Napa, CA, January 3, 2018 – The trade show at the 2018 Direct to Consumer Wine Symposium sold out early last month, and participating sponsors have an array of new products and services to unveil at the 11th annual summit, January 17-18, 2018, at the Hilton Concord Hotel in Concord, California. For more details and to register for the 2018 DTC Wine Symposium, visit http://dtcwinesymposium.com/register.
Below is a preview of what several sponsors plan to unveil at the show.
Sovos to Release Seventh Annual Direct-to-Consumer Wine Shipping Report
Sovos is partnering with Wines & Vines to produce the seventh annual Direct-to-Consumer Wine Shipping Report. The report provides unparalleled data-driven insights based on a Wines & Vines’ analytics algorithm drawn from its database of U.S. wineries. The algorithm extracts all direct-to-consumer shipments from millions of anonymous transactions filtered through the ShipCompliant by Sovos platform in 2017. Visit dtcreport.com to learn more and sign up to be among the first to gain access to this year’s report, which will debut February 2018. Larry Cormier, General Manager, will preview 2017 data during his keynote address on January 17.
BLoyal Announces Version 4 of its DTC Marketing Platform
BLoyal recently announced Version 4 of its direct-to-consumer marketing platform. The move, led by a migration to Azure cloud hosting, means that wineries using bLoyal can count on Microsoft’s reputation for reliability, scalability, and security to run their businesses. New functionality includes a completely rebuilt order processing engine, new eCommerce integrations like WooCommerce and Shopify, as well as other add-ons, like plugins for Mailchimp and Microsoft’s Power BI tool. Learn how bLoyal is leading the way in omni-channel direct-to-consumer marketing at bloyal.com.
Food & Wine Trails Partners with Oceania Cruises
Food & Wine Trails has partnered with Oceania Cruises to provide wineries a turnkey wine club cruise to world-class wine destinations, featuring wine-education seminars, library tastings, winemaker’s dinner and optional shore tours exclusive to the wine club. These wine-enhanced programs aboard Oceania Cruises—heralded as the finest culinary experience at sea—create a “super event” for wine clubs that increase DTC sales, retain and acquire wine club members, support your brand and generate revenue.
The Wine Check® Launches Elite™ to the DTC Industry
The Wine Check Elite—a high-quality, multi-functional wine luggage—is now available to winery clients for resale. Wineries can now purchase the Wine Check Elite for their sales reps, club customers and tasting room guests. The 1680-Denier Ballistic Nylon exterior assures the ultimate in durability and high quality appearance. It can hold 12 bottles when carrying around town or it can hold a 6-bottle shipper box to check on the airplane. Co-branding is available for wineries that want to advertise their brand throughout the world. Low wholesale minimums and pricing maximize profitability.
GSO
This popular West Coast regional carrier has developed specialized point-of-delivery procedures to ensure that each delivery is carefully executed to maintain the highest level of integrity for its customers and their shipments. The company looks forward to sharing with vintners, growers, and other industry professionals the benefits of shipping with GSO including:
- 1-2 day delivery throughout the West Coast, with recent expansion into Oregon, Washington, and Idaho
- Specialized Direct to Trade and Direct to Consumer Programs with Specific Wine Delivery Procedures
- Competitive Pricing and Automatic 100-weight discount program for wine shipments
- Six days of delivery service and fewer fees
- Quick access to shipment status with email, text notifications, and ETAs
Stop by the GSO Trade Show booth to learn more about shipping wine with GSO. Download best practices for packaging your DTC wine shipments.
Amcor Launches 750ml Plastic Wine Packaging
Amcor is a plastic packaging company that has worked with the wine industry for 10 years. Seventy-five percent of the plastic 187ml bottles in the marketplace use Amcor bottles includes brands like Sutter Home and Barefoot. Now, Amcor has launched into the 750ml table wine space. It created a new bottle design with Naked Winery and their Outdoor Vino brand to better address the growing consumer trend of drinking wine outdoors, as well as to help reduce costs for DTC shipping. Plastic wine bottles are becoming increasingly popular and save wineries a significant amount of money in shipping since they are one-eighth the weight of glass. Plastic bottles also allow consumers to enjoy wines in places that glass is not allowed and allows additional usage occasions and sales for wineries.
Newtimer Marketing
Newtimer Marketing’s latest web marketing project was completed for Nuclear Wine Co., a premium canned wine brand looking to increase brand equity and direct-to-consumer sales. The company conducted a full e-commerce website design project, with ongoing search engine optimization and complementary web marketing services. Six weeks following the website relaunch, the aggregated results showed +121% increase in e-commerce wine sales, +55% increase in sales conversion rate, +102% increase in new visits from Google searches, and +90% increase in overall website engagement (form submissions, phone calls, and emails).
About the Direct to Consumer Wine Symposium
The DTC Wine Symposium is presented by and a fundraiser for Free the Grapes! The event has raised more than $1 million for Free the Grapes’ PR campaign, and the Coalition for Free Trade’s legal work (CFT “retired” in 2014 after achieving its goals). These two groups have worked closely with industry representatives and regional associations to streamline onerous regulations and to increase the number of legal states from 17 to 44, which represent nearly 94% of the US population. The DTC Wine Symposium is the primary fundraiser for Free the Grapes! and provides funding to continue its role streamlining regulations, opening new states and defending existing statutes which support legal, regulated DTC wine shipments.
