The Imperative to Improve Retailer POS data
In this industry that trades in controlled beverages there are inefficiencies built into our business by regulators trying to contain the social cost of our products. Some of these regulations are being challenged in the courts and state legislatures, leading to political and legal battles that cause divisions by pitting one tier of the [...]
How can improved UPC standards help retail wine stores?
The quest for a unique wine item number for use throughout the industry has been a recurring theme in this column. So much so that I was invited to sit on a panel at the Wine Industry Technology Symposium to present the retailer perspective in a discussion of what the 3 tiers could do better [...]
Google Shifts Retailers’ Attention to 12 digits
In the early 1980’s Walmart famously introduced barcode scanners in their stores to speed up the checkout process. Back then only 45% of their most successful products carried UPC codes. After successful tests with this new technology Walmart leveraged their market clout to require all their distributors and suppliers to supply UPC codes with their [...]
The Local and Mobile Future of eCommerce
As consumers have embraced the Internet and incorporated it into their lives a funny thing has happened: shopping at local stores is more likely to start online. Back in 2006 about 16% of in-store retail sales were started online and Forrester Research predicted that by 2012 that number would grow to 38%. Add to that [...]
Searching for the Intended Result
By now most of us have had the experience of entering a search term into Google only to make a typo that Google has helpfully corrected, stating “Did you mean?” Depending on the merits of your misspell you may find Google is confident you made a mistake and is showing you the corrected results. Other [...]
The Grape Identity Crisis
In the past month, I’ve been doing some work with our master grape list. I knew it was a super huge task, but the more I learned and dove into it, the bigger the project revealed itself to be. One of the huge issues with keeping content about wines clean and streamlined is that there [...]
Wine Information: from Scarcity to Abundance
If you’ve spent time searching for labels and wine information you will recognize that access to this information is variable. Wineries and importers assume that you will come to their website where they may provide trade-oriented content resources. In many cases the information is missing, or more frustrating has been built into a flash presentation [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]