Winery Ecommerce Points to Trends for Retailer Websites

While ecommerce has become a prominent feature of retail wines sales for some years, the scale of retailer sales is probably much smaller than the impact of online sales for wineries, especially in California. According to Whole World Wines 92% of wineries have a website, with 70% of those using a secure shopping cart to [...]

The Complications of Operating a Low Margin, High Volume Online Wine Store

It’s a simple concept: pricing your items lower than your competitors’ provides a simple, reliable way to attract more people and is likely to bring in more sales. But, in turn, by operating your business with rock-bottom prices (and, most likely, thin margins), you also create pressure upon yourself to do a high volume of [...]

If You Build It, Will They Come?: Creating a Successful Retail Wine Site

Before I start this post, let me introduce myself. My name is James Laurenti, and I’m the primary point person at BevSites for new stores going through the web development process. I’m also one of the key people that support our sites once they’ve launched. Prior to my work here, I’ve spent the greater portion [...]

Are There Still Opportunities Online for Wine Stores?

Has the Economy Impacted Online Sales?
After years of supporting wine stores online, I take it for granted that most any retailer can benefit from a presence online. So it was with some puzzlement that I revisited this question for a presentation at the Empire Wine Merchants’ Retail Seminar.
To be sure, the past 4 Quarters has [...]

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 [...]

A Design Dilemma: Attracting New Prospects while Staying Focused on your Niche

A common dilemma that stores face when designing a website is to balance a desire to present something for everyone, with a focus on the value you offer to your target audience. If your focus is too narrow you worry it could take a long time to find customers who are interested in your offer. [...]

Benchmarks to Grow your Web Business

Story by Ian Griffith on 1/1/2008
With our exposure to wine stores of all shapes and sizes who are selling online, store owners often ask how their website is performing compared to other stores. While we typically have an intuitive sense of how a store is managing and the challenges they face, this year-end we worked [...]