How to Start an Online Wine Business?

Entrepreneurs are constantly exploring new e-commerce trends and business opportunities. They look for a business idea that has both uniqueness and a capability to sustain for a longer period of time. Recently, e-commerce business models such as food ordering, grocery store, the rental marketplace, etc have made a solid impact on the online economy. But, at the same time, a large amount of inflow in these business sectors have led to overcrowdedness. Therefore, an entrepreneur who has created his mindset to invest in the e-commerce business needs to find an out of the box business idea or an investment area.

One such idea that has potential and future growth is the online wine business. In 2017, the online wine and beer business increased up to 32.7 %. More than 65% selling of online alcohol occurred in 25 months of the period from Jan1, 2016 to Jan 31, 2018.

 

Following are the Top Players of Online Wine industry:

Wine

Wine.com is considered as the nation’s largest wine retailer and is regarded by many experts as one of the best places to order Wine online.

Wine-Searcher

There are numerous resources out there to help connect you with wine retailers all over the world, but Wine Searcher (www.wine-searcher.com) is by far the most user-friendly and comprehensive of the group.

You can search for by region, style, grape, or year, but where Wine Searcher shines is in the ability to create hyper-specific searches, like trying to find 1982 Chateau Haut-Brion for example.  While that gem generally sells for over $500 per bottle, the site works equally well in scouring the internet for retailers of small production domestic wines that don’t have the same brand recognition or broad distribution that producers of Grand Cru Bordeaux enjoy.

While Wine Searcher can’t guarantee that the wine you want is available from any specific retailer (it relies on the shop’s online inventory), it’s a great place to start if you know exactly what you want, but your usual retailer doesn’t carry it

Wine

Winc is a hybrid wine club and online wine store. If you are someone who appreciates simplicity, Winc is the perfect place to buy wine online.

Wine Access

Wine Access is the perfect place to buy wine online if you want a curated wine list to choose from. The folks behind Wine Access hold advanced degrees in wine appreciation. More importantly, they have tasted thousands of wines over the years. You are getting the advantage of their trained palates when you buy from their online wine store.

The world’s most inspired wines are made in limited quantities. Finding a place to buy these wines online is the hard part. That’s where Wine Access comes in.

Drizly

Drizzly is an aggregator. They have access to the inventory of local beer, wine and liquor retailers in major cities. This allows them to offer faster delivery than many online wine stores. Some popular brands (or at least brands with large distribution deals) are available for same day delivery. This is a nice option when you want the convenience of home delivery, but don’t want to wait a few days for your online wine purchase.

Important Factors Regarding the Online Wine Industry which an Entrepreneur can’t Ignore

1. Stock

Most of the time people cannot find their favorite wine both online and offline. So, try to add every popular brand in your stock. It gives a different reputation to your wine e-commerce business and also helps you to increase your sales.

2. Check the competition

The best way to survive in any industry is to keep a check on what your competitors are doing and how to perform better than them or counter their business moves. Examine their websites, marketing/selling strategies, and other important aspects of the business.  

After analyzing their strong points and loopholes, design your strategies and plans.

3. Promotion

Submit your products to wine-search.com and Winezap as these are popular websites and will help you to get quality traffic. You can launch various promotional cards or offers/deals to attract a large number of customers.

Must have Featured in the Wine Website

• Payment Options

Try to gain the trust of the customer by adding more secure payment options with which people are more familiar, like Amazon Pay, Paypal, Citrus. Accept all types of debit as well as credit cards. It also provides net banking and other bank transfer facilities.

• Choose the right shipping partner

Shipping wine across the globe is a tricky job, so choose a trustworthy partner like FedEx and UPS to get the job done in an efficient way.

Laws Of Shipping Wine

Alcohol laws are very strict across the globe. It varies from country to country, state to state and even city to city. Also, as shipping laws change from time-to-time, update yourself regularly with it.

All you need to know about Shipping Partners

US Postal Service is totally expelled from shipping alcohol. Only UPS and FedEx can ship wine, but you have to fulfill some of the basic criteria like:

a) Make an account with them.

b) You have to sign an agreement regarding alcohol shipping.

c) You have to achieve their package requirements.

d) You have to put a label on each and every bottle that contains alcohol.

License for selling wine online

First of all, you have to complete the Alcohol Dealer Registration from Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (from TTB F 5630.5d).

Other licenses are issued by the state (in which you are registered) and the states in which you plan to ship your wine.

System Requirements for Wine E-commerce

-Operating systems

– Linux x86,  x86–64

Web Servers

– Apache 2.2x

– Apache 2.4

Php required

– 5.6 /7.0

Some other requirements

• DOM
• Iconv function enabled
• Zlib with zip support
• GD with free end support
• Mysql server should be 5.6 or newer version.
• Income loader

-safe mode off

-memory load is 32 MB or more.

If you have any suggestions and information Let me know in the comments!

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source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/start-ups/online-wine