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 February 2022

The All-New WineDirect is moving full speed ahead! We chatted with Jim Agger, SVP eCommerce, to get a quick update on the newest developments with the All-New WineDirect platform. We go through what we have been working on recently, such as account features, product page management, and more. We also touch on what's coming up shortly, like tier-one partnerships and supporting the automated migration of wineries over to the new system.

 

Watch the video below to learn about the most recent developments in this exciting project.

 

February Update: All-New WineDirect from WineDirect on Vimeo.

 

For the latest and greatest from the All-New WineDirect, check out the new landing page and sign up for email updates!

Fix: Duplicated SKUs in Product Bundle

Recently, Product Bundles produced some unexpected workflows while adding SKUs to the bundle. These were intermittent and caused some SKUs duplications when the user repeatedly pressed the 'save changes' button. 

To mitigate this in the future, our team has added additional safeguards to prevent this from happening from now on. It would be best to double-check your Product Bundles to ensure the SKUs listed are not duplicated. If you discover a duplicated SKU, simply delete the duplicate and re-save.

Thank you for your patience as our team worked diligently for a quick fix.

Should you experience a situation similar to the above in the future, please email support@winedirect.com, and our team will be happy to help you troubleshoot. Thank you.

Update: Log4j

You may have heard about a recent security flaw affecting Log4j. WineDirect has been actively investigating the WineDirect platform for any potential logging vulnerability from Log4j, a common logging library used in many software applications.

After preforming a thorough review of all systems that may have been affected, we have concluded that no internal or external customer data has been impacted.

Please feel free to reach out to us at security@winedirect.com if you have any questions or concerns.

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!

Now: Action Needed for Orders Destined for Alabama

You may have heard that as of August 1st, the state of Alabama permits direct-to-consumer wine shipments. If your winery uses ShipCompliant for compliance, you may notice orders destined for Alabama are no longer quarantined.

With these updates, you may need to update your State Profile and Shipping Strategy within your Admin Panel in WineDirect so that Alabama is a valid location. You can contact support for additional assistance, if needed, by emailing support@winedirect.com

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. 

Fix: Text Messages, Automated Emails and Checkout Options

Over the past couple of weeks, some unexpected workflows were occurring with text messages, automated emails, and checkout design. These were intermittent and caused some text message campaigns to send to consumers multiple times, a few automated emails failing to fire and the inability for a handful of clients to update their header and footer within the current checkout tools.

Our team investigated and updated credentials with our authentication and authorization platform, Auth0. You can now continue to run text message campaigns, queue up action emails and know your transactional emails will hit your consumer as expected. You can also update your checkout design using the latest checkout tools.

Thanks for reporting these instances so our team could quickly identify and implement a fix. We look forward to supporting you in connecting with your consumers during OND and beyond.

Now: Invalid Certificate Message

Last week, we received a few reports from wineries that their consumers got a 'not secure' message while shopping on their winery's website. WineDirect did a thorough investigation with our primary certification provider - ‘Let’s Encrypt’ to identify the reason behind the invalid SSL certificate.

The investigation determined that the websites reported were, in fact, secure. We are now aware that consumers using older computers with outdated browsers are sometimes served this message because the older browsers do not support the latest security standards allowing verification of a secure website.

This message is not being mandated by WineDirect, but by our SSL certificate issuer - which you can learn more about here. The requirement for minimum OS versions are part of better serving the internet community with higher security standards. If a consumer tells you they are getting this message, simply ask them to update their browser using these steps.

WineDirect remains laser-focused on security and providing the most secure online shopping experience for you and your consumers - especially during the busy holiday shopping season.