Monday, March 25th, 2013
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 ... read more>Thursday, February 28th, 2013
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 ... read more>Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013
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 ... read more>Saturday, December 29th, 2012
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 in ... read more>Monday, October 1st, 2012
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 ... read more>Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
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 that ... read more>Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
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 ... read more>