Current laws allow wines to be shipped direct-to-trade IF a distributor is involved in the transaction. The distributor is responsible to pay the taxes, and…well, thats it. A virtual inventory portfolio is – all of the wines, that a distributor represents, in the direct-to-trade markets.
Supplier’s take their inventory, and place it in a fulfillment/distribution warehouse, where it is kept on consignment basis. (technically, this could be the distributor’s warehouse) The supplier is responsible for shipping it to the warehouse, and is responsible for all the costs of warehousing the wine. When a trade order is placed for the wine, it ships directly from this fullfillment center to the restaurant/specialty shop/retailer. Once the wine is delivered, the monies to cover the taxes are then transferred to you, the distributor, along with a ‘virtual portfolio handling fee of $3-$5 / case. Read the rest of this entry »
SEO (Search Engine Optimization), optimize your website’s content and links to gain higher results in search engines.
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) , we’ll manage your paid search, and other search marketing services to bring you the most traffic for your marketing $1. We have a proficient knowledge of AdWords, AdSense, Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN adCenter.
SMO (Social Media Optimization), optimize your content for Facebook, Flickr, You Tube, Ning, My Space, Wikipedia, ZoomInfo, iTunes.
Social Bookmarking (Viral), our proven reputable accounts can guarantee front page results on Digg, Reddit, Netscape, Furl, Ma.gnol.ia, Spurl, De.licio.us, Yahoo MyWeb (learn more -> here)
Email & Newsletter Management, we’ll manage your email and newsletters through iContact. Copywriting is available. (learn more -> here)
Affiliate Marketing, increase your number of affiliates and manage your account through Link Share (learn more -> here)
Event Promotion, send us some of your products and we will feature them at the tasting parties we throw, pics
WEB DEVELOPMENT
Websites, Proficiency in the LAMP stack is essential in creating a robust platform for your company’s product or service. We have a great team and network of graphic designers, user interface experts, and coders that will work together harmoniously to create a dynamic, beautiful web property for you. Also, if you want something a littler simpler, we can create a customized CMS system for you with Wordpress or Drupal.
Specialties: LAMP, HTML, CSS, Flash, AJAX, Wordpress, Drupal
Applications, If you’re not looking to make a big investment in your own website, and/or understand the great viral marketability and potential of leveraging an existing platform’s userbase, an application may be the way to go. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, the iPhone, you name it, we have incredible in house technologists that will create a lightweight, aesthetic, viral application for you.
Specialties: Objective C, FBML, Java
PRODUCT SALES CONSULTATION
Direct Sales, We are big believers in logistical optimization, and many times a product goes out of its way to get from the supplier to the retailer to the end point consumer. Sometimes this is due to legal reasons in the case of the wine
industry, but we believe no matter what, it’s the direct approach that will win out because in the end it makes everyone more money. (learn more ->
here)
Distribution, Our partnership with top wholesalers allows us to get your products through the traditional 3-tier system and into big trade outlets. This provides a powerfully balanced way to build sales. Direct sales is important, but a lot of times the organic growth cannot justify overhead expenditure and you must have complementary distribution strategies.
Importation, If your product is abroad, we have a dynamic sister importer, World Imports, that will navigate the legal, compliance, and freight complexities of getting it stateside. See here for more information on our wine importation (learn more -> here)
For more information and a FREE quote, please fill out this form:
We recently started a series on getting your online sales vehicle rolling. Today, we are going under the hood to talk about the e-commerce engine used to power your shopping cart. At Grape Thinking, we have an established relationship with Inertia Beverage Group, as Paul, Andrea, and crew, in our humble opinions, have the best grasp and influence on the changes in the industry and are truly “Powering the Wine Revolution”. As such, they rank as our recommended engine.
So, what does this sales engine do exactly? As a winery, it has the vital role of coordinating the sales request between your customer and their bank, your fulfillment center and your bank.
A good engine should: Read the rest of this entry »
If you own a website or a blog, it’s a hard feeling to beat when you receive your affiliate payments. Of course, it is always important that you set-up affiliate networks with products/services/companies that you trust and ideally use yourself. One of the easiest ways to do this is through a service such as LinkShare. LinkShare allows you to choose who you will be advertising for, as they have a huge selection of merchants. Once you sign up, which is a very easy process, you can do a search “google style” or browse through their selection of merchants by category or product. You are then forwarded to a page to accept the terms and agreements for that particular merchant, and review their referral fees. Afterwards, you can then review the many options that you have for banner ads and links.
Now… here comes the fun part. Getting YOUR link out, and turning that funny looking bit of text into revenue to use for dinner and a movie. Here are some things that can help:
- Write a blog post, incorporating your new affiliate link
- Place the banner ads in rotation on your site
- Seek out people who need your product (forums and other blogs)
- Run a viral campaign based around one of your affiliates (We can help here!!)
- Don’t forget to include links in your newsletters
- Create an additional page on your site listing all of your affiliates, and why you chose them
Most importantly, remember that when you send people to someone else’s website you are laying out your reputation. Don’t be an affiliate just for the money, make sure you would actually use the product or service. Check out our some examples by doing a search at TasteVine.
If your trying to sell your wine online, check out this post on “Building a Direct Sales Vehicle“
If you have a product or a service that you offer, chances are you want to use every method possible to spread the word. You have many options to broaden your client/customer base, including one of the most popular, and a service we offer – viral marketing. Affiliate Networking is a type of viral marketing, it serves as great linkbait for viral campaigning, and even better, it acts as an entire sales team motivated and working to build your business. The affiliate broadcasts your product to their entire audience, and you have no ongoing marketing costs unless there is a sale.
Using an affiliate system is a very simple piece of the marketing puzzle… all you need is a website and something to sell.
Here is an overview of the process:
Read the rest of this entry »
