Hats off to the genius who thought of Nespresso. A brilliant, brilliantly simple idea, executed with real class. I am now a Nespresso member with a donated Krups machine (Thanks Dad) and a smorgasbord of coffee varieties with bright colours. For anyone who likes even a modicum of discovery, variety, experimentation, it gets you completely hooked from day 1. The genius is in getting someone else to build and sell the machine (in this instance Krups), doing the whole thing on line and finally the simplicity of operation.
It almost makes me want to get back into Marketing - I bet you could do something very clever like this with Malt Whisky here in the UK. No machinery required but you could definitely see an infinite variety of miniature Malt Whisky bottles available to order direct on line with Whiskies of the Month, Special Offers, Manager's Dram. Join as a member and get a tasting kit free with proper nosing glasses, a water jug, tasting notes all in a beautiful wooden case. Friends of the Classic Malts would take on a completely different dimension. It would be relatively small scale but the margin would be in the initial starter pack where you would get some economies on producing the miniature bottles (all bottles could be the same rather than replicas of the standard size) and also high prices for some of the rarer offers. I am sure that Nespresso would be open to sharing their distribution operation provided there is zero competition...might even be complementary.
