This isn't exactly about effective winery Web sites, but the story behind SidewaysWineClub.com will be of interest to those of you who sell wine online. A sample quote:
...the wine industry is unique for its brand proliferation. There are over 3,500 domestic wineries, each producing 1-36 labels after each harvest, resulting in well over 17,000 domestic wines available for sale at any one time. Of these choices, the 100 best-selling labels account for over 90% of volume.
It provides a good summary of the problems with selling wine online, e.g. the risk of the unknown, and has some ideas for marketing an "experience-based" product like wine.
It's not clear from the article how SidewaysWineClub.com is doing financially, though. Having done licensed software products, the cost of licensing a name (in this case, Sideways) can make the economics less favorable.
Thanks to MarketingProfs.com free newsletter (which I recommend) for the pointer.
This seems like a good fit for wine drinkers not interested in becoming full-fledged wine enthusiasts. People are looking for good drinkable bottles of wine, and love to have an accompanying story. Sideways likely brings that together for the Pinot Noir crowd.
Posted by: Ed Kohler | May 24, 2006 at 02:15 PM