Postponement Practices in the Wine Industry: Adoption and Attitudes of California Wineries

Abstract

With the global growth of both export programs and private label brands, wineries must allocate production across an increasing variety of sales channels before demand is known. Misallocation may result in surpluses in some channels and lost sales opportunities in others. Although postponement would aid in solving this problem, this strategy has not been widely adopted. The research in this article involved surveying California wineries (N=142) on their current exporting, private labeling, and postponement practices and on their predictions for future usage. A majority of the respondents export, but many fewer have private label channels or engage in postponement. Additionally, wineries anticipate increasing adoption of export and private label practices but show less enthusiasm for utilizing postponement.