Hong Kong’s Best Websites To Buy Wine

The announcement yesterday by Slurp Asia that they are launching a drive to raise US$1.25 million to fund further growth in Asia shows how integral the online retail side of the wine business is becoming to life as a retailer in Hong Kong. With the increased use of smart phones, pods, pads and tablets, more and more people are spending more and more time on line and with that, spending more and more money purchasing products on line.

The reasons for the growth in demand, according to Slurp Asia’s managing director Tom Chamberlain is because of “two converging trends”. These are, “the phenomenal growth in wine drinking in Hong Kong and China and the equally rapid migration (especially amongst younger drinkers) to online shopping”. This in fact, comes as no surprise but, like every product, wine has taken it’s time to adapt to the wonders of modern technology, especially in a city like Hong Kong, where waiting for something is simply unheard of.

This does, however, come as a surprise to me as, not being particularly tech savvy (and not owning a credit card), I do not shop on line and wait for my wines to be delivered, I prefer, as in the style of Wine Times’ writing, to contact the distributors directly and have a one on one conversation with a salesperson in order to procure my bottles. However, I am a dying breed as the increase in wine sales on line in the city over the last two years has been plainly noticeable.

That being the case, more and more wine retail websites have sprung up and most distributors themselves also have a purchase online facility. The only good reason for this is demand, as the youth of today order wines for their Saturday night parties via their phones on the way home from work, so the variety and choice of wines on line to buy has increased exponentially.

So, we wanted to take a look at some of the most accessible websites in Hong Kong (those which come up first when doing Google searches) and see how ergonomic the sites and to take a look at the selection of wines that are on offer – and whether or not these offers are any good. We took four categories and marked each out of 10 to give a total of 40, and checked to see whether or not the sites were multi-lingual or not. The four categories are: Offers and Promotions, Ease Of Use, Wine Selection and Visual Stimulation. So here are the 10 websites in Hong Kong we looked at:

Slurp Asia – www.slurp.asia

Offers and Promotions - 8, Ease Of Use - 7, Wine Selection - 9, Visual Stimulation - 7, Multilingual – Yes

Certainly one of, if not the best wine shop online in the city, Slurp has a selection of its own exclusively imported wines alongside wines found in Hong Kong from other importers. The wines have a good range in price and good special offers. Their customer communication is very good too, one that offers wines not usually on their website by e-mail newsletter – wines that sell out very fast. Professional, well made website.

Laithwaites Hong Kong – www.laithwaiteswine.hk

Offers and Promotions - 5, Ease Of Use - 5, Wine Selection - 5, Visual Stimulation - 4, Multilingual – No

Laithwaites has a selection of both their own imported wines and others available on the open market but I find the site not overly ergonomic and a little outdated with special offers that should have finished up by now. Their fine wine selection is decent, but fine wines are available in most places in the city. Visually, more effort could be made.

Yes Wine.com – www.yeswine.com

Offers and Promotions - 6, Ease Of Use - 7, Wine Selection - 7, Visual Stimulation - 7, Multilingual – Yes

Yes Wine.com is a relatively new website set up by local guys here in Hong Kong and has taken off fairly rapidly. In order to cater to both Western and Chinese buyers, having the bi-lingual function is necessary as it’s important people have confidence in what they’re reading when putting their personal details on line. Wine selection and special offers from the site are good and the site is visually decent. Free delivery on all orders helps with things too!

Wine Rack – www.winerack.com.hk

Offers and Promotions - 7, Ease Of Use - 5, Wine Selection - 7, Visual Stimulation - 5, Multilingual – Yes

Wine Rack is one of the older wine website in the city having a few years under its belt. It specializes in wines from the bottom end of the price ladder – wines I tend to call supermarket wines. That being said, there is a demand for easy drinking everyday wines and hence the success of this site over the years. I find it a little hard to navigate when randomly searching for a wine, but the search facility is fast and easy to use and there are wines for everyone available on the site but they are stronger on New World wines.

Cellarmaster Wines – www.cellarmasterwines.com

Offers and Promotions - 5, Ease Of Use - 7, Wine Selection - 7, Visual Stimulation - 7, Multilingual – No

This is possibly the oldest site in the city with a plethora of long time customers on the site. It exclusively imports almost all the wines available on the site meaning that they are really only available here. The site is an easy to use one that is simple and straight forward with no headache inducing flashing adverts for discounted wine. In fact, the only negative of the site is a lack of special offers unless you are buying the wines in bulk. Otherwise, very good site overall.

Ginsberg + Chan – www.winemerchantsasia.com

Offers and Promotions - 7, Ease Of Use - 7, Wine Selection - 9, Visual Stimulation - 6, Multilingual –Yes

Ginsberg and Chan may not be the most famous name in the city but for me, if I am looking for a hard to find fine wine, these are my ‘go to’ guys. An easy to use website that has complete up-to-date lists of fine wine availability. In fact, I have bought wine from them before. I just clicked “Contact Us” on the site, wrote them an email which was replied to within the hour and I had the wine the next day (Krug 1996). Very efficient service goes a long way in this town.

Watson’s Wine Cellar – www.watsonswine.com

Offers and Promotions - 6, Ease Of Use - 3, Wine Selection - 8, Visual Stimulation - 5, Multilingual – Yes

The common complaint as I ask people around town about the Watson’s Wine site is that it’s a bugger to use. The search facility is poor and there are just too many wines to sift through before you either give up and switch sites or have the patience and eventually find what you’re looking for. Put simply, there are enough Watson’s Wine Cellar shops in town to not have to use the website. But to their credit, there are a good selection of wines available, just getting to them is the hard part.

Montrose Wines – www.montrose.com.hk

Offers and Promotions - 5, Ease Of Use - 5, Wine Selection - 6, Visual Stimulation - 6, Multilingual – No

Montrose is a company I have dealt with a lot in my restaurant management past and I like the personal touch the site has by introducing the members of the team and telling you what they are drinking right now. The site is pretty easy to use and the selection is pretty decent and the site also gives information about tasting etc that the company are setting up –although you will need to subscribe to the mailing list to get this information.

Soho Wines – www.sohowines.hk

Offers and Promotions - 5, Ease Of Use - 7, Wine Selection - 7, Visual Stimulation - 7, Multilingual – No

The customer service facilities on this site are good with personalised wrapping and free delivery on orders over $500. The shop is listed in the Lonely Planet guide as somewhere worthwhile visiting in Hong Kong. The shop does not import many of its own products so mostly these are open market wines that can be found around the city.

Wine Shop Asia – www.wineshopasia.com

Offers and Promotions - 6, Ease Of Use - 6, Wine Selection - 7, Visual Stimulation - 6, Multilingual – No

Possibly Hong Kong’s newest site, Wine Shop Asia has a good selection of wine raging from the ridiculously inexpensive up to some of the most expensive wines in the world. The search facility is a little difficult – I don’t like having to browse entire selections to find what I need but overall this site is pretty decent. I would suggest joining their cellar club to get special offers and discounts.

We are sure (and know of some) that more websites are currently under construction here in the city to bring yet more wines into our living rooms and office desks via the web. For sure, as we find out more and better places to buy wine online we will, most certainly, tell you more. But for now, check out the sites above and....happy shopping!