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Talkin' Tech

Talkin’ Tech is a monthly column in the Beverage Media that discussed issues related to ecommerce for wine stores.

New Directions in Wine Writing

It is sad to watch the demise of prominent local newspapers as they struggle to respond to the threat of the Internet. With newsstand sales and subscriptions way down, Rupert Murdoch announced plans to generate revenue by charging for online access to his newspapers, effectively hiding his content from search engines. In a similar move [...]

The Barcode has a Birthday

In early June the UPC code turned 35 years old. This milestone was celebrated in Orlando by attendees at the annual U Connect conference who shared an enormous birthday cake adorned with a bar code. Originally develop to help supermarkets speed up their checkout process; the UPC code has grown to become an international standard [...]

Does it Exist and is it Priced Too Low?

Ever since it launched as a bookseller in 1995, Amazon.com has been relentless in its quest to squeeze efficiencies from the fulfillment of online orders. One way they do this is to have distributors drop ship specific orders directly to consumers, working from a selection of inventory that Amazon does not keep in stock. As [...]

Containing the Cost of Online Fraud

Selling wine in this climate can be hard work. While some argue that consumers are drinking more, they are certainly harder to please. Completing the sale and shipping your order should be money in the bank, but unfortunately, some orders reappear unexpectedly, like a corked bottle of wine.
Chargebacks are demands from the customer’s bank that [...]

Social Networking for Wine Sales Online

Eighteen months ago this column described social media as the second wave of the Internet and gave some examples of tools that were being used to create opportunities for selling wine. Some of the early examples have become largely irrelevant or have become the home of a specific niche. Other new tools have come to [...]

A Predictable Investment in eCommerce

There is ample evidence that the economy is having an impact on retail trade. Retailers across the spectrum describe double-digit declines in sales while profits have been squeezed by the deep discounting used to attract customers. However, in contrast to these harrowing tales, come the reports that wine sales are actually up at retail while [...]

Point of Sale Integration

As we discuss the benefits of launching a website with wine stores, we are often asked to recommend a point-of-sale system POS. Robust integration between a website and the POS is an important element in maintaining an active online presence. To support your business Beverage Media offers five possible points of integration with a POS. [...]

Opportunities Online Persist despite Tougher Economic Climate

Story by Ian Griffith on 1/1/2009
Last year we conducted some comparative benchmarking of retailer websites on our ecommerce system for the month of November. We compared traffic and sales, pageviews and conversion rates to give stores feedback on how their websites were performing. When presenting an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of their online [...]

Sharing Information about Wine on an Open Standard

An interesting discussion has begun percolating at the Open Wine Consortium OWC that segues nicely from last month’s column on the heavy lifting that goes into maintaining a wine website. The OWC discussion is about whether it might be possible to conceive of a standard for wine data exchange. The goal would be a widely [...]

Is Your Website Doing The Heavy Lifting For You?

Experienced tradesmen know the value of a good tool is its practical utility. Depending on the trade, a tool can save your back or deliver flush joints. In our work supporting retailer websites we often find ourselves repackaging the information on a website so it can be integrated with other tools and services. The following [...]

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