Sales channels every winery can consider (or reconsider) now and in the days to come.
Not that any of us should be headline chasers, but it’s hard to ignore the news that more people are buying online now than ever before.
If you aren’t selling as much wine online as you’d like right now, that’s understandable. It can be hard to go from a thriving tasting room to all online or home delivery nearly overnight. But there is opportunity here, filled with the possibility of both short-term and long-term gains.
According to Silicon Valley Bank’s State of the Wine Industry Report wineries can experience growth in several main ways:
- Getting exposure to consumers who live elsewhere and don’t know you
- Finding ways to sell to them — digitally and in person, where they live
- Building your brand regionally by evolving the concept of experience away from the winery
This report came out in January 2020, months before the impact of COVID-19 accelerated the need for these avenues, all of which rely on digital communication. This same report says that 61 percent of a winery’s income originated with consumers who had been to the tasting room via on-site sales plus wine club and mailing list purchases. What about all those other people? The potential customers that aren’t part of your tribe already? That’s the opportunity!
Broadly speaking, there are two approaches here. The first is to beef up the direct to consumer channel that you likely already have in place: self-distributing through your website. This is what we looked at in Part 1 of our comparison. The other, which we're exploring today, is to engage a third party marketplace to help connect you with their consumers. Let’s take a look at some of the options available to you.
DIRECT TO CONSUMER
Rabobank says that the wine arm of this business experienced sales growth of 9% in 2019. Obviously the impact of COVID-19 will prove influential on this number for 2020, but what we do know is that in 2019 the majority of online DtC wine was purchased by people that had previously visited a tasting room and later purchased wine or signed up for a club, directly from the winery’s website.
This means that your website is essential, not only to keep your current customers but to reach new customers. New customers, ones that find your wine without stepping into your tasting room, are an audience that your website communications may not have tapped, so investing in improvements there has the potential to grow your business.
Wineries, according to Commerce7 (mentioned below) are missing out on their share of global ecommerce website retail sales, which are expected to hit nearly $4.9 trillion dollars by 2021. “With many wineries still not selling online, there’s a big opportunity to set yourself apart by providing an easy, interactive online shopping experience for your consumers.”
According to WineDirect, which you’ll learn about below, 20% of wineries account for nearly 90% of ecommerce sales. Interested in becoming one of these high-performers? Check out your options.
Kramer vineyards – WineDirect
WineDirect
The Winery’s Champion
About: End-to-end DTC solutions for wineries of every size.
WineDirect offers a suite of tools and resources to capture growth in wine club, winery point-of-sale (for when you welcome them back), ecommerce, and marketplace integration. Not only does this company help create a seamless experience for your customers, they also work every angle to ensure that you have the right channels to stay personally connected to them. WineDirect has an extensive resource library, available for free now.
Cost: Plans and pricing start at around $80 a month + 2% of sales, but custom options are available, depending on your needs.
Brooks winery – Commerce7
Commerce7
Ecommerce Platform
About: Customer centric commerce for the alcohol industry.
Commerce7 is a leader in wine club, winery point-of-sale (for when you welcome them back), ecommerce, reservation management, and CRM. The company prides itself serving businesses of any size to improve the customer experience online, with an understanding that shoppers will be making decisions without the help of winery staff or the charm of a physical tasting room.
Cost: Plans start economically with Commerce7 NOW, which has $0 Setup Fee, $0 Monthly Fee, $0 Preset Template. This can be live in less than 24 hours for US based wineries. For this Commerce7 earns a 2% transaction fee on sales. From there options move up the scale, with three tiers based on your needs. There is also a choice of designer-made templates.
Vinespring
Subscription Commerce for Craft Producers
About: Managing and growing your memberships has never been easier
VineSpring’s membership-focused ecommerce, allocations, and club management solutions easily integrate with the systems you use to serve your customers, including mobile-responsive shopping options. “Technology agnostic” is how VineSpring describes how they merge platforms to empower their clients.
Cost: Plans start at $99/month for club management tools connected to an online store and move up the scale to adapt to your integration needs.
vinSUITE
You Sell Wine.
vinSUITE makes it easier.
About: Integrated DtC software suite, including eCommerce websites, point of sale, and wine club.
vinSuite offers an all-in-one solution package that features many integration options. vinSuite states that it is the “largest, complete direct-to-consumer software available in the market.” They offer unique free, online training for clients so they can always be up to speed the benefits that vinSUITE offers.
Cost: Prices start at $199 a month plus set up and extend to enterprise solutions on a custom basis.
BLOOM
A growth platform for modern wineries.
About: Everything a growing winery needs, all in one package
BLOOM supports wineries with custom websites, unified ecommerce, wine club management, and point-of-sale solutions. Winery clients enjoy multiple sales channels, data integrations, and a full suite of consulting services. Design, development, photography, and marketing services are also available from BLOOM as well as Shopify site design and development (available at additional cost).
Cost: Prices start at $99/month with several options including a custom enterprise option.