The Giants of Comparison Wine Shopping: Amazon and Google Shopping
It wasn’t so long ago that wine stores could afford to be complacent about their websites. Online traffic would likely find them from a product search on a search engine or wine directory site, competition wasn’t too bad and Google Product listings were free. It was tempting for retailers to treat online orders as less important than “real” customers [...]
Online Crossroads: Marketing Agents Seeking to Sell Wine Online get a Hearing at the SLA
The State Liquor Authority of NY is preparing a new set of guidelines that could have national implications for how wine is sold online. While the jurisdiction of the SLA is limited to licensed wholesalers, retailers and restaurants, the issue at hand is how unlicensed marketing agents can promote wine. As a price-posting state NY [...]
Retailers Respond to a Changed Landscape
Around this time every year we review the results of our benchmarking report which shows how retailer websites on the Bevsites eCommerce platforms have fared over the past year. Looking to share useful insights we characterize the differences at stores that grew significantly or sustained sizeable sales with their online business. Previous articles have described [...]
Why Distributors All Win by Competing on the Same Platform
As Beverage Media’s online view of the New York drinks market grows more complete it has attracted the attention of trade members in other parts of the country. The initial reaction is very positive with excitement about the product browsing and eCommerce. However as the discussion shifts to the prospect of something similar happening [...]
A Coming of Age for Online Wine Sales
The online selling of products appears to be entering a new period of maturity where it can no longer fly under the radar. Two recent events have highlighted that eCommerce has become a significant part of consumer activity in the US. The first is that Amazon has agreed to collect sales tax for a number [...]
Getting Realistic about Social Media
I was recently asked what practical advice I would give an audience of wine store owners who want to use social media campaigns to increase sales. My response was not to bother, which reflected the experience of the retailers in the room, none of whom had an eCommerce website. My answer shocked me a little [...]
Articulating Value in a Competitive Marketplace
There was a time when moving online for a wine store would lead to a lift in business based solely on the strength of the store’s inventory and pricing. However the online wine marketplace has been an increasingly competitive space for several years now. These days few stores are satisfied with the incremental sales [...]
Supporting the Mobile Co-Pilot
In the build-up to the holiday season last year there was a lot of excitement about social commerce and how Facebook’s enormous user base was going to become a new force in the season’s retail business. Once the dust settled however, it turned out that social media didn’t have quite the direct impact some had [...]
Key Transitions in the Growth of a Wine Store Website
Every year we review benchmark indicators for the retailer ecommerce websites we support. This is a valuable routine for us to catch outliers who are lagging, stores that should be doing better than their performance suggests. We need to find out whether the problem is technical or design related, or it might concern store personnel [...]
Catching the Buzz: Mining Digital Word of Mouth
A recent column explored the potential impact of social media on retail by describing campaigns designed to take advantage of customers’ activity on Facebook. The goal was to leverage social interactions to amplify a positive shopping experience across their network. With social commerce, most retailers see their goal as building engagement and providing customer service [...]
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