When your best people are busy, the conversation that would have turned a browser into a buyer simply doesn't happen. Coalescence starts it for you — every time, from your own catalogue, at your prices.
The missed conversation
"The right bottle is on the shelf. The customer just doesn't know which one it is — and nobody was free to tell them."
It's a Saturday afternoon. A customer walks in, scans the shelves, picks up a bottle, reads the back label. Words like "notes of graphite" and "a hint of leather" don't help them decide what to have with tonight's sea bass. They put it down. Reach for something they recognise. Head to the till.
That customer just spent £14 on the safe choice. The Vermentino at £22 — the one that would have worked beautifully with the fish, and changed how they think about Italian whites — is still on the shelf. Not because it wasn't there. Because nobody was free to start the conversation.
Coalescence doesn't replace that conversation. It makes sure it happens even when you can't.
How Coalescence works
This isn't a marketplace. It's a tool that sells your inventory to your customers — with the kind of personalisation that would otherwise take a trained sommelier.
Send us your inventory as a CSV — name, grape, region, price, stock level. We load it. Coalescence only ever recommends from your shelves, at your prices. Nothing we want to sell.
We provide the tags. Place them near the shelves, on the counter, by your tasting table. A customer taps, the questionnaire opens in their browser — no app, no friction.
Every interaction builds a profile. See what your customers actually want — taste trends, inventory gaps, top-recommended bottles. Data most independent shops have never had.
A returning customer skips the questionnaire. Your understanding of their palate deepens with every rating and every bottle. The more they explore, the more precisely we know what to reach for — and the better you know who your regulars actually are.
A customer walks in to bring wine to a friend's dinner — roast chicken. Coalescence starts from the meal and works backwards to your shelf. Five options, plain-English reasons, under a minute. Just browsing? It starts from taste instead. Either way, the recommendation is yours to sell.
Your logo, your colours, your hero image. The customer experience feels like yours — Coalescence stays behind the scenes. The relationship they build is with your shop.
Why it works
When someone understands why a wine suits them, the step from £12 to £18 doesn't feel like a stretch. It feels like a discovery.
McKinsey puts personalisation at 5–15% higher revenue for retailers who get it right. We track this so you can see it in your own data.
78% of consumers say personalised content makes them more likely to repurchase — not because they're being sold to, but because they feel known.
We agree the baseline metrics before we start. Repeat-visit rate, average guided spend, profile depth — tracked over 12 weeks against a baseline we set together.
What you get
Most shops know their sales data — how many bottles moved, what regions sold. Coalescence builds something different.
You sold six bottles of Assyrtiko last month. One customer bought all six. She hasn't been in for five weeks — and there's a new Georgian orange on the shelf she'd love. Most shops would never know that. Coalescence does.
That's the foundation for something most independent shops have never had: stocking decisions backed by real preference data, events built around customers who'll actually come, and messages worth sending.
Your shop owns the customer data. Coalescence surfaces what it means.
Getting started
You send us your inventory as a CSV. We configure your branding and build recommendations against your actual stock.
NFC tags delivered. 30-minute team briefing. Tags placed on the shop floor. Done. Your customers can use it before the week is out.
Customer profiles accumulate. Recommendations improve. You watch the data in your admin dashboard — taste trends, inventory gaps, purchase rate.
We review the agreed metrics together. Taste trends, repeat-visit rate, average guided spend. By now you have a picture of your customers most independent shops never get.
Common questions
"We already have great staff who do this."
That's exactly why this works. Coalescence handles the conversations your team isn't having — the browsers who drift to the safe choice while your best people are busy elsewhere. It doesn't replace your staff. It makes sure their knowledge is available even when they're not.
"Our customers aren't tech-savvy."
No app download. No account required. Coalescence opens in their phone's browser from a single NFC tap — the same gesture as a contactless payment. If they can pay by phone, they can use Coalescence.
"I'm worried about setup and maintenance."
You send us a spreadsheet. We handle the rest — catalogue loading, branding set-up, the NFC tags themselves. Your team gets a 30-minute briefing. After that, Coalescence runs without any maintenance from you.
"How do I know it's working?"
We agree the metrics before we start — repeat-visit rate, average spend per guided customer, profile depth. You can watch these in your admin dashboard in real time. We review them together at the 12-week mark. You'll have data most independent shops have never had access to.
Get in touch
Get in touch and we'll walk you through everything — catalogue setup, NFC tags, what your customers will see.
We load your full catalogue and configure recommendations against your actual stock.
NFC tags provided. 30-minute team briefing. Done.
At 12 weeks, we review the data together — taste trends, spend patterns, repeat visits.
Expect a reply within 24 hours.