What Drives Greek Consumer Preferences for Cask Wine?

Abstract

Purpose – Cask wine (bag-in-box, soft pack) has not received considerable attention in wine marketing research, but interest among winemakers and consumers has been increasing steadily. However, little is known about what drives consumer preferences for cask wine and, furthermore, what the profile of the cask wine consumer is. This study aims at filling this gap.

Design/methodology/approach – Based on a web-based survey, the best-worst scaling (BWS) method was applied to measure the importance of attributes that Greek consumers assign when choosing cask wine. Then, a latent class clustering analysis based on the importance ratings of the attributes was applied in order to segment the Greek cask wine market.

Findings – The most important attributes were found to be price, quality and convenience packaging, whereas brand, grape variety and origin were found to be the least important ones. In relation to structure, the Greek cask wine market was found to consist of four distinct segments that were labelled as connoisseurs, convenience seekers, experienced and risk averse. These segments showed differences in relation to their past experience and in the importance given to intrinsic (quality, taste, origin) as opposed to extrinsic cues (brand, price, convenience packaging).

Research limitations/implications – Two main strategic directions are suggested to Greek cask wine producers: they can either maintain the current approach to the market by providing a “simple”, not particularly refined wine, or adopt a sustainable eco-friendly positioning.

Originality/value – This study contributes to the understanding of what drives consumers’ preferences for cask wine, something that few studies have done until now. Moreover, this is the first study to use the BWS method for this type of product.

Keywords: Cask wine, Bag-in-box, Consumer preferences, Best-worst scaling, Latent class cluster analysis, Greece, Consumer behaviour, Wines, Market orientation