SHEX Interviews: M1nt Cellars CEO Naran Andreyev | Shanghai Expat

At the end of 2012, m1ntcellars.com hired Naran Andreyev as CEO, a veteran in the wine logistics business. Since joining the online retail liquor market, M1nt Cellars has established itself as a powerhouse, supplying imported booze to over 350 Chinese cities.

SHEX: Tell me a bit about yourself. Where did you grow up?

Naran Andreyev: I?m from New Jersey, I was born in Philadelphia, and I?ve been in Shanghai since 2003. I come from the logistics industry, specifically the wine industy. That?s about it.

SHEX: You?ve been in China for a while now.

NA: I?m going on 10 years now believe it or not, it?s been a fabulous ride, I hope it continues. I?ve been based in Shanghai for those 10 years. It has basically changed in those 10 years that I?ve been here, I kind of find it interesting in the fact that, I?m a big history buff, I always joke around saying when I?m 95 years old, laying in my death bed, I?ll think back and say I was in Shanghai when it all happened. That?s kind of cool.

SHEX: How has the drinking culture changed since that time?

NA: Before I was in China, I spent 5 years in Taiwan so I?m quite familiar with the Chinese drinking habits, you know, I think it?s become more complex, being in the wine logistics business, we were looking at numbers and you see a trend since maybe 2007 or it had just started, the actual importation of foreign wines and than it just kinda started growing 60-70% year over year for a long time, until 2012 and 2012 it slowed down quite a bit and there are some schools of thought on why. One being the economic slowdown, people are buying less manufactured products from China, that means the factory owners have less money; that means they drink less, they cut down. Or you could look at and if you go in detail, in the numbers you can see that French imports have always been the majority and in 2012, they were still the majority but they had dropped a bit and the balance had been picked up from other countries, importations from other countries, other types of wines from other countries, so you could interpret that as the wine market in China or in Shanghai specifically, has started to mature. The taste in the palette is now going after or being attracted by different types of wines so it?s no longer the Bordeaux, Bordeaux, Bordeaux, now you are getting some Spanish wines, some Italian wines, some Australian wines, Argentinian wines, all kinds of wines. So it?s really hard to say. So is it evolving? I tend to lead towards yes. It seems like a good idea to switch over to work in a company that can deliver that wide range of wines and I?ll add, at a very good price and gauge more people in that maturity of the Chinese wine palette.

SHEX: How would you say the Chinese market differs from everywhere else in the world?

NA: It?s a good question. One of the ways you could ask that question is do you take the same business model that you would have in the United States or Europe and just transplant it to China? The answer to that is obviously no.. The wine market differs and what our approach to it in China than other places, you know, China is it?s own country, it?s got it?s own culture, it?s own hip culture or pop culture, it has it?s own habits and traditions so you can?t just take something generic and say it?s going to work automatically, you have to work it. Now there are a lot of good things about doing business in another country, a lot of good practices that you can develop and there are a lot of good practices that are being developed here, so the answer to that question is you have to be able to have your thumb on the pulse of the customers you?re selling to and be able to react to their needs, it?s very basic business right? You need to fill the need as a business. So we really think our model with m1ntcellars.com, well we don?t think, we know, we are basing our theory on having flexibly to listen to our consumers and give them what they need at a decent price.

Submitted by ShanghaiExpat Editor on Fri, 2013-01-25 08:13

Source: http://www.shanghaiexpat.com/article/shex-interviews-m1nt-cellars-ceo-naran-andreyev-25707.html

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