Vintage Wine Estates Subsidiary Updates Label Designing Tool Amidst Other Advancements
Windsor, Calif., January 16, 2018 — Windsor Vineyards (www.windsorvineyards.com/), the Rodney Strong-founded wine brand that lets users create their own custom wine labels online and over the phone, is excited to introduce a litany of new upgrades for the 2018 sales year. The new build-outs add to the brand’s continued legacy as a seminal figure in the Direct to Consumer space with some of the most advanced technology in the wine industry. Since the brand’s inception in 1959, Windsor has served as a role model for the DtC system by implementing and executing excellent customer service, advanced marketing and forward-thinking technology.
The DtC arm of the wine industry continued to be an increasingly important part of the retail wine climate in 2017; though final numbers have not been released to the public, DtC sales are projected to have increased 2.5% during the calendar year 2017.
Accordingly, Windsor’s most sizable project is an update to their label-designing platform, which entails a switch from Flash to HTML5 in order to provide speed and optimization improvements across any device from web to mobile. The business debuted this update on its website January 8th.
“The U.S. consumer is more excited about wine today than ever before,” comments Pat Roney, President and CEO of Vintage Wine Estates. “Along with growing interest, we see consumers looking for new ways to purchase wine, such as their phone or tablet. In fact, nearly half of our online sales are from mobile devices.”
In addition to the front-end digital advancements, Windsor has placed a strong emphasis on improving operational efficiency for the calendar year. The company recently enlisted an industrial engineering group to study their warehouse space and create plan to improve the infrastructure of their shipping department. The action has since resulted in same-day shipping capabilities for the company, an attribute that is closer to the capacities of larger establishments like Amazon than the wine industry standard.
An integral part of Windsor’s success is the continued focus on human to human customer service that runs lockstop to their progressing technologies. Windsor is one of the few wineries in the nation that uses a live chat service for customers to get assistance at any point of the shopping process.
“People want to be able to shop from their bed nowadays, they don’t want to go out to stores to buy their wine,” notes Chris Saylor, CTO of Vintage Wine Estates. “We want to make shopping for wine as easy, simple and helpful as humanly possible.”
Beyond the standard personalization projects that are available for one bottle purchases, Windsor also offers customizable die-cut labels and larger scale hand-etched labels for larger corporate orders. The company’s group of “Wine Experts” is able to help customers through these special purchases from design to delivery.
Personalized Windsor wines are available in 38 different varietals or blends that run the gamut from Moscato to Cabernet Sauvignon, and are additionally available via catalog, mailings and telephone.
About Windsor Vineyards:
Founded by wine legend Rodney Strong in 1959 on San Francisco Bay in Tiburon, Windsor Vineyards has been the home of prized wines you can personalize for over 50 years. Windsor wines are expertly crafted by a team of award-winning winemakers and artisans to be personally scripted, signed & gifted by anyone. Now owned by Vintner Patrick Roney, Windsor’s long traditions of serving consumers and businesses directly, producing incredible wines and offering personalized wine label opportunities, continue. Roney has expanded his vineyards and expertise and now owns ultra-premium Girard Winery in Napa Valley, Cosentino Winery, Sonoma Coast Vineyards, and more under the Vintage Wine Estates umbrella. For additional information, please visit http://www.windsorvineyards.com/
