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 industry again another. There is however another source of inefficiency that is far less controversial; that is the lack of clean product da

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 to share product information. The assumption of the discussion was that the UPC code or more correctly GTINs (Global Trade Item Numbers) are the de facto codes for the industry when it co

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 products. Before long everyone who touched the Walmart ecosystem including their competitors had adopted UPC codes and we entered

Google has been in the process of making multiple changes to how they process feeds for Google Products during the last two weeks. In this time, many of you have noticed a steady drop in traffic from Google Products and we've noticed it as well. We are in the process of making changes to the feeds that we send Google on a daily basis to combat this drop in traffic. We are learning more each week and adjusting the feeds as necessary. Much like when Google's organic search ge