Moet Hennessy Closing E-Commerce Site

Moet Hennessy has announced its direct-to-consumer website, Moet Hennessy Collection, will close on April 28.

The website was highly controversial when it launched two years ago. Many retailers argued that it was in direct competition with their businesses and several threatened to delist Moet Hennessy products from their stores.

But the introduction of a new digital strategy for Moet Hennessy based on “collaboration with its trade partners” was unrelated to the backlash, Managing Director Andrew McLaren told drinks bulletin.

“It comes back to the fact that it’s a global decision around how we evolve our brand in the digital space,” he said.

“I’ve been very proactive in contacting some key customers to announce to them what we’re doing and some of those customers are the ones who made comments at the start.

“The feedback’s been positive on their end, but the most positive piece is that we’re going to be taking what we’ve learnt over the last two years and really working in a more consultative way with key business partners on what we’ve learnt and how we can add more value to their businesses,” McLaren said.

Under the new strategy, Moet Hennessy’s e-commerce division will be transformed into a Digital Customer Experience Division.

“This change will ensure that our capabilities remain in targeted brand communication, events and training, and that we continue to create great brand experiences for our customers,” the company said.

“There will be no changes to the personnel in this team.”

McLaren said the company will be working with its partners to ensure its brands are consistently represented online.

“I think today if you went to ten different websites you’d probably get ten different versions of how our brand’s represented,” he said.

“We’ll be working with our partners to make sure that they can benefit from having our brands portrayed in a better way online, ultimately.”

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