Are You Missing These 7 Key Things? Doing Your Wine Fulfillment Post-Mortem
The end of the year tends to be busy for anyone selling wine DTC. Between the release of heat holds, holiday gifts, and the usual wine club subscription orders, there is a lot of activity happening in fulfillment centers and carrier companies, as well as at in-house facilities. Even so, this is precisely the time to take stock of what worked and what didn’t, and […]
Wine Industry Financial Symposium, WIN Expo, and the Future of Wine
Two wine industry conferences happened these past few months—the Wine Industry Financial Symposium, and WIN Expo. Presentations at these conferences, along with some well-researched industry reports, paint a challenging picture for wineries going into 2019. “A 31% Increase In Number Of California Wineries Makes Financial Success That Much Harder” That was the headline of a Forbes article earlier this month highlighting the Wine Industry Financial […]
Your Guide to DTC Wine Shipping for 2019 and Beyond
Whether you have a tasting room, an online store, a subscription service, or any combination of those, you’ve entered into the world of direct-to-consumer (DTC) wine sales. Although it’s a lucrative channel for wineries, it can also be frustrating. DTC wine shipping by itself is influenced by a number of things, including: The availability of talent to work in the tasting room, manage your wine […]
Why the Wine Industry “Gets” Thanksgiving
If anyone knows the true meaning of Thanksgiving, it would be the people in the wine industry. Giving thanks, believe it or not, is about growing and nurturing something. And it is desperately clear that the world needs more of that nurturing, from everybody, no matter their situation. Watching the news, it’s easy to find things about which to be concerned. Fires and shootings. Political […]
Evaluating DTC Wine Shippers — What to Look for if You Are Seeking a Strategic Partner
Many wineries have been down the path of exploring fulfillment companies that specialize in DTC wine shipping. There are many of them and they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. With the significant growth and profit opportunity of the DTC wine sales channel, it is important to find a Third-Party Logistics (3PL) company that will give a winery access to best-in-class capabilities. Companies That […]
Make or Break the DTC Customer Experience with Technology: An Interview with Andrew Kamphuis, President of Commerce7
Andrew Kamphuis is the president of Commerce7, which specializes in eCommerce and POS solutions for the wine industry. Andrew himself has been an expert in the DTC technology development and fulfillment space for almost two decades. For our fifth Expert Series interview, our team sat down to talk with Andrew about DTC eCommerce and wine club/subscription modeling features, and how these can help a winery […]
Wine Shipping Challenges in the Age of Amazon
The wine shipping and logistics game has changed a lot over the past 10 years, in no small part due to Amazon and its shipping strategies. But there are important differences between shipping a typical consumer item bought in Amazon’s online store and shipping a bottle of wine. This has two repercussions: One, a winery or other merchant shipping wine DTC cannot simply copy what […]