.5 billion. Co-owner David Trone said that year that the company planned to be at $2 billion in revenues in 2015, and $3 billion in 2019.
Corporate philanthropy
Since its founding, Total Wine & More has given millions of dollars in financial and in-kind donations to a range of nonprofits. In 2015, Total Wine donated more than $6 million to 7,000+ local charities in 18 states. In 2014, Total Wine & More received the prestigious 2014 Market Watch Award for Community Service from Market Watch, the nation's leading beverage alcohol industry publication. Wine Spectator editor Marvin Shanken said, "The level of time, energy and financial resources that David and Robert Trone have devoted to community service is truly remarkable."
Customer education
Total Wine & More offers a variety of opportunities for their customers to learn more about the wines, beer and spirits that are sold in their stores. Each store hosts weekly tastings, special events and classes where customers can learn from experts, winemakers, brew masters and industry professionals (as allowed by different state laws). Total Wine pioneered the live virtual tasting, where well-known winemakers host a tasting from their vinyard, which is streamed live in Total Wine's classrooms.
Education Centers are also made available for use in every local community. Total Wine & More offers free meeting space for local businesses, clubs, and organizations. Located in over 60 Total Wine stores, each Center is a private room equipped for meeting hosting, and the stores also provide a complimentary 30-minute wine tasting for all attendees (as allowed by different state laws).
Adam Strum, chairman of Wine Enthusiast, said of Total Wine: "They're very focused on educating the consumer...they really invest a lot of time in their employees, their training. That's one of the reasons they have been so fabulously successful."
References
External links
- Official website
- Value Added: Potomac's Total Wine, The Washington Post, December 18, 2011.
Source of article : Wikipedia
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