23/03/2022

With the increase in DTC (Direct-To-Consumer) sales during the pandemic, many wineries focussed on strengthening their DTC channels. The most lucrative option for wineries, it helps them to remove the third party in between and save on lots of costs and commissions. Zoom tasting experiences, Online wine club sign-ups, a well-integrated e-commerce website, and engagement on social media channels were only a few aspects that many wineries worked on to boost their DTC sales. Several companies tapped the opportunity of the rise in DTC sales and came up with solutions that could help wineries to manage their channels smartly. Their solutions ranged from POS integrations to social media management and a lot more. This not only helped wineries to create strong customer relationships but also helped them to wisely streamline their operations. You can read more about the various DTC channels and the ways to tap into them here. The below-mentioned companies are performing well at the DTC forefront and can help you in integrating their offerings within your winery.

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WineDirect

Offering end-to-end solutions to wineries, WineDirect has been a champion in strengthening the DTC channels of wineries. 

They pay extra attention when it comes to consumer sales and profitability by offering the right sales strategy and tools that can help you sell your wines better. WineDirect enables wineries to optimize their data in a manner that helps them to strategically use it and tap into the right channels.

How can WineDirect help your winery?

Wine Club Management

A software that lets you manage all the aspects of your wine club including 

 - New sign-ups and email alerts

 - Personalized orders

 - Individual batch processing

 - In-depth reporting

 - Marketing tools to engage consumers

 - Retention of wine club members.

Point Of Sale (POS) System

 - A mobile winery management POS system that lets you turn your winery into a tasting room. This includes

 - A mobile integrated system accessible from any mobile device

 - Product, customer, and inventory management

 - Access to customer data

 - Personalized tasting room experience

 - Capturing email addresses

 - Segmented lists for targeted campaigns

 - Follow-ups of tasting room visits.

Wine Club Management for King Family Vineyards done by WineDirect; Image Source - King Family Vineyards

Ecommerce

 A DTC e-commerce platform to maximize sales and scale up operations. This includes 

 - Designing the winery’s digital storefront

 - Mobile-friendly winery website

 - Streamlining the shopping cart with built-in upselling tools

 - Advanced CRM software to understand the customers

 - Segmentation of the market

 - Email tools.

Marketplace Distribution

A network that lets you build a customer base and seamlessly integrate with third-party platforms. This is done by 

 - Managing orders through existing e-commerce accounts

 - Adding new products to marketplaces with just one click.

Enterprise Management Software

An integrated and end-to-end winery software with e-commerce tools for the wine industry. This includes 

 - Integration of e-commerce and fulfillment services

 - Bandwidth and backup to withstand shopping surges

 - Robust API to connect existing systems or add new ones

 - Attracting new customers through Marketplace Distribution

 - Robust reporting features

 - Customer, inventory, and product management across multiple brands. 

Integrated Payments

A PCI-compliant system for automatic credit card updates and custom gift card payments. This system includes

 - Automatic credit card updater for the US

 - Same day refunds

 - Protection from online credit card frauds

 - EMV chip readers for high-level security. 

DRAM by Southern Glazer’s

DRAM or the Digital Revolution of Alcohol Marketing is a digital marketing agency that is affiliated with America’s number one distributor of wine and spirits, Southern Glazer’s. The agency helps wineries in devising their digital media and e-commerce strategies with the help of market intelligence. They work with renowned suppliers and provide eminent instruments and data to wineries that help them to boost their DTC sales. 

How can DRAM help your winery?

Digital Marketing

They can help in Assistance with 

 - 4th tier activations

 - Online display advertising

 - Optimizing online content

 - Digital tools and solutions

Ecommerce

DRAM can help wineries in 

 - Providing education around e-commerce

 - Assisting in leveraging new e-commerce technologies

 - Driving traffic

 - Online sale conversions for brands

 - In-depth understanding of beverage alcohol compliance and regulation

 - Equipping the digital ecosystem with the alcohol brand.

Commerce7

Working with 790 wineries across the world, Commerce7 is a prominent and leading company that empowers wineries by providing them with the right tools. Their array of tools helps wineries to deliver exceptional experiences to their customer. They are known for providing the best shopping experience regardless of the channel. 

How can Commerce7 help your winery?

Point of Sale

Their POS is built with a purpose and is completely connected through the cloud so it can be accessed at any point in time. The POS offers 

 - Unified customer records

 - Advanced inventory management

 - Smart notifications about shipments

 - Credit card updates

 - Staff permission to manage delegation

 - EMV Hardware to capture payments

 - Mobile wallets to make checkouts easy

Clubs and Subscriptions

The management tools by Commerce7 help in personalizing membership for your members and managing them proactively. The member management system offers an easier workflow by automating the processes. This includes 

 - Subscription clubs that automatically select products for members

 - Traditional clubs that manage proactive members

 - Customizable clubs that allow members to easily manage their subscriptions

 - Proactive engagement to automatically alert the members about their shipments

 - Auto credit card updater to automatically capture credit card information for expired cards

 - Auto payment decline emails to alert club members

 - Inventory management to update the low inventory to members. 

Ecommerce

The e-commerce integration helps in supercharging online sales by providing experiences through effortless shopping and the right tools for growth. The e-commerce integrations include 

 - Carrot engine that creates cart incentives for consumers

 - Upfront pricing to opt for club member pricing and applicable discounts

 - Persistent carts that allow maintaining one cart across all devices

 - Product merchandising to display products in different templates

 - International shipping that supports shopping across 90+ countries

 - Fraud protection to ensure payment protection

 - Customer portal to manage account information online

 - Mobile payment option to complete payment checkouts easily 

E-commerce integration is done for Sequoia Grove Winery by Commerce7; Image Source - Sequoia Grove Winery

CRM

A customer relationship management to easily access all the customer data in one single location. It helps in capturing data easily and helps in making data-driven decisions. The CRM system includes

 - Forms that help in capturing data of the customers

 - Query tools that create complex queries across product purchases and reservations

 - Automatic validation to ensure accurate data including phone numbers, addresses, etc.

 - International addresses for 90 counties to validate and improve deliverables

 - Static and dynamic tagging to automatically tag and segment customers

5Forests

A full-service agency, 5forests offers digital marketing and creative solutions for your winery or wine business. They help in brand building by designing profitable strategies and digital solutions. The company has been helping wineries to reach out to the right audiences and enhancing the customer experiences. Their team of experts can help you to build great DTC channels for your winery and grow your brand strategically.

Website Audit for ACORNWinery done by 5Forests; Image Source - Acorn winery

How can 5Forests help your winery?

 - Analytics and business insights to grow your sales

 - SEO audits and strategies to grow your website traffic

 - Website design and development

 - Website audits

 - Ecommerce integration with Commerce7

 - Strategizing content with photography, animation, and video integrations

 - Analyzing and assimilating multichannel communications

 - Email marketing and automation

 - Paid social and search campaigns

WithWine

A company focusing on offering customer engagement solutions, WithWine helps in growing the DTC channel of wineries by capturing opportunities that enable longstanding customer loyalty. For the past decade, they have put in great efforts to build a great affinity for wine brands. They encourage, guide, and support wine brands throughout their journey of growing their brand. 

How can WithWine help your winery?

Mobile POS

A Mobile Point of sale system that comes with a Mobile App that helps you

 - Manage cash register

 - Capture customer data

 - Manage your location

An E-commerce website for Kelman Vineyards by WithWine; Image Source - Kelman Vineyard

E-commerce

Their e-commerce integrated solutions include

 - A strong channel for DTC sales with the help of WordPress

 - Easy to use back end system

 - Digital menu

 - A PCI-compliant CRM system to store credit card information

 - Integration with the shipping provider to dispatch orders smoothly

Wine Club Management 

They offer great software that helps the management of wine club members in an easier manner. Their software is

 - Integrated with PCI compliant payment system

 - Cost-effective and easy to use

 - Built-in stock-management system to keep track of inventory

CRM and Email Management

This helps you to stay connected with your customers and it offers 

 - Intuitive email marketing

 - Email composing

 - Spam alerts

 - Email reporting

Operations Management

This helps your winery to stay connected with the business and streamline the operations in a smooth manner. It includes

 - Stock management

 - Admin tools

 - Business trends

 - Speed post integrations,

 - Real-time reporting

Speakeasy Company

Providing a wider reach, control, and scalability to wineries, Speakeasy empowers brands to own their growth and increase the coverage of their direct communications with their customers. They offer access to tools, capabilities, and analytics to wine brands to sell directly to consumers. Speakeasy is an outstanding e-commerce and logistics platform that allows wineries to sell directly to their consumers from their own websites. 

E-commerce Integration is done for Vivanterre, a natural wine brand, done by Speakeasy; Image Source - Vivanterre

How can Speakeasy Company help your winery?

 - Integrates a branded store in the current website of the winery

 - Offers a seamless checkout experience

 - Remains three-tier compliant so your winery can work with any distributor partner

 - Online store and order fulfillment

 - Website redesigning

 - Website development

 - Marketing services

Technology is taking over every segment of the wine industry, and it becomes interesting and even important to leverage it. Wineries across the world are opting for more and more automated processes to save on cost and time and deliver more to their consumers. Thus, to deal with the fast pace environment and stay in sync with the upcoming technologies in the wine industry, wineries should leverage the solutions these companies are offering. At the end of the day, a DTC channel will always help you reap a greater percentage of sales.

Article by Shreya Kohli, Beverage Trade Network

Header Image Source - Kate fickett