Exclusive: Provi And SevenFifty Announce Partnership, Creating Expanded B2B E-Commerce Player
January 25, 2022Online beverage alcohol marketplaces Provi and SevenFifty have been among the e-commerce players helping to bring the drinks business up to speed in the digital age. Today, the two companies announced that they’re joining forces to create an expanded B2B marketplace serving the retail and on-premise markets. Financials on the combination weren’t disclosed.
Provi, which was recently valued at $750 million, is present in 30 states. It currently serves 10% of on-premise operators in the U.S., and is on track to expand to 25% of the market by year-end. SevenFifty, meanwhile, has partnerships with distributors across 48 states, including big players like RNDC, Breakthru, Martignetti, and Empire Merchants. More than 90,000 retail and restaurant buyers use its marketplace, which had sales volume of nearly $1 billion in 2020.
The partner companies will retain their existing names for the foreseeable future, and all executives and employees of both sides are staying on. SND executive editor Daniel Marsteller spoke with Provi CEO Taylor Katzman and SevenFifty CEO Aaron Sherman to hear more.
SND: What’s the rationale behind the combination of Provi and SevenFifty?
Katzman: Aaron and his team have been at it the last 10 years building best-in-class distributor tools alongside the best-in-class catalog for wine and spirits. SevenFifty brings a content database where retailers can search more granularly, look at ratings from publications like Wine Spectator, and further explore all the products offered by distributors in their market. When you combine that with our retailer experience, we can create a much better shopping and ordering experience for the retail tier, and it’s a compelling proposition. The most important thing is thinking about the decision-makers—both the retailer and sales reps—bringing them together and expanding the platform.
Sherman: We’ve been so impressed with the focus and quality of experience that Provi has built for the retailer. It’s best-in-class from an ordering perspective, and the growth rate is extraordinary. The adoption they’re seeing from the retail tier is unlike anything else in the industry. We’ll leverage our respective strengths and create something that can provide a lot more value for stakeholders across the industry more quickly.
SND: What can you tell me about the profile of the combined business?
Katzman: We made the announcement last year that we have 10% of the on-premise in the U.S. on the platform, and we’ve been continuing to expand that.
Sherman: The scale of reach within the retailer tier is really significant, and has been growing very quickly on the Provi side. Similarly, SevenFifty has a really large audience of retailers, and we work directly with distributors across 48 states and get information about product availability and pricing. So all of that legwork to integrate at the distributor tier is really going to enhance the retailer experience across the board.
SND: Is there significant overlap between the distributors Provi and SevenFifty work with?
Katzman: The majority of our customers on the distributor side overlap, but SevenFifty, being around for 10 years, has a much greater distributor audience and is in more markets. There’s an audience of retailers that wants to go to a wholly owned distributor e-commerce site or website, like Breakthru Now for example, and there’s also an audience that goes to a marketplace like ours. By having both, it gives the distributor a 100% chance to be where the decision-maker is, and it ends up being very complementary.
SND: How are you expecting the e-commerce space to develop in the coming years?
Katzman: Whether you’re a major wholesaler or a smaller supplier, everyone is looking at this digital transformation. There’s going to continue to be more adoption across the industry, with everyone thinking about delivering the best experience to the retailer.
Sherman: Over the last several years the intensity has definitely picked up. Everybody has been looking at how they can bring processes online. Provi and SevenFifty joining forces is another step toward taking all the work that’s already been done and combining these tools we’ve created to bring the drinks business online with greater efficiency and reliability.
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