New: ATS Shipment Dropdown

If your winery is in Canada, you can now access ATS as a carrier in the shipment dropdown of your orders. This should save you significant time when shipping out wine orders - simply watch the video below to learn more:

>>Watch the demo here.

We are thrilled to roll out further improvements to Canadian wineries as we continue to refine and improve the tools you need. We look forward to continuing to support you and your DTC business.

Partner Spotlight: QuickBooks Online Integration

Exciting News! Our partner, WineGlass Integration Technology Solutions (WGits), is now offering a new online automated accounting solution for WineDirect clients. Save time, money, and stress reconciling your transactional data with this seamless, easy-to-use integration: Quick Books Online.

Key Benefits of QuickBooks Online:

• Significant time savings with the automatic integration
• Reduction of human error by reducing manual entry
• Easy bank reconciliation
• Access anywhere with an internet connection on a tablet or computer (no software required)
• Included top-notch support

• Available for both US & Canada

We had the pleasure to sit down with Dan from WGits to give us an overview of the integration, its main benefits for wineries, and some FAQs. Check out the video below to learn more:

Features Include:

• Customer name mapping
• Oder class mapping
• Easier reconciliation
• Transaction dates
• Shipping charges and more!

Price: $250 set up fee and $99.99 / month (USD)

> Interested in learning more about QuickBooks Online? Contact WGits for a demo.

 

 

Already use QuickBooks or want to learn more about the integrations with WineDirect? Check out our documentation page.

New: Digital Gift Card Batch Processing

Good news! You asked about the ability to batch update digital gift cards and we listened. In the Gift Cards Actions menu of the gift cards page, there is now a new batch feature that can be used to alter any currently existing gift cards in the system.

Here, you can learn how to use this new feature and interact with gift card in your store.

How To Use Batch Gift Card Updater

1. In the Admin Panel, navigate to store > Gift Cards > Batch Update Gift Cards
2. Click Batch Update Gift Cards
3. Select "Download Gift Card Sample File"
4. Open the file in Excel

>>Read the full documentation here.

 

If you have any ideas about what you want to see from the WineDirect platform, please feel free to leave them on the Idea Form. Cheers! 🍷

All-New WineDirect Update

We are well into the discovery stage of this important project – doing the deep research necessary to fully scope the work to ensure that the All-New WineDirect platform will be everything our customers want it to be, and more. 

In addition to crucial research, we have scaled up the team, so we are properly resourced to meet the challenge of building the All-New WineDirect in the coming months. 

I recently met with Jim Agger, SVP Ecommerce to get a quick update on the newest developments with the All-New WineDirect platform. Watch the video below to get the latest. 

Corinna: Can you give us a refresher, what is the All New WineDirect? 

Jim: We are completely rebuilding our platform. All new architecture, all new infrastructure, all new code that will enable the next generation of DTC tools and services for wineries. 

Along the way we will bring best of breed partners together, like BigCommerce who brings world-class CMS, website design tools, shopping cart and third-party ecommerce integrations to the All-New WineDirect platform.   

Over the next few months, you will hear more announcements as we build out our partner ecosystem. 

Corinna: Can you talk about the recent milestones we have hit? 

Jim: Behind the scenes we have been scaling the product and engineering team, which will end up around 50 professionals working on this project. 

We have finalized the architecture, design and started building the foundational components of the All-New WineDirect platform, which has us on track to release our ecommerce-only functionality in mid- 2022. 

It's important to mention that we haven’t stopped working on the existing WD Platform. The past few months we really focused on stability and system performance and you could see that in action during the busiest Cyber Weekend across the WineDirect platform to date.

We have also completed the first phase of a rebuild of our wine club tools, which will be in public beta in January 2022.  This will be the first look at some of the design and automation you will experience in the All-New WineDirect. 

Corinna: One question we get a lot is “what do I need to do now”? How will the switchover happen from our current platform to the All-New WineDirect? 

Part of being The Winery's Champion is supporting you every step of the way. There isn't anything you need to do now. The key is that once it's time, we have a strategic plan in place to onboard folks who meet the technical criteria. We will support you in this endeavour and will support you to make it as simple as possible.

Corinna: What improvements can folks look forward to in the All-New WineDirect platform? 

Jim: One thing that won't change is the all-in-one nature of our system, which never sacrifices the 360 degree view of your customers.  

We will have the best, most flexible wine club and a consumer-focused Point of Sale system that is simple, reliable and elevates the consumer experience. 

With the new platform you can look forward to more marketing automation, better visibility across your entire business, the most flexible and highly converting webstore available, and a roster of integrated partners to help sell in new and exciting ways. 

In short, we are committed to using our experience, scale and unique vantage point in new ways to help our clients succeed by providing software, automation and services to attract, delight, nurture and retain consumers across multiple channels.

We take being the winery’s champion seriously, therefore, we will continue to have the industry’s best onboarding, training and support experience. We understand that you are in the hospitality business, and as such, require a higher level of service that a typical software company provides. Stay tuned as we continue work on this key initiative - we are so excited for what's to come!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2021 Performance

You did it! Your hard work drove sales to new heights for Cyber Weekend 2021. We’re excited to report that, for our clients, a 32% increase in orders across all channels drove revenue up 21% versus Cyber weekend 2020. Thanks to the infrastructure upgrades we've made to support your sales growth, you also experienced a 35% faster response time, even with much higher volume. WineDirect reported no downtime over Cyber Weekend.

2020 was an anomaly year for ecommerce, so we looked to 2019 data to benchmark. Cyber Weekend website sales are still 41% above pre-pandemic numbers, proving that much of the growth you fought so hard for in 2020 has lasted. Tasting rooms sales came back bigger than ever for Cyber Weekend 2021 - with a whopping 35% more tasting room sales than Cyber Weekend 2019. 

The lightning-fast transaction speed and stability you saw this week are the result of continued dedication to improving our architecture. These enhancements are just the beginning of what's in store as we we continue to build the All-New WineDirect platform.

WineDirect is here to support your winery through the remainder of the holiday season and heading into 2022. Congratulations on a hugely successful holiday sales weekend!

WineDirect Point-of-Sale App Now Compatible With iOS 15 and iPadOS 15

We're thrilled to announce that after rigorous testing, WineDirect's Point of Sale App is fully compatible with iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. Feel free to go ahead and update your tasting room devices once you've read through the specifications below.

To ensure a smooth transition, please double check your specific device compatibility by reviewing Apple's compatibility pages iOS 15 for iPhones and iPadOS 15 for iPads to confirm your specific devices are compatible with iOS 15 before you install. Some older models can be incompatible with the latest OS.

Source: Apple

As always, double check printers and any other network devices after you complete the update to be sure they are functioning correctly. >Read iOS 15 compatibility notes on the Documentation Site

If you aren't ready to update to iOS 15, you are welcome to continue using your current iOS or iPadOS.

Interested in learning more about what iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 means for you? Read our blog post here. 

New: The Most Secure Checkout in The Industry

To further protect your winery from fraudulent bot attacks, we've automatically added a new, invisible layer of security known as reCAPTCHA to your V2 website checkout. WineDirect is deeply committed to the highest standards of security while ensuring your conversion rates stay high and this enhanced fraud protection does just that.

Key Benefits: Google’s reCAPTCHA 

This invisible and frictionless version works to detect bots in the background and returns a risk score that tells the WineDirect system if the interaction is suspicious and could indicate a bot user. It scores traffic with its Adaptive Risk Analysis Engine and does not force your consumers to click anything extra. Your checkout experience will look exactly the same to your consumer, and you will be protected from bot attacks. Win-win. >>Read full documentation here.

Implementation details:

The reCAPTCHA feature from Google is automatically deployed on your checkout if you're using the current V2 checkout tools and no action is required by you. If you are currently using legacy checkout tools, learn why you should upgrade and how to implement the current checkout tools.

If you have any questions, please read through the documentation and then reach out to support@winedirect.com with any questions. We hope you enjoy the most secure checkout in the industry as we move into this busy holiday shopping season!

 

Now: Corporate Order Importer Expanded

Good news! You can now take advantage of the expanded Corporate Order Importer extension to 36 SKUs. As some corporate customers expressed interest in having the gift extended to pick between a library of wines that pass the 12 SKUs total previously allowed.

The Corporate Order Importer allows you to create multiple orders, with multiple shipping addresses for one single billing customer. The billing customer who is paying for all the orders will only see one charge for the total amount. This update allows you to add more columns as needed to get the required number of SKUs in the importer (up to 36 SKUs). Simply download the latest sample file for compatibility in 3 easy steps:

1. Navigate to Settings > Import/Export > Corp. Order Importer
2. Click Import Corporate Orders from the left navigation
3. Click Download Sample File to download the spreadsheet needed

>>Read the full documentation here.

This update was a direct result of an idea in the Idea Forum. Thank you for submitting and voting to get current features functionality improved!

All-New WineDirect: FAQs

As we start off September, we want to take a moment to update you on the latest developments with our All-New WineDirect platform.

We are well into the discovery stage of this important project – doing the deep research necessary to fully scope the work to ensure that the All-New WineDirect platform will be everything our customers want it to be, and more.

In addition to research, we are upgrading and scaling up the team so we are properly resourced to meet the challenge of building an All-New WineDirect.

For example, we’ve hired a new VP of Engineering, Dan Mills, who has 15+ years’ experience building teams and has successfully been through several SaaS replatforming projects. We are continuing to add other senior Engineering and Product team members to our existing team who will be fully focused on building the All-New WineDirect. We have also restructured our team to allow the majority to focus 100% on replatforming, while another group takes care of our existing platform.

We’ll provide another update later this year, but in the meantime, here are some FAQs and answers that will provide more information.

1. What is WineDirect building? 

We are building the All-New WineDirect Ecommerce Platform an all-in-one platform with support for Ecommerce, Wine Club, Retail (POS), and omni-channel sales with beautiful store experiences, fast check out, powerful analytics, marketing automation and customization through flexible APIs and third-party apps.

2. What features will be included in the new platform? 

The major core functionality of the WineDirect platform will be included in the All-New Platform.  Rebuilding the platform also provides the opportunity to evaluate what is most impactful for our clients and what is no longer necessary. One thing is guaranteed, while the All-New platform will be familiar, it will be a tremendous upgrade across the board.   

3. Why should I be excited about this change?

There are so many reasons to be excited about the All New WineDirect, including:

• Flexible, website design tools that support exciting features including 1:1 personalization of content, product customer benefits such as pricing.
• A content management system (CMS)  you update and A/B test changes on your own; with no programming knowledge required.
• Intuitive and flexible, WineClub, User Choice Clubs and Subscriptions.
• Fast, customer-focused and reliable POS.
• Dashboards and reporting that provides intelligence into trends, status and health of your DTC business.
• One of a kind omni-channel sales opportunities to help you find and attract new clients.
• Improved and expanded capabilities for Webservices to connect with external systems and third-party applications.

4. What new APIs will be available on the All-New WineDirect and what will happen to existing APIs?

New APIs will support a backwards compatibility with SOAP for existing APIs (so existing APIs will still function) and more robust REST services and GraphQL will also be supported.

5. I want to integrate current WD APIs with third party tools. Should I wait for new APIs or should I spend money to integrate current systems?

This really depends on the specifics of your situation. If you are looking at something that will help to grow your business right now, you may want to pursue it. Because the All-New WineDirect won’t be generally available for at least a year, you may want to act now for time-sensitive integrations that will increase your ROI in the short-term. 

6. Should I wait to redesign my website, or can I do it now? Can I still use WineDirect templates?

If you are in need of a new website immediately, WordPress is a great option as it has a lot of flexibility and will integrate seamlessly with the All-New WineDirect. You can also continue to use the current WineDirect templates and we will transition accordingly when the time comes.

7. How will we transition to the All-New WineDirect Platform?

As of now, we are planning to roll out in 3 phases, built around the major sales channels: 

Phase 1: Ecommerce Only 
Phase 2: Ecommerce + Wine Club 
Phase 3: Ecommerce + Wine Club + POS

When the time comes, WineDirect will ensure that your transition to the new platform is seamless, with all your data and key configuration remaining intact.

There won’t be incremental costs to migrate to the new platform. Winery clients may choose to build a new site using the many tools available, which may require use of an WineDirect certified designer, which will be a separate engagement.

8. What is the timing for Canada and Australia?

The rollout of the All-New WineDirect will be based on what services a winery client is using, not where they are located, so wineries in Canada and Australia will most likely be on the same timeline as their counterparts in the U.S.

9. What should I do to prepare for the transition? 

Nothing! A member of our team will reach out when we are ready to get you started and answer any specific questions you may have.

10. What is expected as an Early Adopter for the All-New WineDirect? 

The Early Adopter Program gives you access to new products and features before they're released. Joining the program is a commitment - we need you to test feature functionality and provide feedback to our team. You’ll play an important role in ensuring the features we roll out will help you and other wineries like you. Signing up to be an Early Adopter does not guarantee access to the Early Adopters group, but we will do our best to involve all interested clients. 

As an All-New WineDirect Early Adopter, you’ll be called on to help test specific sections based on tools you’re already actively using. This project is complex, with a lot of turning wheels, so please be patient while we create a detailed project plan for upcoming features that will be ready to test. We will reach out when your winery meets the criteria – at that time you can choose to participate or not.

11. When is the timeline for me to be an Early Adopter?

Because of the different phases and the complexity of the project, there will be several chances to test and give feedback on the new tools over the next year. We will let you know when your opportunity to test comes closer.

Your timeline for being an Early Adopter participant completely depends on your current feature set. If you are a full-stack WineDirect customer using ecommerce, wine club and POS, your environment is complex. It will take us time to ensure that the All-New WineDirect can match the complexity of your DTC tools. We are creating new business logic and workflows from scratch, and we want to ensure it flows beautifully.

12. Have you stopped development on the current WineDirect platform?

Absolutely not. Although most of our team is laser-focused on planning for the All-New WineDirect and enhanced wine club tools, we also have a dedicated team working exclusively on the current platform. In addition to updating features, we are keeping performance, availability and security top-of-mind. We have proactively upgraded all of our databases to improve performance, became PCI DSS Level 1 compliant,  and increased fraud protection by adding reCAPTCHA Enterprise security heading into the busy holiday shopping season.

13. Still want more information?

Watch this video discussing the latest developments in the All-New WineDirect.

New: Delivering Industry-Leading Data Security

WineDirect achieves PCI DSS Service Provider Level 1 Compliance – Highest Level of Security in the Protection of Credit Card and Cardholder Data. >>Read the Press Release here.

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With the massive growth in ecommerce last year, the number of online credit card transactions skyrocketed. Hand-in-hand with this growth comes increased security risks to credit card data. That's why at WineDirect, we took the necessary steps to ensure we continue to protect you and your customers' data.

At WineDirect, we take security very seriously and are pleased to announce the achievement of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Service Provider Level 1 Compliance. Level 1 demonstrates the most stringent compliance standard for the safe handling of credit cardholder data. The Attestation of Compliance was granted by Certified Auditor 360 Advanced Inc., after a rigorous 8 month audit process. You can rest easy knowing WineDirect has satisfied adherence to the same expectations as platforms such as Shopify and BigCommerce.

I recently sat down with Ken Escueta, Director of Platform Engineering at WineDirect, to have a coffee chat about some of WineDirect's recent security upgrades. You can watch it below:

 

It’s important that we do everything possible to safeguard customer data as a key part of our promise to be The Winery’s Champion. We will continue to diligently review and evolve security policies, practices and infrastructure frequently. Thank you for your continuing partnership!