Now: Free Training Videos On Demand

In this training series, we explored WineDirect's top features to drive holiday sales success. An exclusive benefit for clients on our new DTC Pricing Plans, we are making these trainings available to all clients for a limited time to help you make the most of the holiday sales season. Our new plans easily scale as your DTC business grows, and adapt as sales fluctuate throughout the year. Click here to learn more about the plans and their benefits.

You can now watch these training sessions on demand as you start to execute your holiday campaigns:

Watch Week 1: Intro to Top 5 Must Use WineDirect tools

Watch Week 2: New Wine Club Options 

Watch Week 3: List Builder & Customer Segmentation

Watch Week 4: Carrots and One Click Offers

Watch Week 5: Promotions

Watch Week 6: Point of Sale

We hope you enjoy the step-by-step instruction and are inspired to create something new this holiday season to delight your customers. If you are interested in a customized training for your winery, you can reach out to training@winedirect.com. Happy viewing!

New: WineDirect Point-of-Sale App Now Compatible With iOS 14

November 10, 2020:

We're thrilled to announce that after rigorous testing, WineDirect's Point-of-Sale App is fully compatible with iOS 14. Feel free to go ahead and update your tasting room devices.

If you have Automatic App Updates enabled, the newest version of the WineDirect POS app (4.0.9) will auto-update. Otherwise you will need to click 'Update' in the Apple App Store.

To ensure a smooth transition, please double check your specific device compatibility by reviewing Apple's compatibility pages iOS 14 for iPhones/iPods and iPadOS 14 for iPads to confirm your specific devices are compatible with iOS 14 before you install.

As always, double check printers and any other network devices after you complete the update to be sure they are functioning correctly. >Read iOS 14 compatibility notes on the Documentation Site

If you aren't ready to update to iOS 14, you are welcome to continute to use the previous version of the app.

September 16, 2020:

Apple has unexpectedly released iOS 14 today. We are currently testing our POS app with iOS 14 and working towards compatibility. We strongly recommend against updating to iOS 14 on your devices until we have completed testing and verified that the WineDirect POS app is compatible. Stay tuned for more updates soon!

Now: Club Cancellation and On Hold Source

As you look for greater understanding of your wine club tenure, you now have visibility into your club members on hold or cancel origin. This update allows you to easily track what channels are being utilized when memberships are going on hold or cancelling.

As current club member pause or cancel their membership, 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)

These labels are now available as new report filters and columns called ‘Club Hold Application’ and ‘Club Cancel Application' in the following reports:

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

As we head into 2021, this visibility will hold greater value as we introduce online Hold and Cancel functionally for club members. Stay tuned for more exciting club updates in the new year.

 

 

New: EMV Terminals Now Available in the US

Today we're thrilled that US wineries can begin taking advantage of EMV chip readers! The wait is over for the Ingenico Move/5000 backed by Ingenico, a leading global provider of secure transactions and electronic payment solutions, and supported by the WineDirect Payments team you already know.

Key Benefits:

• Supports multiple payment types including EMV chip cards, NFC/contactless cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay
• Enables contactless customer payment options while increasing security 
• Connects to your Point of Sale wirelessly via Wi-Fi
• Designed for mobility to enable curbside pickup and touchless tableside service all day with a long battery life 

Eligibility Requirements:

• Participants must be current customers of WineDirect Payments and be based in the US
• If you are NOT already using WineDirect Payments for payment processing, we recommend starting the sign-up process today so that you will be eligible to obtain the solution and purchase hardware.
• Participants must purchase terminals from WineDirect Payments to insure they have the correct encryption. 

We encourage you to visit the WineDirect Payments store and order your terminals now. Inventory is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

visit store

We think you'll love the new solution in your tasting room, but don't take it from us: "The EMV is a great tool and easy to use. Guests love the ability to use touchless payment." - James DiMartino, Groth Vineyards

If you have any questions in the meantime, please read through the full documentation and then contact our team at support@winedirectpayments.com with any questions.

You can also watch our recent training webinar to learn more about features, benefits and how to set it up.

Stay tuned as we continue to upgrade our tools to provide best-in-class tools for you to grow your DTC business. As always, we thank you for your continued partnership and trust in WineDirect.

New: Add Tipping Functionality to Your Shopping Cart

It's no secret that due to many tasting rooms being closed or operating at a limited capacity, you and your staff may be missing out on your usual tips. Today, we're sharing a way to offer tipping options in your shopping cart.

One of our newer customers, Packmule Beverages, proposed a way to make up those tips by presenting them as an add-on while someone is completing their online order. Their customers were asking how to support them, and in this example, they can choose  to add a tip to their order to support their favorite local business during this time.

Using WineDirect's One-Click Offer functionality, this video will take you through the set up steps so that your winery can implement online tips as we look towards the holiday season.

Additional Resouces:

New: California's Automatic Purchase Renewal Law

You now have access to new tools that will ensure your winery’s compliance with California's Automatic Purchase Renewal Law. This is a new requirement that our team has studied closely, and we have worked to make sure your winery is fully compliant. This updated club functionality ensures new club members with a California billing address acknowledge specific terms and conditions, as required by law for California wine club memberships.    

Key Benefits:

1. Fully customizable terms & conditions language within the General Information section for each of your clubs.

2. New club members with a California address now see a checkbox when they sign up, clearly stating that they accept terms prior to becoming a club member.

3. The California Auto Renewal Terms section clearly shows acceptance date, device IP address used, and the accepted language at the time of signup for each membership, giving your winery transparency. You can also leverage a new club signup email tag //AcceptedClubTerms// that displays the member’s accepted terms, giving you further traceability.   

4. Filterable club reports help you manage which members have or have not accepted terms, including a new added column that displays the acceptance date.

To activate this feature, navigate to Settings>Website Settings>Store>General and click on the setting called California Auto Renew Terms.

IMPORTANT: In order for your soon-to-be members to view and acknowledge the terms and conditions, you must enter text into the new fields provided within each club. You must also be using the current checkout tools. >Learn how to upgrade from legacy checkout here.

For full documentation, including setup steps, click here.

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.

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!

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.