Now: Beer and Spirits Update

If your product offering includes beer or spirits, we've got some exciting updates for you. Not only do these updates save you time, they also significantly reduce setup steps while streamlining your product details.

1. Single Page Entry for Product Properties

There is now a combined properties page where you can manage and update all the properties of your product types, including wine, beer and spirits. You no longer need to setup bottle sizes in two different properties sections.

2. Defined Beer Properties

You now have a clearer process to define your Beer Categories, Types and Styles to make product details more uniform:

• Beer Categories is recommended to be used for high level segmentation such as Imported, Craft, Cider, etc.
• Beer Types is recommended to be used for the larger organization of beer such as ale, lager, stout, etc.
• Beer Styles is recommended to be used for a more granular categorization of beer such as Double IPA, Red, Dry-hopped, etc.

3. Retired Fields

We have retired Beer Style 2, Beer Style 3 and Beer Style 4 due to low usage. We recommend you update all your beer products to use the above 'Beer Properites' schema.

4. Country Selection

Beer and Spirit Country are now a pre-filled drop down with a standardized list of countries that you can choose from, rather than having to manually type out each country. If you update a previous selection that was non-standard, it will ask you to update your selection to a standardized one.

New: Parcel Send Report for Australia

If your winery is in Australia, you may have heard that Australia Post's Parcel Send is replacing eParcel starting in August. Good news - WineDirect has now completed work on a new Parcel Send Report within our Reporting tools, allowing you to continue shipping packages seamlessly. 

The CSV export from the Parcel Send Report is specifically formatted for Parcel Send (Australia Post) and automatically adds all addresses within an order. Navigate to Reports>Shipping>Parcel Send to view the new report.

Previously you would ‘export’ a report of orders from Settings>Import/Export>eParcel Orders and then upload to eParcel to print shipping labels. You should now switch to using the Parcel Send report as we will be deprecating the eParcel export soon.

We recommend you get your Parcel Send account setup, if you haven't already and begin using the new Parcel Send report. You can find updated step-by-step documentation here.

New: Text Editor

You can now take advantage of our new WYSIWIG (What You See Is What You Get) text editor within the new look and feel of our Products section. You'll notice a modern editor, making it easier and faster for you to update product information - complete with spellcheck.

This upgrade also allows us to easily add in new features and plugins in the future. While some buttons may be in another location or look slightly different, all current functionality remains the same. 

This is the latest example of our ongoing commitment to improving our tools - stay tuned for more exciting options within the editor soon!

New: Automated Club Decline and Hold Emails

You can now leverage two new automated club emails that inform your members of important hold and decline information at the exact moment they need it, while streamlining your club runs at the same time.

1. Credit Card Decline Emails

Quickly contact customers when their card declines during club processing with an automatic card update notification email.

• Easily turn this on for your clubs by going to Admin > Settings > Website Settings > Store > Orders and select "Send Initial Club Decline Email"
• Customize your "ClubDecline" system email by going to Contacts > Email Documents
• Automatically sends to the customer on the first decline only

> Read the full documentation here

2. Club Hold Emails

With the potential of increased club holds, communicating important information like your winery hold policy as well as hold start and end date with an automatic email.

• Under club hold date, you now have the option to check "Send Hold Confirmation Email"
• Customize your "ClubHold" system email by going to Contacts > Email Documents
• Choose from 3 new auto populating tags allowing for easy email customization

> Read the full documentation here

We think you're going to love the ease of these automatic emails. But don't take it from us, here's what two of our Beta testers have to say:

"Club credit card decline emails helped us out tremendously during our last club pickup quarter in May. We’ve never had more customers signing in and taking charge of their own account information. It really cut down on the amount of phone calls we had to make to encourage card updates." - Scott Knauer, Enchantment Vineyards

"We are loving the club hold confirmations. It’s really nice to have an additional confirmation record for both us and the members." - Hannah Miller, Lange Estate Winery and Vineyards

These new emails are a direct result of your feedback, thank you for suggesting and voting for them in the Ideas Forum! 

New: 4 Checkout Improvements

Starting tomorrow, you’ll see four new checkout improvements designed to significantly reduce the risk of cart abandonment in your online store. We are thrilled to roll out further improvements and build on last months' upgrades, giving your customers a better online shopping experience. 

1. Streamlined login process

Streamlined login functionality is designed to help you reduce cart abandonment by up to 20%. Customers have one less click as they now progress directly to the checkout page where their information will auto populate when they log in.

2. Shipping savings displayed clearly

Shipping discounts now clearly appear on the checkout page so customers can easily see their savings, further reducing the risk of cart abandonment.

3. Improved shipping promo alert

When a shopper enters a shipping promo code before entering their shipping address, they will now see a custom alert message prompting them to enter their shipping information first. This is much clearer than the previous generic error message saying that their order was not eligible for the discount.

4. Additional call to action buttons

We've added incremental ‘Checkout’ and ‘Place Order’ buttons to the cart and checkout pages to further encourage customers to complete their purchase and reduce cart abandonment.

Please note: You must be using our current checkout tools to take advantage of these upgrades. Learn how to update to the current Checkout and why you should upgrade.

New: Easier Access to Customers Mobile Number Data

It is now easier for you to add and access your customers mobile phone data. These improvements save you time during call campaigns or bulk imports while using both List Builder and the Customer Importer.

Since the Contacts section within the Admin Panel allows for two contact numbers, we have added the new 'SMS Number' column to both the sample file for Cusomer Importer, plus the exported .csv from List Builder.

1. Import with Customer Importer

Navigate to Settings > Import/Export > Customer Importer > Click 'Download Sample File' and you will now see a column for 'SMS Number' where you can bulk import customers mobile numbers.

2. Export with List Builder

You can now export customer lists for telemarketing campaigns with complete telephone information. Previously, only the 'Main Phone' field was exported, but most customers sign up using their mobile number. With these changes you can export bulk mobile phone numbers rather then having to access each contact individually.

Navigate to Contacts > List Builder > add a list ‘All Contacts’ > have no filters selected > generate list (this will have all your contacts) and you will see a column for "SMS Number'.

Many of you wanted a way to export a customers primary phone number and then re-import it also as their mobile number. Since most primary phone numbers today are also mobile numbers, this will give you greater reach when sending out a SMS blast to your customer base. Thank you for suggesting and voting for these improvements in the Ideas Forum!

 

New: 3 Checkout Improvements

Starting today you’ll see three checkout improvements, making it easier and faster for customers to checkout on your website. The new features are a direct result of your feedback, thank you for suggesting and voting for them in the Ideas Forum! 

1. Smart Keyboards

Your customers can now complete forms faster than ever before while checking out on a mobile device. We have improved the ability to fill out necessary checkout information, specifically:

• Email keyboard for email field
• Numeric keyboard for phone number

2. Autocomplete Fields

Address and payment fields will now autocomplete when your customer has saved their information in their browser. This update also ensures that username & password fields are auto-filling on all devices.

3. Improved Button Prompts

New button labels give your customers a clear understanding of the next steps across checkout, sign-up, User Choice Club and forgot password functionalities. Specifically, we have implemented best practices across the following buttons:

• Checkout ‘Continue’ buttons
• Account Signup
• User Choice Club Signup 
• Forgot Password

Stay tuned for some more exciting checkout improvements in the coming weeks.

Now: User Choice Club % Discount Allows Product Exclusions

When using our updated User Choice Club tools, you can now exclude certain products from the percentage discount. This additional functionality gives you the option to set products within your Club season at the full retail price. This can be done in a couple of ways:

1. Within Product SKUs

Select a product and navigate to 'SKUs and Pricing', from here you can select 'Promos' under Exemptions to exclude the discount within your club season.

If you're using the older interface, select a product and check off “No Promos Applicable on Products”.  This can be found in the Manage SKUs section of the product, within the Advanced section. 

2. Within the Promotion

Within the promotion being used, adding SKUs to the Excluded Products section will prevent them from having the discount applied.

Once you add those excluded products, the season will not show an applied discount both when setting up the season and, of course, to the end consumer. 

Remember that promotions should only be used for a couple of reasons within User Choice Club seasons. Unlike in your winery ecommerce stores, promotions should only be used to identify the % discount to apply to all the SKUs within the season, and to exclude products as per today’s new functionality. Please reference the User Choice Documentation for additional insight on using the feature. 

New: Upgraded Support Tools

Your new and improved support experience is now here! Starting today, you can access the new tools by clicking the Support tab in your WineDirect Admin Panel, featuring:

• Streamlined user experience 
• Easy-to-use ticket and case management tools
• Centralized hub for all support interactions

Of course, you can still connect with us as usual by emailing support@winedirect.com or calling 800-819-0325 in North America or 1800 312 884 in Australia.

This is part of our ongoing commitment to provide you with best-in-class tools and service. Our team has been hard at work for the past year building out this improved experience and we are thrilled to be able to share it with you.

We anticipate a seamless transition, and encourage you to check out our new documentation so you can familiarize yourself with the new tools. We look forward to continue to support you and your DTC business.

New: User Choice Club Improvements

With wine club season upon us, we're thrilled to announce that User Choice Clubs just got better. Based on your feedback, we've improved the club member experience and simplified the backend club setup, making it easier than ever for you to deliver a high quality experience to your most loyal customers.

Updates include:

• More visually appealing & intuitive club member experience
• Member savings displayed clearly up front
• Club products now linked to an underlying SKU
• Ability to set a default discount across all wines in the shipment
• New “sold out” check box 

 

We think you're going to love the new experience. But don't take it from us, here's what one of our Beta testers has to say:

"WineDirect's new User Choice features offer a significant step forward in user experience. With the new Club Choice interface, our members can visually select their favorite bottles and see their member discounts automatically. On the backend, new tools helped us save hours worth of setup and practically eliminated user error. We're stoked!" - Ed Feuchuk, Farm Collective

You can start using this new functionality now by navigating to Settings > Website Settings>Store > General and clicking Has User Choice with SKUs. Please note you must be a Domain Admin to enable this setting. For full details, please check out our documentation.

We are actively looking for feedback on these improvements, and we'd love to hear from you! Please email consumerteam@winedirect.com with your comments.