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How Top Brands Use Brij to Win in Total Wine & More
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- Total Wine & More runs about 279 stores across 29 states, which makes it one of the most important retailers for beer, wine, spirits, and THC beverage brands, and one where brands see very little about who buys.
- Most brands only see the ~20% of sales that run through their own DTC site, meaning ~80% that happen in retail & marketplaces are invisible.
- Brij helps brands selling in Total Wine & More drive retail velocity, prove sales & earn more shelf space, uncover the halo effect, and build retention.
- Brands like Heineken, Sapporo, Mijenta Tequila, and Cann use Brij rebates, sweepstakes, and on-pack experiences to turn anonymous shoppers into known customers.
Turn Every Total Wine Shopper Into a Known Customer
Walk into any Total Wine, and you’ll see the challenge right away: aisle after aisle of bottles and cans, all competing for one shopper’s attention. Getting on the shelf is a win. Staying there means proving your product moves.
That’s hard when you don’t know who’s buying. Total Wine owns the transaction and the loyalty data. Brands get a purchase order and, if they’re lucky, a sales report from their distributor.
Brands like Heineken, Sapporo, Mijenta Tequila, and Cann have used Brij to close that gap, so a trip down the Total Wine aisle turns into a customer relationship the brand owns.
The Reality of Selling in Total Wine & More
Total Wine calls itself “the country’s largest independent retailer of fine wine”and runs about 279 stores across 29 states [1,2]. The company reports about $6 billion in annual revenue and 18.5 million customers a year, and CEO Troy Rice has said 65% of customers start shopping online even though many still buy in store [3].
For brands, three things make Total Wine different:
- The shelf is crowded. Shoppers have hundreds of options in every category, so your product needs a reason to get picked up and a reason to get picked up again.
- Distributors sit in the middle. In beer, wine, and spirits, most brands sell through distributors, so the brand is even further from the end customer.
- Promotion rules are stricter. Alcohol and THC brands face state-by-state rules on rebates, sweepstakes, and messaging, so every campaign has to be compliant before it can drive sales.
The Data Blind Spot
Most omnichannel brands can’t act on about 80% of their buyer data, because those sales happen at retailers and marketplaces. In beverage alcohol, that number can be even higher, since many brands sell little or nothing DTC.
That means the shopper who picks your six-pack or bottle off the Total Wine shelf never shows up in your CRM, never gets a welcome email, and never helps your ad platforms find more people like them. You’re building a brand without knowing who your customers are.
How Brands Use Brij to Win in Total Wine
Drive Velocity With Rebates That Are Easy to Redeem
Rebates are one of the fastest ways to get a new shopper to try a product. The problem is that old-school rebates are full of friction: mail-in forms, long waits, and low redemption.
Brij digital rebates are built for mobile. The shopper scans a QR code or taps a link, texts or uploads a photo of the receipt, and gets paid back. Brij verifies the receipt, handles the payout, and captures the shopper’s information along the way.
Cann’s top campaign was a $10 rebate on four- and six-packs, available only at Total Wine. Shoppers entered their phone number in one click, texted a photo of their receipt, and Brij’s AI pulled the purchase data automatically. The campaign was live within 31 days, saw its first redemptions within 8 days of launch, and drove significant in-store traffic, especially at Total Wine. Across its Brij program, Cann has generated 31,000+ rebate scans with a 30% scan-to-registration rate and averages 280+ scans a day.
The same approach works for spirits. Mijenta Tequila tested an SMS rebate that paid shoppers back through Venmo and covered both retail and restaurant purchases. The trial drove 500 registrations in three months, and Mijenta’s Director of Trade Marketing said the brand “saw our highest engagement ever on the rebate.”
Know Who Buys, and Use It to Earn More Shelf Space
Total Wine can tell you how many units sold. It can’t tell you who bought them, what else they buy from you, or where else they shop. Brij collects that information at the moment of purchase, and it becomes the proof you bring to every buyer meeting.
Each receipt upload records the SKU, store location, purchase date, and price paid. Cann’s Total Wine rebate also included basket analysis, which shows what else shoppers put in their cart. Over time, that adds up to a clear picture of your Total Wine buyer, which you can use in three ways:
- Back up performance. Show your Total Wine buyer real demand from verified shoppers, store by store, not just distributor depletions.
- Show how your whole line performs. See which of your products sell best at Total Wine and which ones customers buy together. If shoppers who buy your flagship also pick up your seasonal release, you have a data-backed case for adding it.
- Expand into other retailers. The same data works outside Total Wine. Showing a new retailer who your customers are and how they buy makes it easier to win new placements.
Build an Owned Audience From the Aisle
Many beverage brands start with a very small email list, because most of their sales happen in stores. Brij turns those sales into a list the brand owns.
Sapporo went from about 800 subscribers to ~40,000+ consumer registrations using on-pack QR experiences, contests, and a PlayStation partnership that gave shoppers a game unlock code. 42% of shoppers who reached a registration experience signed up, and every signup went straight into Klaviyo.
Sweepstakes are especially strong going into the holidays. Mijenta’s holiday sweepstakes showed off prizes like a custom-branded tequila glass and a bar cart, and reached a 40% registration rate. The same experience also told the brand’s story: packaging made from agave waste and recycled glass, B Corp certification, and charity partnerships. That’s information a shopper would never get from the shelf.
Highpour more than doubled its mailing list with one sweepstakes promoted through in-store displays, influencers, and paid social. The campaign hit a 35% email capture rate, compared with an industry benchmark of 15-20%, and 99% of entrants were new contacts.
Stay Compliant Without Slowing Down
Alcohol and THC promotions come with more rules than most categories, and those rules vary by state and change often. Brij lets you adjust how a campaign works without reprinting anything in store.
When SMS approvals for THC brands tightened, Looner and Brij switched its “Buy one 4-pack, get $4 back” rebate to an email-only flow. The program still delivered a 29% rebate initiation rate and an 82% submission rate. Highpour’s sweepstakes included a free email entry path alongside bonus entries for purchases, a common way to structure sweepstakes so no purchase is required.
You also don’t have to work out the rules alone. Brij manages the full promotion process, from drafting official rules to handling state filings, and works with specialized promotion-law partners on bonds, registrations, and winner verification. For regulated categories where the rules change state by state, Brij walks you through the requirements and documents the risks so your team can make an informed decision before launch.
Send Verified Purchases Back to Your Ad Platforms
Every verified purchase can become an offline conversion event sent to Meta, Google, and TikTok through their Conversions APIs. With Brij Signal, that creates value in three ways:
- Attribution (right away): More of your total sales get counted, so reported ROAS goes up immediately.
- Algorithm performance (over time): The platforms learn from total sales instead of a thin slice of DTC orders, so targeting gets sharper as the model learns.
- Audience uplift: You give the platforms confirmed buyers to retarget for repeat purchases, build lookalikes from real customers, and exclude existing customers from prospecting.
Skullcandy saw a 32% lift in attributed conversions on Meta, 50% more tracked conversions on Google, and a 40% lift on TikTok after turning on Brij Signal. Each ad platform has its own policies for alcohol and THC advertising, so what you can activate depends on your category.
The Loop That Ties It Together
The shopper buys at Total Wine. They scan to claim a rebate or enter a sweepstakes. Brij verifies the purchase, records what they bought and where, and sends them to your CRM and, where your category allows, your ad platforms. You bring that data to your buyer to protect and grow your shelf space, and email or SMS brings the shopper back for the next purchase.
How to Run This Play in Total Wine
- Put the QR code where the shopper decides. Use shelf talkers, neck hangers, coolers, POS displays, and on-pack codes so the offer reaches shoppers in the aisle.
- Pick an offer that fits your category and your state. Rebates work well for trial on new products. Sweepstakes work well for building a list, especially around the holidays, and can be structured with a free entry path. Clear both with your compliance team.
- Promote it outside the store too. Add the offer to your website’s store locator, Instagram link-in-bio, and paid social so shoppers arrive at Total Wine already planning to buy.
- Capture data with every redemption. Get an email or phone number, plus the receipt details: SKU, store, date, and price.
- Bring the data to your buyer. Use verified purchase data by store and by product to make the case for more facings, new SKUs, and expansion into new stores and retailers.
The Bottom Line
Total Wine owns the shopper relationship by default. It doesn’t have to stay that way. Beverage brands that pair every Total Wine placement with a way to capture the buyer turn a crowded shelf into a source of known customers, proof for buyer meetings, and repeat revenue.
If you want to see how this works for a beverage brand selling in Total Wine, book a demo with Brij.
Sources
1. Total Wine & More: About Us
2. StoreLocators (October 2026): Total Wine Store List
