Guys,
I own a small boutique winery in Margaret River, Western Australia and we're looking to potentially export our wines into Singapore. We have a few clients that come through from Singapore and it is a natural progression as I travel through SG myself quite often as well. Rather than seek out a distributor and/or agent we were contemplating importing the wines in directly ourselves and on-selling to clients directly.
To complete this we most probably would require a business permit, and a license to sell alcohol in SG. My query is, do we have to be a national to complete these tasks? Is the liquor license a difficult ask?
The reason why we feel doing it ourselves would be better suited is that it dramatically lowers costs to the consumer, and knowing how much Singaporeans are getting nailed over in regards to price for basically generic dross. It would be a win / win, as though we sell out quickly of our wines, we could slowly develop this market to contain a greater percentage of the total make if we increase volumes.
As a follow up, how best is it to do promotions? In Australia we have lots of wine forums and we also have many etailers who provide a good starting point. SG appears to be pretty disappointing in this area and it implies more direct marketing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers