Liquor Marketing Group (LMG) is Australia's largest membership-owned retail liquor group, representing over 1400 outlets. It operates nationally, supporting members under retail brands Bottlemart, Sip 'n’ Save, Thirsty Camel (Western Australia) and Harry Brown. LMG has no outside equity (company limited by guarantee). The object of the Company is to invest all funds derived for the benefit and advancement of members from recognised and trusted retail brands through to marketing and promotions, data and insights, and retail and execution support.

Damien Page is General Manager of Merchandise and Marketing at Liquor Marketing Group (LMG) and is integral to making these objectives happen for the LMG members. Here he discusses how focusing on member success is a winning formula for LMG. 

The member 

Members are integral to the LMG business model. How does LMG support its members, and how important is the community to how LMG does business and works with its members? 

LMG was founded in 1977 to allow independent members to operate their liquor stores with the benefit of leading marketing, consumer insights, and retail environments that enhance the shopping experience. The group's formation was, in part, a recognition of the chain retailer's entry into liquor (at the time, they held a market share of less than 15%) and the need for coordination and collaboration. The vision of LMG’s founders has delivered two of the great assets which set LMG apart today:

  1. LMG is operated solely for the benefit of members. This provides a clear focus for the entire LMG team on what success is and who we work for;
  2. LMG’s focus is on the customer. From its origins, LMG recognised the opportunity derived from engaging and retaining the customer and how if you win with the customer, you win for all stakeholders.

There are different models and structures in the market, but this clarity of purpose, set out 46 years ago, remains the primary driver of LMG’s success.

While the methods, tools, and competitive landscape has changed over this period, the focus remains:

  • Supplier negotiation and partnership to derive optimal promotional and pricing programs for the customer and retailer
  • Marketing through both the more traditional medium of catalogues and with leading social and digital marketing, direct marketing, loyalty and in-store promotions
  • Retail execution and store enhancements through our field teams (BDMs), who are business partners for our members.
  • Enhancing all the items above and challenging the LMG team with the extensive data and insights we derive from our network.

The shop 

The retail landscape is changing. How does LMG ensure its members are ahead of the competition in terms of the retail space? 

It's about empowering and supporting our members to enhance their physical retail space (bricks) and, more recently, their online digital stores (clicks). LMG supports our members with both their bricks and clicks stores in these ways:

  • The in-store environment requires consistent insights and the discipline of reviewing current market trends. Our BDMs continuously act as advisors, a fresh sets of eyes,  and a support to relay and refit stores as required. LMG has, for instance, recently completed over 160 full retail refresh store enhancements for members. The results in terms of physical appearance have been incredible. But even more importantly, we have seen increases in both customer count and premiumisation in the refreshed stores versus benchmark.
  • The other critical retail space is our members’ digital stores. We know through industry insights more than half of shoppers will review a planned purchase online before transacting in-store. We applied this insight when developing our online platform, so the digital store became a true representation of the physical store by showcasing the full range and ensuring current pricing was reflected online via POS connection. This structure was more challenging to develop but rewards retailers who tailor their range and offer extended or premium products for their customers.

This is an excerpt from the Winter Edition of Drinks Trade Magazine. Read the full story here.

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