Ecommerce Guide

Your e-commerce website sits within a wider channel strategy.

Specialist fine wine retailers will almost always be selling omnichannel: that is, online, taking orders over the phone, via email offers (at the very least) because of the role that relationships and advice play at this end of the market. Other merchants will also be connecting to other sales channels such as Liv-ex or Vivino.

All of which means a single point of control is vital to real-time updating of stock positions, of all types. That leads to clarity of which wines are immediately deliverable versus those that are deliverable at a future date, with the ability to communicate when they are going to become available.

Mastering your business processes in a single system serves the needs of all sales and marketing channels you choose to connect with, and ensures that your stock position is up to date everywhere, and at all times.

Dynamic content will drive consumer interest, return visits and purchasing behaviours.

At any point in time, you’ll want to determine what you want to allocate to your online Ecommerce channel, and what you want to sell differently or hold back. In most markets volume presumes more units and sales, whereas in fine wine you don’t necessarily want to disclose that you may have 100 cases of a particular wine. Better to disclose 6 cases, and manage the demand curve, or follow the market up after your competitors have sold through.

Being able to group products together for a promotion, or a special feature, focuses your visitors on what’s new or hot, and to do that at scale requires appropriate tools that makes it possible to group, ungroup, price and discount in a single process, then do the same thing week after week, or month after month.

Depending on the types of stock you’re selling, the attributes of that stock may differ. Wines in your own warehouse accounts may be deliverable the following day or the same day. Wines due from local suppliers may take a bit longer, whereas future arrivals could take weeks or years. Customer expectations need managing, in a number of ways, including logical fulfilment rules which can be managed using a sophisticated software system informing your Ecommerce activity.

Once again, being able to do that out of your inventory management system and to determine how products feed into your Ecommerce and how they get updated and changed, will help you to make the most of your online sales channel.

Finding the right Ecommerce platform and software partner is fundamental.

There are plenty of current examples of Ecommerce implementations that failed due to weak or partial integrations with inventory management systems; or a compromised system that’s been awkwardly adapted to the wine market; or systems that fail the single point of mastering test. Integrations with ERP systems can run into big money and can take far longer than expected.

Choosing a partner who can offer the guidance and support you need makes all the difference. The right Ecommerce solution will have a team ready to help you implement quickly, cost-efficiently and with minimal risk and they will scale and grow alongside you and the wine industry.

We recommend looking for Ecommerce platforms that:

• Offer features that are specific to the wine industry, such as wine descriptions, food pairing suggestions, and tasting notes, inventory management, personalised customer pricing, storing and shipping functionality.
• Provides secure payment processing and customer data protection.
• Have a support team that can advise on basic essential requirements for Ecommerce, such as user-friendliness and legal requirements (shipping restrictions, state regulations, taxes, licenses etc).
• Have a team passionate in driving innovation, integrations and add-ons relevant to your business and industry.
• Excel in customer support and have a reputation within the wine industry for first-class customer service.
• Are supported by an industry-specific business management system that understands fine wine inventory.

Starting an Ecommerce fine wine business requires careful planning and execution for which this guide will serve to de-risk your investment and establish your online wine business with confidence.

Operationally there must be clarity over mastering of data; the two-way data flows between inventory management and the webshop; an underlying clear and robust taxonomy; origination and curating of content; and channel specific pricing.

To succeed long-term requires a well thought-through approach to structural and operational processes, with an underlying platform that must be flexible enough to handle all wine stock types and be set up to integrate with best-in-class Ecommerce software.

A game-changer is finding the right Ecommerce partner, whose software solution and team understand the fine wine industry and can support you through this journey.