Story: Professional Unprofessionality | Tobias Column
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A sarcastic look at a business model between volume and emptiness
Whoever shouts the loudest sells the most
Welcome to the digital wine wonderland, where it is no longer the product that counts, but the advertising budget. Those who pump the most money into flashing banners and discount campaigns win - or at least sell the most. What used to be considered a luxury good requiring intensive consultation is now reduced to discount level. Wine as a “product requiring explanation”? Oh well, who cares anymore. The only thing that matters is that the price is right - ideally so low that you wonder if there are any grapes in it at all.
The art of explanation - thanks to brick-and-mortar specialty retailers
For decades, brick-and-mortar wine retailers have been striving to professionally convey quality, origin, and character. Tastings, personal advice, background knowledge - real people with real passion who want to communicate something. This approach is costly, exhausting, and obviously out of fashion. After all, all this effort does not increase click rates.
A parasitic business model with tradition - but without its own
The big names in the Italian wine world, which every online shop likes to rely on, did not become famous through an Instagram ad or an SEO-optimized “wine enjoyment blog.” No, they were built up - laboriously, across generations, with real work by real specialist retailers. Today, this foundation is being shamelessly exploited. Online shops are sucking the life's work out of others like a well-trained parasite - only without the decency to make any effort themselves.
Professional in advertising, unprofessional in action
But we have to give online wine retailers credit for one thing: when it comes to aggressive marketing, these providers know no bounds. Ever louder, ever bigger, ever slightly lower margins - for that big bargain feeling. The quality of advice? Reduced to three emojis and a Google review. Tasting? Visual at best, in the form of a stock photo-dominated “food pairing recommendation.” The content remains thin - or let's say: professionally unprofessional.
On a direct path to golden disaster
And because everything is going so well, the online market continues to turn the price screw every year—downward, of course. What remains is a hollowed-out product, robbed of its history and depth, sold like any other commodity. Its former status as a cultural asset? Lost somewhere between the shopping cart and checkout.
But hey - the future is digital, they say. It's just a shame that one click can also send you straight into the wall. With that in mind: Salute! - Tobias Gerhard Strunz [TS07/25]
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