Have you ever seen a camelopard? I can tell you now that you have: it was just by a different name, Giraffe. I’ve just finished reading Zarafa, Michael Allin’s remarkable tale of a 19^th Century Giraffe, sent from northern Sudan to the heart of Paris as a gift. The Parisians, having never seen such a thing, called it a ‘camelopard’ because it had a head like a camel and the spots of a leopard; whilst others mistook it for some kind of tall horse. A book which traces the cultural history of the giraffe is called ‘Tall Blondes‘, by Lynne Sherr, which looks at the cultural history of the giraffe as an object of public fascination. As a result, giraffes were sent around the world by African kings as gifts, and the tradition dates all the way back to 270 BC. Can you imagine seeing a giraffe if you had never seen such a thing before? It must have been amazing. Read the rest of this entry »

With the pendulum starting to swing toward online sales within the wine industry, it’s important that we recognize one of the major differences between the virtual retailer/distributor and the traditional retailer/distributor.

As an online wine outlet, winery or retailer, your website and online engine is your Sales Vehicle. It should be responsible for everything, from how your customers perceive you, how they order your wine, how they are charged, where the order goes, inventory tracking, to even the actual printing of the label in the case of Windsor Vineyards. If your site doesn’t do this, wouldn’t it make your life a lot easier if it did?

If you use traditional methods, you have to communicate these same things to your distributor, who then has to communicate this to a retailer, who then has to communicate that with their stores, who finally puts it on a shelf for the consumer to purchase… and then the information has to funnel back to you. In the words of Tom Friedman, “the world is flat.” With the power of the Internet, there is no longer a need for such an inefficient hierarchal bureaucracy.

Wine 2.0 is already happening, showing the importance of online blogging, marketing, and social interaction, while Tom Wark has comically notified us of the WITS (Wine Industry Technology Symposium), which is the industry’s “this-is-a-very-serious-business” event (www.wineindustrytechnologysymposium.com)… lol. They will cover interesting topics such as sales automation, supply chain technologies, vineyard management systems, etc.

The point is that it’s time to get on board with technology and direct sales, which both allow you to manage your business easier, faster, cheaper, and with more control. With your sales engine having so much responsibility, it stands to reason that you would want to have something that is well-oiled, fast, smooth, and reliable. Unfortunately there isn’t a Sales Vehicle you can take for a test drive, as most require some custom work before they are ready to roll. This leaves you with quite a bit of research/legwork to be done when all you want to do is drive.

We are starting a series that will help you make the right decisions along your journey to “Building a Direct Sales Vehicle”. It will include choosing the right sales engine and designing your website, handling delivery and logistics, and gaining exposure in the online marketplace. We welcome discussion from all the service providers in these categories, (though we already have done the research and have our preferences), as we hope this series will make it a lot easier for those trying to get set-up in direct sales, and facilitate a faster change within the industry.

• Read Building A Direct Sales Vehicle Part IIÂ

The two most common shipping methods used by fullfillment companies are, obviously, UPS and FedEx. An important thing to note, and we’re not sure if UPS offers anything like this, but FedEx offers great discounts (up to 65% off) on shipping if the winery is a member of the Wine Institute. This can amount to incredible savings to the consumer, or make the winery look great if they complement their price point with “shipping included”. If you are a winery, you have to enroll in the program.

Some of these shippers work to make it easy to deliver wines. For example, UPS offers a free service where they call the intended recipient before they deliver to make sure that someone over 21 is available to pick up the wine. Unfortunately, I don’t think all the wineries are aware of this, as we recently received some wine, and it was somewhat of a hassle… apparently the only way that UPS will do this is if the winery gives them the phone number and requests the service when they place the order into shipping.

So… if you are purchasing wines, don’t forget to mention it. This will help eliminate the need for the driver to make multiple trips, and make it easier to get the wine into your hands.

If you are a winery, and are interested in the Wine Institute, you better be from California, because they apparently only represent California wineries. Maybe they have plans for expansion, or maybe Wine America’s helping hands are working on, something similar.

In recent news, there is a legal battle (as usual) with big distributors and others, fighting to eliminate direct sales in Florida. The newest proposal is saying that direct sales will be limited only to those wineries who produce less than 250,000 gallons of wine per year. Now how exactly does that figure work for a State that records about 25,000 gallons of wines shipped direct (all direct statistics) for all of last year, though this doesn’t include those shipped by in-state wineries. The reports also show that wholesalers/distributors handled about 25,000 gallons of domestic and about 5,000 gallons of imported wine per month. So direct sales have taken less than 10% of the business…so far. Distributors are losing all of that profit, and where is it going…back into the pockets of the wineries who worked so hard to produce the fabulous wines being purchased? Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry to have taken so long on this. I know I mentioned at the end of my last post that I’d follow up with our new virtual import/sales model. Just needed to get some facts straight, but here it is:

The virtual sales model for new brands begins with Global Wine Imports, our partner import company, which will be the representative importer. We then hook Global Wine Imports up with our friends at Inertia Beverage Group to establish the Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) and Direct-to-Trade (DTT) sales channels. Inertia will aid Global Wine Imports in setting up a merchant account for winery clients, which will capture sales and then disburse monies to Global Wine Import clients.

Direct sale shipments will be fulfilled through Wine Tasting Network (WTN), Inertia’s fulfillment and logistics partner. WTN also has a retailer subsidiary called Ambrosia Wine, which acts as the Virtual Retailer needed to legally process DTC sales. Note that in the beginning, the winery pays to ship wine to Wine Tasting Network warehouses and are paid on an extended contract basis. However, once the brand gains traction, Global Wine Imports will be able to buy the wine before the sale.

To close out our virtual model, we must incorporate Direct-to-Trade sales. For this, we follow the same model as DTC, only now we have to include a Virtual Distributor to pay taxes and take a small cut (about $3/case) on DTT sales. This Virtual Distributor never touches or warehouses the wine, but the transaction is on paper because distributors are required to pay taxes. We’ve embraced this aspect of the wine industry in order to bring in a major potential virtual distributor partner, which we’ll disclose at a later time.

So we’ve figured out a way to get your wine over here to the U.S. and get it sold direct without you having to deal with any distributors or retailers. You only have to talk with us and the fine people at Inertia. This is going to cut your costs and allow consumers to buy your quality wines for cheaper prices. The last piece of the puzzle is how your wines are going to be marketed and actually purchased by the consumer… enter GT.

Here’s what we’re going to do to help our clients:
1) Consult and guide you through this whole virtual sales process
2) Market your wines to consumers through online viral campaigns, email management, and brand consultation
3) Give your wines online point of sale locations (Tastevine.com-coming soon & personal websites)

We’re excited to share all of this information and look forward to the benefit and clarity that it will bring to the industry.

Cheers