For many wineries and other businesses, an online digital store is essential for reaching new and loyal customers. But like we’ve said, having a website alone isn’t enough to reach and convert customers. You can have the coolest brick-and-mortar store in town, but if it’s tricky to get to or everything customers actually want or need is hidden down the back of the store, you probably won’t sell much. Remember, it’s strategy first, system second.
Oftentimes a simple, straightforward website design with easy to read copy and pleasing visual elements – like WithWine's Try & Like Features – can determine whether a customer stays or leaves your online eCommerce store.
So what do customers actually want from your eCommerce website?
It can be baffling when a business omits any kind of contact information to its customers. 62% of people polled in a Hubspot survey cited having contact information as critical on a website. You want to have an easy avenue for your customers to contact you. For some people that’s by phone, for others it’s email. Have those options available to your website visitors. You might even want to have links to your social media accounts if you are active there. Keep all this information on your website footer so it’s visible on every page.
Not just for practical reasons, i.e. making sure your customers rock up to the correct cellar door for their booked wine tasting. Geographic details are extremely important for local search SEO. According to Hubspot, 46% of all Google searches are looking for local information.
It makes sense. If a customer is planning to visit a wine region, it makes sense they would search for wineries online. We are lucky to have so many awesome wineries in every wine region, however, that means there’s a lot of competition for weekend wine-tourists. Help your ranking on Google Search by including your address or even better, a map or Google Maps embed.
Newsletters and email marketing are fantastic channels to grow customer loyalty. Offering eCommerce visitors an opportunity to stay up-to-date with your business, blog posts, events, and new product releases, is great for ensuring that your winery stays in the mind of your prospective and loyal customers.
You can bring a level of personalisation to your returning customers by engaging with them over email, by sending Shiraz offers to those cellar door visitors who enjoyed your Shiraz (if you have a smart POS of course), or by implementing a loyalty program, or birthday email offers!
Need any ideas for a good email marketing campaign? This blog post might help get you started.
Having an “About Us” page on your website or eCommerce can help highlight your brand’s story. Wine is such an emotionally evocative product. It’s not like you are flogging some half-baked brownies (yum), you are sharing the literal fruits of your labours.
You and your team have pruned your vines, tended to grapes, harvested, fermented, blended, bottled, tasted and perfected the wine that you are sharing with your customers. Each drop tells a story of that particular vintage, and no two vintages are the same, much like no two wines are the same even from wineries in the same region.
Use your “About Us” page or section on your website or eCommerce to connect with your customers. They are more likely to purchase from you if they trust you and your business.
According to Statista, smartphones are the most frequently used devices for online shopping in Australia (at 62% compared to 55% for laptops and 33% for desktops). Therefore, it’s essential that your website and eCommerce are mobile-optimised, you might be missing out on traffic and sales otherwise.
We’re sure that the free image you found online looks great, but what does it say about your brand that you wouldn’t post an image of your own wine bottle that you took? You don’t necessarily need to have the best camera in the world – smartphones keep getting smarter and their cameras better and better. Consider taking some snaps of your wines and vines and customers at your cellar door having an incredible time. Tell your brand story with the images you post on your website. It personalises your website and eCommerce and entices online visitors to engage with the brand and book a visit to see the cellar door for themselves.
However, don’t go too overboard. Large images can slow webpage load times, so ensure you have a good balance between images and copy. Broken images and slow load times can cause up to 40% of customers to click away. Optimize images, so they load as fast as possible and delete/replace images that are broken.
Overall, customers want an awesome customer experience on your eCommerce website. It’s straightforward to provide an incredible customer experience at your physical cellar door. It’s more difficult to bring that same level of care and attention to a customer’s online experience of your eCommerce store.
Ask yourself: what action do you want a customer to take on your website? Do you want them to purchase wine? Then a clear “Shop Wine” menu item should be clearly visible. Do you want them to book a tasting? Don’t make them search around the contact page then. Do you want them to join your wine club? Again, make it very visible.
The mindset of an online customer is very different to the mindset of a customer enjoying a wine-tasting at the cellar door. The cellar door customer could be on holiday or when enjoying a day out with family or friends. They are there to sample, enjoy and potentially purchase wine, but that is not the end goal. Whereas, the online customer is coming to your eCommerce for a purpose. They are visiting your eCommerce to make a purchase, update their order details, or find your contact details to make a booking.
Make it as easy as possible for a visitor to your eCommerce to purchase, contact, or book with a straightforward website and beautiful eCommerce.
Fill in the form and book in some time to see how WithWine could help improve your sales and marketing strategy.
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