With Father’s Day, NRL Rugby, and AFL Footy Finals upon us, filling the Esky or beer fridge is front of mind for many Australians.
Lockdowns saw us ordering more booze straight to our front doors and experimenting with a wider range of ales, lagers, porters, stouts, and sours than ever.
Plenty of crafty Aussie businesses were ready to ride the frothy wave with beer-trepreneurs emerging from careers in professional surfing, street art and social media to jump on the beer wagon. From Mick Fanning and Co.’s Balter Brewing Company to Scotty March’s Ibis-inspired Bin Juice and the Inspired Unemployed’s Better Beer, Australia’s craft beer industry has rapidly matured and continues to grow and evolve at breakneck speed.
PayPal spoke to Richard Kelsey, Director and Co-Founder of Beer Cartel, to understand why more people are pining for particular, and sometimes peculiar, pots and how climbing curiosity in has helped their business.
Convenience and flavour: the latest buzz in beer
There’s no denying Australian’s appetite for craft beer. According to a recent Deloitte report, annual sales this year were in excess of $370 million, and growing at an average rate of 10% per year.
Beer Cartel, which opened in 2009 well before the craft beer revolution took off in Australia, believes that life is too short for boring beer.
Their founding philosophy was to put quality craft brews in the schooners of consumers, sourced locally and from across the world, and have them delivered straight to their stubby holders.
“We'd seen so many great beers that were available outside of the same boring bland brews found at every bar and bottle shop and we wanted to make these available to beer drinkers across Australia,” said Kelsey.
“We wanted to create an online beer store that could really open people's eyes, and mouths, to how great beer can be.”
Beer buffs going from strength to strength
From gifts to monthly beer subscriptions, Beer Cartel has become a beacon for people who want to discover and learn more about great beer. Part of this is providing access to over 1,000 different brews, as well as helping educate drinkers more about beer.
As more shoppers moved online during the pandemic, they found a far greater variety than bottle shop shelves could accommodate, and more time to browse when it was convenient for them. Beer Cartel had days where they were up 200% compared to the same day in 2019. These surges in demand put significant pressure on the business, and it meant Beer Cartel had to reimagine how the business worked.
More demand meant more orders and greater need for simpler and safer ways to process them, and Richard said PayPal has been a great partner in that effort. “It’s all about making it as simple as possible for consumers”, said Richard.
Now that COVID restrictions have lifted, Beer Cartel said their new way of operating was here to stay.
“PayPal is a highly recognisable, trusted and heavily used payment facility, which saves consumers having to reach for their credit card and input the details,” he added. “Using PayPal as part of our ecommerce offering was an absolute no-brainer for us.”
While alcohol consumption might be tapering off from the pandemic’s heady heights of 2021, Beer Cartel is focused on continued future growth. This includes asking what makes it easier and more appealing for consumers to make their first purchase and keep coming back.
For some, that means quick, convenient checkout and payment options, and for others it means evermore variety in suppliers, and fun promotional packs, like a 25-day advent calendar to bring some Christmas cheer, and beer.
Please remember to drink responsibly. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Alcohol and Other Drug hotline 1800 250 015 or call Lifeline on 13 11 14