With today’s announcement from the California Alcoholic Beverage Commission,  change in wine regulation means massive changes for  the direct to consumer wine space… and I wanted to share my thoughts on what it actually means for wineries.

The summary- A California winery is now able to engage a Third Party Marketer to facilitate the sale of wine. The winery is responsible for the marketer’s practices (and ensuring that they adhere to the rules of the wineries license). In addition, the marketer must give literal and financial control of transactions to the winery.  For those looking for a detailed interpretation of the Advisory and its tactical impact, please skip to the next post.

With that out of the way, let’s discuss what it actually means for the wine industry. The last few years have seen a number of ‘new’ channels pop up in the industry (flash sales, third party wine clubs, etc) and this announcement will create another wave. The guidance, as always, is to think through what’s in the long-term interest of your business and your brand… and where it might conflict with your proposed partners’ business model.

Some key questions to think about when evaluating a Third Party Marketer:

- Are they incentivized to bring YOU customers or low-margin revenue?

- Do they offer an open, transparent system where you can participate in what you want, when you want?

- Do they demonstrate an ability and willingness to improve the foundation of your business?

Too many times, wineries have engaged providers/consultants/ etc whose long-term interest conflicts with theirs. It’s my hope that today’s Advisory from the California ABC creates a far more constructive wave of offerings.

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I clearly have a vested interest in all of this. Vintners’ Alliance will increasingly offer ways for our wineries to sell more wine in a sustainable, brand enhancing manner.

We will continue on our tradition of bringing new tools and technology to the wine industry for the benefit of the wineries.

Two months ago, we launched our ‘Intent Conversion’ product (a hybrid of what’s known as Retargeting and SEM). We do it entirely on a performance basis- we incur all costs and only get paid after wine gets sold.  Along with our partners, we created wine as a category within major online networks (the people that sell banner ad space).

All sales occur on the winery’s site and are measured by the winery’s Google Analytics so, as part of the process, we provide free Google Analytics audits for our partners. Why? Because we want to make sure we enable them for the future, not make them ‘reliant’ on a relationship.

Today, we have 33 wineries signed up for the program. Over the course of this holiday season, they will, on average, see at least 10% increase in their eCommerce sales. All without having a cash outlay or any risk.

One-sided relationships haven’t worked for wineries in the 3-tier world… and isn’t going to work in the ‘third party marketing’ world. As we look forward to this next evolution of the wine industry, I encourage you to look for those ‘Third Parties’ offering partnership to you… not just a ‘new’ channel.