A recap of the last year and important decisions we are making for the year ahead.
As we covered in our State of the Independent Marketplace report, it’s been a big year for us and we’ve learned a lot. This post is about sharing those learnings and announcing key decisions we are making to continue progressing on our mission.
We’ve always built this company focused on two things: solving the growth problem for wineries, and listening to our customers to help us build the best solution.
When we launched, we quickly saw wineries who were doing exceptionally well, and many who weren’t. The ones that did well were in lock-step with our product, amplifying the messages we shared, and ultimately were taking advantage of a more holistic approach to growth.
This led us to building out our ecommerce functionality, hosted websites and changing our fees to make sure we could support where you were taking us.
And the results have been very clear.
Not only are wineries starting to see real growth results; together, we have built a sustainable model. For a flat $2.95 per order, wineries are getting a hosted website, robust ecommerce, flexible wine club, and a growing set of marketing tools. Because of the holistic approach, we can align our incentives with yours and work alongside you to get that first time customer to join the club. We can enable you to expand your reach without limitations of which website that customer will ultimately purchase on. We are truly alongside you to empower your growth.
Vinebase being a growth platform means that we have to move beyond being a traditional marketplace. Traditional Marketplaces work off high commission fees that aren’t sustainable and oftentimes end up alienating their merchants in the process. We’ve found a better way: one we’re calling the Independent Marketplace model, and we’re leaning in.
Tactically, this means we are asking all wineries to join our full product offering. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve only onboarded wineries who are able to fully commit. We’ll be reaching out and are excited to talk about the product we’re building. Building the platform for independent wine is only possible with independent wineries. We’re grateful for the trust we’ve been given, and will keep working to earn it.
So many small wineries want to grow their business, but don't have the expertise, time or audience to do so.
Vinebase is a modern growth platform for independent wineries. We believe that seamless e-commerce is table stakes, and the real opportunity for wineries to grow online lies in being able to find and engage with customers.
In the past 12 months, we've launched our consumer-facing marketplace at Vinebase.com, and our hosted e-commerce solution which gives wineries a seamless e-comm and wine club experience in minutes. Now, we're excited to announce our next big step - curated, turnkey Marketing Programs.
Marketing Programs, the answer to the growth struggle
Vinebase's Marketing Programs make it easy for small wineries to grow, engage and build relationships with their customers.
HOW IT WORKS --
1) Access a curated library
Vinebase cuts through the noise to find tactics that work, from Email to Social Media to Podcasts and Partnerships.
We use your winery's goals, our community's data and power, and our digital marketing experts to make your marketing efforts go further.
2) Customize templates
Every marketing asset can be generated and customized to your winery and brand. All you need to do is choose.
New! We also support exportable templates, if you'd like to customize further and send yourself.
3) Always on your terms
Most Marketing Programs are included in the Vinebase platform fee. Pricing is transparent and upfront for premium programs.
Don't just take our word for it.
The Oregon Wine Month bundle and email campaign generated 3x more wine sales than one winery's baseline monthly sales. And it took them less than 5 minutes.
Want to learn more about Vinebase? Schedule a demo at wineries.vinebase.com
Here at Vinebase, we believe that the world deserves to drink more independent wine. And part of that vision is making it easy and enjoyable to get independent wine directly from wineries, especially the ones in your backyard.
That's why we're excited to announce support for Local Pickup, a way for wineries to offer an environmentally-friendly alternative to getting their wine to customers.
Local pickup is a great way to build customer relationships.
Local pickup is another great way to build relationships with your customers by strengthening in-person connections with them, which may increase repeat sales.
When customers pickup their orders in person, you get to spend a little bit of time face to face, sharing about the wines or asking them how their day was.
Local pickup - It’s one more way for your customers to love you. :)
It's also better for the environment.
According to leading researchers, nearly 70% of wine industry's carbon footprint comes from packaging and shipping. While it's likely you need to ship wine to most of your customers, being able to offer a local pickup option for local customers can make your winery more attractive to environmentally conscious consumers.
Set up local pickup options for your customers today.
Offering local pickup to your customers is an easy and environmentally-friendly way to get people face-to-face with you, building stronger customer relationships and increasing sales.
If you are on the Vinebase platform, reach out to your Account Manager to help you get set up with Local Pickup today.
Originally published at: https://wineries.vinebase.com/post/announcing-local-pickup
As we grow, our purpose remains the same: to empower independent winemakers and connect them with wine lovers.
We exist to change the way people discover and interact with independent wineries for the better, and part of that means making sure all people can find what they’re looking for.
That’s why we are so excited to announce that all Vinebase hosted websites can now be rated 100/100 on Google’s accessibility rating!
Through our software, we've made sure that every last text field on a Vinebase hosted website is able to be read aloud easily by screen reading software. We've added descriptive image captions, ensured navigation is accessible via a keyboard, and added guidance on color contrast for wineries setting up their sites. All of this is available out-of-the-box for any Vinebase hosted website.
This is a big step, both for creating a more inclusive wine shopping experience online, and for making sure wineries are empowered to put their best foot forward for their customers and community, without the barrier to entry of research and technical abilities.
And we hope that this step encourages other companies in our industry to follow suit! It's something we feel strongly about: making discovering independent wineries more accessible to everyone. Because if you're passionate about wine, you should be able to participate in the community regardless of your physical or mental abilities.
We're committed to making the wine industry more accessible, but it's just one of many steps we plan on taking over the next few years.
"Vinebase allows me to reach customers and markets that I hadn’t been able to before."
Originally hearing about Vinebase from a peer winery on the platform, Jason was intrigued with the concept of one platform boosting visibility for independent wineries. He decided to sign up with his veteran-focused wine label, Rockets Red Wines.
With the Vinebase platform, Jason enjoys:
- Nationwide exposure, now selling 2x as much wine outside of California as he does in his home state
- A dynamic website which showcases what makes his story and winery unique
- State of the art merchandising, giving him the best possible chance of converting customers on their first visit
- Opportunities to expand his business including launching a wine club (coming April 2022!)
Challenge
After 22 years in the military, Jason decided to go back to school to become a winemaker. In 2018 he created Rockets Red Wines to share amazing wines and highlight his time in the military while giving back to the veteran and local community. For veterans, or those with family members who are veterans, Rockets Red is a dream winery to discover. But Jason struggled to reach new customers and grow his brand awareness.
He needed to find a way to become discoverable by more people outside of his local network in Los Alamos.
“It was really tough ‘til about a year ago. As a small producer I don’t have a tasting room… I messed around with paid ads which was just a waste of money, I found. I got a lot of 'likes' but 'likes' didn’t translate into sales.” - Jason, winemaker and owner of Rockets Red Wines
Solution
Step one was to get Rockets Red Wines for sale online. While many wineries have robust networks of local customers who can purchase in person or via text, selling to a customer halfway across the country increases complexity around shipping and communications.
Further, customers today expect a seamless experience buying. If they can't click, add to cart, and transact in a matter of seconds, they question whether it’s worth the hassle.
Once rocketsredwines.com was live with a fully functioning ecommerce, Jason was able to send new customers to his website with confidence.
As part of the Vinebase community, Rockets Red Wines has been featured in our rotating winery highlights on social media and email newsletter.
"About a year ago, I got hooked up with a startup company called Vinebase… and they’ve done really well for little guys like me as far as nationwide exposure. Over the past year, I was shipping wine to Santa Barbara County, Slow County, LA county. Now I’m shipping wine to Florida, New York, and Virginia and Texas and all over. So it’s been really great for me for getting nationwide visibility." - Jason, winemaker and owner of Rockets Red Wines
Results
68% of Jason’s business comes from outside of California. In one year, Jason leveraged Vinebase’s reach and capabilities to expand his business nationwide. He now sells more wine outside of California than in.
Jason is able to spend his time growing his community on social media, and building up awareness for his brand.
Most excitingly, Jason is launching his wine club for the first time ever in Spring 2022 using the Vinebase wine club functionality.
“Vinebase allows me to reach customers and markets that I hadn’t been able to before, driving me to more engagements on social media and helping increase my brand presence and awareness.” - Jason, winemaker and owner of Rockets Red Wines.
Previous platform: Squarespace
Winery team: Solo Winemaker
Use case: Vinebase Hosted Website + Marketplace Listing
Selling wine online has never been easier.
Selling anything online comes down to how that product is perceived by a customer when they see it on your site. By limiting distractions and inspiring product discovery you will have a higher chance of converting a sale.
Selling anything online comes down to how that product is perceived by a customer when they see it on your site. Whether they are aware of it or not, at a minimum, your customer is trying to figure out:
- What is this product?
- Can I buy it?
- How much is it?
By limiting distractions and inspiring product discovery you will have a higher chance of converting a sale.
2 action items you can implement today to increase conversions
1. Include images of popular products on your homepage.
Your homepage is typically the first thing your customers sees when they search for or are referred to your brand. You only get one shot at a first impression.
Besides being easy to navigate, it is important that a customer can find exactly what they are looking for on your website in the least amount of clicks possible. By having your best-selling products visible on your homepage you decrease the amount of clicks to a sale, therefore increasing your conversion rate.
Bonus if you have a call to action (CTA) prompting them to add these items directly to their cart.
2. Offer detailed product descriptions.
Buying online removes the experience of being able to speak with a sales clerk so its important to make up for that with a detailed product description.
Wine tasting notes, food pairings, interesting facts about the wine and how it was made, the story behind that particular bottle, etc. will help to create that personal experience in an online environment. It will also minimize the number of questions your customers are left with and handle many of the objections they might have to buying your wine.
Less questions = more sales.
How we can help you
Our winery websites have these merchandising best practices built in, making it easy for you to have a high performing website without having to do all the research yourself. We found a way to take the raw data of a listing (price, name, image, stats, etc) and turn it into a low friction, delight driving experience for your customers.
https://wineries.vinebase.com/post/2-actions-to-improve-your-digital-merchandising
"Vinebase is like the custom crush of e-commerce."
Vinebase wants to make direct-to-consumer wine sales the norm while supporting independent producers, not “middlemen.”
The Vinebase marketplace makes it easy for shoppers to buy directly from producers. There is no signup fee, no annual/monthly fee for wineries, only a flat $2.95 transaction fee, no matter how big the order.
“Since we started the company, we’ve spent a lot of time speaking with and, more importantly, listening to our wineries. Our goal is always to better understand the unique challenges they face in selling directly to consumers,” said Vinebase founder and CEO, Rachel Woods. “Bringing new customers to wineries through a marketplace was only part of the solution to part of the problem. What wineries really need is a trusted digital partner to help them respond to the evolving needs of customers and demands of this highly-regulated industry in a way that is easy, efficient, and profitable. Our hosted winery pages are another huge step for Vinebase in cementing our position as that partner.”
Vinebase values their winery partners. They provide a sustainable way to reach and sell wine directly to consumers without taking ANY commission.
Vinebase started small with 10 wineries and has grown to over 70 many of which now use Vinebase as their only DTC platform.
How it works:
Sign up here!
The Vinbase team will onboard wineries (for free), setting up their marketplace storefront. A place to list all the wines, and share information about their story, process, and products.
The new winery-branded website goes live and is hosted by Vinebase but is designed to replace a winery’s existing sales portal (if they have one.)
This new website highlights the winery’s story and wines in a unique way while streamlining the shopping process with Vinebase’s proven marketplace checkout and high-touch order notifications experience.
It’s the best of both worlds: a uniquely branded website with a best-in-class digital experience supported by Vinebase.
Born out of the pandemic and the devastation to independent producers whose sales primarily come from the tasting room, Woods saw a massive gap in the market with the tremendous increase in online wine sales. Wine.com sales increased 217% in the first year of the pandemic, Woods questioned why wineries weren't getting a bigger piece of the pie.
Taking her previous experience at Facebook, Woods assembled a team of experts to build a better way to sell wine from the ground up.
For wineries to sign up and get more info here.
To shop, click here.
Drink Better | Vinebase
We believe in supporting a better future for independent wine. Did you know that 76% of the wine sold in the US is made industrially by the same 10 wineries, even though there are 11,000+ wineries in the US alone?