Let's talk wine club/mailing list structures.

WINE TALK
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  1. no. just one shipment. id rather spend money on wine and not shipping it.
    2.no, clubs are for those that haven’t yet realized lists are better for several reasons.
    3.see 2.
  2. see 2.
    5.see 2.
  3. no
  4. i honestly don’t like either. getting a discount to me just means the price was originally inflated. as far as early access, i don’t care when i buy.
  5. see 2.
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Thanks for all the suggestions!

But what’s really the difference between that and just having a webshop where your wines are released twice a year? If there’s no discount available, then isn’t it better to just release to the webshop, drop an email saying so, and have all and sundry come in, members or not?

Just putting the consumers hat on: I make strange varietals. So in theory, and this is why I was asking, let’s say I one year release a very small batch of Syrah (which I actually will do year after next), but my main focus is on strange stuff, then I could easily see a situation where the demand for the familiar variety will outstrip the unfamiliar one, just because of the comfort factor. Which might not have any bearing on quality of wine whatsoever. But as someone said, that can probably be regulated with pricing, so not sure what I’m asking… [wow.gif]

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Adam,

I think what you’ll find on this board is not what you would find if you asked questions of consumers on Facebook or perhaps queried ‘more popular’ wineries in any region.

Most consumers here seemed to have moved away from the ‘traditional’ wine club concept - but then again, many wineries that are enjoyed on this board are available on a limited basis and therefore they can somewhat ‘call the shots’. As a new producer like you are, and making something wines based solely on the mission grape (I think that’s what I understand you are trying to do), this may not apply or work.

To answer your last question - there really is not a difference whatsoever. You release the wines, let folks know that they are available, and they purchase what they want.

The ‘advantage’ of a wine club for consumers is either going to be:

  1. Receiving a monetary incentive via a discount and/or
  2. The ability to get hard to find wines that you would not get elsewhere

Good luck and I’ll be following the thread to see what others have to say.

Cheers

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Thank you Larry.

Let me ask everyone this then, as an idea. You could have two webshops. One is the one every unwashed can see when they visit the site. Great. Done. Will have that, of course. The other is a hidden one, with earlier releases, and/or perhaps slightly lower prices, that only people that register on the mailing list can access. And if you don’t buy within a certain period, a year or so, access might be removed. Seems like less admin as well.

Would that be a good solution?

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do you have a brick & mortar location?

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I do not. The winery is shared by many producers and not suitable for tastings etc.

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MAILING LIST: We tell you when we have wine to offer. You buy what you want (from what’s allocated/available). You don’t have to buy anything if you don’t want to. (You might get cut from the list if you don’t buy for a while). No obligation.

But what’s really the difference between that and just having a webshop where your wines are released twice a year? If there’s no discount available, then isn’t it better to just release to the webshop, drop an email saying so, and have all and sundry come in, members or not?

[/quote]
The difference is that the mailing list members get “first crack” at the offerings. This gives an exclusivity that generates customer loyalty. It gives a reason to buy from you rather than some webshop.
Also, the mailing list may give members opportunities to get things that are hard, impossible, or more expensive to get in other ways.

Parenthetically, I think many of our replies here could be replaced with, “Just do like Carlisle and Bedrock do.”

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without a brick & mortar location, it seems like a mailing list makes more sense than a wine club.

depending on what e-commerce platform you’re on, you should be able to grant access (via login and password) to buyers on your list to “hidden” pages that the general public won’t be able to see if they just went to your website. there, you could list certain wines allocated for List Members only if you decide to go that route.

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Just keep it simple. Give list members access a week or two or three earlier, then open up the unsold inventory to everyone.

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Thanks Nate, thanks everyone, this has been so useful. I think I have a better understanding and perhaps even a plan now.

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Funny timing for this thread, as I just signed up for my first wine club yesterday! (I’ve been on numerous mailing lists over the past 20 or so years.)

We stumbled by Seghesio is Healdsburg and stopped in. The wife loves Zin. I buy/collect almost no Zin; maybe a 1/2 dozen or fewer Carlisles each year. So, my rationale for joining the club:

  1. The wines were really good.
  2. Many are difficult or impossible to source outside the winery.
  3. “Regular prices” were a bit high, the 20% discounted club prices seemed about right for what was in the bottle.
  4. Free tastings when in the area, and of course the ability to buy what you want at attractive prices while there.
  5. At 3 bottles 4 times a year, it’s not such a big commitment, and most of time we’ll be able to pick up and avoid shipping (which is ridiculously expensive for a 3 bottle shipment just down the freeway).
  6. Cool outdoor area for a picnic.
  7. Made the wife happy!
  8. But the clincher (well, #7 was of course the true clincher): they bought the Montafi ranch a few years ago but upon my inquiry promised they were still selling Carlisle some grapes because, “they put the vineyard on the map.” Gotta get behind that!
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But what’s really the difference between that and just having a webshop where your wines are released twice a year? If there’s no discount available, then isn’t it better to just release to the webshop, drop an email saying so, and have all and sundry come in, members or not?

The difference is that the mailing list members get “first crack” at the offerings. This gives an exclusivity that generates customer loyalty. It gives a reason to buy from you rather than some webshop.
Also, the mailing list may give members opportunities to get things that are hard, impossible, or more expensive to get in other ways.

Parenthetically, I think many of our replies here could be replaced with, “Just do like Carlisle and Bedrock do.”

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I have one more problem that might rear it’s ugly head:

You have a mailing list. They get early releases, discount, all that good stuff we talked about. But in the beginning, you’re new, you want as many to sign up as possible. If you now offer an a la carte solution (which we agreed was probably the best), how do you manage inventory? It could be that 100 people sign up in first 6 months, but nobody buys anything. So you allow more members to join. And more. Now you have 150 members. But then all of a sudden, they all decide to buy in month 7 and a lot of it, and you now don’t have enough allocations for everyone.

A luxury problem to have, for sure, but just how do you guys that have mailing lists manage that? Where’s the cutoff on members vs allocations? How much does the average ML member buy per release?

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I’m not ITB, just a small occasional consumer and many here can give more info from experience — but …

I’m a little concerned that you’re going into this business without a grasp of basics of wine sales/marketing. It might make sense to hire a consultant (there must be some) who understand these models and can help you with pricing and the like.

On allocations, again as a nonprofessional, as I understand it you don’t promise allocations until you know your total production for that vintage. You then parcel out the available bottles based on who signed up first, who buys most regularly and at what scale in the past (if you have past sales to use), and some jiggling of quantities based on whether you want to create the allure of scarcity or not. Most lists I’m on give me an allocation and a deadline to make my purchase. If I don’t buy it all, the balance goes into the available bottles for those who did not get an allocation or those who wish for more than what they were allocated. I do not get a discount or early releases but I may get offers of a bottle or two of a particularly scarce wine.

List members don’t all of a sudden decide to buy - they have a week in which to buy or not … if they don’t you sell to anyone who comes to your website or sell as bulk or whatever. And yes, there is risk but that’s part of any startup business.

If you are specializing in unusual wines, you’re going to have to cultivate an audience of folks such as the crew here who enjoy the unusual … and who can champion them to a wider market since a lot of folks here are influencers. And yes, an offer during Berserker Day is an ideal opening to build an initial following. I doubt - the pros can correct me on this - that going to market with unusual wines will ever be a price/discount driven business. Instead it is a niche business that relies on building a community of wine geeks who form the loyal core of your consumers – and your word of mouth marketers.

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Obvious answer is some sort of platform which reflects real-time inventory. I’m not in sales, but many different types of businesses use this sort of system. Gonna have to use some legwork. You likely know some ITB folk…ask them how they do it.

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What is this Berserker Day you speak of? newhere

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Not sure if others ITB have chipped in as I did not look at the first page. Walked and worked in vineyards all day, drinking a Manhattan and one more click and scroll seemed beyond me.

First off, we went 15 years without a wine club. Lots of reasons but really boiled down to how PG and I wanted to sell wine especially in relation to how we like to buy wine ourselves. Eventually it simply became unsustainable. We had greater demand for certain wines than we had supply and long time buyers that wanted to ensure their continued purchases. So, we came up with a club that still fit our ideology while meeting the needs of our sales and customers.

We offer 3 wines 2x/year. They are the wines that have historically proven to be the high demand wines. However, people can sub out those for other wines if they would like. We have lots of wines to choose from! The club wines are in quantities that fit our mailing list. We have a waiting list that is notified of club wines that come available if people opt out of the club wines in enough quantity.

Being in the club also gives access to low production wines that we think are amazing, free tastings, no appointments necessary, club party and so on.

It takes a commitment to all this that is a lot. Personnel, software, time, facilities and so on. You have to hire people that know what they’re doing, buy software that allows this to function smoothly, be shipping compliant, have a methodology of shipping that works and the list goes on. It is not something you can do on a whim.

58

Thank you Jim.

I’m right in the middle of getting many of the state permits required for DTC shipments. It’s mind-bogglingly complex, as you know (if ever there was something that should be governed federally, wine shipment is one of them). Complete nightmare. And some states that are just too onerous or costly, will have to wait (IL, NJ etc). I have a consultant helping me with that.

The e-commerce solutions that offer shipment compliance as part of their service, will often charge up to 10% of sales, plus a monthly subscription fee. This is pretty steep. As painful as it is to do all that paperwork and keep track in each state, I feel the long way around is the better way in the long run.

But just to give people who might not be ITB an idea of how f-ing complex it is to legally ship wine to other states, here is just a rough breakdown of some states (take a good look at NJ, for instance):

AZ – $225.00 per year, expires February 28. Monthly excise tax and sales tax reporting.
CO- $100.00 per year, expires on date that license was issued. Monthly excise tax reporting.
DC- No license required, no reporting required.
FL- No license required but upon first shipment there are monthly shipping reports and excise tax payments required.
GA- $50.00 per year, expires December 31. Monthly excise tax and sales tax reporting. Corporations must register with the Secretary of State – (approximately $225.00 with annual $50.00 renewals) and also must have a physical agent in the state. If you do not have someone in the state to act as agent, then you could use a company like National Registered Agents for approximately $189.00 per year.
HI- (County of Hawaii) $48.00 expires December 31. Monthly excise tax and annual shipping reports.
HI- (County of Honolulu) $180.00 expires December 31. Monthly excise tax and annual shipping reports.
HI-(County of Kauai) $48.00 expires December 31. Monthly excise tax and annual shipping reports.
HI-(County of Maui) $48.00 expires December 31. Monthly excise tax and annual shipping reports.
IL- $350.00 + $1,000.00 bond, license expires on date that license was issued. Corporations must register with the Secretary of State – (approximately $200.00 with annual $100.00 renewals) and also must have a physical agent in the state. If you do not have someone in the state to act as agent, then you could use a company like National Registered Agents for approximately $189.00 per year. Monthly excise tax reporting and quarterly sales tax reporting. (This is another state that requires brand registration with the application so will need to register COLAs.)
NV-$50.00 expires June 30th each year. Monthly excise tax reports and quarterly sales tax reports.
NJ- $938.00 expires on date of issue each year. $5,000.00 bond required. Annual brand registration at $23.00 per label expires November 30 each year. Corporations must register with the Secretary of State – (approximately $250.00 with annual renewals) and also must have a physical agent in the state and establish a Nexus in the state and pay Corporate taxes. If you do not have someone in the state to act as agent, then you could use a company like National Registered Agents for approximately $189.00 per year. Monthly excise tax and quarterly sales tax reporting.
NY-$375.00 (3 year permit) expires on date license was issued. Annual excise tax, semi-annual sales tax.
OH-$125.00 initial fee with $25.00 renewals. Ohio requires two permits, Supplier with expires June 30 each year and the DTC permit that expires October 31 each year. It also requires brand registration at $50.00 per label. Both excise tax and sales tax are annual. (This application will require the brand registration so we will need to wait until approved COLAs for labels.)
OR-$50.00 per year, expires December 31 each year. Quarterly shipping/excise tax.
PA- $250.00 per year, expires December 31 each year. Quarterly excise tax and sales tax.
TX- $526.00 (2 year permit) expires on date license was issued. Quarterly excise tax and sales tax reporting required.
WA- $120.00 per year expires on date license was issued. Monthly excise tax and quarterly sales tax reporting required. (This application will require the brand registration so we will need to wait until you have Approved TTB COLAs for your labels.)

Just to keep it all going annually in all the 45 states you can ship to legally, is about $15-20K. Per year! [crazy2.gif]

59

Great post.

This is a great business, but like any other business, it’s more complicated than it needs to be.

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