Where To Sell Wine Online

Add Payment Options For Your Customers

Shoppers are wary of fraud and identity theft. How do you establish immediate trust? Simple: add payment providers that shoppers are familiar with, like or PayPal Checkout. These engines are popular across the web. Learning how to build a wines ecommerce website the right way means learning how to build trust with your customers.

Put Together A Marketing Strategy

Your business wonât be successful for long without an eCommerce marketing strategy. Every business is unique, too, so you need to use an approach thatâs different or better than your competition .

The nice thing about marketing is it can be customized to suit your budget and timeline. If possible, you should employ a combination of both paid and free marketing methods. Examples of paid marketing include social media advertising, eCommerce PPC, retargeting, and eCommerce email marketing. Examples of free marketing include eCommerce SEO, referrals, and eCommerce content marketing.

Starting a new business often means you donât have access to unlimited capital. You can work this in your favor if you know how to. A wise marketing practice is to set a monthly budget for the funding you do have. This will prevent you from going overboard on spend and also simplify analytics and reporting at the end of every month.

Create Your Ecommerce Platform

Setting up an attractive and user-friendly eCommerce platform is a must for any business owner. Your website is responsible for almost everything in your business: receiving traffic, generating leads, order processing, offering content, displaying products, and accepting payments through an eCommerce payment gateway.

BlueCartâs eCommerce platform is a simple, SEO-friendly option for food and drink sellers. Customize your site with just a few clicks and use our built-in eCommerce marketing automation tools to generate sales. Schedule a demo today to see the convenience of our platform for yourself.

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Can I Sell Other Types Of Alcohol Online

Yes, as long as you abide by the laws in the state from which youre shipping as well as the state to which youre shipping.

Every state has its own laws about selling alcohol online, including which certifications and licenses it requires as well as which types of alcohol can be sold and the maximum volume that can be shipped.

How To Sell Wine Online: Wine Ecommerce Tips

Wine eCommerce is experiencing robust year-over-year growth and isnât expected to slow down any time soon. The United Statesâ market is over $3 billion with an expected online wine industry growth rate of 15-16%.

Wine is also a great direct to consumer market to be in, similarly to selling coffee online. Millions of people buy wine for parties, graduations, engagements, and gifts, not to mention regular dining. Wine pairs well with dozens of foods and presents good cross selling opportunities, especially if youâre also learning how to sell food online.

If you love wine and are considering starting an eCommerce business around it, weâve got all the strategies you need. Keep reading to learn the ins and outs of selling wine online.

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The 5 Best Online Marketplaces To Sell Wine

Unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a surge in retail sales online, rising 32% in the United States in 2020 . The wine industry was no different, and every sign shows this trend will continue. For example, Mordor Intelligence estimates the wine industry will grow by just over 4% between 2021 and 2026 . And SVB Bank expects that online sales will represent 20% of wineries revenue by the year 2030, from just 2% pre- pandemic .

Millennials are largely contributing to this rise in online sales, with 80% of wine now consumed off-premises . This rise in off-premises consumption is further evidenced by the sharp increase in Direct-to-Consumer sales .

If youre already selling your wines online, these figures may not be too surprising. But if youre thinking of taking advantage of the many marketplaces now available, you may be in luck. To date, 46% of U.S. retailers sell through online marketplaces . That figure rises to 59% for retailers based in Europe. And with marketplace sales doubling within just four years, theres a vast market for you to tap into and grow your wine sales .

Theres a seemingly infinite list of online marketplaces to choose from. They serve every need across every industry. In this article, weve shortlisted the 5 best.

The 5 best online marketplaces to sell wine

Launching An Online Wine Store: Where To Start With

Opening an online wine store basically means entering the online food market, so the first steps to transfer your business online are similar:

• identify your niche
• set up wine production and shipping
• get to know the laws of a state/country where you plan to sell.

For these and many other useful insights, take a glance at our article on how to sell food online.

Having chosen to sell wine online, you should identify your target audience, competitors, and common market trends. Ask yourself: who is my client? What are their interests, tastes, and habits? Can I offer something my competitors cant? You may choose to sell vintage, premium wines ranging from $20 to $200+ per bottle and, thus, cater to the whims of upper-class clients. Or you may target the average millennials who buy wine on the go and wont go higher than $12 per bottle.

According to the US 2019 Wine Market Council report, 49% of legal drinking population prefers wine: 14% of them drink wine more than once a week and 35% are occasional wine drinkers. Statistics show a slightly higher percentage of women buying wine in comparison to men , and the baby boomers and Millenials occupy the biggest share of the wine market .

Whatever your customers profile, it will guide your choice of a website design and online marketing strategies, so market analysis is what you have to start with.

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Selling Your Wine Online: The Wrap

If you want to sell all or part of your wine collection, selling it through a licensed auction house is your best bet.

Start by making a catalog of your wines , and then locate at least three reputable fine wine auction houses to ask for estimates.

Once youve settled on a wine auction house, arrange for your wine to be picked up or shipped, and then sit back and watch the auction happen .

Happy auctioning!

Cheers!

How Do You Sell Wine Online

You can sell your wine auction house or consignor on the Internet. There are many online auctions that are similar to eBay where you can safely and legally sell your wine. Traditional auction house. Sell locally on Wine Forums. Merchants who sell online. Platforms that allow you to trade online. A peer-to-peer system. You can sell it yourself on your own retail website.

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Sell To Hotels And Restaurant Groups

If you have any connections in the food and beverage industry, you can try selling your wine collection to hotels and restaurants. Many of these establishments are always on the lookout for good quality wines to stock their wine cellars. You can also approach wine merchants and distributors in your area and offer to sell them your collection.

Promote Your Wine Store

Once your website has been designed and you have included all the details and photos of your wines, start promoting your online wines store. Try submitting your products to Wine-Searcher.com and to WineZap these marketplaces will help you get traffic right away and start selling online. A Wine of the Day deal is a very effective promotional campaign, where a specific wine is offered at a heavily discounted price with the purpose of growing your customer base. In the same way, a group deal can help your business go viral.

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Are You Looking To Hire For Certain Positions Right Now

While were not currently hiring, were always happy to have conversations with folks that are interested in our mission. Weve hired folks that have shown up on our doorstep with a unique capability, like ways to expand our reach.

We love having conversations for the opportunity as I like to call them, and we almost never refuse an initial meeting. Keep the door open like that is keeping an open mind to opportunities. You never know where a conversation will lead!

How To Sell Rare Wine

Selling rare wine is best done by going through an auction house or broker. This is because rare wines should be evaluated and priced by professionals to ensure you make a profit. They also take most of the risk on themselves, so you’ll be protected if something goes wrong.

Reach out to experienced companies first to get a rough valuation of your wine or collection. Factor in seller’s fees as well, then pick whoever you feel will do the best job of making you money. Then sit back, and wait for them to do the hard work.

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Do You Want Your Personalized Recommendation

Top tip

Ask friends, family, and colleagues to test your website before you publish it. That way, youll gain an outsiders perspective on how your website looks and feels, which should help you create the perfect experience for your future customers.

You now know how to sell alcohol online, but the hard work doesnt stop here. Yes, you can now deliver your beautiful brand to doorsteps around the world, but you need to promote your website and get your business out there before you can start earning serious money. In order to reach new customers and increase sales, you must nail your digital marketing.

First of all, you should connect your online store to social media. This feature is offered on both Shopify, Wix, and Square Online, and enables social network users to click one button and jump straight to your online store.

Shopify is soon releasing the feature, which means Shopify will generate a Facebook store for you and seamlessly connect your Shopify inventory to a new Facebook storefront that looks stunning and creates a lovely shopping experience.

You can also . This means users can purchase your products directly from Facebook. Did you know that Mark Zuckerbergs behemoth has over 2.6 billion active users? Think of all those untapped customers!

Spend some time flicking through alcoholic beverage trade calendars, such as 10times, and see which events would offer the most reward for your business.

Top tip

Why Work With Epic Cellars

We have been in the business for over 30 years as brokers in the beverage industry.

Unlike many companies, we are set up to handle purchases of any size- from a single bottle to very large collections.

We value our customers and we work hard to earn their trust and business, which is why we have a loyal base of repeat sellers.

We are a small team of friendly, and passionate individuals, located in Louisville, KY.

We are a Customer rated 5-star company. We have over 1,000 great reviews across TrustPilot, RateLobby, , and

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Wine Forums Sell Locally

Are you connected with other wine aficionados via forums or a club? If you are, this is another viable avenue to sell your wine. With websites like wineberserkers.com, you can ask if anyones interested in the wines in your collection, keeping your sale private.

But remember that shipping is still illegal without the proper licenses and permits. So you need to make sure your transactions are local and the buyers can pick up the wine. The problem with this option is that you may have to deal with people who want to haggle or who refuse to pay.

How To Incentivize Customers To Buy Wine Online

Engaging in wine ecommerce can offer a lot of benefits for sellers. But in order to reap those benefits, you need to convince customers to buy from you.

Here are a few ideas:

• Allow customers to return online orders to your brick-and-mortar wine store.
• Provide free or flat-rate shipping whichever makes the most sense for your wine business.
• Send loyal customers exclusive coupons and invites for early access to special online sales.
• Email customers personalized recommendations for related products based on their past purchases.
• Connect with customers on your social media accounts and ask for their feedback about products, sales, and your brand in general.
• Encourage customers to place an online order for wine theyd previously bought at the store or tried in your tasting room by offering them a discount.
• Create educational content about wine for example, a how-to guide that helps novice wine drinkers choose between red wine and white wine or a blog a wine enthusiast can use to find similar wines they might like.

A quick note: the two things that tie all of these strategies together are data and research.

Collecting data about your audience and researching their specific wants and needs will help you make confident decisions about how to best attract and retain customers.

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Consider Offering A Wine Of The Month Subscription Box

Subscription-based businesses are becoming increasingly popular as customers grow to love the convenience of never having to reorder their needed items. Instead, they sign up for automatic billing, and the products they need arrive on a regular basis. Subscription boxes are also very popular, but work a little differently: rather than ordering specific products, the customer receives a scheduled package with one or more selected items for them to try.

Wine is perfect for the subscription box model. Wine enthusiasts are always looking for a new experience and a new vintage or brand to try. You can create a Wine of the Month subscription box to automatically send selected wine to customers on a monthly basis. This approach offers many benefits, including a consistent revenue stream for you, and a way to introduce customers to wines they’ll love and want to reorder separately resulting in more sales.

You can also increase your brand recognition by using custom packaging in your Wine of the Month subscription boxes to create an “unboxing” experience. Unboxing is a process in which a customer unpacks a shipped product and creates a video or photo gallery that shows others what it’s like to receive a shipment from a certain business. Customers love seeing unique packaging, surprise bonuses, special inserts, and other fun things during an unboxing.

Best Dtc Wine Ecommerce Platform: Wine Direct

Wine Direct is a direct-to-consumer platform specially designed to help wineries manage every facet of their online sales. This platform is ideal for wineries that dont have experience with ecommerce platforms as Wine Direct does an excellent job at easing the process of selling wine online.

The platform helps customers manage their wine club membership by processing email alerts and by giving them access to real-time sales reporting. Besides that, the platform makes marketing their priority, which provides wineries with the opportunity to both retain their members and reach a wider audience. Wine Directs built-in marketing tools encourage customers to learn about a particular wines history and its production process, which is something that drives customers to try and buy more wine. Clients get to operate with built-in marketing tools and conduct batch processing and create personalized orders.

This platform provides wine sellers with effective records that can help them ease the tedious job of tracking vineyard production. You and your staff also have access to the customers profiles where you can learn about their order history and drinking preferences. This will allow you to create customized offers and discounts and drive more sales.

WineDirect is flexible and mobile-responsive. Clients get to manage products, inventory, and customers on the go by using Wine Directs excellent mobile app.

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Examples Of Wine Ecommerce Websites

When it comes to ecommerce, your homepage is your digital welcome mat. And for higher-end merchandise like wine, first impressions are especially important.

Because the culture and tradition of wine drinking has a unique influence on the decisions of wine buyers. And wine drinkers have particular expectations about the merchants with whom they shop.

The first time a shopper visits your website, they dont necessarily have to be blown away .

But they shouldnt be completely unimpressed, either. And they absolutely cannot be disappointed or irritated by an unaesthetic design or non-user-friendly navigation.

Your wine ecommerce website should tell the story of your brand and invite customers to become part of your community.

The design of your site should demonstrate your commitment to providing an exceptional shopping experience for every shopper from wine novices to wine connoisseurs to non-wine drinkers shopping for a gift.

There should be no barriers between the customer and what theyre looking for.

For a little inspiration, here are three wine ecommerce websites built with the customer experience in mind.

Best For Small And Medium

Shopify offers wineries the chance to sell wine online and boost their sales by giving them access to multiple sales channels such as Facebook, POS, and Instagram.

Wine sellers can efficiently manage sales, fulfillment, orders, and inventory. Besides that, Shopify has an excellent mobile-app that allows wineries to manage every aspect of their online store on the go. Sellers also have access to the HTML and CSS code of their website which provides them with endless ways to customize their storefront.

Wineries that have a large customer base can benefit greatly by using Shopify, as the platform makes wine club management a breeze. Wineries get comprehensive access to their customers profiles and purchasing history.

Wineries can choose from some of the specialized wine templates that Shopify offers and create a unique wine online storefront.

With Shopifys MailChimp integration, clients can completely automate their email marketing and send personalized emails. When it comes to storefront management, Shopify excels as there are numerous ways in which wineries can boost their online sales. For example, sellers can create customer groups, offer targeted discounts, and sell members-only products.

Additionally, Shopify integrates with over 100 payment gateways.

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