WORD-OF-MOUTH VERSUS EXPERTS AND REPUTATION IN THE INDIVIDUAL DYNAMICS OF WINE PURCHASING

The dynamics of wine purchasing behavior is studied focusing on the respective impacts of the word-to-mouth versus wine expert judgements and reputations. To investigate the problem we apply the Galam model of opinion dynamics to agents who have to select a preference about which type of wine to buy given expert judgements, individual preferences and wine reputations. It could be, for instance, a preference between Bordeaux and Burgundy. The main novelty of the work is not about the building of a new model but indeed the construction of a scheme to confront the Galam model to a specific problem of the real world. Accordingly we design a commercial strategy to hold on to a share of the wine market. It provides a novel understanding on how, given some established reputation, the competitive interplay between social interactions and expert judgments affects the market shares distribution. The financial implications of the practical implementation of these results are discussed. In particular it is found that sample distribution of bottles could be drastically reduced from the usual levels practiced by producers. We hope our results will convince some wine producers to test our predictions.