Wine sales have a seasonal cycle to them. Wine orders, especially DTC wine orders, tend to spike during the holiday season (OND) and then even out in the new year, tapering off to a slower season as summer approaches. But inventory does not always match this cycle. It’s not uncommon for a winery to see pallets of inventory waiting to move just as the slow season starts.  Extra inventory can also happen if the year itself has been slow, regardless of what season it is. (And, for some wineries, that’s been the case this year—at least, if industry reports are to be believed.) That’s the puzzle: How do you get all that inventory to move? We’ve seen some simple ideas that work well, and which can help you use what you have to your best advantage. Idea #1: Mystery Cases People love a good mystery. And they love to explore new things. So create a wine club package that is a “mystery pack” or mystery case. Fill it with a selection of products

We are always in awe of the cool technologies our industry comes up with every year. We hear the buzz at trade shows like the DTCWS and read futuristic-sounding articles that round up what wineries around the world are doing. There are some neat things just on the horizon, and these things will particularly affect the kinds of wineries that come to us for help with their DTC shipping and fulfillment. Here, then, are some of the top trends and technologies we are seeing, and that we feel are poised to become common practice throughout the wine industry. Augmented Reality, Augmented Bottles Augmented reality is simply the idea of integrating digital information (and even digital interaction) right at the point where the user is already interacting with something in physical reality. While many augmented reality experiences started with clumsy-looking VR headsets and glasses, many simpler projects are taking root using just a smartphone and a QR code. Enter the augmented bottle. The

eCommerce and buying patterns have drastically changed in the wake of COVID-19. With these DTC shifts comes the opportunity for wineries to really explore and expand their unique and personalized offerings.  Corporate gifting, holiday gift packs, and tasting kits really took off as companies and individuals replaced in-person happy hours and parties with gifts shipped to people’s homes. As we experienced over the last year though, supply chains have also been greatly affected, leaving many supplies we take for granted unavailable. What this means is that kitting could potentially be a much more profitable line than before, but wineries will have to both get creative with their kitting ideas to stand out from the crowd, and be flexible in implementing those ideas to stay within what is feasible. Doing both will take some planning, and the time to do that planning is now, in the summer, with your logistics partner. Getting Creative with Kitting Offering kits is a great way to

Shep Hyken is the “CAO” (Chief Amazement Officer) of Shepard Presentations, and is a leading expert on the topic of excellent customer service and experience. As well as a nationally known keynote speaker, he is also author of several books on the topic, including The Convenience Revolution (Sound Wisdom, 2018). We recently reached out to Hyken to discuss customer service and experience in the wine industry. Listen to the full interview here or read along below Milton Cornwell: Today I’m here with my dear friend, Shep Hyken, who is arguably one of the foremost experts on delivering amazing customer service, managing the customer experience, and creating brand loyalty. As a keynote speaker, his client engagements take him all over the country (and internationally for that matter!) for companies like AT&T, Disney, Lexus, SAP, American Express, and coincidentally, our local favorite In-N-Out Burger. He is a New York Timesand Wall Street Journal bestselling author and inducted into t

This is the time of year when two things happen in our industry: One, several important reports about the wine industry and DTC wine sales come out; and two, wineries are trying to formulate their strategic plans for the year based on those reports. While we here at Copper Peak would never discourage anyone from becoming better informed, we understand that poring over a handful of reports to find those important “nuggets” of knowledge takes time—time you often don’t have. That’s why we’ve done it for you! For your convenience, and that of our clients, we present here the most important takeaways from the SVB State of the Wine Industry 2020 Report (and podcast), the Sovos ShipCompliant 2020 Direct to Consumer Wine Shipping Report, and the Direct to Consumer Wine Symposium…as well as our own take on what’s happening in the industry. Highlights of the SVB State of the Wine Industry 2020 Report and Podcast While the industry is paying more attention to strategies and tactics around DT

A-B-C offers an automated packaging solution for processors who manually unpack and repack bottles in reusable (reshipper) cases. It’s a compact, all-in-one machine that performs bothuncasing and case packing with every motion of the servo-operated robotic-style transfer head. The Model 360 eliminates manual labor, provides gentle handling, and ensures a consistent bottle feed to the production line–at a conservative cost. Here’s how it works: cases filled with empty bottles are fed on a conveyor to the Model 360. In every cycle, two separate actions occur: the unpacking head grips and lifts the empty bottles and places them on the conveyor to be transferred to filling, while the packing head picks up and packs finished bottles feeding from the production line into the emptied case. The servo-operated transfer head smoothly and efficiently carries containers with no drop and keeps them under complete control during operation…bottles are released only when the