Friday, Aug 01 2008
From Neighborhood Shop to National Chain
They started out the old fashioned way. Working out of their home, they began traveling around Northern California and selling wine to small stores. People liked the wines, and the company began to grow. Cameron and Jess made a great team. Cameron knew wine. Jess had worked in marketing in fashion and with dot-coms. The real breakthrough came when the young couple worked a deal with Costco. The giant chain would buy entire lots and sell them to consumers at amazing prices â generally between $8 and $14 per bottle. When the wine was ready, Cameron and Jess shipped it to select Costco stores throughout the country (as thereâs never really enough wine for all of the stores), where it generally sold out the week it arrived.
Once Costcoâs customers got to know the Cameron Hughes brand and understood that each new lot was going to be gone in a couple of days, the wines sold even faster.
Thereâs one peculiar thing about the system. Consumers generally donât know when a new wine will be arriving. (It is possible to get a heads-up from the companyâs website, and wine fans can request to be added to the companyâs email list). Most customers visit Costco every week and buy the wine when they see it. They donât have a chance to taste the wine before they buy it, but they trust the Cameron Hughes brand, and they know the wine will be good.
The company continues to grow and has begun to make wines available through new retailers in some markets. Rob Eddlemon, who heads the companyâs Midwest and East Coast sales team and is based in Austin reports, âIn Austin we are sold primarily through Costco, though Cost Plus World Market occasionally receives CHW Lot designations produced exclusively for them.â
So be sure to look for Cameron Hughes Wines when you shop at Costco or World Market. Try a few bottles for yourself. And then put yourself on the Cameron Hughes email list.
