By Angela F. 

Recently, Naked Wine, a listed company in the United Kingdom, stated that despite the harsh global economic environment in 2020, the company was able to get out of the red. The overall performance is better than expected. The total revenue of the entire business during this period increased by 80% to 157 million pounds.

近日，英國一間上市公司Naked Wine表示雖然2020年全球經濟環境惡劣， 但該公司仍能轉虧為盈，整體業績好於預期，整個業務在此期間的總收入增長80%至1.57 億英鎊。 

Regarding the growth,  Naked Wine CFO James Crawford said that it was due to the company's change from traditional store sales to online sales. He believes that shift to online sales will be “enduring’. 

對此，Naked wine 首席財務官 James Crawford 表示，這歸功於公司改變一般傳統門市銷售，改為網上銷售。 他認為，網上銷售葡萄酒將會變成一個持續性的改變。 

For consumers, online shopping is not only convenient, but can also obtain better prices by reducing wholesalers and retailers.

對消費者而言，Online shopping 不但方便，而且還能通過減少批發商和零售商，獲得更好的價格。

For wine merchants, the transformation of online stores can reduce store rents and labour costs.  Most importantly, it can reduce the instability caused by the economy and epidemics, such as the lockdown period previously.

而對於酒商來說，轉型網上商店能減少門市的租金和人工開資。更重要的是，能夠減少因經濟和疫症，例如封城期間所帶來的不穩定因素。 

However, when wine lovers buy wine, they usually like to taste the wine sample in person or ask the sommelier or shop assistant to recommend the purchase from his preferences. Buying wine online is indeed difficult to replace the service provided by the store. In many cases, the online information on each wine is mixed with jargons, making it difficult for consumers who do not drink wine frequently to choose a wine of their choice. For this , what countermeasures should be done by online wine merchants? 

然而葡萄酒愛好者在購買酒時，通常都會喜歡親身去品酒或者讓品酒師或店員從他的喜好推介購買。 網上購入葡萄酒確實難以取替門市所提供的服務。很多時候網上對每一支葡萄酒資訊還會夾雜專業用詞，令一些不太常飲葡萄酒的消費者難以挑選一支心儀的葡萄酒。 對此，網上葡萄酒商會如何作出對策呢？

Crawford revealed that in view of the previous lockdown and gathering restrictions, they arranged for winemakers to use the Zoom meeting to explain their wines. Online tasting has proven to be a very successful way of selling wine, with more than 40,000 people participating in their Zoom conference call. Their consumers also had more time to enjoy wine at home and participated in some online tasting due to the trend of working from home and lock down at that time, with the bonus of enriching their wine knowledge from home.

Crawford 表示， 鑒於之前的lockdown 和限聚令，他們安排了釀酒師利用Zoom meeting講解他們的葡萄酒。 Online tasting已被證明是一種非常成功的葡萄酒銷售方式，超過40,000人參加了他們舉辦的Zoom 通話會議。他們的消費者亦因為當時封城和work from home 的趨勢，變相多了時間在家享用葡萄酒和參與一些Online tasting，豐富他們對於酒的知識。

All in all, regardless of the subsequent epidemic and economic development, after Covid-19, consumers have gradually changed their consumption patterns, and online shopping has become popular. Merchants should consider how to increase customer friendly packages to stand out from many online stores, one is to make online consumption having the same support as store consumption, or even better.

總括而言，不論之後疫情和經濟發展如何，經過Covid-19之後， 消費者已經逐漸改變了他們的消費模式，online shopping 變得普及化。商家應考慮如何增加customer friendly的配套，從眾多網上商店中脫穎而出，令網上消費擁有和門市消費一樣的配套，甚至更好。