Now: Updated Bottle Deposits in British Columbia

You may have heard that starting October 1st deposits for containers over 1L (Magnums) are going from $0.20 to $0.10 in British Columbia. 

WineDirect has taken steps to update our back end system on October 1st to ensure you are charging the correct bottle deposit fee going forward. Since this change will happen automatically, there is no action is needed from you.

>Learn more from Return-It here 

We look forward to continuing to support you and your DTC business.

New: ATS Report for Canadian Wineries

If your winery is in Canada, you can now access a brand new ATS Healthcare report within your reporting tools. This report will save you significant time by seamlessly batch updating your shipping orders to be shipped via ATS Healthcare.

Previously, uploading data for ATS Healthcare required manipulation of the WSN report. This new report requires zero data extraction from the WSN report and also allows you to filter by club and send over one club at a time.

The CSV export from the ATS Healthcare report is specifically formatted for ATS Healthcare to batch update orders for shipping. Navigate to Reports > Shipping > ATS Healthcare to view it. You can read through the full documentation here.

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

Fix: 3 Updates

Over the past few weeks, our team has cleaned up some minor bugs across the platform. These fixes are part of our ongoing commitment to improve our software and give you the best experience as you grow your DTC business.

1. Default Shipping Strategy Fix

We have now fixed a bug affecting default shipping strategies in the new Products section. Previously, if a product was set to use a default shipping strategy and then you updated the default, the product no longer continued to use the default.  Instead, the product populated the name of the prior shipping strategy default rather than what was currently set to default.

With this fix you can be assured that your default shipping strategy will dynamically update across all products, if they are set to use a default shipping strategy.

2. Alphabetical Product Listings

We have now implemented alphabetical Product listing filters. This should speed up your workflows and help you complete tasks quicker.

3. Contact Status Updates

We have updated the way that Contact Status is populated. Previously, with dated holds & cancellations the Contact Status wouldn't dynamically update after that future date passed. With this fix, we have retroactively fixed all incorrect Contact Status fields and it will be updated going forward as a sync will happen every night to ensure this field is up-to-date and accurate.

Stay tuned for more fixes and keep the ideas coming in the Ideas Forum!

Now: Updated POS App 4.0.8

You can now download the latest version of our Point of Sale (POS) app for iPad and iPhone. This release includes important updates for MagTek iDynamo and cDynamo credit card readers (swipers) that improve both payment security and hardware reliability.

Users are already reporting improved success with the first credit card swipe as well as better connectivity between the swiper and their POS device.

This update is part of our ongoing commitment to evolve our POS offering. In fact, we have an entire team of engineers focused solely on this area of our platform. Over the past year alone, we have increased the speed of the POS by 30% even as transaction volumes have continued to climb. We know that, especially right now, every sale counts, and we are committed to delivering fast, accurate and reliable tasting room solutions that enable you to provide a superior customer experience to every guest.

Very soon, our POS offering in the United States will take another important step forward. We are currently Beta testing an EMV device that supports contactless payments with 100 customers, showing very positive results so far. We will send out more information soon, so be on the lookout.

The updated POS app is available for download in the Apple App Store by searching for WineDirect POS. We recommend you uninstall the app from your device and then install the new version 4.0.8. To confirm you have downloaded the latest version, look in the top left of the POS menu panel next to “App Version." Before downloading, please verify that your device meets our minimum system requirements.

As always, thank you for being a WineDirect client. It is our privilege to be your DTC partner. If you have any questions, would like to enable POS or need help updating your devices, please contact support@winedirect.com 

Now: Club Signup Source

As you look for greater understanding of your club members, we now have visibility into your club member's signup origin. With lower tasting room visitation, it’s important to attract club members using other channels. You can now better track where your members are joining your club from, giving you better insights into your marketing efforts.

As new memberships join your wine club, they will be labeled with one of the following:

• Website
• POS
• AdminPanel
• AdminPanelImport
• Webservice
• RMS (for those of you using RMS)
• Other (if none of the above apply)

Please note: the Admin Panel Import field will only be labeled if it’s the first time that club membership is being created in WineDirect. To ensure clean data, imported membership changes (holds or cancellations for example) will not get this label.

With Club Reports, you can now easily see the source of the signup with a new report filter and column called ‘Club Signup Application’ in the following reports:

• Club Member
• Club Signup
• Club Member on X Date

These enhancements will allow you to better track which channels your club members are joining your club from, giving you better insights on where to promote your wine club. Thank you for voting for this in the Ideas forum and keep the great ideas coming!

Fix: POS PINs

If your winery uses PINs on the Point of Sale, you may have noticed some latency when trying to login last week. A small group of you were intermittently unable to login while using PINs.

Our team investigated the cause and have implemented a fix by upgrading our infrastructure. No action is needed on your part and you and your staff can continue to login using PINs as you normally do.

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.

Fix: PayPal Visibility Improvements

We have recently completed work on how WineDirect transactions appear in PayPal, making it easier for you to find important order infoprmation.

You can easily see the WineDirect Order # and WineDirect Order ID within a transaction within PayPal's portal. Save time by searching by Order # and Order ID in Paypal and easily export that information with PayPal's transaction export.

Stay tuned for more updates as we work on other PayPal improvements in the coming months.

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!