Staying with an Industry Solution to Grow your Business Online
Recent projections by eMarketer expect that Internet sales for the 2005 holiday season will rise by 22% in the final three months of the year. This robust estimate comes on the heels of news that the Internet is growing faster than ever before, as measured by the number of active websites. Netcraft which compiles this survey told the BBC that the boom is partly driven by more small businesses getting online.

The Internet is becoming a fixture of retailing, and liquor stores across the country are seeing strong growth in their online business. As you weather the hectic holidays you might consider whether your website helping you make the most of the opportunities online. A survey by Interland of small and medium sized businesses found that 32% of respondents sell online and that 82% of these report receiving monthly revenues from their website. Of this group 35% received between 10% and 50% of their total sales from the websites.

There are plenty of options to choose from when searching for help with your website. However, there is a strong argument for picking an industry-specific solution. The following is a short description of key elements of a wine website, with ways an industry-specific system can improve the shopping experience for your customers, and ease your website maintenance tasks.

Website design: The design of your website is the look and feel that communicates what makes your store special. What is the first thing you want people to see when they arrive at your site? How will customers navigate to find your products? How often should your promotions change?

Product Listings: Ideally all your wines will be searchable by country, region, appellation and grape varietal, with spirits searchable by country and type (whisky, tequila, etc.) Even better, they should include labels and descriptions giving customers more information to help with their purchase. Joining a liquor-industry system that maintains your product information gives you more leverage to sell your products.

POS integration: Selling over 800 products that change as frequently as wine becomes time consuming to update by hand. Ideally your Point-of-Sale system can be used to update the website with new pricing and availability.

Virtual inventory: Imagine being able to list the products that are available from wholesalers in your market, as special order items alongside your store inventory. Expand your available listing from 1,000 products to 20,000 or more! This is the latest innovation in selling wine online and is only available from the Beverage Network.

The Beverage Network offers one of the most complete liquor industry e-commerce systems. It combines the POS tool eStage with robust product information. Each website is unique but benefits from access to the largest database of wines and spirits in the US. Stores can select from wholesaler listings to dramatically enhance product selection.