Design Choices that can Set Your Wine Store Apart

Posted on | June 15, 2010  
Writen by | Ian Griffith

Recently a store owner told me “all other wine store websites look the same; we want our design to stand out as being different”.  To be honest this statement made me a little nervous.  Unless the store has a very clear idea of what “different” means, or has experience with a designer that knows how to interpret “different” for this store, we could be in for a bumpy ride.

Design plays an important part in establishing the credibility of your business online and helps reassure customers they want to do business with you. Part of establishing this trust comes from presenting yourself online in a familiar way. If this is your first website why would you jump into the deep end and take risks with your business online.  I’m not saying that every website needs to look the same, but there are specific areas where design can make a difference, while other areas are more about branding and style.

There are several questions you should be able to answer as you engage with the design process:

• Who is the intended customer of my website?
• What mix of products do I expect to sell online?
• Will my pricing be the same online as in the store?
• Can I integrate my website with my POS system?
• Where am I willing to ship orders?
• Does my website need to be PCI compliant?
• How will I know if my website is successful?

As Rachel Andrew of the UK consultancy edgeofmyseat.com says “Including many features right away is tempting, but your goal is to make money, not to spend it.  Testing the water before spending a fortune is perfectly acceptable”. Beverage Media’s e-commerce platform was built specifically for selling wine, beer and spirits, and saves stores from the expense of building a shopping cart from scratch.  With the benefits (and savings) of a trade-specific platform come some constraints. Some decisions have already been made about the functionality of an established platform and are shared by all websites on that platform.  This also makes the design task simpler and focuses the discussion on a handful of critical interactions.

Merchandizing products on your homepage:
Just like in your store, the merchandizing of products is how you signal to customers the strengths of your inventory, like value and selection. Have a clear “call to action” when customers arrive on your website. Opportunities to merchandize are especially strong on the homepage, but to be effective they need to be regularly updated.  When designing your homepage features make sure you are able to maintain them.

 

Product browsing by region and grape variety
Wine is a complex beverage with classifications and attributes that make it easier for customers to browse through your selection. Organizing wine by region is the most common navigation system; however it may be more intuitive to switch from country to variety for some regions or wines.  Will your ecommerce system allow you to display options for Italian Merlots alongside Chiantis while filtering by price?

 
 

Search Results page (SRP)
The SRP on your website should allow a customer to scan results while judging the merits of each item.  Filtering by price, vintage or rating help customers narrow results to the most likely candidates. Including multiple price points, ratings from critics and/or consumers, and allowing for sharing on social media sites can be a challenge without looking cluttered.

Item Detail page
The expectations for information on a product detail page has grown in recent years as content describing an item can come from the producer (winery review), a publication (review and ratings), a customer (review and rating), or it can generated by the store (tasting note, rating, video, recommendations). Often the detail page will act as a landing page from search engines and wine directory sites and a secondary goal of this page is to keep a visitor on the website. Related products and accessible navigation all help in directing a visitor to browse horizontally through your inventory.

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Ultimately the goal of a wine store website is to convert a prospect into a customer.  By using design to solve the challenges of these important interactions you can improve your conversion rate and set your store apart from the competition.

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