This startup wants to bring 1-hour wine delivery to major cities in Asia

Shanghai’s wine market is a bit of a mess. Corner stores sell the Chinese-made ‘Great Wall’ brand for low prices – but you get what you pay for (some would say, between gasps of a burning throat, that you get even less). And over the past several years, foreign boutique shops have opened throughout the city, offering premium European vintages for a severely wallet-lightening price.

The mid-range wine market has been slower to develop – and a new startup wants to use technology to bring moderately-priced, high-quality wines to Shanghai’s residents.

“The wine market was in such bad shape,” says BottlesXO co-founder Thilo Fuchs, speaking about when he first moved to Shanghai in late 2012. “It was just really bad quality, overpriced wines. We were like, ‘this can’t be!’”

Thilo had already worked in the wine industry back in his native Germany. Upon realizing the dire state of Shanghai’s vino, he did research. “It was clear pretty fast that there is a huge market here,” he says.

“There were plenty of wine shops already,” says Zou Zhengfang, also co-founder. “We wanted something that scales.”

So along with two others, Joerg Winkelmann and Mischa Schulze, Thilo and Zhengfang began assembling a startup that sought to bring Shanghai residents high quality wines for less-than-premium prices.

The plan

The idea grew from a few basic premises. Firstly, it would be fast. The service isn’t meant for buying a dozen bottles to put on a shelf: it’s meant for people who, at 6pm, want a glass of wine by 7. That meant quick delivery, anywhere in the city.

Second, the wines would be higher quality at lower prices than a standard shop. The founders had relationships with European boutique wineries, and focused on quality over brand recognition. “The wine collection we have is pretty unique,” says Thilo. “They’re not big name wines; we’re not delivering the ones from magazines and such.” The prices start at RMB95/bottle (US$14.93).

And third, customer service would be paramount – a polished app, friendly delivery workers, and no shipping fees or minimum orders. The group even experimented with hiring foreigners to deliver the bottles but, while the price margins still worked, they ultimately found that Chinese drivers were faster and navigated better. They settled on holding English classes for their Chinese drivers.

Within a few months of incorporating their company in Hong Kong and setting up an office in Shanghai, BottlesXO had a team of developers, a circle of friends testing the beta app, and a growing supply of wines.

How it works

The app is well-designed, featuring high resolution images of each bottle along with icons of suggested fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and meats to pair it with. For the true vinophile, each wine is also accompanied by a lengthy description, a history of that type of wine, and photos and descriptions of the vineyard where the grapes were grown. Thilo has personally been to all of the vineyards featured on BottlesXO.

Moving beyond Shanghai