We're Upgrading Your Support Experience

We are excited to announce enhancements to your support experience at WineDirect! With the new support tools, you can expect a seamless and fast support experience. Your inquiries will be routed directly to the best person available to assist, providing you with quick and accurate solutions.

Key Benefits:

• Streamlined user experience 
• Centralized hub for all support interactions
• Faster resolution time since our team can collaborate seamlessly

The new support tools bring you the convenience of getting help right where you need it - directly within the WineDirect platform. To get started now, simply click on the pink chat bubble in the bottom-right corner of this page. Keep your eyes peeled on the WineDirect Administration Panel, as well, as we will be rolling this feature out to wineries in the coming days.

As part of this upgrade, access to the legacy ticketing system will be discontinued. Archived tickets will remain accessible to clients through March 1st, 2023. Should you wish to back up the details of any support tickets, simply access the legacy support portal from the WineDirect Administration Panel: Click Support>View All Cases>Click on any case 'Detail' button and screenshot the relevant information.

We are confident that this upgrade will bring you a more efficient and satisfying support experience, and we can't wait for you to try it out. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at support@winedirect.com.

New: Point of Sale App Version

Great news! We are publishing a new version of our POS app on the Apple App Store, in anticipation of supporting a new EMV Bluetooth card reader for your tasting room. Please note that the App functionality has not changed outside of adding additional functionality to support the new card reader.

If you are setting up a new terminal in your tasting room, you may notice a few references to this card reader, called VivoPay. You can ignore this if you are not a member of the initial closed beta group, simply uncheck the 'Is New Vivo Pay Terminal' during your setup process if you are setting up a Move 5000 device.

If you have any questions, you can always reach out to support@winedirect.com. Thank you!

New: Colorado Retail Delivery Fee

Recently, the Colorado Department of Revenue introduced a Retail Delivery Fee - which took effect on July 1, 2022. Retailers, including wineries with a physical location in Colorado, or an out-of-state winery that holds a sales or use tax permit (required if your retail sales into Colorado are more than $100k in a calendar year) are required to remit the retail delivery fee. Deliveries include when any taxable goods are mailed, shipped, or otherwise delivered by motor vehicle to a purchaser in Colorado. The retail delivery fee is due at the same time as your sales tax return.  

Below are answers to frequently asked questions: 

1. Does my business need to collect and remit the retail delivery fee? 

If your winery is located in Colorado, or you are an out-of-state winery with a sales or use tax permit in Colorado, then you will need to remit the retail delivery fee. 

To determine if you are above the $100,000 per year threshold, you can: 

• Navigate to Reports 
• Click on Sales Summary by State 
• Set your date range in the top left. We recommend checking calendar year 2021 and then year-to-date for 2022 to see if you are above the threshold 
• Click Manage Filters and set the ship state to Colorado 
• View or export the report 

 

2. How do I find out how many "deliveries" I have made into Colorado for reporting and payment purposes?

If the retail delivery fee applies to your business, you need to remit $0.27 per order shipped.  Based on FAQ no. 15 on the Colorado Department of Revenue Taxation Department website.  

"The retail delivery fee is based on each sale to the customer. If a customer orders a number of items in a “cart”, and purchases all of the items at the same time, only one retail delivery fee is due regardless of how many deliveries are actually needed to complete the sale. Alternatively, if a customer orders a number of items and completes the purchase of each item at different times, the retail delivery fee is due on each sale, even if only one delivery is needed to complete the sale." 

WineDirect supports these reporting requirements - follow these steps for the best way to get the information you need to report and pay (when applicable): 

• Navigate to Reports>Sales>Orders by Ship/Pickup Date 
• Select the appropriate date range for the reporting period you will be paying taxes in 
• Click "Manage Filters" and use the following filters 
• Under "Date Type" select "Submitted Date" 
• Under "Ship States," click "Deselect All" then find and select only "Colorado" (Note that you will need to select "Add Filter" and check the box next to "Ship States" in order to see this filter) 
• Click View and take note of the item count listed at the bottom: ie: "Showing 1 - 50 of 292" would indicate that you have 292 shipping orders destined for Colorado in the given reporting period 
• Multiplying the quantity of orders noted in Step 4 by $0.27 each to determine your tax liability 

3. Do I need to present the Retail Delivery Fee on the invoice? 

The answer is: “not yet.”  CO DOR has stated the following regarding the requirement to present the retail delivery fee on invoices or receipts, based on FAQ no. 6: 

“...the Department currently has no plans to prioritize enforcement of this provision as long as retailers are paying the full amount of the fees due in accordance with their liability under section 43-4-605(6)(c), C.R.S.  Retailers who are temporarily paying the fees are advised to avoid statements indicating that the retail delivery fee will be assumed or absorbed or that it will not be added to sale as prohibited by section 39-26-108, C.R.S.” 

We will keep you posted on these developments as they evolve.  

For further information, check out this great up-to-date resource in the FAQs at the bottom of the Colorado Department of Revenue website. It states important details on who is impacted by this change, when the change is in effect, and when the department will begin to enforce the requirement to present the fee on the consumers invoice or receipt (they are delaying enforcement for now). Thank you.

Fix: Loyalty Points

If your winery uses loyalty points, you may have noticed some of your customers not accruing their points with some orders, or having those points deducted when initiating a partial refund. We have recently completed development on a loyalty points updater process that fixes two scenarios with loyalty points - the first is when an order does not accrue loyalty points, and the second is when an order with loyalty points is partially refunded.

What this process does is it looks for orders that did not accrue loyalty points and applies it automatically. In addition, this program also fixes the issue with partially refunded orders having all their loyalty points deducted. This process will add the correct number of points back to those partially refunded orders.

No manual intervention or additional setup needs to be completed. We hope your customers can continue to enjoy their loyalty points programs!

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.

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.