Chih Feng Huang is one of the
wholesalers for Taipei.
and gradually built up a professional organisation: Wine
Warehouse. Huang is one of the distributors of Heineken in
Taipei. He has split his company into two separate busines
ses: one for sales and deliveries to about a thousand res
taurants and hotels and the other to serve the 250 Western
outlets in his sales territory.
Some ten sales reps work for Huang. He also employs 12
full-time truck drivers and has an accounts department to
handle invoicing. Wine Warehouse sells alcoholic bevera
ges, both local products and imports, mineral water and
fruit juices. Heineken is the most recent product he has
added to his range but, despite that short history,
Heineken has already become his most important product.
Asked why he has included Heineken in his range,
Mr Huang says: "I am a lover of beer myself and I like good
quality. Besides, I could see how fast Heineken was growing
in Taiwan and that's why I wanted to have Heineken in my
portfolio. Heineken has meanwhile put down steady roots
in Taiwan." In the Western outlets in his sales area
Heineken has a one hundred per cent distribution, Mr
Huang assures us. But, he adds: "We still have enormous
potential in the Chinese restaurants with the 65 cl bottle."
Yu has been in business for more than ten years. Five
years ago he set up his firm called Tenli. In his portfolio he
has beer, wine, brandy and whisky. His customer base
mainly consists of Western pubs and the nightclubs in
Taipei. In the past he had already been active as a sub-
wholesaler for Heineken. "Even then I could see that
Heineken was a fast-selling product with tremendous poten
tial. The big difference between Heineken and the other
imports is that Heineken is fighting to win a war whilst the
others are just fighting one single battle, in other words
they are very much focused on the short term. In the mean
time we have achieved one hundred per cent distribution
for Heineken in the Western pubs." Yu can also see chances
for Heineken in the Chinese restaurants, but he realises that
building up a strong position there will take time. Excellent
service, says Yu, contributes to the success. "If it's really
necessary, we will still make a delivery at midnight."
TENNIS
Kaohsiung is an important city in Taiwan. So important, in
fact, that five different airlines operate scheduled flights
every half hour between Kaohsiung and Taipei. And almost
all those flights are fully booked. Kaohsiung is located on
the South coast, has 1.3 million inhabitants and is home to
a large concentration of industries (especially chemical
plants). Beer consumption in Kaohsiung is higher than in
the North because of the differences in climate. The tempe
rature in Kaohsiung is a good five degrees or so higher than
in Taipei.
In this city one of the Heineken distributors is Mr Kong.
He has been a distributor from the very beginning and star
ted his business selling Heineken on a very small scale. "In
the beginning sales were counted in single cases.
Competition was keen and the price of the beer was high.
Besides, the beer was not very well-known in Taiwan.
Together with people from Tait we adopted an intensive
market approach. Taking away old beer and replacing it
with fresh beer so as to guarantee the product quality. After
a while we saw that the taste of Heineken Beer was starting
to catch on and that sales were slowly growing." That
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