Your website is the heart of your winery’s online presence and a critical driver of sales. Whether visitors are learning about your wines, booking a tasting, or shopping your latest releases, your website’s design and functionality will determine whether they stick around, or click away. For a winery, a high-converting website doesn’t just look pretty. It has to guide users through the buying journey effortlessly, reflect your brand’s unique story, and make it easy for customers to take action. Let’s break down the key elements of a website that not only attracts visitors but turns them into loyal customers. 1. Mobile-First Design: Meeting Customers Where They Are The majority of users will visit your website from their mobile device. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re losing out—plain and simple. A high-converting winery website has to look and function beautifully on a phone or tablet, with fast load times, easy navigation,

It’s always important to make the most of every single guest walking through our tasting room door. While most wineries are hiring friendly staff with strong service hearts, sales skills continue to be an area of opportunity for our industry. Many people worry that selling wine is too pushy, but the reality is, it’s an extension of great hospitality. Here are some key ideas to increase AOV.  1. WISE Triple Score  The goal for successful Direct-to-Consumer wineries is to have both high customer satisfaction as well as 3 out of 3 on the WISE Triple Score on every visit. The Triple Score measures if the server: (1) Asked for the sale (Industry Average*: 73%), (2) Effectively presented the wine club (Industry Average*: 38%) and (3) Attempted to capture the contact data (Industry Average*: 18%). (*Based on 2022 averages across 500+ mystery shops.)  Helpful sales shouldn’t feel pushy. It helps to remember that our guests are int

When traffic is down, it’s important to make the most of every single guest walking through our door. While most wineries are hiring friendly staff with strong service hearts, sales skills continue to be an area of opportunity for our industry. Many people worry that selling wine is too pushy, others don’t even realize it’s in the job description! So how do we get our team to bring in more revenue? Step one, of course, is to get all of our staff to ASK FOR THE SALE. You’ve heard us preach about the WISE Triple Score (some of you have even joined the choir), but our 2022 mystery shopping data shows us that as an industry, we are only asking for the sale 67% of the time (down from 73% in 2021). We are only giving ourselves a 67% chance to make money (you didn’t think the money was in the tasting fees, did you?) and leaving 33% of it on the table. Our guests want to buy wine. Helpful sales shouldn’t be pushy – it should be an extension of gre

Afternoon Brief, October 26th

Washington State University's Sensor-Laden Chardonnay Block Collects Data for AI Scientists and Offers Demonstrations for Growers: Automating vineyard irrigation requires a network of sensors, solar panels, wires and data loggers that can be at risk of run-ins with equipment. That’s one of the first lessons the engineers learned at Washington State University’s Smart Vineyard demo farm in Prosser...