Mixed feelings on mixed cartons

From some of the feedback we've been getting, it's seems the default perception amongst people who are in the market to buy wine online is that most wine sites are some kind of monthly wine club that sell random mixed dozens. In all fairness, a lot of the wine sites out there do seem to fit that description. It's also quite common for wine clubs to sell extremely cheap cartons of clean skin wines, for as little as $50 each.

So from the outset we're trying to differentiate ourselves from that particular market sector as it is already amply serviced. If we're not a wine club, and we don't sell mixed dozens, what are we?

To dozen, or not two dozen

As mentioned previously, we're going to launch with a small selection of imported wines (and one local preservative free...) which we will be selling in cartons of 12. This has worked well for us in the past, but we're yet to find out how well it carries across to our soon to be released online catalogue.

Initial reactions from people are that you might prefer to be able to order wines in quantities of 6 bottles at a time, either 6 of the same wine, or a mix of 6 different wines of your choice. Logistically it's all the same to us, so we'd really love to hear your feedback on which you'd prefer. Please feel free to leave a comment, or vote on the poll below.

Thanks!



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Welcome to the interwebs

Nearly ready to go live...

We're very close to launching the European Wine Cellars online store. The site itself is ready to flick the switch, we're just sorting out logistics like getting nice boxes made to deliver our fine wines in, and setting aside inventory.

Quite some time in the making

The idea has been brewing for a couple of years actually. My uncle has been running a small, successful business for 30 years importing wines, ports, liqueurs and even some beers into Australia and selling them direct to the public from his warehouse, but until now with zero web presence. I've been building web applications for years, and my brother who works as the warehouse manager is also quite a geek, so we got talking about the idea of us all putting something together.

Until recently it had been a side project I'd put a few hours into here and there in my spare time, but recently I've had a good solid month or two to put into it, so we've made some real progress. Hired a designer to make it look really professional, invited some people into a closed beta version to get some feedback, and have managed to come up with something I think people are going to really enjoy using.

It's about how it tastes to you

Our uncle is very passionate about quality, and about taste. In the past, most of their success has come from taking a booth to various events, such as the royal easter show, and giving out taste samples. People are so impressed that they will often order an entire carton of 12 bottles right there on the spot! The challenge in building this website has been in finding a way to replicate that experience online.

What we've done to try and make the wines more accessible to a first time visitor, is to make it really easy to order a single bottle of anything in the catalogue and have it delivered for free. We want you to try the wines for yourself, see what you think, and if you fall in love then it's easy to order some more. If it doesn't suit you then you're only out of pocket for the one bottle of wine.

Just flick the switch already!

Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, is quoted as having said:

"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late."

What we have ready now is really just the simplest thing that works - an attractive site that makes it easy to sample and buy imported wines. We really want to get it out there already so we can start working on some of the other exciting ideas we have to build more of a community around it and take it to the next level!


So in the meantime, please email any questions/comments/criticism (constructive or otherwise) to info at europeanwine dot com dot au, and follow us up on Twitter at http://twitter.com/europeanwineaus.

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