Founded in 1999, the platform Wine-Searcher has been purchased by Flaviar. The new owner is a rapidly expanding company that has made a name for itself since its founding in 2012, especially with tasting boxes and subscriptions in the spirits sector. Flaviar operates in both the USA and Europe. The purchase price has not been disclosed.
With the acquisition of Wine-Searcher, Flaviar secures expertise and a long-established database in the wine sector, an area in which Flaviar has not been active before. The database includes about 18m entries from 33,000 sellers in 126 countries. The sellers use Wine-Searcher as a marketplace, uploading their assortment to the platform. There are nearly 300m search queries annually, with the company reporting more than 5m active users per month.
Future Own Sales?
Wine-Searcher functions as a marketplace as well as a database for wine, providing comprehensive information about specific wines. Julian Perry, CEO of Wine-Searcher, says that Flaviar's entry, in particular, opens up significant new opportunities for simplifying e-commerce sales. He also suggested that the new resources could advance AI services in the future. It remains to be seen whether Wine-Searcher will act as a dealer itself following the purchase.
Flaviar's founder, Jugoslav Petkovic, points out the low penetration of e-commerce providers in the U.S. alcoholic beverages market. He aims to change this with modern, user-friendly offerings, starting with the acquisition of Wine-Searcher. Flaviar has also recently acquired Barcart, an online retailer specializing in cocktails, and entered a strategic partnership with RNDC, an American distributor, last year. MS
